June 11, 2010

Out of Sight

When my kids were eligible to drive I taught them my version of defensive driving, ‘Always expect the other guy to do something stupid.’ Recently as I was preparing to turn right on a red light, I had to pull out a little into the crosswalk to see around the cars waiting for the green light. From out of nowhere a man in an electric scooter whizzed past my bumper and up onto the sidewalk. It was a close enough call that I immediately began thanking God for my guardian angel. It dawned on me that conceivably there were actually two guardian angels…one for me and one for my wheelchair bound friend. “When did we see you…” Matt 25:37-38

1 comment:

Steve Corey said...

Gail;

-----One of my clients was descending the west slope of Monarch Pass shortly after midnight during the Winter of 2000. A vehicle full of skiers ascending the pass lost control on the snow packed road and struck him head-on. He took the steering wheel in the throat. His windpipe was crushed. Someone claiming to be a doctor performed a tracheotomy at the scene, and saved his life. None of the skiers saw any vehicles come or go by the time he had arrived, saved my client’s life, and left. Another friend was nearly struck by a vehicle while she was in a cross-walk. She actually felt the hand that shoved the middle of her back so hard she was thrown from her feet to safety. But the vehicle proceeded on its way without striking whoever shoved her, because there was no one there. My Dad related to me a story about what must have been an angel who told him how to save the Highway 348 bridge in Olathe from the 1984 raging Uncompahgre River. Most people have also heard stories, or have their own, about guardian angels intervening during tough situations. I love these guys.
-----If we could actually see everything there is, I am certain you would have seen your guardian angel salute, high-five, or somehow celebrate their accomplishment with the one of your wheelchair friend. They are real. The only thing that bothers me about their presence is that mine sees me pick my nose when nobody’s looking. But aside from that, I love to ponder the unseen. And I like to dig at hard-core atheists over its extent and implications.
-----Science believes what it sees. And that is good. It is seen because it exists. Since it exists, it must be believed. But it remains that science can only see what is discernable to the five senses and the machinery we make which detects what is too small, too distant, or too ethereal to register upon our senses. And that is all. The implication an atheist draws from seeing all that can be seen is that it is all there is too see. This is kind of dumb. Especially considering that science itself detects more to see which it has not yet seen, suspects it is there without having seen it, and henceforth develops the equations and machinery to bring it eventually into sight. Galileo did it with the telescope. In the twentieth century subatomic physicists did it with the particle accelerator. And presently, cosmologists are grappling to discover what they call dark energy and dark matter, having seen not them, but only their effects. Still they believe in dark energy and dark matter without having seen them.
-----Yet, all around them are genuinely good folks who testify to having seen what does not come from this physical universe. If they would listen to them reasonably, rather than discounting them as crazed, psychotic, or simply liars, their eyesight would be extended as much as it is by mathematical equations, telescopes, particle accelerators, and other machinery. And if they would consider the testimony of men who wrote their experiences in the Bible along with everything they experience themselves, they would note the effects of another realm upon the past and present events of our physical lives. They would search for it, too. And they might also become a little timid about picking their noses when nobody else is watching.

Love you all,
Steve Corey