Friday, August 30, 2013

The propagation of fear - What love can do




It was Sunday August 25th 2013 and Arlene and I were driving back on Route 52 coming from St. Stephen, SC.  We had just come from the canal on the Santee river which empties into lake Moultrie.  It’s one of our favorite walks although you have to be careful the dogs don’t go in the water without supervision…there’s many an alligator just waiting for a snarky border Collie and Wily Lab to just come passing by to make them brunch.

I was in a conversation with Arlene about New Mexico and whether her Aunt and Uncle’s stores they have there were doing well.  I was passing a large pickup truck, correctly I might add which was going a bit slower than my pace.  The speed limit on 52 in that rural part of Berkeley county is 60mph…but everyone does an average of 70+.  I must have been doing about 70 passing the truck very slowly.  Upcoming from the rear was a person in a white car taling me.  You know the type…no matter how fast you go they are easily going to outdo you by 10mph minimum.  Sometimes I will marvel at people sitting in a stiff position with a sort of a disconnected stare on their faces as they race past me at what appears to me crazy speeds.  I should talk…I used to be one of them. 

Apparently I was not passing the truck fast enough for the person in the white car so I sped up to pass the truck.  I learned (mostly from riding with my friend T.M. on motorcycles to just let people by.  He would always let cars by no matter what if they got too close. Thereby letting go of pride and the need to be "right").  It’s a great practice on a motorcycle and a great spiritual principle no matter what you drive….just let go.  So I sped up quite a bit and finally passed the truck, in making that pass I got up to appr. 80mph. 

Now this is where it gets interesting.  Usually the person races past you in the left lane and life is back to normal.  But sometimes you get someone that feels it is your responsibility to make their world go the way they want and think they need it to go.  So he does it…he slows down to confront me.  My window is open…it was a picture perfect day and one of those rare days the temperature was cool enough to keep the windows down in my wifes 2003 Rav 4. 

The interaction went something like this:

“Hey motherfucker, don’t you know what the fucking left lane is for?!  It’s for passing motherfucker!”  I retort:  “Yup, did you see the giant piece of metal right behind me I PASSED, they call that a TRUCK!” 

This is when he got really irate, it was as if I switched some “My dad made me feel like a fool and not good enough and what you just said is the exact way he did it" look.  He flipped out: 

“Fuck you!  I’ll kick your ass!” 

In which I retorded:  "We’re done!” 

And I turned and faced forward realizing to fuel this was not going to be a good thing.  He started yelling again in a car moving at 75 MPH right next to me. Why the hell was he so damn angry?  WTF?  I'm glad I don't feel that way much anymore.

…I glanced over and he reached down and pulled out a handgun and pointed it at my head...

  I swerved intuitively (A huge thanks goes out to Steven Jucks here.  My father in law who being a retired Police officer taught me that when your car swerves like that out of control always steer INTO the slide and not away from it.  I am not sure why but I remembered it flawlessly.  I hit the brakes as a second thought and he passed on.  But that was when I made the instantaneous decision to go after him.  It was not debated…I just knew it was the right thing to do.

Arlene being terrified was screaming “Stay away from him!  Don’t get close!”  I said to her…”This is just the right thing!”

And off I went, at first to just get his license plate but then turning into much more of an insight for me.  We were doing speeds of up to and over 100 mph, much of the time in 25mph zones.  I don’t know Goose Creek at all, we were driving at breakneck speeds through ;little neighborhoods with people out mowing lawns and kids playing.  By this time I was on the phone with 911 calling in every street we passed while he drove up on those same lawns people were mowing.  I had gotten his license plate but the 911 operator wanted me to keep going and let me know the major part of the Goose Creek police dept was converging on the area trying to block him off.  But at one point I glanced up and saw the 25mph sign and looked down at my speedometer.  I was doing 107mph…whoa.  I said it to her:  “He’s doing almost 110mph in a 25mph zone!”  She said slow DOWN sir!  I did and eventually lost him, only guessing as to where he went at the end of that road and the next. 

From there much happened and is still happening.  But the takeway for me is huge.  Here is a man who was engaging in fear (He had a gun ready to grab in the seat next to him).  He pointed it at me to scare me.  And I was the one chasing HIM!

Reap and sew
Judged, be judged
Measure it shall be measured unto you
Reap sparingly, sew sparingly
Reap abundantly. Sew abundantly
Living by sword, dying by sword
Speck in eye, log in eye

These teachings all came to mind plus many others afterwards.

I went home after the “ordeal” and took a nap.  Yup, I realized that every second after the reaction to swerve I felt no fear whatsoever.  I was calm (I want to see if I can obtain the 911 call but just found out I would need a subpoena) and he was contrastingly crazy in his actions and words.  In the world, you would have thought the one with the gun would have been the “powerful” one.  But here I was chasing him in my small Rav 4 on many deserted roads where he “could” have stopped and shot me or even scared me away.  But he ran…and oh did he run.  He lived in fear and his plan reaped what he lived in.  Karma means “action,”  you play in shit…you smell and look like shit.  You become shit.  I became more that just the man who was in the now or the guy whose mind wandered.  I was the observer watching it all occur.  This was huge for me, I saw the 3rd person we only become aware of in crisis situations and usually we are so traumatized we are not aware of that entity.

I am not saying this to toot my horn, for in fact I feel it is within all of us to find out with proof there is NOTHING to truly fear.  Yes we experience fear, but that is always a concept of future...but we do not HAVE to experience fear at all.  Since the truth is, there really is nothing to be afraid of "out there."

Arlene’s words before I took a nap were…”You’re going to take a nap.  He probably won’t sleep for a month.”

And I slept like a baby.  I actually forgot the incident until the sherrif called me 2 days later.  Wow, what Love can do.