Bus Driver - Part I

My main mode of transportation is often the city bus. It’s always an adventure and a great way to see different parts of town. Often, I jump on a bus only to find that maybe walking would have been a much safer option! Yesterday, I had one of my more adventurous rides yet. I never ate at McDonalds back in the states, but I’ve found it to be a tasty treat and reminder of home. For some reason, I decided that I would make my monthly pilgrimage prior to jumping on my sweet ride, earlier said city bus. With my Mickey D’s in hand, I sat down only to find that the bus driver was one of the hyper types. These type careen down streets barely putting their foot on the brake even for turns. This particular driver even drove in the on coming lane of traffic for about

half a block until reaching a red light. We proceeded to sit through the entire light while cars heading our direction honked and swerved to miss us. There’s always lots of honking, but this guy seemed to never take his hand off the thing. As I was trying to eat and keep me, my computer bag and my coke from flying all around the bus, I thought about a recent story I had shared with some friends about another adventurous bus ride.

This bus ride story was the total opposite. The above story is quite common of many of my travels to various countries. However, the story I had shared was about a much calmer experience, such calm that it was quite alarming actually! It was as if there was an angelic children’s choir singing a beautiful rendition of “The Wheel’s On The Bus” with an added “birds chirping” sound affects in the background. He was going so slow that I was totally out of sorts. I kept checking the time to see if I was going to make it to my destination on time. Usually I don’t get too hot on the bus because there’s a breeze, but no breeze here because we’re going soooo slow! I never worried about being thrown out of my seat or my Mac being launched into the aisle. This bus driver was calm, cool and collected. It was crazy odd to me, but a nice break from the normal craziness I usually experience on my rides.

The common thread in both stories is the bus driver, but more specifically my questions for him. On both rides I was asking the same questions, “Mr. Bus Driver…What the heck? What is the deal? Why are you driving so _______________?” You can fill in the blank on that last question with a variety of words including the two extremes in my stories – fast or slow. Then I started thinking about my faith, my journey with God and my relationship with Him.

to be continued…