A typically crowded afternoon on the Phoenix freeways, as we came up to the stoplight at the top of an exit ramp near our home. We were already late for something, and like the other cars beside us, paused at the farthest acceptable edge of the intersection, watching eagerly for the light to change.
An SUV passing left-to-right in front of us opted to gun his engine to beat the last few seconds of yellow. He didn’t make it.
The driver next to us was watching the light, not the intersection, and mashed his pedal to the floor the moment he saw green.
He caught full-on the back right bumper of the speeding SUV, sending it into a two-wheel spin at what must have been 60 miles per hour. The SUV’s driver lost control. The vehicle somersaulted through the intersection, landing upside down about 50 yards down the street to our right.
Silence.
Suddenly, my wife spun our wheel and swung around the wounded car beside us, pulling sharply to the right across three lanes and over to the side of the road a few yards from the upside-down SUV. Through the shattered windshield, we could see inverted heads and limp movements as the passengers, in a heap and in shock, slowly worked to pry themselves from the vehicle.
Smoke was beginning to pour from under the crumpled hood.
“Uh, we better call 911,” I said. My wife was unbuckling her seat belt. “Wait a second,” I said.
Flames appeared at the SUV's engine. My wife was halfway out of the car.
“Whoa – wait a minute,” I said – but she was gone. I looked out to see her join the two or three others already running toward the burning vehicle.
There are two groups of people in this world. Those who run toward the fire, and those who hold back. In moments of physical crisis and action, my wife is a runner. Sad to say, I am less so.
When two men with knives came at us on a sidewalk in Belize a few years ago, she took one look and made like an Olympic sprinter. I needed a moment to think about what was happening, and by then, the guys with murder in their eyes had their knife points against my chest.
In my heart, I yearn to be as nimbly reactive and instinctively brave as the good guys I grew up watching on TV, but in truth, ‘m slow, as action heroes go. Danger turns my mind and limbs to maple syrup.
Perhaps I am not alone.
It seems, at this precipitous moment in our nation’s history, that a lot of us are frozen in place – not sure what to do, how to do it, when and where to go to take whatever the appropriate action might be to stop the people seizing power from destroying everything we believe in.
We look for leadership, and the leaders are gone. Those we look to in Congress, on the legal benches, in the pulpits for direction are silent. Embarrassed, or intimidated, apparently, at the prospect of having to stand boldly against the sweeping totalitarian tide.
We tell each other we’ll vote smarter two and four years from now – as if the people who worked to fix this last election will somehow have forgotten how to fix things, now that they’ve secured control over every element of the government.
We’ve got to talk to each other, we say, as the Big Tech potentates and their minions move to shut down free speech on the Internet, on the airwaves … as the corporations eagerly pledge to fire employees who express conservative beliefs, who march or speak in ways or on subjects the new regime doesn’t like.
We need to pool our resources, we say, as the government shuts down our businesses, and the financial giants begin considering how to take credit and assets away from those won’t shut up and do as they’re told.
Our forefathers would have been up on Bunker Hill by now. The tea would long since have sunk into Boston Harbor. The tyrants and fascists would worry to see us gathering with calm determination on whatever passes, these days, for the village green.
Our Allies around the world watch, jaws slack, as – overnight – the mighty nation they have feared, leaned on, and looked to as the last great lighthouse of liberty sinks beneath the surging waves of Leftism. Feel more than a little slack-jawed, myself.
Wish I knew what to do – what bugle to sound – where to urge that the battle be joined. On our knees, certainly … and ‘m not sure I mean that figuratively. Maybe a little extra physical humility is in order, now that we’ve been so painfully humbled. Now that so much of what we’ve confidently assumed about our great country is no more.
This, I know. We have come to a crossroads – an intersection in our nation’s history. We’re witnessing a terrible collision between two strong visions for our future.
The things we have believed in, the things we pledged to, sang about before the ball games, celebrated with our fireworks all those Fourths of July … are now suddenly, brutally, turned upside down.
People look on in shock. Hopes are starting to burn.
We either sit, frozen, helpless, and watch something good and wonderful die. Or we pray for wisdom, for boldness, for courage … and join those running toward the fire.
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