Indignant

Whoa! A lesson in getting my head on right.

Yesterday was one of the worst driving days ever. The city's public transit union staged a wildcat strike. Don't think anybody knows why, exactly. Usually I get to work by about 8:50 a.m. I was 45 minutes late! Hate that! Then it was all-day rush hour. Since the subway trains were all still in their yards I had to drive downtown in the afternoon. That was an easy 20 minutes. But coming back uptown to the office took 2 and 1/2 hours in bumper to bumper traffic, and then another 45 minutes to get home! It didn't help that it was a swelteringly hot, humid day. Hate that!

I, along with 90% of the population of this commuter city, practically drowned in exasperation. The local all-news radio station's major all-day story was the disbelief, frustration and anger of people inconvenienced by the shut-down of public transportation. The indignation of having my precious time wasted by the very public squabbling of parties who care only about themselves created a bad taste in my mouth and a grumbling in my heart.

Today... I pick up my mail and there in an eye-catching envelope is an appeal from World Vision for earthquake relief for Indonesia. Suddenly it occurs to me that throughout yesterday's disenchantment with my transit inconvenience, between the news reports of our city's transit strike, I did hear reports of the mounting death toll due to the earthquake in the Bantul district of Java Island. This evening I hear on the news that the government of Indonesia counts 6200 dead and over 600,000 left homeless.

I suffered more than a brief moment of shame as I thought of my indignation at being inconvenienced, against my carelessness over the disaster in Indonesia. Two big news stories on the same day. Which is the bigger news story? Obviously, it was the one that had the greatest direct impact on me, or at least whatever I could most readily feel - and I had felt inconvenienced. Talk about misplaced indignation! Why did I not feel for the lives that were cut short and the home-lost who were more than a little inconvenienced??? I feel now. That envelope will go back with a token of my sad attitude towards things that really matter.

I should pay more attention to the things that get my goad, and make sure that they are actually worth my attention. God have mercy on me.