Every weekday, I drive 20 miles each way back and forth to my office, and many of those miles are spent inching along in bumper to bumper traffic. I've been making that drive for over 15 years, and I've seen both touching and unusual things along the highway over those years. I've seen accidents happen and people stop and get out to see if the drivers were injured. I've seen all three lanes of traffic come to a complete stop because there was a kitten on the road. I've seen a guy doing pushups on the ledge of a billboard. I've seen two women get out of a car and dance when traffic hadn't moved at all for a half-hour because of heavy snowfall. I've seen a soldier pull over on the shoulder, get out of his car, and salute the waving flags that are placed along the highway in honor of Veterans' Day. I've seen all different types of discarded items on the side of the road from furniture to bags of trash to tires.
For all the things I've seen as I've commuted back and forth to work, there are two often-discarded items that always give me pause to wonder about how they ended up on the highway ... shoes and underwear. I mean seriously ... how does that happen ... really ... how in the world does that happen? Does someone just suddenly decide as he or she is driving on a major interstate to take off one of their shoes and toss it out the car window? Or even more perplexing to me ... do people really think as they are driving, "I'm going to take off my underwear and throw it out on the highway?" As I was driving home from work today, I saw three shoes and a pair of underwear. Seriously ... seriously ... seriously ... how in the world do shoes and underwear find their way onto the highway?
It probably says a ton about my mental state that I've spent a significant amount of time this evening thinking about the shoes and underwear I saw on my way home and wondering about how they got to the highway, where they came from, who once owned them. And the more I wondered about those things, the more I began to think about how many things we discard in life. And the more I thought about the things we discard, the more I began to think about how easily we throw things out the window of life. And the more I thought about how easy it is for us to discard things, the more I began to think about how easy it is for us to discard people as well. We toss people away who don't fit a certain mold ... those who don't look like we think they should look or act the way we think they should act ... those who are sick or overweight or disabled or of lesser intelligence or sad or lonely ... those whose lifestyle is different from our own.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, the day when countless families and friends will gather together to celebrate being grateful for the blessings God has bestowed upon them throughout the year. And as I think tonight about those types of gatherings that will take place ... the stories that will be told, the laughter that will be shared, the food that will be eaten, I can't help but think of my homeless friend Russell who will sleep tonight in a cardboard box beneath the train tracks on the boulevard ... of the young single mother of three who will spend tomorrow working a 12-hour shift at a convenience store so that she can feed her children ... of the drug addict who stares alone into the night because he is shunned by his family ... of the lonely and depressed who will choose death over life ... of the ones who've been discarded, thrown out and tossed aside.
It seems fitting to close this post with some words from a song by Elton John ... I hope they strike you the way they struck me. Be thankful tomorrow, friends ... be thankful.
"But see me once and see the way I feel
Don't discard me just because you think I mean you harm
But these cuts I have, they need love to help them heal."
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