At work I have been helping develop a scheme of modest houses in far coastal England, and here I have learnt of the importance of inter-visible passing places. Stops and pauses across ever-moving big sky country. The places by which we meet another once, and possibly never again.
These are places of grace. They are ruled by code but not in an overly genteel way - they are here, and they are now. When you drive up a single track and unexpectedly meet another car coming the other way, you make, in the moment, a commanding decision to move into the passing place. It is a very intentional and kind employment. At once and face to face you decide which of you should give way: the one lesser in need lets the other through, you both say thank you and disappear from each other’s rear view.
My insistence on romanticising the passing place, as a note on something of life that is far broader and more important1, is challenged by the very present bell of my feeling, tolling for some kind of injustice and unkept promise.
I have been beholden by angry questions lately. And time and time again I have been upbraided in these by just this simple question: what do I do in the smallest of passing places? And then therefore, who am I in the passing place of life?
It is pneumatic, I think. The flows of the passing places all are. In some places of life I am challenged to extend the gesture to move aside: I do not want to give way when the person I meet is on a condemnable journey. Down a bramble bush or up a dangerous path or driving when unfit. It is so much easier to love a stranger on these roads - where they are going and where they have come from are their own knowing and none of mine. But all giving way does is open up the road again. There is no spite or last word in giving way - who we give way to has no bearings on who we are. The roads are public, and everyone is taking them.
I am thinking of my role as a passer-by on the road of life. Whoever we get to meet on the road is a work of larger placemaking. Our God who sees and remembers us places us where we are and is with us wherever we are going… I am recalling Isaiah 55 and the greatest compassion of our God.
The people are His and I am His and the roads are His. I can journey truthfully and speak truthfully and condemn offense as it comes my way, but I am not the tollkeeper of the motorway nor am I the utmost morality of the passing place. That is for Him and Him alone.
All giving way does is open up the road again.
Traversing the roads of life we are asked to listen, to seek the LORD, and to choose the ways and thoughts He calls us to. The heft of my car will not keep another car from where they want to go. Their journey is of their own choosing. And I can choose not to be complicit, passenger-side in another’s journey - I can choose to leave and get into a different car to seek the right ways.
Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall make a name for the Lord, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.
At the most heavy-hearted of passing places, I can still choose to give way. The slow, paused road, attesting to the speechlessness of loss. I can grieve in an upturning of sorrow and fear, infinitely miscible with anger, and keep going. My journey after eternity.
And I can watch them disappear from my rear view knowing that that is about all I could have done.
With love,
Chelsea
I have been telling a colleague over the last week how wonderful it is to have passing places and other driving codes built on trusting the discretion of drivers. And that it is probably such a unifying experience. You get let through once and you remember the kindness forever!