Tehachapi News

Taking a closer look at life’s highway

Tehachapi Community Congregational Church

Missionaries are generally known to be compassionate people of faith who can walk the proverbial mile in another’s shoes. Last week our church hosted a wonderful group of missionaries, a husband and wife team serving in Swaziland. They were scheduled to arrive at 5 p.m. but instead arrived at 7:30 p.m. due to a major obstruction on the I- 405 leading out of Los Angeles.

It seems that a crane crashed into the highway and stopped traffic for up to four hours in some places. The husband was familiar with Los Angeles traffic so he immediately tuned on the radio to hear the latest traffic report. His wife, unfamiliar with L.A. traffic, turned to him when she heard the report and said, “I feel sorry for those people stuck on the I-405.” Laughing, her husband responded, “We ARE those people!”

One common message among all faiths is that, no matter the race or nation or circumstances into which we were born, no matter the political party or part of Tehachapi or stance on we take on economic development, “We ARE those people!” We have more in common with people who are suffering or lonely or stuck on life’s highway than we usually recognize. Such is the impetus to follow the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. 
   
A valuable spiritual discipline is to look around and really see one’s neighbors. Look beyond the size of their pocketbook or their house or their pleasures and you will see that there is at least one way we are all alike: everyone gets stuck on life’s highway sometimes; and everyone bears the journey better with a companion along the way because “We ARE those people!”