Jesus carried jumper cables in the trunk of his Camry. This I know.
I cannot write of the pain of those who loved Eric Garner.
I cannot write of the anger and injustice those of African American heritage feel.
I can write of my appreciation for the civil servants dressed in blue who put their lives at risk every. single. day.
I can write that there is no doubt certain people should not be in law enforcement.
I cannot write of life or work in a high crime, impoverished environment.
I am a 51-year-old white woman. One who has received the earthly benefits of a loving home of origin and higher education.
I am what I am. I cannot change my upbringing and genetic make up more than I can change my 38 inch hips. And believe me, I’ve noodled the latter a bunch.
One blessing of age is that I know I can change the inside. My thoughts. My will.
If my thoughts change, my will changes. My heart changes.
My actions change.
I’ve never been overtly racist. I can’t imagine cruelty. I freaked out when a praying mantis somehow got stuck to a fly stick in my house. I agonized how to gingerly extract his limbs from the silver glue without dismembering his buggy frame.
Can’t be done.
We all have to fight the tidal wave of what we’ve been taught and caught over a lifetime.
Our flesh demands MINE. Our spirit knows there is a higher way.
Our spirit whispers — the noble road feeds me. Nourishes me.
Feeding self alone only cannibalizes self.
The non-indictments of the last two weeks have once again opened the American populace and shown a malignancy deep in our tissue.
Division. Anger. Powerlessness.
Examining all sides of the issues — poverty, wealth, hopelessness, education, lack of education and so on and on.
It’s as if a huge whale beached. As much as it tore at my heart, there would be nothing in my strength, might and will that could fix things for that whale.
The only thing that would make life right is for its lumbering-on-land self to be back graceful and beautiful in the water.
That’s when it came to me.
Jumper cables.
It’s easy for me to write a check from my little account to help organizations and people. It’s an another thing to stop what I’m doing, greet someone face-to-face and meet a need.
A few weeks ago on a Monday, my son and I stopped to get gas. It was about 7 p.m., dark, cold and I still needed to figure out something for dinner. I started the pump and was getting back in the car — it was cold people — when I noticed a few lanes over a SUV with the hood up, and a guy asking the woman at the adjoining pump a question.
I bet he needs a jump crossed my mind then I sat in my car, played on my phone and got back out when the pump clicked.
Quickly I screwed the cap on the tank. Quickly because I was cold, but also because I knew that guy probably needed jump and if I saw him again — I would really feel bad if I didn’t help.
It’s not like I’m a bad person. I help lots. But it was cold. Dark. And dinner was rapidly becoming take out.
Sure enough our eyes met.
“You need a jump?” slipped from my mouth.
Relief flooded his face.
Of course he needed a jump you idiot. I quickly hopped in my car, drove it around. We talked. Got the car jumped. Said sincere good-byes. And I was only delayed about three minutes. Five minutes tops.
I say I follow Jesus. If you have read anything about him — even if you don’t believe in his deity, even if you don’t believe he was a great man or teacher — one thing you have to acknowledge about the guy is he stopped for hurting, needing people.
Lepers, mentally ill, the legalistic moralists and the hedonists. White collar criminals. Thieves. Governmental oppressors of his people. The sick. The oppressed, worn out and worn down by The Haves.
He stopped and talked to everyone.
Okay, he didn’t have email to check or a Facebook status to update but I bet there was a backlog of kitchen cabinet orders at the shop.
Surely, he would have taken the time to give a ride, pay a bill and give a jump.
* * *
A few days after helping the guy get the car started, I’m running around Ingles (our local grocery). Heading from the pasta over to the chicken broth, I looked up. There was a mountain of an African American man with a little gray shopping basket on his arm.
We looked.
It’s you. We smiled.
And we embraced.
Without thinking, before words.
I asked if he’d gotten a new battery. He explained the root of troubles with the battery. Someone sold the car’s owner a battery too small for that engine so sometimes it just refuses to crank.
Working together, we can get that darned whale back in the salt water for pity’s sake.
Buy a pair of jumper cables and keep them in your car.
You’ll see.
