By Rosemary Zimmerman
Traffic slowed to a creep in front of me, and all I saw was the motorcycle gang blocking the right-hand lane of the interstate. I ground my teeth. If the gang didn't move out of half the highway, I was going to be late to work.
Then I saw the car flipped, the slivered glass sprayed across the road, and the woman leaning against the guard rail, bleeding. There was no ambulance. There were no blue lights of law enforcement. There was only the motorcycle gang (by now off their bikes and directing traffic), frustrated commuters, and me.
I closed my eyes for a moment, and drew a deep breath. God, I'm going to be late for work. Surely the ambulance will be here soon. Surely it's not my job to stop. I'm a nurse, not an EMT. I shuddered. Never had it been more clear what God intended me to do; never had I been so resistant to such a simple thing. With a rush like wind, I felt something entering me. I listened. Slightly past the wreck now, I pulled over. I got out of my car, and turned around.
Listening to God is not something that comes naturally to me. I was raised Catholic, and as a child I had a simple belief in God. It seemed logical. It fit with what I knew about the world. My parents taught me the right and wrong ways to go about my everyday life (don't fight with your sisters, do the dishes when asked, work hard in school), and God taught about the big things (love each other, believe in Me, don't steal, no meat on Fridays). Yet, I had never encountered God in any personal way. God seemed to belong to church, found only in and among the stained-glass windows and the rising incense. Yes, I did have a shivery sense of the numinous during Christmas Vigil Mass, and I loved the parables Christ taught, especially about the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son. But it was easy for me to abandon this as I became older and started questioning. Was Mary really bodily assumed into heaven? How could wisdom be found in a book as confusing and contradictory as the Bible? What proof did I have that God even existed? One morning, bouncing along in the rickety yellow school bus, I made a bargain with God. Okay, God, if you exist, I give you full permission to strike me down right now, because I am a blaspheming doubter and probably deserve it. Nothing happened. I shrugged and moved on. All my doubts seemed confirmed.
The next few years passed as years generally do, not any better or worse than the years before. God seemed irrelevant, although I never lost the occasional moment of awe, when I was overcome by the conviction that there was something big out there I might be missing.
During college I found myself dating someone whom I never ought to have become friends with in the first place. The relationship rapidly degenerated into misery, but because of his possessive and controlling nature, as well as his attacks on my ego ("I don't see you're doing much worthwhile, but at least you're dating me"), I was unable to break free. Despite my wide circle of acquaintances, I was isolated.
After one particularly brutal fight with my boyfriend, I found myself standing in the college dining hall, surrounded by friends, but feeling utterly alone. There was no one I could turn to for support. No one to understand. And then the door opened.
I knew the person who walked through, but not well. We were acquaintances more than friends. Instantly, however, I was convicted that this person would hear me. This person would be there for me. Although we'd never so much as shared a private conversation together, I ran to him. He put his arms around me as I cried. Over the months that followed, I leaned on this friend as I'd never leaned on anyone before. His support was offered absolutely, unconditionally, under any circumstances, and without prerequisite or even expectation of an equal exchange. He stayed up until all hours to hear me talk, and drove through snowstorms to be with me when I couldn't be alone.
This love emerged from nothing, and lifted me out of my everyday existence. Such a love seemed impossible in and totally at odds with the mundane world I thought I inhabited. It pointed the way to something greater, the same numinous something that had tugged at the back of my mind for so long.
Once after a particularly long night, I asked him how he did it. How was he always able to find the energy to be there for me, even as he struggled with his own (never easy) life? "Faith," he replied. "It's not I who helps you, but Christ through me." That was it. All my arguments ceased. No matter how irrational, I wanted what he had, so that I might pass it on to others. I left my terrible relationship. I became a Christian, a convinced Friend, a nurse.
Years later, I stood on the highway. I put my arms around a stranger, who cried onto my shoulder and seemed to find comfort there. And yet, I had a powerful sense that it was not I who stopped on the road. I only wanted to get to work on time. I would have driven right on by. By grace, and by grace alone, I stopped. I stepped out of my car. I turned around.
I don't understand being saved in the usual sense, and I don't really believe in heaven and hell. But I do believe in redemption—my own redemption above all. And this is how I understand it. I was redeemed first by the transcendent love of Christ, who acted through a fellow human to lift me out of abuse and self-hatred. And I am redeemed again when my faith overcomes my self-centered nature in order to show the love of Christ to the person standing in front of me, left bruised and bleeding on the road.
Rosemary Zimmerman is a Young Adult Friend and a member of Burlington (Vt.) Meeting.
Traffic slowed to a creep in front of me, and all I saw was the motorcycle gang blocking the right-hand lane of the interstate. I ground my teeth. If the gang didn't move out of half the highway, I was going to be late to work.
Then I saw the car flipped, the slivered glass sprayed across the road, and the woman leaning against the guard rail, bleeding. There was no ambulance. There were no blue lights of law enforcement. There was only the motorcycle gang (by now off their bikes and directing traffic), frustrated commuters, and me.
I closed my eyes for a moment, and drew a deep breath. God, I'm going to be late for work. Surely the ambulance will be here soon. Surely it's not my job to stop. I'm a nurse, not an EMT. I shuddered. Never had it been more clear what God intended me to do; never had I been so resistant to such a simple thing. With a rush like wind, I felt something entering me. I listened. Slightly past the wreck now, I pulled over. I got out of my car, and turned around.
Listening to God is not something that comes naturally to me. I was raised Catholic, and as a child I had a simple belief in God. It seemed logical. It fit with what I knew about the world. My parents taught me the right and wrong ways to go about my everyday life (don't fight with your sisters, do the dishes when asked, work hard in school), and God taught about the big things (love each other, believe in Me, don't steal, no meat on Fridays). Yet, I had never encountered God in any personal way. God seemed to belong to church, found only in and among the stained-glass windows and the rising incense. Yes, I did have a shivery sense of the numinous during Christmas Vigil Mass, and I loved the parables Christ taught, especially about the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son. But it was easy for me to abandon this as I became older and started questioning. Was Mary really bodily assumed into heaven? How could wisdom be found in a book as confusing and contradictory as the Bible? What proof did I have that God even existed? One morning, bouncing along in the rickety yellow school bus, I made a bargain with God. Okay, God, if you exist, I give you full permission to strike me down right now, because I am a blaspheming doubter and probably deserve it. Nothing happened. I shrugged and moved on. All my doubts seemed confirmed.
The next few years passed as years generally do, not any better or worse than the years before. God seemed irrelevant, although I never lost the occasional moment of awe, when I was overcome by the conviction that there was something big out there I might be missing.
During college I found myself dating someone whom I never ought to have become friends with in the first place. The relationship rapidly degenerated into misery, but because of his possessive and controlling nature, as well as his attacks on my ego ("I don't see you're doing much worthwhile, but at least you're dating me"), I was unable to break free. Despite my wide circle of acquaintances, I was isolated.
After one particularly brutal fight with my boyfriend, I found myself standing in the college dining hall, surrounded by friends, but feeling utterly alone. There was no one I could turn to for support. No one to understand. And then the door opened.
I knew the person who walked through, but not well. We were acquaintances more than friends. Instantly, however, I was convicted that this person would hear me. This person would be there for me. Although we'd never so much as shared a private conversation together, I ran to him. He put his arms around me as I cried. Over the months that followed, I leaned on this friend as I'd never leaned on anyone before. His support was offered absolutely, unconditionally, under any circumstances, and without prerequisite or even expectation of an equal exchange. He stayed up until all hours to hear me talk, and drove through snowstorms to be with me when I couldn't be alone.
This love emerged from nothing, and lifted me out of my everyday existence. Such a love seemed impossible in and totally at odds with the mundane world I thought I inhabited. It pointed the way to something greater, the same numinous something that had tugged at the back of my mind for so long.
Once after a particularly long night, I asked him how he did it. How was he always able to find the energy to be there for me, even as he struggled with his own (never easy) life? "Faith," he replied. "It's not I who helps you, but Christ through me." That was it. All my arguments ceased. No matter how irrational, I wanted what he had, so that I might pass it on to others. I left my terrible relationship. I became a Christian, a convinced Friend, a nurse.
Years later, I stood on the highway. I put my arms around a stranger, who cried onto my shoulder and seemed to find comfort there. And yet, I had a powerful sense that it was not I who stopped on the road. I only wanted to get to work on time. I would have driven right on by. By grace, and by grace alone, I stopped. I stepped out of my car. I turned around.
I don't understand being saved in the usual sense, and I don't really believe in heaven and hell. But I do believe in redemption—my own redemption above all. And this is how I understand it. I was redeemed first by the transcendent love of Christ, who acted through a fellow human to lift me out of abuse and self-hatred. And I am redeemed again when my faith overcomes my self-centered nature in order to show the love of Christ to the person standing in front of me, left bruised and bleeding on the road.
Rosemary Zimmerman is a Young Adult Friend and a member of Burlington (Vt.) Meeting.
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