“Watch out for the slick spots”

“Watch out for the slick spots.”

This is a phrase that you hear many times during this time of the year. We sometimes have the freezing rain, sleet, and snow, then we have the melting during the day and the re-freezing at night. This makes the sidewalks and streets kind of slippery and we have those many opportunities to fall and harm ourselves. I have to admit, that last year I was walking out to my car and hit one of those spots and went down.

This is also the time of year when the auto body shops are busy from all of the little fender benders that we have. These slick spots and fender benders do not only happen on the streets and sidewalks; they happen throughout our own lives. Most car collisions are avoidable if all of us are paying attention, we would be able to see the car coming, if we would be going slower, if we were not playing with our phone, or with the radio, we really could avoid most collisions.

But also, in life we are not always perfect and hit some of those slick spots, we are sometimes not paying attention to others around us and we cause damage to them, or we get into a hurry and overlook the people in our lives who really need us at that time. I am sometimes guilty of this myself, a part of my personality is one that can get focused too heavily on something and then I can get so caught up in noise of the world, the current project I am working on, or my homily, that I can slip and fail to take care of someone in need, which is what a sin of omission is. When we crash and harm another, the best thing we can do is to figure out what is needed to do to repair the problem and the relationship that we have with the person, even though it may not be easy. In many ways, fixing a physical injury is much more straight forward and easier than trying to fix broken trust, or another part of our relationship.

We can remember things that we have done to others, or that others have done to us or those we care about for a very long time. Even though we apologize, or have others apologize for the something they have done to us, the memory and the trust has been broken and we will often times have that in the back of our mind many times when we are with the person. This takes sometimes a great deal of time to get past, but Jesus reminds us to forgive so that we also may be forgiven. So, the best way to not get into these situations is to be careful in the first place. We often run into many different temptations in our lives, but, like driving, if we are careful we can do our best to avoid the crashes, and when we have failed in this, get up, shake off the dirt, fix the damage, forgive the hurt, and thank God.

Fr. Ken Halbur