Car Rider Excitement

 When my principal does car-rider duty, he walks the line and types the names directly into our school’s Car Rider Dismissal Google Doc. His phone will allow him to do this. My phone will not.

 

So when I do car-rider duty, I walk the line and radio the names to Shauna The Art Teacher who then types them into the Google Doc. Most of the time, this process works just fine. But every once in a while, the students waiting to be picked up are too loud or a student doesn’t come out when they are supposed to come out and Shauna has to radio the office to call for them.

 

Usually, as I call the names, I simply walk the line. I pass a car. I call the name. I wait a few beats. I call the next name. I wait a few beats.  I call the next name. When the line transitions from sitting to moving, I call a name as a car rolls by. I wait a few beats. I call the next name. And so it goes until all names have been called.

 

Usually, too, cars don’t drive past me unless I give them a thumbs up or talk directly to them.

 

But last Wednesday, things went wrong. Shauna needed to me pause, so I did. In the process, at least four cars passed me, one of them a non-normal car rider, so I had to walk the line backwards to catch up. While I had my back turned, more cars passed and I had to guess who they were.

 

I was feeling a bit discombobulated when I turned around a saw a car that I hadn’t seen in a while.

 

Without hesitation, I immediately grinned and said, “Hey!!!!” I was genuinely happy to see the mom driving the car. We used to talk every day but then her work schedule changed. She hasn’t been able to get her kid recently, so I was happily surprised to see her.

 

Almost immediately, my discombobulation turned to joy…because of a kind soul and smiling face in the car rider line.

 

There’s a lot that can make us grumpy in this world. There are pressures and demands coming from so many places that it doesn’t take much to feel overwhelmed. Yet if we are open to them and we will look, then we will find that moments of joy abound. And it’s in those moments, passing though they be, that we are most fully alive and able to live abundantly.

 

It’s easy to get absorbed by the big picture of doom and dread—especially if you watch the news. But we must remember that it’s the small moments like turning around in the car rider line that make up life and propel us through our days. It’s the present moment where life is lived.

 

Dear God: Grant us eyes to see the joy that surrounds us and help us to be present in each moment of the day—feeling the good as well as the bad—and knowing that both are okay. Amen.