What's most true really IS true

Yesterday our car was stolen. From our driveway. With my purse inside.

We didn’t discover this until around 10 am when it was time to drive somewhere and the car was just… gone. Looking back at the ring cam, we saw Andy strolling without pause across the naked concrete at 7:30 on his way to class. I walked the dog at 6:30 am through the empty driveway without a thought. Further back, 4:23 am, car. 5:23 am, no car. It pops like a bubble out of the picture.

   

It took another fifteen minutes after discovery of the stolen car to realize my purse (and key fob) had been inside. The afternoon before, I had picked up Maisy after a class canoe trip, and carried in her camping gear instead of carrying in my purse. 

My stomach dropped, my heart started pounding and my mind spinning. No. No! 

I was supposed to leave in 36 hours to fly to New Jersey for a conference, to stay in a hotel and rent a car to visit Owen. How would I do these things without my driver’s license? Credit cards? How would Andy travel that afternoon if our accounts are compromised? How far had the damage already reached? How could I stem the risk?  Now I would spend the whole, frantic day doing damage control.  

Our 18-year-old neighbor, Gigi, came over.  While I made agitated phone calls to the police, insurance, and credit cards, pacing the house and swearing liberally while on hold, Gigi and Maisy calmly phoned the ring company and car company and held ground under my swirling.  Pulse racing, hands cold and fingers tingling, I could feel the adrenaline rushing through me. People asked me numbers I had memorized and I couldn’t remember them. Maisy deftly swept through her photos to zoom in on our license plate and calmly recite it to me so I could tell the police.

But for all the drama of yesterday, a clear and unexpected theme rose up: kindness. Human connection. I believe with my head, and even with my heart, that we all belong to God and we all belong to each other. I believe this, and preach this, and try to live my life in this direction. But yesterday I lived it in my body. In my neighbors. In my friend who said his afternoon was free and he’d be happy to pick me up to run errands with me, and another friend who texted me this poem (from Leaf Litter by Jarod K. Anderson) that was somehow exactly what I needed in that first half hour.

I like to tell people we are all ministers, made in the image of a ministering God, here on this planet to care for one another and be cared for. And then yesterday I was cared for by the police officer who told me it was not my fault – purse and keys inside or not – I did not steal a car.  I was ministered to by the neighbor who immediately pulled her own car around front and said, “I’m not using it today, take it.” I was cared for and carried forward by the cheerful new bank manager, in her achingly earnest office, with artful stacks of leadership books and diagrams of positive affirmations pinned up above her desk behind silly photos of her two dogs. She opened one of the many, tidy binders and swiped through pages of screenshots to figure out how to make me a new debit card on the spot. “I don’t know much about the system yet, but this, I think I can do!” When my body hit the chair in the DMV, holding only a borrowed car key, and my passport, insurance statement, and checkbook, I felt myself go still inside. Absolutely motionless. The roiling urgency drained from me and pooled up on the floor, leaving me empty and quiet. I had made all the calls I could make. The cards were locked down. The insurance was handled. The police report was filed. There was nothing for me to do but wait. I didn’t have the attention span to scroll my phone, or focus on the gripping novel on my kindle app. I just sat. I sat amongst other humans for an hour and a half. And what I witnessed was kindness. Belonging in action. Slouching in seats and leaning along the wall with sixty other people from all walks of life, in all manner of need, we helped each other figure out which lines to stand in. Nodded greetings. Gave up chairs for one another. The women behind the counter were infinitely patient and pleasant, putting their full, competent attention onto each individual person when their number came up.  Yesterday evening my doorbell rang. It was the newish neighbor from across the street, the one I don’t know well. Earlier in the day, on my way to the bank, she’d stopped me. She’d seen in the online neighborhood group that my car had been stolen, and had wanted to express her condolences, “We’re all in this together,” she’d said. And she too had offered her car. “I barely use it. I’m retired. Next week we are leaving for six months to travel. Seriously, I’d be honored if you used it.” I thanked her and was deeply moved by her kindness. We exchanged phone numbers. But truthfully, there was no way I’d be borrowing her car. I believe we all belong to each other. But in practice, I prefer to handle things myself.  When I answered the door last night, she was standing there with her keys and insurance card. She opened my hand and pressed them in my palm. “Please,” she said, “take it. I believe God puts us across each other’s paths for a reason.” I started to cry a little. That made her cry a little. “May I?” she asked, and she leaned in and gently hugged me. Before dark I pulled her car into our driveway and texted her my gratitude. She answered, “Wishing you a better day tomorrow.” I replied, “Today was pretty amazing actually. Kindness everywhere.” Yesterday our car was stolen from our driveway with my purse inside. I spent the whole day doing damage control. The most I could muster foodwise was a 4 pm bowl of the same oatmeal I’d eaten at 6 am.   But last night I went to bed full.  I fell asleep utterly awake to the reality of the love that holds us, humbled by the avalanche of care that had been showered on me, and feeling tangibly the belonging that binds us all together. Thanks be to God. Amen.