There but for the Grace of God…

How often do you find yourself in a situation where a close call or narrow escape makes you wonder, “what if?” I imagine all of us can call to mind at least one such occasion in our lives. A few weeks ago my wife and I dodged a bullet, or in this case, a blown tire that turned a routine drive into a harrowing moment on I-25 just south of Denver. Cruising at 70+ mph in the middle lane, fast-moving cars and trucks on both flanks, I felt a jolt under my Camry that made me think I had just run over something large. Having not seen anything in front of me nor in the rear-view mirror, I feared I had dropped some vital piece of engine equipment. In a matter of seconds, however, it became clear what had happened:  I blew a tire.

Gripping my now compromised steering wheel I inched my way toward the right shoulder, looking for a seam in which I could ease our car into the right lane, all the while searching for a safe haven on the shoulder to bring our damaged vehicle to a stop. Seeing one up ahead I managed to pull over, turn off the engine, and make a careful assessment of the damage. Left rear tire, not only flat, but blown apart. 

With the din and windy whoosh of vehicles speeding within feet of me, I tried to focus on changing our shredded rear tire, a chore I had done only once or twice in my life, and some years ago. But since this wasn’t rocket science, the task wasn’t out of reach for me to take on. After some sweat and strain the job was done and we made it safely back home on 3 wheels and a donut. 

It was then that the more grim reality of what might have happened started weighing on my mind.What if I lost complete control of the vehicle and swerved into another lane? What if the car flipped over? What if my wife and I had been severely injured, or even killed, and what if this mishap had caused harm to others on the road? There but for the grace of God…? 

This recent close call reminded me of my fascination with how we humans try to make sense of those times when the wheel falls off the wagon, which on this hot June afternoon, was literally the case. I imagine some of us adopt a Forrest Gump “S**t happens” posture, or the less vulgar French way of putting it, “c’est la vie” or even the Italian, “que sera, sera.” Each voices the stoic outlook that whatever happens to us is a random event with no more reason or explanation than what can be explained by the law of cause and effect. Others prefer to look for an underlying or higher meaning or purpose in the day-to-day course of our lives. Clearly that is what is implied when, after a close brush with disaster, we say things like…

It pays to be luckier than good.

What goes around comes around.

Somebody up there likes me.

God was watching over us.

Thank you, Jesus!

Each of these statements is a rationalization of sorts—an attempt to find some reason, some logic, some explanation that makes sense in explaining what happened—and what didn’t. Yet in calling to mind my own and others’ “near misses” it seems that they all fall into one of these three possibilities:

·      First, there is an underlying “law” or “way” in which the universe works that is always seeking equilibrium over time. Good and bad events are evidences of this principle at work, which we can only understand “after the fact.” The Hindu and Buddhist belief in karma and the Chinese philosophical concept of Tao seem be ways of expressing such an understanding;

·      Second, there are forces beyond our control that are revealed in history and in our lives that, even though we may not understand why or how, seem to favor some people with blessings and favorable outcomes. Whether we call this providence or the will of God, we count on these interventions and are happy to offer our prayers of thanks when, in retrospect, we believe we’ve been so blessed;

·      And third, living as we do in a thoroughly random universe governed only by the rule of causation, life’s chips fall where they may with no supernatural agencies favoring one over another. Anything is possible, perhaps even if accidentally so. Chance, free will and the immutable laws of physics are the only certainties in explaining what happens to any of us at any time and place.

I suspect each of us favors one, or perhaps more than one of these sense-making stories of why things happen as they do. So as I have been pondering my most recent brush with disaster I’m wondering which one satisfies both my mind and my heart. First off, knowing what might have occurred, and being fully aware of what could have happened, I am greatly relieved. Whew!  We somehow lived to see another day. At a feeling level, then, I can’t help but be thankful, gratified as I am that this close call was just that—close, but not devastating.  Yet in expressing my thanks to God—as is my spiritual inclination—I do so with some degree of uneasiness. In fact, the ambivalent feelings with which I’m wrestling may well be the source of much of the religious fall-out and disaffection that foments doubt and turns faith into cynicism for so many people.

My quandary is simply put:  dare I praise God for somehow saving us when so many other people, far more deserving of favor than me, have been maimed or killed in similar circumstances? Claiming a blessing from God always comes with the unavoidable indictment of this same God for not saving, not sparing or not protecting others in their moments of danger and crisis. Any special dispensation favoring us or those whom we love must be reconciled with the absence of such blessings given to others whom we claim are equally loved and cared for by God.  Saying “it is not for us to understand now, but we will someday” seems to beg the question in my mind.  Not only that, it may convey a spiritual smugness to those for whom life has not been so touched by blessings and victorious outcomes.

My scientific training and philosophical pragmatism keep me rooted in the quest to find reasonable, verifiable explanations for everything we experience as humans living on planet earth. At the same time my faith keeps me aware of and sensitive to realities that do not find reasonable explanations through scientific methodology or philosophical rationalization. I’ve lived through too many “surprised by joy” moments when good things happened to me for which I can claim no credit nor responsibility. So when it comes to making sense of life—yours, mine and ours—I am persuaded to keep an open mind about things I can’t explain. Interestingly enough, this very injunction is held dear by both science and faith (see the directive in 1 John 4:1 for us to always “test the spirits”).

So, back to my I-25 blow out. As I steered our now balky car off the macadam onto the sandy shoulder of the highway, a comforting, yet explanatory phrase welled up within me:  There but for the grace of God go I.  I can’t say I dwell on these words very often, yet in pondering what might have been they seemed to fit. They capture my own desire to be humble in the face of hardships and troubles I’ve been spared without any pretense of my own deserving. In uttering them as a silent prayer I remind myself that grace is as much a recognition of the wonder and fragility of life as it is an acknowledgement of thanksgiving for deliverances beyond my control

Perhaps that is what counting one’s blessings is really all about—being aware that even on the worst of our days we have more to appreciate than we may choose to admit. Perhaps that is what the song we learned as children in Sunday School really meant to convey beyond its frenetic choreography. It is one thing to be happy, to clap hands and stomp feet and shout amen—but it is life changing to really know it, especially when it is enshrouded in a pall of danger and uncertainty. Perhaps every day, in and out of traffic and near misses, our faith sustains us each time we permit ourselves to trust that here, but for the grace of God, go I.