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The Hand of God
By David G. Duggan
Special to Virtueonline
www.virtueonline.org
July 4, 2014
Several months ago, I was involuntarily on the local evening news as the pedestrian hit by a sport utility vehicle as it careened down the exit chute of a parking garage before lodging in a Popeye’s Chicken stand in Chicago’s Loop. I was thrown upside down about 30 feet, cracked a bone in my lower leg and suffered numerous scrapes, bruises and bumps.
This area is fraught with bad karma. Nearly 30 years ago, the elevated train that defines the Loop fell from the tracks half-a-block from my point of impact, killing a number of people and severely injuring many more. About a dozen years ago, an elderly driver coming from that same parking garage lost control of his car and hit a crowd of lunchtime pedestrians, killing two. Perhaps our spiritual leaders should conduct an exorcism of this area, driving out the evil spirits that seem to cause innocents to suffer.
Of course, I wondered what I had done to deserve this. Seeing the “el” tracks spinning overhead in mid-flight has a sobering effect. As a former--though out of shape--gymnast, I can thank the years of training for the fact that I received no permanent injuries. The Bible provides scant support for the proposition that my losing encounter with the SUV was random: in fact, everything seems to happen for a reason. An invasion by the Assyrians? It teaches the Israelites humility--not to make alliances with foreign kings. David’s adultery with Bathsheba? It teaches David repentance.
A perverse irony had brought me to that place, lying face up on the pavement looking at the “el” tracks overhead in the cold December noonday sun, utterly dependent on the services of EMTs and public safety officers, aware of my own frailty. I had just come from another lawyer’s offices, where I had edited legal papers in a case brought on behalf of a young single mother, an immigrant to these shores, who had been the victim of sexual harassment and whose case I was handling in court. If not even a sparrow can fall to the ground without Our Father knowing of it, I was on the ground somehow by God’s grace. I had never received a dime for representing this woman and don’t know whether I will. But Thomas Cranmer, the author of our prayer book who later died for the faith, wrote of a saint as “one who has a strange nearness to God and makes God real and near to other people... His virtues do not make him proud, for he is reaching out towards perfection far beyond them, and is humbled by this quest. His sins and failings, which may be many and bitter, do not cast him down, for the divine forgiveness humbles him and humbles him again.
“He shares and bears the griefs of his fellows, and he feels the world’s pain with a heightened sensitivity; but with that sensitivity he has an inner serenity of an unearthly kind, which brings peace and healing to other people. This strange blend of humility, sorrow and joy is the mark of a saint; and through him God is real and near.” While I am no saint, as anyone at my parish--and many in my profession--will attest, I felt that serenity while lying in pain on the pavement. And I thought that whatever that pain, it could not match that which Our Lord and Savior endured for me, and for us.
Strangely, the God of infinite grace and mercy was with me as I lay in pain on the wet pavement in the cold noonday sun. No matter what sacrifice I had made for this client, whatever pain I endured, they could not match what our Lord and Savior endured for me--and for us-- on the cross.
David G. Duggan is a retired lawyer now a community activist. For a number of years he wrote devotional essays for The Living Church and Anglican Advance. He lives in Chicago, enjoys sports and gardening. Mr. Duggan is the author of Glimpses of Grace, Reflections of a Life in Christ. You can obtain a copy from Amazon here: http://tinyurl.com/ocwwk9h
