Protection and Blessing

No one was hurt in this car when it went off the road.

And it did go off the road at three this morning near Clearfield, PA. There was a passenger in the front passenger seat, Matt's friend Carolyn. She and another friend were driving back from a music festival in Michigan and the driver fell asleep...and woke up half way into a ditch having drifted to the right and scrambled to correct to get back onto the highway.

While correcting to get back on to the road, the guardrail, which was just starting there (you know how it curves at the beginning) got caught between the front and rear passenger door and ripped the door, leaving it looking more like a half removed lid from a tin can.

As I said, Carolyn was in the front seat, just inches away from where the car struck and hooked the guard rail.

And neither one of them had a scratch. Thank you Jesus.

And thank you Jesus that there wasn't a guardrail for the front of the car to plow through...then there would have been airbags and they are nasty; that could have also been really bad. I look at the car and am overflowing with thankfulness and renewed belief in perspectives which value humanity, life, relationships and love more than objects or money. The car can be replaced. Lives cannot.

Then my mom called to tell me a taxi had jumped the curb on her street corner in NY and four people who were pedestrians had been injured.

Life is fleeting; we know that, some of us carry that notion with us because we have lost someone we loved recently, or even not so recently...and the pain remains. But these graphic reminders are also sobering and ought to shock us back to a place of compassion and living and loving well.

Peace. Go give someone you love a hug.