One Way United

I am awake.  I am alive.  It all started with an exploding motorcycle.  God used that event and the events that followed to open my heart and mind and to consider possibilities that I would had never given second thought previously.  You see, before that event, I was stuck in the mind numbingness boredom of routine.  Every day was the same.  Then last night I drove to the airport at midnight to play a game of scrabble with someone who I had never met.  We played and talked until 3:30 as she was waiting to check in for her flight.

That spontanaeity was a big part of myself that had been missing the last couple of years.  I feel like before that I was trapped.  Routine has a way of doing that to you.  It’s safe.  It feels comfortable.  It’s predictable.  And it’s dangerous. It closes you off from possibilities.  You begin going through the motions of your life without first considering WHY you are doing them to begin with.  I personally believe routine is a device the devil uses to keep us locked up.

The motorcycle incident was followed by an “almost relationship” that took me completely by surprise.  She completely interrupted my usual routine.  This was someone whom I would normally not consider dating but for some reason I gave her a chance.  While it ultimately didn’t work out, it turned my world upside down for a couple weeks.  This also coincided with all the snow days we had here in Seattle so we got to spend a lot of time together.  I really got to know this person, even better than some of my good friends.

Then, I went to go see the movie “Yes, Man” with Jim Carrey.  While some might view this as a throw away comedy, it was a golden nugget of wisdom for me.  The basic premise is that he makes a pact to say ”yes” to every question that is posed to him.  Obviously, this completely changes his life and predictably, he figures out that it’s not always good to say yes to EVERYTHING.  Still, this movie challenged me because I know I don’t say yes often enough.  Not only to others, but also to myself.  I don’t give myself permission to be spontaneous because I rely too much on my web of routine.

It was 3:30 when I left her, the stranger at the airport.  As I walked through the terminal on the way back to my car, I paused to watch the flight times flicker across the screen.  “I could hop on a flight today and go anywhere in the world,” I thought to myself.  The possibilities are endless.   I stared at the screen a few minutes and made a conscious decision to walk back to my car.  I’m still in Seattle, not because of some predictable pattern I’m stuck in, but by choice.

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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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