The other day, I was traveling north on I-35E at 4:00pm after visiting a friend at a downtown St. Paul hospital. Several times while en-route, all lanes of traffic came to a standstill. However, I watched multiple cars driving the speed limit in the express lane. Two solid white lines separated the annoyed drivers from the oblivious ones. The express lane, overhead sign said vehicles in the the express lane had to have 2 or more persons in the vehicle between the hours of 3:00 and 7:00pm.
I noticed several random cars with only one occupant, unless the other person was either crouched down on the the floor or curled up in the back seat, which seemed unlikely to me. I decided to count those vehicles with only one occupant. In my count of 40 vehicles, 35 had only 1 person in the vehicle. I also counted three motorcycles with only the driver. I did a slow burn as our lanes of traffic inched along.
I looked at the express lane with everybody traveling along their merry way. I could’ve been home by now. I have room to cross over to the express lane. Just do it! A cop couldn’t pull all of us over, could he? Besides, everyone else is doing it! Thoughts of legitimizing getting into the express lane continued to bombard my mind. But then, I came to my senses. It’s wrong. What are you thinking? Whether a police officer thickets me or not, my conscience would certainly tag me.
I suppose it could be compared to majority mentality – “Everyone else is doing it.” Like the crowds in Jesus’ time. One day, the crowds spread palm branches on the road, sang, and called out “Hosanna” as Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. Within a few days, the crowd was yelling, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” Why? Because the Jewish leaders had incited them against Jesus, and before long, everyone else was doing it.
I felt the temptation to cross the line, but I’m glad I didn’t. If I did, I would have had to write a whole different blog post on disobedience and conscience suppression. Or, how to be in the crowd, but not a part of it.