MISSING THE MAIN EVENT

I am from a large family of seven boys and one girl, and while we are no longer young six of us are still living. One story that I grew up hearing was the one about my older brothers slipping away from home and going to Weatherford (we were all born and grew up mostly in Mineral Wells, Texas) to see the big circus. Slipping inside the circus grounds, my brothers made the circle of sideshows where they saw one man swallow a knife and another swallow fire, and there was the usual fat lady and the man with two faces. Even though there was the three-ring Barnum and Bailey extravaganza under the big tent, my brothers came on home, supposing they had seen the circus. They went to the circus but missed the main event!

A trifle of an incident reminded me of that story as I was driving across our little city of Denton recently. On our busiest four-lane thoroughfare a woman turned into an intersection, which provides sufficient room for a car while waiting for the traffic from the opposite direction to clear. But she did not utilize all her space, so her car protruded into the lane she was leaving, causing the cars behind her to have to stop and wait for her to get out of the way. I was the second car in line, and I noticed that the man in front did not like what was going on. When the woman at last eased out of our way, he rolled down his window and made an indecent gesture at her as he passed.

I watched the man as he drove a little further and turned into an apartment complex. As I drove on I could see him in my mind’s eye getting out of his car, making his way up to his apartment, and grinding out one more evening with his wife and children. I wondered what a man would think about and talk about, a man who makes insulting gestures to a distraught woman caught in a traffic storm. I found myself wanting to say to him, not in reprimand but in pleading love, “You probably think of yourself as a decent guy, but do you realize what you just did to another human being? It was as if you spat on that woman or urinated on her. Is that the kind of person you want to be?” I did say to myself aloud, Poor guy, what a way to live! And he of course is the one to pity, more than the woman. And I thought of the circus story. How many there are who go through life, indulging in the shallow and the superficial, while missing the main event. And one who has not learned to treat his fellows with common decency has missed the point of life.

When I told Ouida about it, she reminded me that many people seem to be “depersonalized” when in an automobile and thus behave in subhuman ways, displaying discourtesies that they would not dare manifest at the shop or office. A car both insulates and isolates the person, as if he were hidden behind a mask, thus allowing his baser instincts free reign. To put it another way, the close proximity of most of our social intercourse is such that we are forced, by self-interest if no other motive, to behave civilly. But when stripped of our identity, as in a car or in the writing of an unsigned letter, the moral parameters are not there, and we all sometimes find ourselves doing and saying things that astonish even ourselves.

Which is the real we, the “on guard” person at the office or the one lost in anonymity in an automobile? Ouida and I agreed that the man who insulted the woman behind his mask was the real man, even though he would have treated her respectfully under other circumstances.

I had other thoughts. This obscene incident took place between two state universities, Texas Woman’s and North Texas State. We are an “educated” city, with more PhDs than any other city of its size in the nation. Still we must say that this man’s act was as ignorant as it was vicious. It was a moronic way to deal with a problem. A man who is not a gentleman is not an educated man, however many facts he may have crammed into his cranium.

More than all else, however, we see in such an ugly act, which would be in the same class as calling a black man nigger, the true character of sin. Sin is waywardness, a betrayal of one’s selfhood, and rebellion against what one knows to be right, good, and decent. And sin is always destructive. One such trifle as an indecent gesture not only serves to erode the finer instincts of those involved but is degrading to all of society. What I saw from the car behind, and what we all see everyday, reminds us how far we are from “peace on earth and goodwill toward men.” If such behavior was disgusting to me, then how much more repulsive such things are to the Holy One of heaven. Still He loves us; still He gave us the Christ. That God still hasn’t given up on sinful man — sinful in so many “little” ways — underscores His abundant mercy and longsuffering.

As for being in on life’s main event, it has to do with living fully and freely, not only for ourselves but for others as well. It means being a quality person, not so much in terms of fame or fortune, but in reference to courtesy, meekness, charity, sincerity, responsibility.

While I was writing this piece, my son David told us of a dinner conversation with a friend who is trying to find his way. “I don’t know why I am in this world,” he admitted, asking David for his answer. I like David’s answer, “We are here to praise God,” even though it may need some filling in. I told him how the Westminster divines answered the question centuries ago: “Man’s duty is to know God and to enjoy him forever.” We praise God by knowing Him and exploring His universe, which includes ourselves —“Know thyself” as the ancient Greeks put it. And we praise God by serving others, by being a blessing to the world He loves. If we miss this, we miss the main event. —the Editor
 

What Is Really Important?

I may, I suppose, regard myself or pass for being a relatively successful man. People occasionally stare at me in the streets —that’s fame. I can fairly easily earn enough to qualify for admission to the higher slopes of the Internal Revenue —that’s success. Furnished with money and a little fame even the elderly, if they care to, may partake of trendy diversions —that’s pleasure. It might happen once in a while that something I saw or wrote was sufficiently heeded for me to persuade myself that it represented a serious impact on our time —that’s fulfillment.

Yet I say to you —and I beg you to believe me —multiply these tiny triumphs by a million, add them all together, and they are nothing —less than nothing, a positive impediment —measured against one draught of that living water Christ offers to the spiritually thirsty, irrespective of who or what they are. —Malcolm Muggeridge