paying a debt/obedience

Yesterday, I went to court to pay a debt. I had been cited for speeding a couple weeks ago and it was time to pay the piper. The policeman had been kind. He clocked me at 46 in a 30 mile zone but lowered it to 44 so I'd pay less of a fine. I could have mailed in the $131 but he'd advised that I make an appointment with a hearing officer to get it expunged from my record, since I had a very good driving record. When I read on the citation that I could plead not guilty or guilty with explanation, I thought I'd plead guilty with explanation. Clearly, I had been speeding so pleading not guilty couldn't be an option. (When the policeman asked me how fast I thought I was going, I said I didn't know, that I was keeping up with the traffic, he responded, "You were catching up with the traffic!" I thought that was a great retort.) It wouldn't be right to plead not guilty.

As I sat in the hallway outside the courtrooms and the hearing officers' rooms, I didn't think I fit in with the people who were waiting for their court appearances, yet I did. I'd broken the law, same as they probably had. I thought, well, my offense wasn't serious. Well, it was...the evening I was speeding, I was on my way home after a long day of work and having dinner with a friend afterward. I was tired, distracted. It was dark. What if a child on a bike had been on the street and I didn't have time to react and I hit him? What if a car was stopped for a turn and I hit it, due to my speeding? I could have caused an accident, or worse, a death. And, I was disobeying the law, the law that was there for everyone's safety. As I sat there in discomfort, I was glad I was there. I needed to learn. I needed this lesson in humility.

The hearing officer was compassionate. I told him I was there to pay my debt to society. He laughed. He explained my options. In order for the ticket to be expunged, I would have to plead not guilty, not get a ticket for a year and pay $185. The $185 was a set price to do this. My other option was to plead guilty with explanation and he could take the price down to $91 (without me even asking to have it lowered; I didn't consider that might be an option) but it would stay on my driving record. I had no choice. I paid the $91, thanking God for the $40 saving but also realizing that I could have donated that $91 to a good cause. (My speeding was definitely NOT a good cause!) I decided it would be unethical to plead innocent so that I'd have a clean driving record. This offense had to hurt a bit so that I WOULD learn something from it. (I'd asked my insurance agent if a ticket would raise my premiums and he said it wouldn't, thank heavens.) And, the biggest thing was I wouldn't lie. From now on, I just had to obey the law...as I should have been, all along.

The ticket has been showing me things. First of all, the day after I got it, I started consciously going the speed limit, using my cruise control, even on side streets, and discovered that 30 MPH was verrry slow. I wondered how long it had been since I'd actually gone 30 MPH. Then, I took this whole thing as a lesson for my life. Why do I always rush around like a crazy person? What is the point of that? Shouldn't I be stopping, now and again, to savor life's journey, instead of running from one thing to another, never stopping, always in a hurry? As the days went by, I became more relaxed, less stressed. I set my home clocks 5 minutes ahead, I left earlier, I kept to the speed limit. When I'd arrive at my destination, my new joke was I would have been there 2 minutes earlier but I was following the speed limit. And, literally, that was probably not a joke. What point WAS there to speed when it saved a couple minutes, it was unsafe to others and, in the long run, it probably shortened my lifespan because of the stress I'd put myself under?

These days, I'm obeying the law. I'm trying very hard not to speed. It's tough sometimes when I find myself in the blind spot of a big semi and the truck is going the speed limit. I have to decide whether or not to speed ahead or lag behind, where there are 10 cars right behind me, pushing me to go faster and faster. It's safer in the slower right lane, although it is not always possible to stay there, given how our freeways are laid out here. Left hand exits are not uncommon.

This is not unlike our call to obey God's laws. To do God's will, we must follow His laws. What I've been contemplating from this experience is that disobeying God's laws could very well spell death--spiritual death. I want to live in God's realm at all times. That is what I strive to do. If it means moving over to the slow lane and taking more time to love others and myself, that is what I will do. Who knew that a speeding ticket could teach such marvelous things to a (now) reformed speed demon? God is good!