THE WHOLE WORLD IN HIS HANDS

Originally posted in 2013 without addendums...

I’m really lucky. I only have a 10 minute drive in to work. There is not really a lot that can happen to you in that 10 minutes.

Up ahead this morning there was a school bus stopped. It had the flashing yellow and red lights, and the STOP sign out. Traffic was stopped on both sides of the bus, and I was able to watch the bus driver do her business.

It seems this bus was equipped with a lift for a wheelchair, and at this particular stop, the woman driver was out and lowering it for a smiling young man in a wheelchair as his father looked on. Traffic was building on both sides of the bus as the lift slowly lowered. I watched the woman driver roll the young man onto the lift. The father handed him his lunchbox. I looked in the rear view mirror at the man behind me on his cell phone. I watched the oncoming cars, stopped now, motionless, except for the woman ahead absent-mindedly drumming her fingers on the steering wheel.

It was like the whole wide world had stopped, and would stay stopped as the bus driver secured the chair to the lift with a strap; that time would stretch itself out while the lift slowly rose. That for just five minutes the earth had stopped its rotation and this child in the wheelchair was the center of the universe, the most important person in the world, and I sensed that no one in any of the stopped cars was in any kind of hurry, that no one felt put out, and it made me feel proud to live in a country that would take this kind of care for one single person. To live in a school district that is able to do this. Maybe not all of them can, I don't know. Seldom do I get to notice such a manifestation of my taxes doing such good work.

My heart swelled, it really did, and now the smiling driver rolled the chair from the lift into the bus, and I wondered how the kids in the bus felt about taking a moment this morning, taking a moment every morning, to get their pal loaded up. I wondered if anyone said “good morning”, or helped get him strapped safely into his spot on the bus. I wondered if he was a good student. The lift disappeared into the bus, and the driver smiled at the boy’s father, who smiled back, then looked up to see me.

Me, also smiling now, having witnessed this act of care play out. She smiled and gave me a happy little wave, got on the bus and after a long moment the lights stopped blinking and the STOP signs disappeared, traffic resumed and the world started back to its business again.

The whole world in His hands.

My moment of Zen.

Addendum: Since writing this I have had the privilege of sitting behind the bus on a number of occasions. One morning I had a Spiritual Awakening. This was about much more that my tax dollars at work, or living in a caring, nurturing country. It was about my Second Tradition. "For our Group Purpose there is but one Ultimate Authority; a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience". Indeed! And here I am, waiting on the bus and watching Him express Himself.

Addendum #2: I told someone who drives one of these buses my story. She told me that what I couldn't see was that there is a person on the bus that receives the kid, and gets him all strapped in and settled. Isn't it marvelous? The things going on that we cannot see?