The Dumbest Thing I've Ever Seen
My wife and I had just turned down a steep hill and noticed a stalled car on the other side of the street. Inside was a man; outside were a woman and a young girl, both poised to push the car up the hill. They obviously had never heard of gravity, and the man was pretending it didn't exist.
Another vehicle pulled up close behind the stalled car and stopped, waiting for the trio to move it out of the way. That driver must not have noticed what was going on, or he wouldn't have lingered on the downhill side of looming catastrophe.
The woman and girl hunker down, muscles tensed. The man quickly releases the brake. The car lurches backwards, bowling over both pushers. They seem surprised at not being able to defy gravity.
Death seems imminent, and my wife screams. The pushers are nanoseconds from a crushing demise when the brakeman awakens--and sets the brake. The pushers hop up and dust themselves off.
Though a bit dazed, they hunker down again as if nothing unusual had happened. The brakeman now has the door open, body half in and half out, ready to bothpush and brake. The driver of the other car has also leaped into the fray.
My wife excitedly shouts to the brakeman, "Do you need help! Should we call someone?" Giving her a blind-horse nod, his expressions says, "Are you crazy? We do this all the time."
They heave-ho once again... with the same near-disastrous results. Spurned in our attempt to help, we move on down the hill to avoid the sight of blood and broken bodies.
Then from out of nowhere a savior appears. A mammoth lad puts a massive shoulder into the fender, and the circus inches up the hill. End of story. All is well. They did it.
Some would say it doesn't matter how you do something--just do it. To them, the end justifies the means. But it simply isn't so. The pushers ignored the law of gravity and would have perished had it not been for unplanned and unexpected (and previously unwanted) intervention.
Some would likewise say it doesn't matter what you believe in... as long as you believe in something. Or, it doesn't matter what you read... as long as you read. Or, it doesn't matter what you eat... just eat. For them, the journey is more important than the destination. And thus they push uphill against known and irresistible laws, both physical and spiritual.
But our destinations in life, both physical and spiritual, are indeed all-important. We must pick our journeys them carefully to assure safe arrival. Our choices will decide.
When the future is unfolded, I'd hate for the annals of my life to conclude, "He was a pretty good fellow, but he did the dumbest things I've ever seen."
Copyright 2001 James McAlister
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