The Cockroach and the Drug Addict
In a classic repetition of the story of the Good Samaritan, last night we passed by a guy in a truck that had hit a pole in a parking lot. We skirted him broadly as some kind of "druggie" that must be completely wacked out. Ok, probably he was. He had appeared to do no more than damage a headlight and dent a bumper. And maybe it would have been dangerous for us to just go up to him and "engage", but probably not. Clearly there was an image of danger in our minds, of him not wanting our interference, but there was also at least an element of disgust of some guy with issues he can't control, behaving irresponsibly. Clearly engaging with him involved some risk, not least of which was the trouble of taking some responsibility for his problems. Still, thinking deeper and now feeling the bite of conscience, if that is the right word, we made a lot of poor assumptions about this fellow man who might have been at least a little hurt and dazed as we passed by. Or was it not exactly as God intended? Could our ignoring him have been the answer to his silent prayer; our best service to him?
Then in the morning, there in my clean hotel bathtub shower, serene and pristine, in the harsh light of early morning, just awake under the bright fluorescence, was a big ugly black cockroach. This was the kind of cockroach that cries out to be crushed with all the horrible mushy experience of runny brownish guts spewing out around while legs squirm and antennae wiggle. And yes, mixed with that even more unpleasant possibility of his deceptive burst of speedy, flying, attacking powers invading my own person. Still, I had him dead to rights. He was a lonely sitting duck, somehow fallen into the tub with no chance of escape up the slippery sides. But something that morning told me that even this cockroach held life, life eternal, life force, life sacred, life precious. And that something was more than just the mind, more a test of the connectedness of things, more a test of how I treat the cockroach and the drug addict.
Did I somehow make up for being the bad Samaritan by wrapping up the cockroach in a hand towel and tossing him outside in the land of concrete where there must somewhere be a crack he could scramble down? I say, "yes" only because in the case of the presumed druggie I felt no real compulsion to act. I did not even really occur to me that we should look to see if the driver was alright, or to call the cops. There was no sense of something reminding me of that dusty road to Jericho long ago; no call from God. Unlike when I looked down at that ugly cockroach thing, which normally seem to deserve a good smushing if anything does. We can only be responsible for the moral challenges that we are aware of and that God calls us to; this is, after all, Rabbinic law. The coincidence then implies that God acts not only in our lives, but when we fully understand, he acts in every moment of our lives.
This discourse leaves out the question one might expect the title to address of how we confront evil. Are the cockroaches worth crushing and the drug addicts supposed to be skirted to be left in their own misery? I suspect most would say, "crush the cockroach and call the cops" (which quite probably would have made the whole thing worse for the driver and certainly for the cockroach). What I am saying is "it depends" and I mean that "it depends on God". It depends on what moral lesson God is asking you, or not, to examine. This life then is a morality play, challenging us to learn what we need to in each of those moments God lives in, in order to be ready for what dreams may come.
Then in the morning, there in my clean hotel bathtub shower, serene and pristine, in the harsh light of early morning, just awake under the bright fluorescence, was a big ugly black cockroach. This was the kind of cockroach that cries out to be crushed with all the horrible mushy experience of runny brownish guts spewing out around while legs squirm and antennae wiggle. And yes, mixed with that even more unpleasant possibility of his deceptive burst of speedy, flying, attacking powers invading my own person. Still, I had him dead to rights. He was a lonely sitting duck, somehow fallen into the tub with no chance of escape up the slippery sides. But something that morning told me that even this cockroach held life, life eternal, life force, life sacred, life precious. And that something was more than just the mind, more a test of the connectedness of things, more a test of how I treat the cockroach and the drug addict.
Did I somehow make up for being the bad Samaritan by wrapping up the cockroach in a hand towel and tossing him outside in the land of concrete where there must somewhere be a crack he could scramble down? I say, "yes" only because in the case of the presumed druggie I felt no real compulsion to act. I did not even really occur to me that we should look to see if the driver was alright, or to call the cops. There was no sense of something reminding me of that dusty road to Jericho long ago; no call from God. Unlike when I looked down at that ugly cockroach thing, which normally seem to deserve a good smushing if anything does. We can only be responsible for the moral challenges that we are aware of and that God calls us to; this is, after all, Rabbinic law. The coincidence then implies that God acts not only in our lives, but when we fully understand, he acts in every moment of our lives.
This discourse leaves out the question one might expect the title to address of how we confront evil. Are the cockroaches worth crushing and the drug addicts supposed to be skirted to be left in their own misery? I suspect most would say, "crush the cockroach and call the cops" (which quite probably would have made the whole thing worse for the driver and certainly for the cockroach). What I am saying is "it depends" and I mean that "it depends on God". It depends on what moral lesson God is asking you, or not, to examine. This life then is a morality play, challenging us to learn what we need to in each of those moments God lives in, in order to be ready for what dreams may come.
posted by Intomyown at 3:37 AM
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