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Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand (Philippians 4:5, ESV).
Last week, my wife and I rode e-bikes in Florida.
E-bikes (bicycles powered by electric motors), increasingly common on bike paths everywhere, allow riders to pedal with an electric assist. I usually ride an “un-e-bike,” which only has harder pedaling and gasping-for-air assist when I ride up a long hill.
As we rode our e-bikes, a man standing alongside the path, and I think, speaking loudly for our benefit, said, “I’m getting tired of all these e-bikes around here. They are all over the streets and bike paths. They are a nuisance, and I’m going to the city council meeting to complain.”
HHHHMMMHHM!
My wife and I were just called a “nuisance.” I wanted to stop and talk about the impact of snowbirds (I think he was one) from Ohio and Michigan on Florida streets and bike paths.
But we kept riding.
On the plane coming home from Florida, my wife read an article to me from the local newspaper of Springfield, Ohio, about a recent meeting with the City Commission. One of the topics was the current influx of Haitians in our community.
Below is a quote from the article in the newspaper describing one person’s comments:
“I feel like we have been invaded by some kind of pest,” she said, though she said that her feelings were not about race. She claimed the Haitian immigrants were “acting like animals” and they are not “civilized people.”
HHHHMMMHHM?
This summer, my wife and I checked off one of our “bucket list” destinations when we traveled to Scotland. It was a great trip, though my wife, a fan of the TV series Outlander (filmed in Scotland), dreamed of seeing Sam Heughan, who plays the lead character Jamie Fraser.
I kept telling her, “Hey, you have me right beside you.” She kept looking at me and smiling. I’m still trying to interpret the meaning of that smile.
During our trip, we found the people in Scotland amazingly friendly.
Many times (and believe me, it was many times), when we were standing on a street corner with both of us looking at the maps on our mobile devices and still not figuring out directions to our next destination, a person would walk up to us and say, “Are you lost, can I help?”
We were grateful for this spirit of hospitality.
While in friendly Scotland, we read of protests in Barcelona, Spain, with protesters walking through areas of the city frequented by tourists with signs reading “Tourists Go Home, You Are Not Welcome.”
They also had squirt guns to spray water on tourists sitting at outdoor cafes.
HHHHMMMHHM.
E-bikes, Haitians, and Tourists. I don’t want to overlook the issues caused by “too many” of anyone or anything. This Interruption simply asks us to consider what the Apostle Paul encouraged all believers to do. . .
Let your reasonableness be known to everyone.