So, I was driving in the Ozark Mountains recently, on our way to Hot Springs from Fayetteville. (I was driving our little car, not the big truck and trailer.)
It was a beautiful drive — steep and winding roads, awesome scenery. Suddenly, there’s a big Chevy 1 ton dually (if you know what that is) tight on my rear end. I picked up my speed a bit so I was driving the speed limit (even my 100-year-old mother accuses me of being a pokey driver) but he kept close on my tail. I studiously ignored him for as long as I could, then I got really irritated. “You jerk, back the f*# off!” Of course, he couldn’t hear me. But that didn’t stop me from enjoying a spate of creative cussing.
Then I thought, “This is a perfect opportunity to radiate love!” In fact, I suspected that if I radiated love, the SOB behind me would back off. Wouldn’t that be something to write about in Tenacity Notes!
So I decided to radiate love. I tried. I really, really tried. But all I could manage to radiate was irritation! Which I actually found pretty funny. I had quite a hearty laugh at myself. By the time I was done laughing, we were at the road to the state park, and we turned away from the tailgating dually.
And that is the reason we practice — so that when we want to radiate love, we can.