So Much For an Abundance of Grace

I went to Mass this morning, as is my typical Friday routine. It was a really nice Mass. I have begun a new practice of jotting down a few lines from the readings and/or homily (getting my one thing, you might say) in a nice little notebook that fits in my purse. Somehow since I started doing this I feel as though I have a better connection to the Liturgy and in an odd way to God's plan for me.

So I did that today; took down a few words about the readings and Father's wandering remarks to the kids (it was a school mass) along the lines of our obligation is to tell the Good News, and to prepare ourselves to do so by whatever means present themselves to us so that we will be ready to do whatever work God calls us to do (rather than whatever work we ourselves choose).

By the time I left church it was pouring down rain and I had to drive through campus. We live in a really nice town which happens to be the home of a major Midwestern Big Ten University School. Most of the year I love living here, but I really don't enjoy the campus at all. I felt really uplifted by the Liturgy, but the short two mile drive through the heart of campus to get to my side of town took all my joy.

In that two miles I encountered a woman who crossed the street directly in front of my car which had been stopped for a red light but was now free to go, except that she decided that she should continue to cross in front of me. I can't be sure, but there are probably glaciers that move more rapidly than this particular woman was advancing across the street, not at the crosswalk, mind you which was only maybe fifteen feet in front of where she had chosen to cross. So I had to wait for her.

Then a young man in a very large pickup truck who apparently had never been instructed in the proper use of the turn signal decided to change lanes and maneuver the huge truck (I am not sure why he thought he would need a half-ton truck on a college campus anyway) into the very small space that had opened up in front of my car. I am so lucky that I saw him in time because I had time to put on my brake and let him in.

I got stopped at a light about halfway through campus and watched another young scholar on a bike sit through the entire green light without moving a muscle, only to dart across the intersection (again right in front of me) just after his light turned red and mine turned green. What could he possibly have been thinking? Perhaps he was having a dyslexic day.

And if that wasn't enough, a group of young women decided that rather than walk on the perfectly clear sidewalk, they would walk down the gutter, two abreast, laughing and paying no attention at all to the traffic that had to follow them. This is their campus I suppose.

I was never so happy to see the curve in the road that signifies the end of campus and the start of downtown. The rest of the drivers in my town are shallow, ignorant and obnoxious, but they don't think the universe revolves around them like the students on the Campus do.

By the time I got home I was exhausted.

Maybe there is another way to get from church to my house without going too many miles out of the way that would avoid campus all together? I'll have to think about that for a while.

Pax