Meditations in a Crisis (well, not quite)

I was driving home from dinner with my dear friend Arielle last week when I was rudely reminded of something I had forgotten. At the corner of Judge Ely and Ambler, I got into a minor accident when I rear-ended the car in front me. Bummer. I followed the car until it pulled over on the side of the road, parked behind it, and switched on my hazard lights. A girl stepped out of the car. At that moment, "the car" ceased to represent an obstacle in my drive home and came to represent a life. I had forgotten about the lives in the other cars.

Before you freak out and call the DPS, demanding that my license be revoked, let me explain myself. I don't mean that I had forgotten that other people are in those other cars that fill the road beside me. I haven't been swerving and sliding down the roads, like an unstoppable moron with complete disregard for the physical lives of other drivers. I am well-aware that these other cars are not operated by robots. What I do mean is that I had forgotten about the life my fellow driver lives. While we were on the road, totally disconnected from each other by barriers of white stripes, stop signs, break lights, and steel frames, we were not aware of each others lives. I forgot she had plans for that night, just like me, and that they were disrupted by the night's unfortunate events. I forgot that she was listening to music that probably was not the same as the music I was listening to, and that she was phoning friends who I had probably never met while she sat in her car, waiting for the cop to arrive, just like me.

In short, I knew she had a life, but I didn't think about it being lived. I've been so wrapped up in myself, worried about, "Am I going to find a job? Where am I going to live?" and on it goes . . . I have forgotten the very thing that drives me as an educator, a friend, a daughter, and a Christian--my life is not about me. Just like George Eliot wrote, there is a roar on the other side of silence that is someone else's life, and I've gone deaf to it.

When the cop came along, I was written a ticket, obviously. But so was she. Her tags were expired. In that instant, I was reminded of "ubuntu." My actions had affected her life, and not in a positive way. I know I am not guilty for her tags being expired, but the fact still remains.

How deeply--and sometimes, shallowly--are we all connected. And how easily do we forget it.