July 31st, 2007 - An Interesting Day

2:00 pm

So today has been an interesting day so far… yah.. (this is a long and heavy entry, so don’t try to read it quickly)

We ended off last night with a bit of a scare. I woke up to some slamming noise. It was close to my head and very loud. It took a bit for me to wake up. It was dark, and I could not see much. All I could see was something moving in the corner. After a while of not knowing what to do, I figured out that it was the bathroom door mirror. It was slamming shut. I still wasn’t sure what was making it do that, but I got up (cuz I’m the hubby and its my job to protect my cute little wife) and went and investigated. It turns out it was only the wind, which was blowing really hard. It was slamming the door shut and rattling the mirror in the door. I am not sure how it didn’t break the mirror. So I put my shoes in front of the door (you know how big they are) and it seemed to make it stay shut. I know that I should have turned off the light and gone to sleep… but I didn’t… I left the bathroom light on and happily snoozed.

I got up this morning and thought it must have been noon cuz I slept so long. However, it was only 8am. It must get bright early here. We got up and were served a wonderful breakfast of croissants, bread, jelly, honey, coffee, juice, fruit cups, and bruchetta. It was pretty good. The best part was eating on the rooftop with a fabulous view. The wind was blowing pretty hard and the waves were much bigger then yesterday. I couldn’t wait to take lots of pretty pictures!

After breakfast we borrowed the bikes from the family we are staying with and rode all around. Well, actually, first I went up to the very top of the roof and took about 200 pictures. Yes, that is a lot, but most of them were panoramics so that takes a bunch. I look forward to seeing how those turn out.

We rode through town and up into the mountains. Well, it was like a 20% grade so we didn’t get very far into the mountains. The sweat was worth it. We got a very nice view. We would have gone further, but we didn’t know how much further the road would go straight up and the bikes were a bit old and I didn’t totally trust them. On top of that, the road was, like any mountain road, pretty narrow, and had no shoulder. So we were riding pretty close to the traffic. Better safe then sorry.

While going back into town, we saw a little snack stand called Giuseppe Verdi. YAH! My favorite composer. The raw power of his ‘Requiem’ and ‘La Forza Del Destino’ take my breath away. Think the power of ‘Mars’, the excitement of ‘Gladiator’, and the feeling of the Imperial Death March and you’ve got part of these two pieces. Fun fun.

So we stopped and got an ice cream bar. WOW. It was really good. It was one of those packaged ones, but was surprisingly tasty. It had a thick chocolate shell, a kinda cookie crust under the shell, and then chocolate ice cream in the middle. Very very yummy. Probably the best packaged ice cream bar I’ve ever had.

To make things even yummier, there was a fig tree next to the stand and so I plucked a few ripe ones. I LOVE figs. I am going to have permanently sticky lips after eating all the figs over here. While I was scouring the tree, and Italian guy walked by and, while laughing, said I was a thief and was going to get arrested. Having plucked what I could, we rode on. And this is where the day gets interesting.

Today… well today I was reminded once again how quickly one’s circumstances can change. I was reminded how fragile life is. I was reminded how very precious our blessings are. That being said… 1) We are fine. Don’t freak out. 2) However, if you don’t handle bad things very well, then skip to the next entry. (?:00 pm - The Rest of the Day)

So having enjoyed a wonderful ice cream bar and happily eaten some figs, we were riding our bikes away from the stand and witnessed something I really wish I hadn’t. A flatbed truck was turning left into a driveway and for whatever reason, the moped going the other way didn’t see him/ couldn’t stop in time. He swerved to avoid the flatbed but only succeeded in sliding into the wheel of the truck. His moped went one way and he ended up under the wheel of the truck. I’ll spare you the details, but basically, he was laying there in pretty bad shape (still alive though). The people around immediately got out and called 911 (or it’s Italian equivalent). They didn’t move him, which I think is best because one should not be moved unless life is in immediate danger. Fortunately a cop drove by about then and started helping out. I really didn’t know what to do so I kinda directed traffic for a second. I didn't know what else to do. I cant speak Italian, I’m not a doctor. I could do more harm then good if I tried to move/help him. And I was kinda at a loss. So I just… yah…

The other thing was that I had my wife to consider… I didn’t want her to have to say there and there was really nothing we could do since the cops were there, so we just left. And I am really really happy that Bwige was far back so she didn’t see most of it.

So what now.. I really don’t know. I don’t know how to process it. I don’t know what to do now. We stopped about a block away and prayed for him. Other than that.. .what do we do? How do we process it? How do we proceed with our trip? Besides the obvious answer of don’t rent a moped, we are at a loss.

First, God definitely knew what he was doing when he programmed our brains. When faced with a really bad situation, the brain automatically shuts down. All consciousness and anything else not necessary for sustaining life goes away. This is a good thing. That way, if you are losing blood, the heart will stop pumping to that limb. If you have just experienced trauma, the brain shuts down your thinking so that 1) you don’t have to remember it, and 2) you don’t have to be in excruciating pain. That’s good. The guy who got run over was not in pain because he was just laying there. HE was breathing but not writhing in pain. So I’m very glad for that.

Next… well its not a question of God’s goodness. Because we make bad choices. Maybe the truck turned when he should not have. Maybe the moped was driving too fast. I don’t think its God’s responsibility to keep bad things from happening. How would we operate if God suspended reality every time someone did something stupid. And its obviously a totally different level, but humans learn through pain. A kid learns that MAYBE just maybe mama knows what shes talking about when she says not to touch the pretty red circles on the stove. The scar will always be a reminder of that. Yes, spanking hurt. But next time little Amy wants to take a cookie without asking, she will remember the pain of the paddle; especially since mom used the one with the holes in it to get more airspeed. Then, later in life, little Amy wont get arrested for stealing a car because her clepto-tendencies were nipped in the bud.

However, these are small things. How does one process big pain? What do I do with the images I have in my head? Like the image of the SUV rolling end-over-end down the highway, these will never leave me… and I know that I really cant DO anything. I can pray for him, but that’s about it. The question is, how do I process this? What do I do with these facts? How do I continue with my vacation when some guy is in the hospital right now fighting for his life? How do I relax when some little girl is asking why daddy can’t walk anymore?

How many people are processing pain every day and we don’t know it? People 2 blocks away walked happily along as we rode farther from the accident, oblivious to the tragedy only 100 yards beyond them. Yet don’t we do that every day? Every time you hear the ambulance drive by in the distance, someone’s life has just been radically altered.

Let me take it a step further. What about the places where pain is a way of life. The places in Africa where the children have to walk 20 miles to find a safe place to sleep because marauding bands of teenagers wander the cities at night raping and killing anyone they find. What about the middle east, where bombs shred bodies like rag dolls. Over there they live in constant fear. Will I be next? Will my husband return home? Will mommy come back from the market? Will Johnny come back from school? Or will my precious little boy be taken captive by the terrorists and shot in the head? Will my husband be slowly killed by the bomb that went off as he drove by.

I think…. I think that we have a few choices. 1) We can get bitter. We can get angry with God for allowing such unspeakable things to happen. However, I don’t think this is the best answer because almost every time that I know of it is humans, not God who has done the horrible thing. We have free choice, tragedy is a necessary result of free will.

2) We can hide in fear. We can never put ourselves in a situation that we could be harmed. Don’t drive. Don’t go into town. However, this seems equally unacceptable. The life unlived is worth nothing. Your house could collapse around you. The food you eat could be poisoned. An earthquake could devastate your neighborhood. A meteorite could smash your house into bits… living in fear does no good. You can not control the circumstances around you. So get on with life. Otherwise you will be paralyzed. (Obviously, this does not mean do whatever, only, live life in a reasonably safe manner and don’t worry about the rest.)

3) Allow tragedy to pull you closer to God. I think this is the only good answer to a bad question. In this fallen world, full of pain, we know that our lives are only temporary; shadows of what will be. In the next world, life will not have car crashes and explosions and wars. We will be living as life was designed to be. However, we can only see that life through foggy glass. We can get glimpses of it, but not see it clearly. But we know its there. We look forward to it. The pain we experience now is bearable because we know that true joy is coming. Imperfection serves to enhance perfection. Pain allows one to look forward more to the pleasure. When our focus is on the light at the end of the tunnel it makes the shadows and the darkness bearable. We can ignore the monsters around every corner when we know that if we just stare straight ahead, the light will be here soon.

When little kids go camping, they love playing all day long. However, with the setting of the sun comes darkness, shadows, and uncertainty. The security of home has melted into the distance and the ambiguity of night swallows them up like a monster. The ominous sounds of the night invade their sense of security. The wolves may be howling on a distant peak, or they could be hungrily circling the tent, waiting for those inside to fall asleep…

And through the terror gripping the soul of that precious little child, what is the one thought that gets them through? Morning. The sunrise. The warm light that will vanquish the shadows and banish the monsters. The howling will stop and security will return. Hope rises with the rays of daybreak.

Morning has arrived! Joy upon joys! Now the little children can dance and sing over the falling of a leaf. The light of day is enhanced by the darkness of night. The warmth of the sun is enjoyed more because the cold night has just passed.

Maybe that is what heaven is. Maybe that’s how we are supposed to process pain. Yes, its bad; but its part of life. But maybe the pain is supposed to make us long for heaven. Like that little child counts down the seconds till first light, we are supposed to yearn for the presence of our father. Just as you ignore the shadows and focus your mind on the morning, we are supposed to set our eyes on things unseen. Heaven. The perfect, joyous presence of God Almighty. Compared to an eternity of praise of the one beyond words of adoration, the passing shadows of night here on earth seem to fade away.

?:00 pm - The Rest of the Day

We took lots of pretty pictures, relaxed, and ate dinner... and it will all be expanded upon soon.