Having received my order at a local fast food restaurant, I proceeded to an isolated seat adjacent to a window, congratulating myself for choosing to come inside instead of taking my chances with the drive-thru. It was noon straight up, the place was slammed and I was privately proud I’d chosen the quickest path to service!
It’s a sickness really. I seem to have no control over my compulsion to make a race out of everything. It’s just how I’m wired. It’s like the chicken or the egg riddle—do I love racing because I’m like this, or am I like this because I love racing?
Listen, I even hate to stop along the interstate for gas or the restroom knowing the entire field of cars and trucks I’ve just passed will re-take the lead while I’m forced to pit under green.
I’m embarrassed to admit my racing fantasy isn’t limited to long range driving. I’m also a wannabe drag racer. Don’t think for a minute you’re going to leave ahead of me at a stop light! I get up on the wheel…one foot on the gas…the other on the brake…palms twitch as I anticipate the green.
I know…I’m not well. I’m considering Racers’ Anonymous; please don’t judge me too harshly.
But on this particular day, as I slowed to an idle and munched away on my burger and fries, I was caught off guard as a real life drama began to play out in the parking lot.
A young woman struggled to simply walk cross the busy parking lot. She darted out from between parked cars, hesitated and quickly cowered back. Leaning forward, she wrung her hands and repeatedly held them to her forehead as she ducked in and out.
Her overly cautious routine tickled me at first. But as I continued to watch, the symptomatic behaviors of a mentally challenged individual became obvious—she was a little child in an adult body.
She repeatedly shook her hands and held them over her eyes, overwhelmed by the stress of the situation. I stood to go out to her, wondering where in the world her care-giver might be. And then I saw her—an elderly lady laboring to close the lift gate of her van from her motorized chair. She turned and motioned to the distressed young woman to wait for her.
Now it made sense. The elderly care-giver, preoccupied with the routine of parking and disembarking from her specially-equipped van, had temporarily lost track of the young lady.
I stood up, ambivalent as to whether it was appropriate to offer help or instead allow the brave independence of the chair-bound woman to play out.
While I was self-involved deliberating my own propriety, a real gentleman jumped into action. Chunking his pickup in the middle of the parking lot, he jumped out, leaving his door wide open and ran to the assistance of the struggling duo. Greeting them, he stopped all three lanes of traffic. As the ladies reached his position midstream of the traffic, he doffed his hat and with an air of aplomb bowed as if they were royalty—and in that moment, indeed they were.
Suddenly, I was the one overwhelmed. I held back sobs while others, who had recognized what had just happened, applauded the young man’s anachronistic chivalry.
Even now, I find it difficult to express the power played out in those three short minutes, in three acts of noble character—the young woman’s childlike desire to cross independently, the incredible pluck of the wheelchair bound care-giver and the oh-so needed revival of chivalry by a humble prince in a seed-corn cap.
This young man’s chivalry hearkens back to another real life drama in which Jesus comes to the rescue of an unfortunate woman.
In Jesus’ drama, the woman was drug into his presence by self-righteous haters who demanded that Jesus confirm her brokenness. Instead, he turned the tables on the haters and compassionately lifted the woman to her feet, empowering her to be all she was meant to be with these simple words…
‘”Woman, where are they? Does no one condemn you?” She answered, “No one, Master.” “Neither do I,” said Jesus. “Go on your way and sin no more.”’ John 8:10 & 11
Seeing others as God sees them and responding likewise…that, I believe, is how we walk out the greatest commandment of loving God with all of our mind, soul and strength and loving our neighbor as our self.
Read Ron’s column, Simple Faith, each Saturday on the Faith Page (page 3) of the Lancaster Eagle Gazette, or visit www.lancastereaglegazette.com.