When Light Turns Yellow...What Do You Do?
A Reflection on Multitasking, Speeding up and Slowing Down
A few years ago I was driving to visit a friend who was going through a bit of a rough patch.
I had my phone in my right hand, thumb actively scrolling. I needed to call a congregant who was still recovering from an injury (sadly, with no awareness to injuries or worse I was inviting upon myself and others via my current activity).
I was also driving a few miles over the speed limit. Nothing crazy, but I was racing just a little so I could fit in a quick grocery run before seeing my friend.
Visiting a friend – good thing.
Calling a congregant – good thing.
Getting the groceries – good thing.
Even expected things, really. That’s what friends do. That’s what pastors do. That’s what spouses do.
So, I am speeding down the road juggling good, expected things all at the same time, and the light at the upcoming intersection turns yellow.
We all learn as children - yellow means “slow-down.”
I speed up, instinctively.
I need to get to my friend’s house - and also to the grocery store. I even begin scrolling a bit more quickly because I know that if I make the light I will have a little less time to chat with the congregant.
As I speed up, the car in front of me decides to do a U-turn.
I later learned that in the Commonwealth of Virginia, this is a perfectly legal maneuver to do at a four-way intersection. However, in my paying-a-little-bit-of-attention-to-a-bunch-of-different-things-all-at-once mode, I had thought the driver was taking a right turn.
While my memory is cloudy on what happened next, I know that by speeding up to get through the intersection I soon found my Honda CR-V hit pretty hard on the back side by the U-turning car. I spun to the side of the road while the other car spun in the opposite direction.
Fortunately, all the humans involved were fine. The vehicles? A different story.
It was a moment that made me mindful that plenty of awful things that can and do destroy lives. But one thing we do not consider as often is the cost of juggling lots of good things all at once.
“Yes, but it can’t be helped!” we reply. “There is so much to do! That’s life these days!”
Agreed. I feel that truth deeply Every. Single. Day.
There is also this: my CR-V’s broken bumper and significant dents that night made clear that somehow, some way, the juggling ends in a breaking.
A broken vehicle.
Or broken commitment.
Or broken mental state.
Or…
And so,
Next time we get a yellow light…
or an unexpected meeting cancellation…
or a Saturday morning with nothing planned…
or a body part asking (begging) us to slow down…
What if we actually slowed… down…?
Against every fiber of our being that needs to get another six things done all at the same time, what if we pressed the brakes to notice -
who else is in the car.
And who is outside of the car.
And the trees gaining color.
And fragrant spring under the nose.
And the birds chatting away.
One wonders… in a world where springtime sun and rain slowly and inevitably draw forth life from the ground, is it the same for humans? Is it possible that the way forward is less peddle-to-the-metal and more slowing-to-receive? Is it possible there is more (truly good) forward movement at the yellow light than the green light?
What if we heeded that childhood wisdom and took the next Yellow Light that comes our way? Who knows what might be looking to break through the soil this spring.