Something on the internet recently captured more of my attention than I care to admit—a viral video of an older man, a lycra-clad cyclist, accusing a young driver of getting too close to him on a road in Park City, Utah.
Let me set the scene. The event takes place in the parking lot of a local skateboard park, and the video taken by the young driver begins with the incensed cyclist standing at his door. The young driver—really he seems like a kid—rolls down the window of his Subaru and says, “Yes, sir?” and the man, in a huff, asks the kid if he saw him. The kid says, “Yes, off to the side of the road before,” then tells the cyclist he is now going to skate. The hostile cyclist says, “No, you’re not. I’m calling the police.” and yanks the car door open. The kid closes his door only to have the cyclist aggressively open it up again. With profanity, the cyclist tells the kid, “You’re not going anywhere until the police come.” and blocks the kid’s exit. He then grabs the kid by his shoulder yelling at him—“You’re not leaving!”
They go back and forth as the cyclist, now with the police on the phone, tells them he almost got hit by an aggressive teenager who’s now trying to leave the scene. “I’m willing to testify,” the cyclist tells the police, accusing the kid of being obnoxious and intimidating. “If I have my way,” he tells the kid, “you’re going to jail.” The kid, in a preternaturally calm way, responds asking him only, “Why are you being so cranky, dude?”
It’s quite the encounter, but the most impressive thing about it is how this 22-year-old named Pierce Kempton remains so chill the whole time, refusing to escalate the incident in a way that seems well beyond his years.
There’s still more to the story though. The arriving police officer’s body-cam footage is now up on the internet too. After speaking to Pierce and watching his video, the officer then goes back over to the irate cyclist and tells him that while he’s giving the kid a traffic ticket, he’s also giving the cyclist a citation for disorderly conduct. Bewildered, the cyclist then quickly changes course. He won’t press charges after all, he says, pleading with the officer to let him off without the citation.
Further internet investigation—I told you I was a little too into this story—reveals the kid’s traffic infraction was soon dismissed after a judge reviewed the Subaru’s dash-cam footage indicating Pierce gave the cyclist ample room when he passed by, but the cyclist had to pay his own disorderly conduct fine.
However—if you’re willing to follow me down the rabbit hole a little further—the cyclist apparently isn’t all bad. Some time ago, he donated seven million dollars to his alma mater, Fresno State University, which is to say, without knowing much of anything else about him, he’s apparently a very generous soul. He also later apologized to Pierce, saying he had been in a few close calls on his bike in the past and had, in the moment, taken his frustration out unfairly on the kid. Learning of his generosity and apology, and thinking of how this guy’s life has probably been turned upside down, you actually begin to feel real sympathy for him. No one is irredeemable, no one deserves to be judged by his or her worst moments, and the truth is, we all lose our wits on occasion.
Having said all this though, all you have to do is watch Pierce’s video a second time for all that sympathy for the cyclist to utterly vanish. As you see it all unfold again, that feeling of contempt rises up just as surely and powerfully as it did the first time and it takes a concerted and mindful effort to hold on to that sympathy and to keep your negative feelings for him in check.
One of the qualities we most admire in each other is the ability to stay calm, cool, and collected under pressure as Pierce did in the crisis he faced. Sometimes this is hard, but if this 22-year-old skateboarder from Utah can do it, we all ought to be able to do it too. More important still is to cultivate in ourselves the spiritual quality that allows us to put aside our most corrosive, insidious emotions and to resist any and all contempt for those we might, in a moment, consider villainous. I’m not sure which is harder, but with God’s help, both are surely within our grasp.
God—Help me to collect myself, checking my most corrosive emotions. Amen.
