God's Gone Out for a ...

We were driving home on a beautiful, sunny, breezy and cool afternoon. Work had gone extremely well and I was feeling good in that 'worked hard' and 'achieved much' kind of way you do sometimes. Too, the windows were down and we had music playing, we were just a couple of dudes driving through the city. We came to a stop at a pedestrian crosswalk, a zebra crossing as the Brits would have it, and a young woman began a slow journey across the street.

She walked carefully, as if she'd fallen before and wasn't intending to repeat the experience, but she also walked with the clear purpose of crossing the street without holding traffic up any longer than necessary. About half way cross she was tiring and we saw her slow. I felt the breeze on my arm and I smiled at her, knowing she couldn't see me, but I wanted to add a smile to the mix. I love people with disabilities who still do what they want to do in the way that they do it. Like every act sometimes is both an act of politics and and act of poetry at the same time.

Now the guy in the very tall vehicle next to us, was fuming and getting more impatient with the moment. He reved his engine a couple of times to let everyone know of his growing anger. He must have been a vitally important person and he must have had a vitally important destination. A couple of times his truck seemed to almost buck as if the engine itself was tired of waiting for some careful and slow walking pedestrian.

I looked at his angry face and thought to myself, "I wonder why God gave up smoting? Perhaps for His health?'

When she reached the other side he squealed tires and shot across the intersection, I screamed because I saw her almost topple backwards into a horrible fall as the sudden sound took her by surprise. But she grabbed hold and stayed upright. Joe was stunned and took a few seconds to regroup and then pressed the petal.

We turned the corner onto Davenport and what to our wondering eyes did appear? A flashing light, a police officer, and the truck parked quietly off to the side of the road.

Sometimes the world rights itself.