God Bless the crooked-walkers...

God Bless the crooked-walkers…

Why can’t people walk in a straight line? Is it so hard to walk straight? Little miss pretty in your clickity-clacks and your Prada bag, stop wandering all over the sidewalk like it is your own private catwalk! Hey tourists from Ohio, some of us have somewhere to go, could you stop looking up and get outta my way!!!

I realize just how blessed and how entitled I am when I associate my persecutors with people who happen to cross my path on the sidewalk. But this came to mind as I was reflecting on this passage attributed to Jesus in the famous Sermon on the Mount:

“But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” (Matt. 5:44-45)

Pray for my enemy? Come on! I want to curse them and revel in how much I hate them! I mean, it feels good to judge someone and to feel superior to them. You are wrong and I am better than you! When somebody does me wrong, I love that feeling of power I get while I am feeling a little (or a lot) superior to them.

But if God blesses them with light and life, who am I to deny that? Does that mean I have to pray for them? I guess I could, but “God bless them” sounds a lot more like a curse than a blessing when I am in that mood.

Come on, don't criticize me! I am a well ordered pedestrian commuter. I know the rules of the road and I follow them. I walk in a straight line, I dodge little old ladies. I can bob and weave my way through a crowd of conventioneers just out of the subway. I step aside when someone faster closes in behind me and I let them by. Man, I am a righteous walker. I do the straight and narrow.

But God help me when those crooked walkers try to cramp my rhythm, and slow my stride. Unaware pedestrians are a serious hazard. Hey crooked walkers, you are corroding America! I don’t want to pray for them, I want to curse them. Man, there is some Cain in me.

Wait a minute, wasn’t Cain the unrighteous one?

Damn.

Hey crooked walkers, will you pray for me?