In the past year I’ve gone part-time. Put simply, I’ve been finding the demands of bus driving quite exhausting. So, I now have Fridays off. It’s great. I don’t work on Fridays, Saturdays or Sundays.

My change in work routine has come as a surprise to my workmates. Even now I’ll get an astounded driver appearing in my coach door saying ‘Wow! I heard you’re not working on Fridays!’ I’m not really sure what all to fuss is about, but it seems to be something unusual in the industry.

More recently, I had one of my driver friends Mohammad (a Muslim man) appear in my coach door and exclaim excitedly and with something of a chuckle “Peter! I hear you’ve become a Muslim! You’re not working on Fridays!”. ‘No’ I replied. ‘I don’t work Fridays, Saturdays or Sundays. On Fridays I’m a Muslim, on Saturdays I’m Jewish and on Sundays I’m Christian’. I went on to explain to our combined merriment, that ‘I’m covering all the bases.’

We both had a laugh and got on with our work though I was left wondering (because I didn’t really know), what the significance of Fridays was to Muslim people?

My scant research provides some clarification:
Friday is a very important day for people of the Muslim faith. It is more significant and more beneficial than any other day of the week. It is the day that Muslims gather together to pray in congregation. It is a blessed day that has been designated as such by God.

Saturday is significant for Jewish people as it recognizes God’s Sabbath (or day of rest) during the process of creation. It is a day of rest.

Sunday is significant for Christians as it recognizes the resurrection of Christ on Easter morning and represents our special day, day of congregation and day of rest and reflection.

So, for my bus driving friends it’s a case of ‘Salam’ on Fridays, ‘Shalom’ on Saturdays and ‘Peace be with you’ on Sundays. I’m pretty sure all of these customary words and expressions mean much the same thing.

I like to think of myself as ‘The fully ecumenical bus driver’.

As I drive my bus around taking Muslim kids here or Jewish kids there, Catholic kids other places and Protestant kids to those same places, I realize that really, we’re all mostly the same. Whether it be camps, sanctuaries, museums, shows or sporting fields, everyone seems to enjoy the same things. We have more than we imagine and more than we are led to believe in common.

We spend so much time and energy building walls between each other. We all do it. It seems to be a sad part of human nature. What strikes me though is that the walls of difference and suspicion are (like maps, borders and divisions) in fact ‘human constructs’. We (rather than God) have created these divisions and we (rather than God) uphold them. Our fear of people who are different to us – their beliefs and traditions, and their fear of us (whoever they might be) brings us into conflict.
At the risk of being a little bit naïve, it seems to be different in the bus depot and in the world of bus driving. We are all different, but we all have the same job to do. We are all wanting to get to the same place. We are Christians, Muslims, Sikhs and Jews. We look different. We speak different languages, we eat different sorts of food and we go home to different homes. When it gets down to it, we all have the same things we love and the same things we love to gripe about. We laugh about the same things and get frustrated by the same things.

I’m not so naïve as to suggest that there are no challenges, but maybe I hold a hope that those challenges are able to be overcome – both in the bus depot and indeed across the world.

“For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” Colossians 1:16-17.

So…..the fully ecumenical bus driver! We all have a good (good natured) laugh. Mohammad heads back to his coach and I turn the keys to start mine up. We both get back to the gruelling call of the road and the merciless demands of the scally-wag primary school kids we cart around.

We are all different. One thing I do know though. Everybody loves to go to the Zoo.
Safe travels my friends!

Peter Heazlewood
Bus Driver