I was driving to Starbucks. The high school swim practice just ended and I wanted some down time before I took on coaching the energetic littler kids to follow. To be honest, I’ve been wiped. I’m not sure I’ve ever been this busy in my life, with the exception of those crazy finals weeks in college. I’m currently on a stretch of working 20 straight whole days. The last few days I’ve had somewhat of a “woe is me” attitude, thinking about how long it would be until I had a day free of responsibility. This day was no exception. Rather than having a servants heart, I was thinking about me.
And then the motorcycle exploded. I noticed smoke coming up ahead. As I drove closer I saw a motorcycle on FIRE. I’m talking huge flames. I froze. It didn’t register. What the hell was happening? A few cars were stopped ahead of me, no doubt the drivers were unsure rather to get out and help or just try to drive around. Two guys were dragging something out of the fire. Oh my God. It was a body. Then a guy started running every which way trying to get everybody to stand back. He stopped traffic. He got everybody clear and right after he did that, it EXPLODED. Not a huge Jerry Brockheimer explosion, but a big explosion nevertheless. After that I heard the sirens. People from all the shops were on the sidewalks watching the whole spectacle, mouths dropped in disbelief. After the cops turned me around, I watched as the firemen came and doused the flames. They closed the road. As I turned onto another road, I watched the people heading the other direction, toward the accident. I felt a strong kinship with them. Like we were all in this together. Stuck in traffic, those drivers look annoyed. No doubt they were mad at the traffic, thinking about how late they were going to be, not aware of what happened up ahead. They were thinking of themselves, as I had been, before the motorcycle exploded.
The rest of the drive to Starbucks was somber, wondering if that man lived, wondering if I would have been brave enough to run into a ticking time bomb to save a stranger’s life that day, and wondering if the good Samaritans who pulled that guy out and the one who directed people and traffic away from the motorcycle even knew each other. They all worked together so effortlessly, doing what needed to be done to protect as many people as possible. I thought of all the strangers standing together on sidewalks watching the whole thing. In that moment of clarity it came to me. We are all in this together. We are a community. Then I challenged myself, how am I relating to this community? Are my interactions transactional (what can you do for me?) or relational (who are you)? The two guys who pulled the man out of the flames might not have exchanged pleasantries under normal circumstances, but they ran into a fire together to save a man’s life. Why does it take a crisis to bring people together? Why can’t we just always be there for each other? Isn’t that what Jesus calls us to do?
Now excuse me while I go back to thinking about myself until another motorcycle explodes.
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