This is Alpha, the first-born, when he was 2YO.
This is Beta, the second-born, when he was about 2YO.
This is Gamma, the third-born, when he was about 18MO.
Moral Dilemmas
May
29
2012
We had a nice Memorial Day weekend, visiting my sister and family. But the drive home presented me with two moral dilemmas.
Moral dilemma #1 occurred at the gas station. I had just started reaching for the gas pump when I heard someone call “Sir! Sir!”. I turned around to find a shorter, stockier man approaching me, asking if I had a tire iron. He proceeded to explain that his tire almost came off on the highway because the lug nuts were not tight enough.
While he was talking, I was thinking to myself “Where is the tire iron in the van?” I know where it is in my car, because I’ve had to use that one. But the van? I didn’t know exactly.
The guy saw my expression while I was pondering these things and thought I was confused. He started making motions with his hands and explaining about the tire iron. At that point, he glanced in the back of our van and saw that it was crammed full of luggage and bags. He then said “Never mind, it looks like it would take forever to find it in there anyway.” And he walked back to his van, where another guy seemed to be talking on a cell phone.
I proceeded to start pumping the gas. And cleaning the windshield. And wondering if this guy really has car trouble or is it a scam.
I thought about the possible headline: “Man Beaten with His Own Tire Iron”.
I thought about my family, sitting in the very hot van with the air off because I did not leave the van running during the fill-up. And two of the kids were sleeping.
I also thought that it was broad daylight, and there were plenty of eyewitnesses available. Surely no one would be brazen enough to try anything in these circumstances.
On one hand, the usual scam is to ask for gas money. This certainly isn’t that. On the other hand, this gas station is nowhere near the highway. If they were just making a pit stop, why did they pass by several other gas stations and drive a couple miles off the highway in order to fix their lug nuts?
Someone else pulled next to another gas pump, the other guy started approaching them, and we left the station.
I might not have thought about it as much as I did, but for the fact that I had just put the story of the Good Samaritan on Social Biblia a couple days before.
I thought about the whole experience as I drove down the road, and I thought “Maybe those people were hapless travellers, and I was the aloof Levite.”
The Bible does not say how the hapless traveller got taken by the bandits. Maybe the bandits were standing next to a broken-down vehicle and asked the traveller for a tire iron…
We drove for a mile or so, and then we encountered moral dilemma #2. A train was driving slowly down the tracks. The crossing gates were down, with blinking lights and all. We were in the right-hand lane of the two east-bound lanes, about 5 vehicle from the tracks.
The train kept going, then we saw the end. Fine. The train is done, and we’ll continue on our way. I checked behind us to see if the bandits, I mean hapless travellers, were catching up to us, but I did not see them.
Just before the end of the train cleared the crossing, the train stopped. The intersection was clear, but the gates would not go up because the train was still right there. It sat there for a minute, then people started going around the gates.
Technically speaking, it is illegal to go around railroad crossing gates that are active. But the train was not going anywhere, and it looked like it no intentions of moving anytime soon. I would break the letter of the law to follow everyone else, but surely this situation would not break the spirit of the law.
I had a few minutes to ponder those distinctions, as there was a continuous stream of cars in the left-hand lane and I could not find a break enough to pull into that lane even if I wanted to bypass the gates. Everyone was going into the center lane to go through the intersection. It’s bad enough to break one law, but now we had to use the center lane for something other than a left turn? Break two laws at the same time? “I know it said ‘Left Turn Only’, your honor, but I needed to go straight.”
After a couple more minutes, I saw a break in the traffic and veered into the left turn lane. I did look both ways at the tracks to make sure another train wasn’t approaching on the second set of tracks, but it was clear so we proceeded.
I don’t know how long that train was there. For all I know, we could still be sitting on the other side of the state.
Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers’ hands?
Luke 10:36
This little article thingy was written by Some Guy sometime around 6:59 pm and has been carefully placed in the Ponder category.
May 30th, 2012 at 12:11 am
I’ll stop for anyone…when I’m by myself. When I’m with my family, my guard is at its highest.
As for road laws; aren’t those suggestions anyway?