A Life's Pursuit: Human Wreckage

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Human Wreckage







It is a beautiful morning in Nashville; the sky is slathered with brilliant oranges along the edges of clouds as the sun climbs up from the dark cold night. I have a million thoughts this morning; but I will attempt to blog them one at a time. I witnesssed something this morning that defies explanation.

I am driving down 6 lanes of traffic at a "comfortable 60 mph" when I notice a cloud of smoke ahead of me about 4 car lengths pop up. It's the thick dark blue/black rubber kind of smoke; immediately followed by the burning rubber smell. As the smoke cleared and I slowed, it became visible. An 18-wheeler had locked its brakes to avoid a worse tradgedy. My eyes followed the black melted smoking scratches on the asphalt to a near union of metals. There was a woman in a forest green Nissan Titan Truck facing the opposite way on the interstate with another silver truck only inches from the passenger side front fender. The woman and I made eye contact as traffic stopped to allow her to cross two lanes to right her direction. I saw NO dings or hanging metals or sign of what should have been a horrible sight. Traffic continued back to its pace with the 18 wheeler now along side me in the parallel lane. I never saw where the woman went; but I will give her kudos for looking most well-composed and handling her vehicle well this Wednesday I24W morning.

I was struck with an overwhelming thought; since I, myself was back in my vehicle for the first time since an accident I had been involved in a week or so before [but that's another story]. We, "people" are so very fragile. There are few days that go by that you don't hear of someone losing an arm or leg or life in some turn of events. How easily our parts are pinched off by unyielding metal, mass or force. Oh sure, we can operate and make some repairs through modern medicine; but it's never quite the same. We lack the power to go back and make what happened NOT happen. We lack the power to unharm ourselves; only to "choose" to recover to the best of our limited ability. Some say that "we" are all little "Gods." I tend to think we all have a sliver from a much bigger pie within us; but we are far cries from God. Otherwise; it would be nothing to "undo" our wounds — physically, psychologically, heredically, emotionally or etc. With great power comes even greater responsibility. Just think, if we all had the power of God how much worse off our neighbors would be. America, the country of little Gods; the country with as many churches as liquer stores. The church, where the divorce rate rivals that of the secular world. [...not a bash; just an observation]

True, everything changes and everybody dies; even the Saviour of the world. It is a necessary pennace of humanity. What wonders lie beyond this clay prison? How much more our capacity to be more "God-like" without the clay buffer? I don't know all the answers; but I sure got millions of questions. I don't even know that I have to get all the answers cause some things are just "true" inspite of our perceptions. May we be human enough to seek out things beyond our limited perceptions outside our comfort zones as we peer into the heart of our neighbors and ourselves. The walls beyond the mind are only the beginning of existence; not the perimeter of reality.

Evenso; I may have witnessed a miracle. I am glad noone got hurt. I do enjoy the sound of crashing metal; but only on TV, where we really are our own gods.




Hmmm.....

2 comments:

Bendy said...

Sometimes when we're surrounded by hunks of metal, otherwise known as our vehicles, we forget how truly fragile we are. This is why people take such crazy risks.

Recently I have changed my road rage attitude. When a driver carelessly speeds past me, instead of uttering a curse under my breath, I say "God, please look out for that person today. Keep them and everyone who's path they cross safe." I also ask for angels of protection to ride along with me each day. Can't be too safe! :)

Linda Russell said...

So glad you were ok
Glad you got to see this
When we watch re-creations of near misses in the movies, with all the special effects, it can make us less sensitive, less appreciative of how fragile life really is.
Liked your observation and the divine miss bendy's