learning to stop

Yesterday I rolled up to an intersection and rolled right on through without even stopping. I did slow down, but I didn’t come to a complete stop. Heather said, “You’ve been doing a lot of California stops lately.”

Of course, I countered her assertion.

As we drove on, however, I noticed she was right.

This morning I caught myself doing it again on the way home from church. I reflected on the irony of rolling stops on the Sabbath. It sounds like a funny, trivial little conversation I had in my head but it went something like this:

“See! You didn’t really stop there.”

“I know! Why do I do that?”

“You need to learn to stop. Don’t be in such a hurry.”

“I know, I know. I just can’t stop myself, though.”

“That’s the problem. You can’t stop. Why is that?”

“I don’t know.”

“There’s no need to rush, you know.”

“I know.”

It occurred to me: "going" makes less sense when there’s no "stopping".  I suppose this little axiom has other applications as well.