Decisions: Rationalizations and driving on . . .

I've seen how the issues that come across a President's desk are always the hard ones – the problems where no amount of data or numbers will get you to the right answer...the judgment calls where the stakes are so high, and there is no margin for error.

And as President, you can get all kinds of advice from all kinds of people.

But at the end of the day, when it comes time to make that decision, as President, all you have to guide you are your values, and your vision, and the life experiences that make you who you are. 

- Michelle Obama at the 2012 DNC

This has been a creepy day, reminding me of the movie "Urbania".  It started when I was driving from St. Columba's to a Catholic Church in Tacoma for my first meeting with a potential spiritual director.  It was raining a fair amount, and as I got past the exit for 320th, I saw right off to the side of a freeway something burning.  There were several large road vehicles in front of the area with caution lights on, and people were slowing down.  As we approached and I looked down at whatever was burning, I couldn't quite make it out, but then gradually, but in a hazy blur, realized that it was a jacknifed big rig, probably carrying oil, that was lying in a culvert down off the road after having crashed through the guard rail. 

I immediately remembered what Christopher told me a few days ago about people being mesmerized by work vehicle and/or police lights on the side of the freeway and driving straight into the vehicles because of it, so I wondered if this were the case.  Since I was driving by very quickly, I didn't immediately see any fire trucks around, so I wondered if the accident had just happened and was a consequence of the truck driver being confused by the road work, or if the large trucks with caution signs on them were parked there because of the wreck . . . I drove on.

Just a few minutes earlier this evening, on the way home from St. Columba's, I saw what looked like smoke rising from somewhere behind many trees just to the west of Valley Medical Center.  I again thought that there might be a fire, and I was so distracted in looking at it that I remained in a right hand turn only lane and at the very least caused a great deal of confusion on a slick, wet, very dark, steep road at night trying to figure out what was happening.  I did try to turn around on a side street to get a better look at the area, but it was dark and very wet, and I couldn't see where I needed to see.

I decided in that moment that yes, it was, in fact, too dangerous for me to try to stop to help - that I myself may be hurt or cause an accident when attempting to to investigate this by being a traffic hazard or driving erratically in already difficult conditions.  So I kept going, perhaps rationalizing the decision, thinking that the flames that I thought I saw were actually amber lights around the building, that someone else in a tall hospital surely would have seen a large fire burning, that what I thought was smoke certainly could be some kind of HVAC system steam . . . I drove on.

Then, as  I pulled up to the intersection of Carr Road and Highway 515, I noticed that a car had stopped in the middle of the turning lane about 20 feet before the stop bar at the intersection and had his hazard lights on.  (I was in the leftmost lane.)  In front of him was a laundry-basket load full of junk that was strewn all across the turning lane.  He was out there picking it up.  I sat in my car and wondered again if I should jump out to help, also turning on my hazard lights.  I thought if I did, I would help everything go more quickly.  But then two lanes would be blocked instead of one . . . so, I drove on.

Three times today, I decided to stay in my car and go on with whatever needed doing instead of getting more involved.  Were those the right choices, or did I just rationalize my selfishness and hurry?  In the first incident, I was moving too quickly to be able to stop, and I felt it too dangerous to try to call 911 while driving.  Was I like the priest and the Levite who crossed to the other side of the road to avoid the man who had been beaten by robbers and left for dead in the parable of the Good Samaritan?

Looking at it from the perspective of what I should have done given the data I had in those moments, I'm not sure if any of those decisions were morally right or otherwise correct decisions. 

But the I do know the outcomes in all three cases..  In the first case, I heard that the truck fire started at about 2 a.m. and was being actively monitored since then.  Tonight, I could find no reports of the Valley Medical Center having any kind of fire beside them.  The man who stopped to clean up the mess seemed to be almost done cleaning the mess by the time my light turned green.

In hindsight, I think the decisions I made were the right ones - but one never has hindsight in the moment.  As Michelle Obama said in her speech, we only have values, intuition, and past experience to guide us.

I've written this before on here, but it's apparently time to write it again: I pray that God would give me the wisdom to know what decisions are right in the most difficult of circumstances and then give me the courage to make them.

Stories of Maturity

If there's a connection among all of today's stories, I don't know if I want to make it, so I just leave you with them to make of them what you will.  Some remembrances just need to be left to their own devices . . .

In place of the usual sermon at church, I heard some speakers from an alcohol and substance abuse awareness group come and give a testimony.  It was a husband and wife couple, the husband who was the alcoholic, and who related stories of an unmanageable life, and the wife who enabled the situation for years.  I've had friends who have struggled with addictions to alcohol and drugs - and I've also been one of those people that has either looked the other way or otherwise enabled the behavior to continue.

After church, I went to the Des Moines beach park and watched the seagulls taking a bath in the estuary where Des Moines creek empties into the sound.  They seemed to want to take their bath right in that spot where the fresh water begins to disperse.  The seagulls would have their wings folded in, and would flap them against the water, making a fairly large clapping sound, and then appeared to use their wings to scoop water over their heads.  Occasionally, they would bob their heads down beneath the surface in quick movements and even roll around in the water a bit.  Then, they would unfold their wings, flapping them in the air, appearing to dry out their feathers, and the cycle would begin again.

After they were done with their ablutions, they would fly away to a nearby gathering place, and other seagulls would then move in to take their turn in the estuary.

Also in the immediate area there were several ducks as well, who were standing near the seawall in the sand on one webbed foot, with their heads turned nearly all the way around and beaks hidden in their feathers.  I think the ducks were asleep.

Other ducks I saw were in male-female pairs paddling among the bathing seagulls, appearing to occasionally thrust their beaks down into the water to attempt to nibble on seaweed or some other type of food beneath the surface.  One male duck let the female lead, but followed her close behind the whole time.  The other couple seemed a little more sure of themselves, and would wander apart from each other for a while, never losing sight of one another, but coming together again.

Ravens, crows, or some other kind of blackbirds were also among the group, but they seemed to keep mostly to their seemingly nefarious activities of snatching snacks, rocks, or other small objects from just below the water or from other hidden places.

All seemed to share in a peaceful coexistence there in this Des Moines creek estuary.

I haven't talked to my aunt in probably three years, but I did this afternoon, since I've been hearing the news of a "Frankenstorm" headed straight for the greater New York area where she lives.  I think the last time I talked to her was when a family member was having a serious medical issue and I was trying to keep her informed, even as I myself was not taking the news well.  It was wonderful to hear her voice.  Even at 70 years old, her soprano voice sounded so vivacious, so young, and so humorous.  It was a voice that was very different than what I heard in my own family growing up.  It was a voice not just of acceptance and support, but a voice that has been prescient at a key moment for me many years ago.  It was a voice I listened to then, but advice I did not heed, because the time was not right.

I spent time today thinking about what a friend of mine told me yesterday.  He talked about how important relationships of various kinds may someday reach maturity.  Like Certificates of Deposit in the bank, they come to a point in which they have run their course, served their purpose, and are now complete - with their ending being a time of sadness, but not a time of sadness because of conflict, but because the relationships have come to the end of the time appointed for them.

I was riding with someone in decently heavy rain tonight, and he needed to pull into the leftmost lane on the freeway.  The driver behind him a fair ways but in that other lane, however, appeared to speed up slightly when my companion turned on his signal. My friend then accelerated slightly to leave sufficient distance between our car and the other person's and moved left anyway, at which point the other driver turned on his high beams to shine them at us, and then proceeded to pass us on the right, nearly clipping the corner of our vehicle as he retook his place in the rat race of northbound I-5.

The other driver's behavior was discourteous and offensive - on several levels - and rude.  My friend was quite angry for a fair while after this interchange, and we talked about this situation as a possible example of how individuals may always seek to be dominant in every situation, needing to always one-up everyone else.

However, the conclusion I shared with my friend was that one cannot out-asshole an asshole since they have so much practice at it. Put another way, one should not return evil for evil, for one reaps what one sows. For me, I don't need to be the person who's right, or always ahead, or more masculine - or whatever.  That kind of behavior may be necessary in a prison or in other places in the world where one's very survival may depend on not appearing weak, but I'd like to think we haven't come to that place in our country yet.

Still, the line between being kind and enabling bad behavior is probably a lot more thin than I'd like to admit.  Sometimes I think it would be nice to live in that seagull/duck/raven/estuary community.

Broadcasting on several frequencies

I've written before on here about a friend of mine who likes musicals - especially Stephen Sondheim, and I find myself circling back around to this again this evening as I reflect on some of the happenings of this Sunday - how we tell our stories, how we share our faith, how we talk in families and in relationships.

Now, I can't say that I'm anything close to a expert on Sondheim, but I think much more than others in his field, his musicals function on a symbolic plane as much, or perhaps far more than how they function in terms of situations and actions happening in the play itself.  It seems to me that Sondheim's musicals are always about the symbolism behind the action - which can be interpreted, subjectively, yes, but with a great deal of common agreement because of our shared human experience and the culturally American ways that we express that experience.

My friend and I were talking especially about Into the Woods, and how several threads running through the musical are longings that come out of our identification with archetypal stories and the dissonance that we have between our own life experience and our cultural myths.

Reflecting on this also brings to mind thoughts about how we as individuals communicate in sometimes symbolic ways and sometimes more straightforward ones - and always on more than one plane at the same time.  We also receive information on more than one plane at the same time, so our antennae are always picking up on the simultaneous frequencies that are broadcast from others with whom we're interacting.

I think that it must be a very human tendency to mess up these kinds of communications, as perhaps a receiver of a given communication tries to ferret out the hidden or symbolic meanings behind it, when the person giving the communication might be working to consciously communicate something else entirely.  And the reverse is, of course, true.

This has been an area of frustration for me on more than one occasion, as, like many of us, I've occasionally been the type of person to "read into" what another is saying, connecting dots when the dots aren't there to be connected.  

Other times, I've tried to communicate intentions in ways that are subtle and contextual, so as to not give offense, or perhaps more offense than is necessary.  Some may say that this type of communication is ineffective, as it can be too often misunderstood - or may not be in sync with more direct communication patterns that we may find in most of American culture.

I wonder if others feel as though they must dance this as carefully as do?