When do you pray for your own or a loved one’s physical safety?
Bear with me…the real focus of this entry has a long lead-in.
Do you pray for your safety each time you get behind the wheel of a car?
I don’t. But they say that driving a car is one of the most dangerous things you can do.Oh when we go on a long trip, like to Delaware, I pray for safety. And occasionally at other times if I’m thinking of it or something comes to mind as being particularly dangerous – being tired with a long trip ahead, being on unfamiliar back roads or in heavy city traffic, getting behind the wheel after having a social drink or two at a restaurant even though though some time has elapsed.But I suspect most of us view driving as so routine we don’t regularly say even a quick prayer.
I had an unusual experience back in November. I was running errands one morning and thinking about different things and the thought crossed my mind “What if I were to get into an accident on this trip and become paralyzed from the waist down. What would my life become? Would I still paint?”
It was a strange thought, which prompted me to pray for safety and to consciously be grateful for the day and all I get to do even though my to-do list was so heavy, because one just never knows when something can change in the blink of an eye.
When I returned home that day I had an appointment with the mother-in-law of a local client, whom I was doing some work for and she was sent to pick out frames and discuss the project.
When the woman – who was probably just a little older than me – came out of her vehicle, she walked kind of slowly with a cane. I noticed this and made sure she got safely up our porch step, and wondered to myself what might be the cause of her condition.
When the woman came into our house she at once noticed the floral murals and began to chat, telling me about a mural she had done in her home while back. I thought to myself, “how did this woman ever do a mural?” She was talking about standing on chairs and other things.
She was very interested in my studio and we had quite nice conversation as we discussed the project and she decided on related details. In the course of our conversation she mentioned having been in an accident. She was an amazing person and was commenting how her life had changed…she said she used to be so very active and told me all the things she had enjoyed doing before her accident…. and she mentioned what new things were now her focus. Things she was still able to do…
Eventually I asked what kind of accident she had been in, only because she seemed to keep referring to having been in an accident. She told me the story of how she had collided with a tractor trailer on a main highway not too far from us awhile back, and had been in a coma for a couple months, with years of recovery. She told me what she recalled of being in the coma and all her numerous injuries and surgeries, of having to learn to walk and even speak again.She showed me the long glove that now covered up her one arm.As I listened, I was moved to tears at some points, as I responded back to her story with emotion. Because she seemed like she wanted to talk openly about it – she was such a positive and grateful person as she spoke – out of curiosity I asked if she remembered being in the coma.
She said she had a lot of spiritual dreams and thoughts during that time and that she knew God wasn’t ready for her yet. She said overheard a spiritual battle for her life, if I were to summarize what she told me. Then she told me something I thought was symbolically profound: she said she dreamed God was a black woman with dreadlocks, while she was in the coma.
It turned out that she was on some type of special bed and every day a black nurse was having to come in to rotate her around. That she believed at the time in her mind that this person was God, is a profound insight into what it might mean to be the healing hands of God to someone. A human “angel of mercy.”
After she left I kept thinking on that conversation the rest of the day…a very strange coincidence after my morning drive’s thoughts about what if I were in an accident…and then praying for my safety as I drove that morning.
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Joe has mentioned a number of times how at a certain hour in the late afternoon the sun is blindingly bright on our road and to be careful turning into the driveway. Last week I experienced precisely what he meant at around 4:30- ish….I was coming home and indeed the sun was very bright, I was actually about to turn into our drive when at the last moment I saw a car coming pretty closely that the glare had obscured. I thought wow….in the blink of an eye, everything could have changed. Perhaps my life might have ended right then – all my hopes and dreams and plans and connections – in an unfortunate relaxed moment, had I not hesitated as I did a few seconds more and saw that car appearing from out of the glare….
And just tonight, we were coming home from a movie in Huntsville and on our County Road 460 around 9 pm, almost home. Joe was saying “You know it’s a Sunday night…I’ve hardly seen a single car on this road.” In the distance I saw a single car approaching and then suddenly we came upon a possum in our lane, which our right tire would have surely hit. I kind of gasped when I saw the creature and even Joe – who usually has calm reflexes – swerved quickly to the left a bit to avoid hitting the animal. Yes…just seemingly within about 15-20 feet of the single car as it passed us.
Do you pray for your safety when you are hiking?
Several years ago my son Zach had gone to Bonaroo Music Festival for several days, up in Tennesse near Nashville. I drove up to meet him for lunch before he went back to Delaware, and we went hiking at a state park.
Now if you know me, you know that I am terrified of heights. I cannot stand to even watch extreme heights on TV without feeling a little anxiety. When I’m near the edge of a drop-off, even though it is irrational…I feel like it might suck me over. That just standing there, I will lose my balance. It makes me feel dizzy.
Years ago I made it half-way up the Cape Hataras lighthouse and because the spiral staircase had an open center (the Barnegat Lighthouse we always climbed in New Jersey has a center pole) I panicked halfway up and actually had to go back down!! I said something like “I’m good. You guys go up!” Then I took photos of my kids and ex-husband at the top, from the ground.
Anyway, that time hiking with Zach a few years ago…we were walking on a trail and had stopped to talk. Turns out I was standing about a foot away from a HUGE drop off behind me and had no clue. I just hadn’t yet observed or whatever and was focused the other direction. When I turned and saw it I was terrified. I said to Zach, “Oh my goodness. I did not even see this drop off. Whoah.” I felt like I had just been one or two mis-steps away from death and had not even known it…when normally I am hyper-aware of danger and heights.
Do you pray for your safety when you get on a plane?
OK…admit it. I’m probably not the only one who has a compartment in their brain of fear when they board a plane. I always pray for the pilots and mechanical safety as I walk into the plane’s open door and as I walk down the aisle looking for my seat I look at the variety of passenger faces – grandmothers, children, businessmen – and think of movie scenes I’ve seen….and ruminate things like “if this plane goes down, these are the faces of the last human beings I will die with.”One time a couple years ago when we were waiting to board there was a young man – whom I recall may have been dressed in military attire or at least groomed with a short haircut – who was behaving strangely in line. He was loud, obnoxious and seemingly drunk and high-strung. I could overhear him saying random, provocotive, strange things to people. When he boarded, he was seated behind me. I could smell alcohol, and he was giving a loud, running commentary about the appearance of passengers as they walked by. I sensed some aggression in him.
Eventually, a stewardess came back to ask if he were OK and needed help. He began a story of how he had been in the hospital or something and was being sent home for Christmas…from what I gathered it sounded like his family was paying for him to be transported from somewhere up to Philadelphia. He said he wasn’t feeling well and sounded really high-strung, like either really drunk or possibly manic. I didn’t know. The stewardess was trying to re-locate him to another area – I think the person next to him had called her – and he was sounding really agitated and refusing to move.
I was getting nervous and started quietly talking to the guy next to me about the situation. The stewardess had called for security, and really..it was about 10 minutes or so before someone arrived and it was a woman of small stature as I recall. I mean seriously…I’m wondering if this guy might lose control and get violent and I was expecting a big man to come, ha ha!
The flight take-off was delayed and they removed him from the plane…and he broke down saying “I’m a veteran…I’ve served this country and this is what you all do to me.” Something to that effect. It was actually quite sad. Christmas time.
Do you pray for the safety of your children each time you send them off for school?
It’s been quite awhile since I dropped a child off at school…but what would I think and feel if I were a mom leaving my child and one day I saw a strange teen hanging around the school parking lot, maybe sitting in a vehicle. What if I glanced over and the young man was wearing cammo and had a wild look in his eyes? What if there were two strange teens sitting in the vehicle in the school parking lot….just before school was to start?
What would I do if I were a parent of a first grader and saw on the news that my child’s school was on lockdown with an active shooter?
Do you pray for your safety when you go to see a concert?
Now I haven’t been to many live realconcerts (big names) in my life (unlike Joe!) but a couple of years ago we went to Atlanta to see Joan Baez. I was terribly excited. I don’t recall having any thoughts of fear being there…but I do have one funny story Joe likes to tell. We were sitting up in the balcony and Joe had made a few short videos. She began leading into one of my favorites – Jerusalem – and I pulled out my cellphone to video and (I didn’t usually use it in the dark) my flash immediately went on. Joe said “your flash is on” and I quickly put the phone down. Joan Baez sang the song and then she said to the audience something like “Please just try to be present right now…let’s put down our cell phones…it distracts me when flashes go off…yes YOU…lady up there in the balcony!!“
Joe likes to say that I got called out by Joan Baez!
I guess worse things could happen at a concert of one of your favorite musicians…
Do you pray for your safety when you go to a large New Year’s Eve celebration?
The past two years my step-son and his friends have gone to Times Square on New Year’s Eve. Well, actually this year that was the plan but I think because of the cold they stayed in other parts of New York or something. But last year they were there. In the huge crowd.
This year I heard Joe remind his son to keep a look-out…if he noticed any vehicles driving where they shouldn’t be to move away quickly…
Do you pray for your safety when you go to a worship service?
Recently there have been two mass shooting here in the south in places of worship….one was up in Tennesse about six months ago as I recall, and then the more recent shooting at the Sutherland Springs Baptist Church in Texas in which twenty-six people were killed, nine of those from the same family. Twenty people were injured, and I just read that the last 6-year-old victim, Ryland Ward, finally went home three days ago. This little boy was in a hospital for two months.
What is it like for a 6-year-old to have multiple bullets tear through his little body…and to survive?
I remember after the shooting imagining what our sanctuary might look like after such a blood bath…what would it be like to be worshipping with closed eyes and then hear the sudden eruption of automatic rifle fire?
Do you pray for your safety when you go into a movie theatre?
What prompted all these thoughts as I write tonight? Well, Joe and I went to see The Post at a theatre in Huntsville. By the way, it’s a really great movie.
A few months ago…when we all seemed to rightly be focused on the clear and present danger of domestic terrorism and gun violence…I remember being afraid. Thinking…I might be more aprehensive the next time I walk into a theatre. Because it seems you just never know.
Going to a theatre can now be considered “living dangerously.” A child going into a first grade classroom each day is “living dangerously.” And so forth…
As long as we are a culture that accepts this form of mass violence…of pretending that guns don’t kill people but “bad guys” kill people and that there is nothing practical and reasonable that can be done to reduce the number of these horrific tragedies…many, like me, will increasingly have the following thoughts…
As we bought tickets, Joe was having to pick where to sit. I let him pick…I knew we were going into the balcony. Hmm…that might be the safest place, should something theoretically happen…or…if the shooter were to be in the balcony…not so much.
As we walked in I glanced at the few folks in the rows behind us and at the top. What does a potential shooter look like? How would I know.
When I was first learning caricatures twenty years ago I had a video course. The artist suggested that when you take the first look at the person sitting in your chair, try to imagine what “animal” their features reminded you of. A squirrely face…a rabbit nose, etc. This was interesting and occasionally someone visually reminds me of a caricaturized “animal”…but I don’t use this approach.
But, as I took quick glances at people….I guess I was summing people up based on quick information. There was only one person who quickly flashed as looking anywhere near having the face of someone who might decide to shoot up the place in the middle of the film…and again…very remote and really making no sense other than…. I mean…gee…the guy had a small beard and quickly reminded me of someone who might like to hunt. He looked a little rugged. Well…news folks…from Alabama to Cecil County, Maryland to the back woods of New Hampshire…that describes about 10,000 guys…
Then I glanced at the yonger late teen next to him casually eating popcorn and decided that must be his son. I mean…that’s a game I play sometimes in stores while standing mindlessly in a line….try to guess whether groups of people or friends are somehow related by their features….are they siblings, mothers/daughter, etc…
I decided the guy was harmless. Just a guy with a short beard who looked like he might be into hunting out on a Sunday afternoon with his son at a movie.
I sat down. Joe showed me the control for the lounge seat. As I put my feet up…I thought…if there was a shooting would this delay my ability to take cover?
Now, don’t get me wrong. I watched the movie. And I lost myself in it…
But…I entertained these thoughts. The fact that I thought this….or that any of us might at times have these thoughts enter our minds…says a lot.
t’s been two months since the last mass shooting that grabbed our national attention. Things have become quiet in that respect. And I pray and hope there will be an end to gun violence. Not just “thoughts and prayers” each time it happens.
Because there are way too many people whose lives were senselessly ended in a blink of an eye. Way too many people facing a lifetime of grief and nightmares. Way too many who didn’t walk out of a concert or theatre or church and sit at dinner discussing it. Too many people who didn’t live to tell a funny store like being called out by Joan Baez at the one big-name concert you attended in your whole life.
Just my thoughts today. What can we do about all this?
For Related Reading and Listening
Orlando – Podcast from Rob Bell (The Robcast)
God, Guns and Politics (Five part series) – Podcast 1 of 5 from Rob Bell (The Robcast)
Australia’s Lesson on Gun Control
Gun Control in Australia, Updated (Fact Check)
Thank You For Reading
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