Saved By Gentleness

I come from a Mass honoring Mother Mary when I reach the intersection and make a left turn. In keeping with a harried and ultra-feminist lifestyle, I would have made any turn or any driving move with a hard driving style, pummeling down on the gas and making accelerated changes when I can, never giving in, and forget about yielding. My philosophy has become a pervasive mental model, but thanks to the Eucharist, I found a better model in gentleness, not of my doing at all, but in taking Christ daily, there was a peace that came over me, and a whole new philosophy and way of thinking, breathing and being. I made the turn being extra mindful of the other drivers, doing it extra carefully and never abutting another lane and somehow, I felt very conscious of that change as I made the turn, praising God as I did.

Then shots! I didn't even know what was going on except I heard many pops. But discrete, not confluent like a firecracker. People in the sidewalk were ducking, running, some falling. It seems that right where I would have passed, a shooter in left side of the street was targeting someone across. If I were in my former tempo, I would have been in the very line of fire. I didn't know what to do until a pedestrian, somehow older in the ways of the streets, said, "Turn around! Turn around!" The car behind me was doing so, so I did as well. It didn't even register how blessed that moment was--only that I just had a shooting happened in front of me. I didn't see if any one got hurt. No one was screaming anything to that effect. Maybe all were just in surprise. Residents peeked from their doors. Two blocks away, an unmarked car with sirens is parked in front of another car. I pulled alongside it. The man had a vest with a gun. I asked if he is police and he said yes. I told him the shooting that happened less than a quarter-mile from him in the same street, but it seems the other members of the force had already been alerted. For police cars in their black-and-white-forms were zigging from all corners. Here I was going on the opposite direction while the cops are going to the heart of the scene. Here I see the heroism of many.

People do not seem to know how the EMS and police lay their life, daily facing threats. Many also seem to overlook the inner city challenges where poverty and crime hurt average families. Yet not many enough acknowledge the fragility of life that one maybe taken at any moment to be judged according to how he or she has loved God and others and served the least. At different points in my life, I could have been the bystander, the victim or a desperate shooter; I could have been anyone at this point as well, if I didn't have the knowledge of the love of God. But this is, I think, a lesson in grace. God gives us His example of gentleness and generosity in spirit. Not the bullying, angry or fiercely ambitious spirits that many have come to see as part of the package and requirement of success. Our success is how we have lived with purpose, which is really love and gratitude and joy. Doing this with some consistency is only possible through a spiritual awakening of who we are, not just in the here and now, but for eternity. And this is possible to feel whether we are moving on the road or at a standstill in someone's cross-hairs.