Love and Automatic Features

Mornings are dark when I leave for work. The US hasn’t “fallen back” yet. I watch the shoulders carefully, as deer are prone to crisscross the pavement, their crepuscular (a word I learned from a friend) habits leave them vulnerable when the natural light is low. It never occurs to me that I did not turn on my headlights.

I didn’t have to.

I set the knob to “automatic” a year ago and haven’t had to think about it. Some mornings, I wonder if the headlights are set to “high beam.” I pull back on the left lever of the steering column and the screen flashes “automatic high beams disabled.” So I push the lever forward to receive the reassuring message, “automatic high beams enabled.” As a car approaches from the other direction, my headlights dim, then brighten once I have the road to myself again.  I set my mind to the day ahead. I don’t have to think about my lights until my mind happens to wonder about them out of an old, unnecessary habit.

When I learned to drive, the instructor along with my parents taught me to pay attention to oncoming vehicles when using high beams; otherwise, I could disable their ability to see well. I carefully kept my hand near that left-side lever as I drove country roads at night, ready to turn them off and on as needed out of respectful concern for other drivers. My own experience taught me the danger of high beams glaring at me and causing a temporary blindness to the world. I remember the frustration I felt when other drivers were careless about their lights. I would have to slow down until I regained the ability to see after they passed.

Thankfully, my car affords me the luxury of not having to consider others. I can pay a little less attention to others’ needs and retreat into my own daily cares. Isolated in my vehicle, I recoup the commute time to think only about the day ahead. Or maybe pray for others. Or listen to the daily office. 

The automatic features in my car provide a simple “cognitive offload.” The details that tend to hijack my own metanarrative can be easily dealt with by a machine as I travel from one place to another, a little less mindful of my neighbors. I have other things to think about.

John wrote, “...those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen” (1 John 4:20). 

But what if I don’t see my brothers or sisters anymore?