Daddy, What Would You Have Done?

“You’re up way past your bedtime, Daughter.”

“I know–I’ll probably regret it tomorrow.  Definitely violating the ‘every student deserves a well-rested teacher’ principle.  But I’ve been writing and thinking, and I’m thinking now about that deal in front of Meijer today.  I still am not sure what I should have done.  You saw the whole thing, of course.”

“Yes.  People were saying afterward that it was a good thing that the firemen ‘just happened’ to be there when those people had a need.  Comments like that always make me chuckle.”

“Sure… yeah, but…Well, when I got out of my car to go into the store, there they were–these fireman gathered around someone lying on the ground up near the store but still in the parking lot, close to the back of someone’s car.  There was another car parked in the driving lane of the lot.  There were a couple of store people there too.  I couldn’t tell if the person on the ground had been hit or had collapsed or what.  I heard one of the firemen, kneeling by the person in need, asking if he–I think it was a he, just by the bit of clothing I saw–could move his toe.  I tried not to gawk and kept on walking, but the sight that I couldn’t escape even as I passed by was the woman standing there.  She obviously was someone connected with the person around whom this drama focused.  She wasn’t crying–appeared more to be in shock, really.  She held her hands up, covering her mouth as though she might be trying to keep a scream from escaping.  Momentarily, I felt I should turn out of my way and go over and give her a hug (I think that’s what I would have wanted…just to know that I was not alone in this endless moment).  But my feet kept walking and, as the store door opened before me, the image of the priest and the Levite who passed by the wounded man on the Jericho road before the Good Samaritan stopped to help flashed through my mind.  But I kept on walking.”

“Why do you suppose you did that–kept on walking, I mean?”

“I know it wasn’t that I was in a hurry.  I had three hours that I could have spent, and it wouldn’t have made a big dent in my day.  Zach was at work and I was running some errands.  I didn’t want to be in the way…I never really want to make a scene.  I wasn’t afraid of not knowing what to say and do–I’ve been on the scene of accidents on my street a time or two (Remember that time the guy got killed in the motorcycle accident right at the end of my driveway?  When my feet propelled me out there in the pouring rain to hold an umbrella over the man’s face and the heads of those who were trying to help him, that seemed like the most natural place in the world to be at that moment.).  But today I just kept walking…that bothered me.  I kept asking myself what I’d been waiting for–an out-loud voice telling me what to do?  I don’t know…”

“So, what did you do next?”

“You know–When I came out of the store, the fire truck and firemen were gone.  There was an ambulance there and the person who’d been on the ground was nowhere in sight.  I always think, when the ambulance doesn’t rush right off, that’s not a very good sign.  I always figure the person must have died.  Or I guess he could have been in the ambulance getting patched up or something.  I still wasn’t really thinking so much about the victim, though, because there was that lady again.  Someone had brought a bench out there and she was sitting on it, with another lady.  That lady had her arm around the the connected-to-the-victim lady, and they were talking.  That made me glad….relieved, really.  I prayed that the bystander lady would be a comfort to the other one.”

“That’s good–praying is always good.”

“I haven’t told you the craziest part yet.  As I drove away, I wondered a) how many people, like me, had just walked by and not stepped over to offer any help and b) how many Christians, like me, had been among them.  I wondered if the lady who did stop by was a Christ follower–I hoped she was.  Then came the crazy part.  I made one more quick stop–at Big Lots.  It’s only about a mile or so away.  When I came out of that store, I had the strongest urge to go back to Meijer, and, if that lady was still there, just get out of my car and tell her I’d been there earlier and felt like I just needed to come back and see if there was anything I could do for her.  I came that close to turning left out of that Big Lots parking lot, but I turned right and went on my way.”

“So, Daughter, what is it, exactly, that is troubling you about all this?”

“Here’s just it:  Was it You telling me?  In the big picture of things, does it matter what I did, when all those other people saw the situation too and kept on walking too?  Was it a “should” or a “could”–or doesn’t that part matter?  Was this a “do it to the least of these” moment that I missed?  Was it me violating the Golden Rule–again?  It’s easy to say, ’I can’t help everyone.’ and then help no one.  I’ve been telling the 3rd-graders to whom I teach religious ed that my neighbor is the person who needs help that I can give.  After all these years, am I still not very good at knowing when it’s You talking to me….Oh, boy….Just tell me:  Daddy, what would you have done?”