Heaven on wheels
What would Jesus drive? Who knows? But the Vatican knows how Christians should drive—that’s right, carefully.
A new Vatican document titled "Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road" contains, yes, Ten Comandments for safe driving. Here beginneth the lesson:
I) Thou shalt not kill.
II) The road shall be for you a means of communion between people and not of mortal harm.
III) Courtesy, uprightness and prudence will help you deal with unforeseen events.
IV) Be charitable and help your neighbour in need, especially victims of accidents.
V) Cars shall not be for you an expression of power and domination, and an occasion of sin.
VI) Charitably convince the young and not so young not to drive when they are not in a fitting condition to do so.
VII) Support the families of accident victims.
VIII) guilty motorists and their victims together, at the appropriate time, so that they can undergo the liberating experience of forgiveness.
IX) On the road, protect the more vulnerable party.
X) Feel responsible towards others.
This Decalogue for drivers may be infallible, but it isn’t exhaustive. I would expand the list to make room for an Eleventh Comandment ("Exchange insurance information"), a Twelfth Comandment ("Don't go 55 in the passing lane") and, for cell-phone addicts, the Thirteenth ("Thou shalt shut up and drive").
There’s more to this document, by the way, than the Top Ten List. It also includes a section titled: “Pastoral Ministry for the Liberation of Street Women”!
Finally, a note to conspracy theorists: The Vatican issued its rules of the road on June 19, only a day after the U.S. Supreme Court—which has a Catholic majority—unanimously ruled that passengers in cars are protected by the privacy protections of the Fourth Amendment. Coincidence? Or maybe St. Christopher, the patron of travelers, really existed after all.
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And always, in a similar manner…
Remembering the sound of a beautiful night,
and waiting for a pleasure, I see a delicate
leaf arriving alone near a golden portrait ; the
wind fades away, the care of a blackbird
discovers a dream and always, in a similar
manner, a sullen desire describes an emotion…..
Francesco Sinibaldi
Posted by: Francesco Sinibaldi | June 23, 2007 at 12:00 PM
Sleep, little darling.
In the dead of night, while a sound
disappears forgetting an answer and a
beautiful care, sleep little darling; your
eyes appear in the air reading aloud a
delicate story, a moving profile returns
in the dark, and when a line fades away
describing a soul and a sullen desire,
remember, alone, the light of a sunrise…
Francesco Sinibaldi
Posted by: Francesco Sinibaldi | June 30, 2007 at 12:09 PM
Escaping from myself / Like a flame in the sadness.
I sing in an airy morning, and I’m
happy when a blackbird returns in
my head describing a picture and a
fallen desire; I wait for the sound of
a beautiful care, and always, while
a candle appears in the air with the
breath of a dream, I pray to the sun,
and a light disappears like a flame
in a sadness…
Francesco Sinibaldi
Posted by: Francesco Sinibaldi | July 07, 2007 at 12:03 PM
This is the answer.
In the dead
of winter, when
the sound of
the nature arrived
near a luminous care,
in the darkness,
I saw her with a
graceful dress and
a sullen behaviour;
the bird ran away
like a painful dreamer,
a loving profile
returned in a marvel
and then, in a moment,
a delicate wind
discovered the sun: she
said “let it be”, and
this is the answer……
Francesco Sinibaldi
Posted by: Francesco Sinibaldi | July 14, 2007 at 12:05 PM