Finding faith, hope and love in a traffic jam

While driving south on the 215 freeway, in Riverside California, I became engulfed in a sea of cars.

And in that ocean of plastic and metal, I had an epiphany. I experienced the beautiful “ordinariness” of human life, while sitting in a traffic-jam.

Behind the wheel of each car, were people from all walks of life; a priest and a pipe contractor; a politician and a corporate executive; all ethnic, political and social classes were represented that day on the 215.

Sitting there, in that traffic jam, the tension between the ‘unique’ and the ‘ordinary’ became apparent. On one side of this tension, is a rich tapestry of people with unique qualities, personalities and opinions about life.

On the other side of this tension, we share a human condition of ‘boundaries’ and limitations like the traffic jam, that remind us of our “ordinariness.”

It seems today, we exaggerate the “unique" part of a person’s identity, thereby creating an illusion of “specialness,” which is really, an escape from the ordinary; it’s difficult to live in the tension.

We become rather smug, when we forget how ordinary and contingent life is for all of us mortals. The ‘traffic jam’ is a boundary that keeps us tethered to the real world.

Accepting our own “ordinariness," we become free to enjoy the differences in others. At the same time, we are not so uptight about maintaining our 'image, because we have accepted ourselves. 

“All things fade” the existentialists tell us. The traffic jam is one of those human boundaries that inform us we can’t go any further, no matter our 'specialness;' we must all go through the traffic jam.

Human boundaries like the traffic jam, and death; being the ultimate boundary, inform us that there is an end. Therefore, things like beauty, talent, politics and other human achievements will one day dissolve into the ordinary and then fade away.

St. Paul reminds us believers that one day, all things will come to an end, but “three things will last forever--faith, hope, and love; and the greatest of these is love.”

Jesus transcends all human boundaries, and calls us to live a life of these transcendent qualities; faith, hope and love, with love being the eternal “boundary-less” quality.