I was making a right turn at a stop sign. I heard a strong thud from the rear of the car. It shook me up. I looked in the rear view mirror and saw a couple probably in their early sixties crossing where I had just passed. He was rubbing his hand.
My initial response was anger. I was ready for some “Senior citizen” road rage when I realized that he had banged my car. I felt violated. I rapidly pushed the cancel button on the road rage. It promised nothing but chaos.
However, as I cooled down I soon realized what had happened. As I was getting ready to make a right turn I had to ease out into the walkway because there was a truck parked illegally that blocked my view of on-coming traffic. There was plenty of traffic so I was blocking the walk way and the gentleman felt he was violated so he took it out on my car and his hand.
and I wanted to make it clear. On the other hand, the intensity of the thud told me this was one angry man. Any confrontation, no matter how civil and well-intentioned, was going to produce little light and a lot of heat.
I did not give up. Perhaps I could go back and see if he hurt his hand. This was another losing proposition. Besides, I really did not care if he hurt his hand. Finally, I decided to pray for his wife. She has to deal with this explosive anger all the time.
This encounter had all kinds of possibilities. If I had realized immediately what had happened and stopped the car and confronted the individual little good would have happened. I would have been acting out of my anger with little reflection. There were several potential results. These ranged from high probability of hostility to a low probability of a reasonable resolution and at the bottom of the probability chart maybe even friendship. All of these were possibilities. However, only negative consequences were on the horizon if I acted out of my initial antagonism.
What is important about the reflection is that these types of potentially explosive events are part of our experience all the time: on the job, at the breakfast table, at the staff meeting, in the line at the market, even at the parish council meeting.
The possibilities of destructive heat and conflict or patient dialogue and reconciliation and a thousand options in between are dependent on the depth of reflection and insight in the hearts of the individuals involved in the encounters.
When these occasions go negative we enter into the debris of life. Conflict, hostility and even different degrees of violence, emotional or physical, often occur.
The mystery is that we can find God in the peaceful resolution of our dilemma but also in the conflict. In reality it is more often that we are led to God in the debris of life than in the well-ordered flow of harmony. We meet our own weakness face to face. We see we have to turn to God in our pain.
In my story of the “stop sign thudder” several things happened. I quickly moved away from my angry and hostile response. That would not always have been the case the in my past life. Secondly, I really did not want to be blamed. I wanted to justify myself. I felt a need to explain my dilemma to the man. Thirdly, while I felt sympathy for the wife, I had not a single positive thought about the “thudder”. This is a practical example of the movement from the false self focused on ourselves as the center of the universe to the true self. In the true self the movement is to share God’s love for all as the divine acceptance takes all of us as we are. It is a long journey. I was clearly somewhere distant from the goal. Most of life is spent on the slow, demanding journey from the false self to the true self. We move away from our idols by encountering God’s call as we meet his Word in Jesus Christ.
Teresa’s teaching on these endless human encounters that hold the seeds of peace or conflict, reconciliation or division, is clear. Prayer that is deep and personal is the answer.
Teresa understood that the obstacles to prayer were rooted in the disorder in our relation to God, to God’s creatures and to our sisters and brothers.
It is hard to pray when the heart is laden with personal hurts and disrespect for our dignity. When we bring the distortions of our addictions, great and small, to prayer it is a painful task to center our heart on God. When our heart is consumed with animosity and anger, prayer happens with difficulty if at all.
Humility, detachment and charity bring a growing sense of order and peace. They produce an ambience open to the sacred and nourish a freedom from all the divisions flowing from our fragmented heart. The virtues do not eliminate the problems, the debris in our life. They do, however, help us cope with them in a more serene and accepting way.
This is the center of Teresa’s program. It is a call to live in a way that expresses the truth of humility, the freedom of detachment and the wonder of love for all. This produces peace that nourishes a deeper prayer which, in turn, generates a growth in acceptance of our reality in humility, detachment and love for all God’s children.
While inner peace is the goal, it is only achieved in spiritual warfare. The battle between prayer and life is relentless in its demands. The virtues are weak in the beginning but gradually grow with the help of prayer. Prayer seeks this growth to prop up its staying power in the battle against its own inner turmoil. Meanwhile, we slowly gain a measure peace that helps us with the mayhem of life. The process of the mutuality of growth between the virtues and prayer continues for ever deepening levels of mutual support.
In all of it something special is happening. There is a new and free self that is evolving out of the dynamic. This personal transformation flows from a new relation of the self in humility, to our possessions in detachment and to others in love. This is our goal until God gets serious and takes over in contemplation to finish the personal transformation
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