keep me

the honk and the words "F---- Youuuuu" screamed in my direction snapped me out of my early morning reverie. A lady in a silver car was slightly in front of me, at the end of the on-ramp next to me, her window rolled down, cussing me out. I was eating a granola bar, listening to my book on tape, blindly following the car in front of me, in this typical bumper to bumper traffic that I knew would go on for the next hour. She didn't have her blinker on, wasn't trying to merge, and yet somehow decided I wasn't letting her in.

She pulled in behind me, and then a few minutes later, pulled alongside me on the other side of my car, and started screaming out her window at me again. I rolled up my window and turned up my book on tape, shaken, but resolute to give her nothing back. I couldn't believe she could be sooo angry, and wondered if screaming at me made her feel better. I started to really hate my commute again, but then looked at all the thousands of cars around me, and realized this was the first time I had ever been cussed out on the freeway, and for driving 3 hours a day, really, I had made some mistakes, but besides a random honk or two, no one had ever gotten this angry. So, she was an anomaly, not the average. I also wondered what kind of person she was like when she wasn't in a car, and if anyone I knew would make such an outrageous fool of themselves when provoked. It was embarrassing for her, I was embarrassed for her. For humanity. Sad, too.

That afternoon I went to the lake and sat on a bench eating my McDonald's. The lake was pure sparkling blue, the sky cloudless, and the wind gentle. Birdsong and waves filled my head. An older man with a walking stick came walking up to my bench, and in a friendly way he told me not too look too long at the lake, it would be dangerous for me. it was as though he had read my mind, as I was thinking that i would just spend all day here, at lake's edge. I said to him, yeah, i may never go back to work! He stopped and looked at me full-on, and exclaimed yes! exactly! you get it. and he went on to tell me he was in double danger, as he had a house on the lake in northern wisconsin, and had just come from there, and had a boat that he spent all his time on, named Wavewalker, after Star Wars. He said when he pulled the boat in for the final time yesterday, the boat had said to him, when are you coming back? and he laughed. I listened to him, fascinated, this old man was a kindred spirit, i knew it immediately. And strangely, he had the most vividly blue eyes, the exact same color of the lake. His eyes were otherworldly, I have never seen eyes like that, and couldn't tear my eyes away from his. they seemed to glow, almost. and after he walked on, I wondered if I had just encountered an angel.

The message, I think, was this: humans yes, can make you sad. can hurt you. but don't give up, on all humanity. keep hope. there are others who will buoy you up, and tell you about their boat that spoke to them, share their joy in the lake and nature, stop and have a friendly word, and go on. that, and God will keep me, will send me exactly what I need, exactly when I need it. I can trust him, for it has been proven to me, over and over and over.

it will all be ok.