Story by Joe Pisani

The composing room foreman on my first newspaper always told me, “It’s a brand new day in a brand new way” … at least until things started going crazy and we were missing deadlines. Then, the brand new day turned old fast.

Monday morning, as I stepped out my front door, I remembered those words and vowed, “It’s gonna be a brand new day in a brand new way” in my campaign to be a better person.

However, those resolutions for self-improvement can fall apart fast too. I no sooner crossed the intersection on my way to morning Mass when I encountered spiritual turbulence — or possibly it was an opportunity for spiritual growth. If it was, I failed the test.

A fellow in a red Mercedes raced through the red light and started tailgating me, in my unassuming Prius. I was already doing close to 10 miles over the limit but that didn’t deter him, so I slammed on the brakes and slowed down, which made a bad situation worse, because now he was within several feet of my bumper with his lights on.

At that point, my patience and love of my fellow man, and woman, dissolved, and I let loose a tirade of not very nice words.

So much for resolutions about being a better person.

By the time I got to morning Mass, the score was Satan 1, Joe 0, and the day seemed to go downhill from there.

The irony is that one of the prayers I say after Communion goes like this:

“Dear Lord, help me remove from my mind every thought or opinion which You would not sanction, every feeling from my heart which you would not approve. Help me just for today. In the long hours of work, that I may not weary or grow slack in serving you. In conversations, that they may not be to me occasions of uncharitableness. In the day’s worries and disappointments, that I may be patient with myself and those around me. In moments of fatigue and illness, that I may be mindful of others rather than of myself. In temptations, that I may be generous and loyal, so that when the day is over I may lay it at your feet, with its successes, which are all yours, and its failures which are all my own.”

Whenever, I say that prayer, I really wonder about my progress.

I suppose that when you’re trying to grow spiritually, you have to expect setbacks. You also need to have the humility not to think if you have a good day, you’re on the road to perfection because you could have a really bad day tomorrow.

It reminds me of the familiar cliche, “one step forward and two steps backward,” which points to the importance of humility and grace. Spiritual progress is more than a white-knuckle undertaking because if we pray to be better, we have to trust that Jesus will lead us where we’re meant to go because we can’t do it on our own.

My disturbing encounter reminded me of that famous saying by Jesse Jackson: “God isn’t finished with me yet.” And my father, a recovering alcoholic, always quoted the Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book: “We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.”

I can live with that, as long as it’s not spiritual regression or equally bad, spiritual digression.

Sometimes we don’t see much progress, although I’m inclined to think progress can often be imperceptible, and although we may not perceive it, Jesus does.

Of course, Jesus works at his own pace in answering our prayers, which sometimes, as in the case of St. Paul, can be pretty quick although generally most of us aren’t knocked off our horses and blinded.

However, anything can happen if you start your day by praying, “God, help me become a better person today than I was yesterday.” That’s one prayer that won’t go unanswered.

While I’m convinced spiritual progress would be a lot easier if we didn’t have to deal with other people, Jesus raised the bar pretty high, which means to say we have to be patient, tolerant, compassionate and loving of them all — the dull, the cranky, the irascible and the nasty, not to mention the bad drivers.

So at the end of the day, I came to the minimally comforting realization that I had made some spiritual progress. Sort of. Not only did I pray for myself to do better tomorrow, but I also prayed for that driver.