“NEXT,” the traffic clerk muttered.
“I hate my job,” the traffic clerk’s body language seemingly muttered.
So began my Santa Barbara Superior Court adventure as the traffic clerk sent me to the Courtroom #7 waiting room. All eyeballs were down. All phones were out, fingers fidgety to do anything but, God forbid, stay still. Invisible property lines between fellow offenders were instinctively adhered to as a tatted-up Mexican sat next to a distinguished businessman who sat next to a sixty-something year old woman in a knit sweater far too thick for mid-May who sat next to me.
It was like a grown-up, government-run principal’s office.
After some time, we were herded into #7 and shown a video not updated since the eighties. Hearings proceeded immediately after that, and we were called up four at a time as the honorable judge read our violations out loud for all to hear. Urinating in public, jaywalking, littering…well, I suppose things could always be worst. I could be paying the same ridiculous amount for something far more wildly foolish than not fully stopping at a blinking red light. STILL…
Traffic tickets: they’re out of control, especially in this sun-shiny state.
“Why, God, why?” I initially wondered. “You know I don’t have a secret stockpile of cash to frivolously throw to the wind or to the California government for that matter! ”
You see, there was a moment before when I thought God silly for having me spend His money on a traffic ticket. “What’s that going to do for Your Kingdom?” I wondered. “Obviously, the money would have been better utilized via an orphanage or friend’s mission trip fund or some other admirable cause. Now it’s just going to go into a corrupt politician’s pocketbook or some never-ending highway construction project.” Then I realized (ding!) that perhaps…I am His investment. Perhaps this whole money matter was to train my eyes to focus on what is indeed valuable in this life and to loosen my grasp on what is not. Perhaps, if for no other reason, it was to cultivate in me a greater heart of trust and wonder.
Now I know I am not there yet, but I hear a dwindling dependency upon funds is a great place to start. Thus, although this traffic violation is an anything-but-preferable way to expend money, this experience was a rather telling assessment of where my security lies and a good reminder of where it should be.
So continues my post-graduate adventure as I write checks to the county that should be going to my landlord and as I learn a little more about this God who doesn’t necessarily work in ways I am able to predict.
