Tag: Good Samaritan

Posted on

Solace For Mourning

My foolish act, passing an anguished mother along a roadside so I could make a preaching appointment, kept me stuck in long-term remorse.

For years I periodically revisited in my mind’s eye the awful scene. Each time, left sorrowing, self-detesting, grieved.

I had been given, at my own hand, a teaching moment of a severe kind. Any hearing the term good Samaritan thereafter drew a self-inflicted stab. If I had been a character in Jesus’s famous parable that Sunday morning, I was anything but the generous passerby readily lending aid. I was one of the other guys, the Levi, the Priest. Preoccupied. Dutifully religious. Hurrying to my assigned post.

Over time I gleaned insights – and healing – through my reflections as I learned to bring them, along with their pain, openly to God.

Interior questions got verbalized in one way or other. How could I have done it? What drove me to shirk responsibility? How can a string of roadway tragedies witnessed over time so desensitize a man to human suffering?

The hardest question to resolve went unspoken, even unformed. It lay churning within, begging a response. Do I find closure? Do I forgive myself?

In time the dark voice of self-loathing quieted enough that I caught a whispered message, a merciful intervention, surprisingly tender in tone. God’s voice.

I found that he had whispered it all along, but that had drowned the gentle voice by my own self-accusing chorus. His response to my inquiries came themselves as questions. Something after this fashion.

Was my mercy withheld from my servant-king who defiled a man’s wife then murdered him to cover his wrong?

Was not my friend who three times in succession disowned me not afterward commissioned as my trusted emissary?

Have not innumerable followers who have offended, failed and invited shame been welcomed, embraced and celebrated as was the prodigal of my long-ago parable?

He gently pressed on.

Were the negligent priest and Levite on Jericho’s roadway valued less by me than the assaulted man? And you, my son, does your worthiness trace to your own virtue, to your forever choosing rightly when testing comes? Does your goodness qualify your worth? Did my sacrifice at Golgatha prove adequate for the sins of all except for yours – are you the lone exception?

Through the questionings, and further whisperings, healing had entered.

The tragic roadway picture reemerges occasionally. But between me, that scene and a myriad others spotlighting my frailties, stands another image – of a cross-marked hilltop outside a middle eastern town.

I taste the nectar of deliverance and offer the one response I can, “Praise you, Praise you, Lord”.

©2017 Jerry Lout

Posted on

Trading Distraction

Distraction. That which divides the attention, diverts or draws away the mind; prevents concentration.

 

 Jerry Lout! What are you looking at out there? You come right up here.

 Elementary school.

I limp through my life distracted. Not all the time.

But more of the time than desired. Ask Ann, my wife.

Occasionally my distractions serve a handy purpose. Even therapeutic. A quiet brook in a peaceful setting brings respite to a stressful day. Still, helpful distractions seem rare.

My inattention might have pinned a teenage chum under a tractor tire. I absent-mindedly left a fence-gate lying in my horse’s pathway. Thankfully we cheated disaster. Still, distraction took me there.

You come right up here, Jerry!

 My nine-year-old daydreaming mind had transported me outside our Fourth Grade classroom. The playground scene beyond the window had won me over. I surveyed a world beyond the smell of chalk dust and the warble of Mrs. B’s voice.

Whether the punishment fit the crime, Mrs. B’s hard paddle stung. And I quivered – from embarrassment as much as pain. My classmates hadn’t often seen me blush or shed tears. A ringside seat today for both – at the front of the room.

As with most kids, distractions peppered my growing-up years. Sidelined once by teenage infatuation I entered a covert alliance with a girl. And nearly train-wrecked my bond with my parents.

Motor vehicles and distractions don’t do well together.

‘Reckon we ought to move his motor-bike outa the street?

 My head throbbed. I lay face-down. Struggled to make sense of the man’s folksy question.

 I had been trying out the used motorcycle dad recently helped me buy.

Turning onto Sixth Street from Wood Drive I concentrated on my lame foot.

The bike’s gears didn’t respond well to the efforts of my left heel. Normally the gear is shifted by the shoe toe. But polio left me with no upward lift. So I improvised. I sent my foot over and beyond the gear and lifted the lever with the back of my heel. The tactic hampered the shift. Brought Distraction.

I looked up and a car crossed before me from a side road. It was a safe distance ahead but its image spooked me. I seized the front brake. It locked and I tumbled headlong. I wore no helmet.

My white and black Honda lay on its side. I was transported by strangers and lain face-down in a grassy area at the street’s edge. After some moments I stirred. I lifted my head slightly and surveyed several pairs of shoes. The shoes faced me in a rough semicircle. It was then I heard the man’s matter-of-fact voice.

Gradually someone helped me up.

Thank you. I could at least speak.

 Another kind person steered me to a clinic just steps away.

The doctor studied a place on my forehead.

That’s a real goose egg you have, young man.

He shined a light in each eye, shared a cautionary remark and sent me on my way. Days afterward I pondered some questions. Significant ones for me.

What Good Samaritan saw me to the clinic?

Who covered the doctor’s visit (did anyone)?

Who retrieved my bike?

What mercy-givers hauled me out of harm’s way and onto the grass?

What unseen force, presence, or hand kept the goose egg from cracking?

 Thanksgiving wells up. Not to impersonal lucky stars.

Rather to one who – in faithfulness – attends to the inattentive. Delivers the distracted. And counsels. With wisdom.

Next time I rode, the helmet went on. And I traded distraction for vigilance. For awhile.

 

*Medical Interlude update. The hospital released my dear wife three days ago. She mends at home. Is better each day. Thank you, readers. Who’ve expressed care, offered prayers, well-wishes. We limp forward – my wife and me – in the company of really special people. Grateful.

©2015 Jerry Lout