Job Talk

Prayers get answered in strange and unpredictable ways.

And trying to put those answers into comprehensible words is like trying to hold a handful of water. But even the most specific and impossible to describe personal moments are also universal experiences, so maybe it’s worth a try.

Recently I had been feeling much too attached to this contingent world and had prayed, very specifically, for help with that situation. "Contingent world" is a term sometimes used in the Bahá'í Writings to designate our physical existence on a material plane bound by the limitations of time and space. A world where it’s easy to get so enmeshed in daily activities and objectives that you forget – or at least, I forget – that the ultimate purpose and goal of life is to acquire spiritual qualities, the only possessions we can take with us when we leave this planet. Bahá'u'lláh says that “death is a messenger of joy,” and so I prayed to have less fear of leaving the life I know now and more assurance about that joy, to know it with certainty and to more fully experience that certainty as a solid reality, as solid as the material things and activities I will leave behind.

Of course, not everyone believes that we take anything with us, because to agree with that statement you have to first believe that we have some kind of existence beyond the death and disintegration of our physical bodies. But I think that most people, whatever their religious inclinations, would agree that human beings are capable of understanding life on levels beyond the physical and therefore can choose to live on those higher levels, both for personal and societal benefit.

We can choose to love rather than hate. To help rather than hurt. To decide what is the most important thing to do rather than just react.

Or we can fail to make a choice and thus make a different choice, one that is based on personal short-term benefit instead of a larger picture.

This is a story about a choice I made one day last week and how my prayer was answered in a way I would never have expected.

My bike had a flat tire so I was hurrying out my front door to walk to the bus stop when I heard the ugly sound of metal scrunching hard against metal, a sound I know too well (but that’s another story), the sound of two cars crashing into each other. I looked across the street and saw a white car angled into the street with its rear end crunched against another car’s front end. The white car looked like my friend’s vehicle, in a general sort of way, which is pretty much the only way I see cars. The white car was stopped just beyond my friend’s driveway. This was the time I’d usually see her leaving for work, while I was getting my bike out of the shed.

Hence, it was a pretty good bet that it was her car, and that she (let’s call her Jenny) was in it when the accident happened, and was still in it.

Do you remember the old angel-and-devil-on-the-shoulders routine, the image sometimes used in movies or cartoons to depict a character’s internal argument about what he or she should do in a given situation? That pretty well describes how I felt at that moment. My angel was saying, get over there, make sure Jenny is OK, see what you can do to help. The devil, practical gal that she is, was saying, naaah, that accident just looks like a fender bender, nothing serious, and if it is serious, what could you do? You’ll just get in the way, you don’t know anything about first aid and you’re hopeless in emergencies anyway. Besides, if you don’t keep moving you’re going to miss the bus and be late for work, so come on, let’s go. Now. Go.

And I did. Go.

As I hurried down the block I looked back and saw that Jenny was out of her car and walking up to the other car. See, said my little devil. See, she’s not hurt. she’s fine, toldyaso!

But a minute later, from the corner where the bus would stop, I heard sirens and saw an ambulance and police car rushing to the accident. See, said my little angel, someone’s hurt. Even if Jenny isn’t the one, she’s bound to be really upset. She needs a friend right now. You’ll just be in the way, hissed the devil. Get over there, shouted the angel. Now. Go.

And I did. Go. Into the bus.

That has to be about the worst bus ride I’ve ever taken, because I felt so horrible about what I had just done, the choice I had made, the kind of person I had shown myself to be. The astonishing level of attachment I had displayed to MY needs, MY schedule, MY priorities, and my evident lack of concern for another human being’s obviously more urgent needs, as well as a lack of understanding of my purpose on this planet.

OK, I know that on a scale of 1 to 10 this lapse in moral judgment is pretty puny compared to other things people have done, even other things I have done. It felt huge, though, and I think it was huge, because as our capacity and understanding grow, so does our responsibility. An action I might once have barely noticed or even seen as a choice now became one of my most painful life experiences.

I tried to make amends by calling Jenny a little while later, figuring by then she would have finished dealing with the accident and be at work. Instead she was still home, and crying. She said the ambulance came because one of the passengers in the other car was pregnant and had been rushed off to the hospital as a precaution. Jenny clearly needed someone with her at that moment, and I was the someone who could have been there, had I chosen to do so.

“Oh Lord, make me a hollow reed from which the pith of self has been blown, that I may become a clear channel through which Thy love may flow to all others.” That’s the lyric in a beautiful song based on Baha’i scripture, one of my favorites. Sitting on the bus, and later at my desk after the phone call, I felt like a reed, all right – one clogged and choked with debris.

I thought about the idea that service is our life purpose, and about how I could have served Jenny’s needs. Maybe by listening while she talked about the accident. Maybe by praying with her. Or making her a cup of tea. Or just sitting with her. Whatever was called for, at that moment when I heard the crash and saw Jenny’s car my real job was to be willing to be that clear channel. Like Scrooge, my definition of work has been altered by a spirit's visit.

I’ve talked to Jenny a couple times since then, and she’s OK. My not being there for her that morning certainly didn’t ruin her life. I’ve apologized to her for not stopping, an apology that was mainly for my benefit because it’s unlikely she expected anything from me or was thinking about me in any way at all. I’ve accepted the experience gratefully as the answer (or at least one answer) to my prayer and stopped agonizing over my poor choice, following the Twelve Step promise to “not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.”

And I've decided it’s probably no coincidence that I hadn’t taken time that morning to pray and meditate, beyond a couple of quick prayers when I first woke up. Hadn’t stopped in my rushing around to get dressed and make lunch to spend even two minutes to put myself into a still space and reconnect with my God. So the incident also made it clear that such stillness and connection is indispensable.

A couple of days later I read something else that helped put the experience into perspective. “What result is forthcoming from material rest, tranquility, luxury and attachment to this corporeal world? It is evident that the man who pursues these things will in the end become afflicted with regret and loss.”

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