Our friends get hit by cars. Often. Can you count how many times you’ve received a call that your friend or loved one has been hit by a car? I can’t. I never dreamed these would be the calls our staff team would receive so often.
Why? Lots of complex and various reasons from a physical viewpoint. I’ll share the big one, but hopefully you’ll allow me to get philosophical for a moment after that.
Here’s the most obvious reason why our friends get hit by cars: because they are pedestrians, always on foot. Always walking to get to where they need to go. Our friends might catch a bus only to then walk a mile or so to their final destination. Walking often happens after dark and our friends wear dark clothes or coats. They may cross streets outside of designated crosswalks out of a sense of necessity. There are many factors, but it’s almost always a lack of visibility from one side or both.
In a big city with heavy traffic, the odds are ever against them.
This past December, one of our good friends and current DBLA participants called to let Tami know that he had been hit. He wanted her to know that he wasn’t going to be in class on Monday. When she asked what happened, he said that he didn’t remember anything but knew that he had been hit by a car and was in the hospital. He experienced broken bones, damaged organs, and still has a long road of recovery ahead.
Please pray for this young man with us, if you’re up for it. It can be as simple as your breath. Breathe in awareness of his reality, and then breathe out in recognition, saying with us, “I see you. I SEE you. I SEE YOU. Even if that car didn’t, I see you.”
We’ve lost a few of our friends who have been hit, sat next to others for days in the hospital, and have supported others in recovery with food, friendship, and care. Just like sharing food, clothes, and survival gear is a normal part of our service, tending to those hit by cars is too.
The Vector of Visibility
It’s a pattern that I now see, and my curiosity is suddenly awakened.
On the one hand, getting hit by a car wakes you up. One thing is for sure: when the collision occurs, lives are changed forever. Every single time. There’s a part of me that holds space for the transformation that often follows such a tragedy, where destiny forces a shift that comfort never could.
On the other hand, maybe there’s an even larger story unfolding. Perhaps it’s all a cosmic way for the invisible to become visible once again. My friends are societal blind spots. And as millions of citizens move about their life, each carrying their unique burdens and joys and pursuits and concerns, there remains an ever-present invitation to see each other once again on the deepest levels.
When a collision occurs, neither party ever forgets it. Shock and trauma open a door. The moment forever seals something, perhaps even an awakening, into each person’s soul. These collisions force a connection. Rubber, aluminum, and steel catalyze in a crash that connects the lives of the unhoused and the driving public into a vector of forced visibility. “I see you now.”
Neighbors and passersby run to the scene to offer selfless, unquestioned care and concern for all involved. Labels are dropped. The most courageous don’t even think twice. They become blindingly present to lives that they previously had not needed to notice. For most involved, impact is not the end; it is the beginning of new awareness.
Collisions Everywhere
The physical impact on the street, like the one our friend experienced in December, is one kind of collision. But these visible collisions where two previously unrelated worlds are violently brought together are happening in countless other ways, almost all the time.
A boat is bombed in the Caribbean and it awakens me to lives marooned in poverty and the violence of drug trafficking as well as the loyal compliant soldiers who pull the triggers. An ICE agent throws a mom to the ground and rips a baby from her hands which creates a collision that makes me look into the pain of the immigrant as well as the immense fear and anger of the masked American agent. As you turn on the news this year, you’re seeing collision after collision. What messages are they speaking to your heart and soul?
There are countless vectors of collision all around us. Some we ignore, but so many that we can’t ignore or unsee. Anytime you hear sirens, see strobing red and blue lights, or hear a news story that stops your heart, pause and breathe into the moment. Look. See. And know that another collision has occurred in someone’s real life that is inviting new awareness even for you.
A Prayer of Participation
Your breath can be your prayer and your participation:
- Breathe in the moment with presence.
- Breathe out a blessing of healing and safety.
- Breathe in recognition of the individual souls and stories you witness.
- Breathe out the falsehood of our separation and otherness.
- Breathe in the beauty and miracle of how connected we actually are.
- Breathe out a renewed commitment to see beyond the surface of labels and judgements.
- Pause and rest in what is.
Then, do this with everyone that you see as you drive or walk down the street or go to work. Breathe your prayer of blessing and recognition long before a collision occurs. Foster a willingness and an intention of seeing those you aren’t seeing yet, allowing the invisible others in our world to be seen long before a violent impact occurs.
For those of us aligned in the Ways of Jesus, recall the countless collisions and ensuing moments of seeing that unfold in the Gospels. From the woman caught in adultery to the paralytic dropped through the ceiling to the cleansing of the temple and healing on the Sabbath. In practicing the ways of Jesus, may we breathe in and out the invitation to loving unity that collision may birth. And may we move towards the Prince of Peace who doesn’t require a collision before we begin to see, but instead extends an open invitation to see now.
So, we pray for the unseen among us. “I breathe in awareness of what was previously a blind spot. I breathe out recognizing them as a part of the Whole.
I see you. I SEE you. I SEE YOU.”
Breathe until no more clash is needed.
