ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, January 19, 1997 TAG: 9701170035
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: the back pew
SOURCE: CODY LOWE
The windows in the back doors of the ambulance glowed as if they were two big television screens.
Following them down Elm Avenue was like watching "E.R." or "Rescue 911" from the driver's seat of my car.
A routine trip home after a weekly theology class recently was transformed by a chance encounter with the real-life drama unfolding before me.
In the bright, sterile light inside the ambulance, the lifesaving crew was hard at work performing CPR on what I took to be a man. The patient's body jerked rhythmically as the technician inside methodically performed chest compressions.
I was behind the vehicle for only a matter of seconds, in which my reporter's instinct rose up and I wondered who that person was. What happened? When? Where? How is he?
Is he dead already?
That last question derailed my train of thought.
For a split second, I felt the chill of fear. I was not a detached reporter on the scene of a story.
He could be someone I know.
He could have been me.
As the ambulance pulled into Community Hospital's emergency entrance and out of my view, my anxiety passed and I relived my first and only ambulance ride - 21/2 years ago.
I was preoccupied with the pain in my chest that night, but my heart had never actually stopped beating, necessitating the kind of dramatic intervention I was witnessing.
Last week, watching that ambulance, I was immediately aware that while I was experiencing my own heart attack I never felt the kind of fear that sped through me as I watched that lifesaving crew at work.
What was the difference?
Maybe the night I had my heart attack I was too ignorant of the potential consequences to be scared.
Maybe I just didn't believe it was possible that I could die.
Now I'm much more intimately acquainted with the frailty of that small organ. I know it could stop.
But whatever horror death held then lay not in the consequences to myself, but to those who I know love me. I would be sorry to impose a new grief on wife, children, mother, other family, friends, maybe even a few readers.
As I contemplated the fate of the man in the ambulance, I found myself hoping that he was able to face the possibility of death without fear. And I remembered how many of the "favorite Scriptures" readers sent us last month were related to finding comfort in trouble or grief.
From Proverbs 3: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight."
From John 3: "For God so loved the world."
From Philippians 4: "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."
From Psalm 23: "The Lord is my shepherd."
From John 14: "Let not your heart be troubled."
From Jeremiah 29: "For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope."
Facing a medical emergency, we can take comfort in the knowledge that the rescue-squad crew, trained to respond to our crisis, is at hand.
We may thank God that there are doctors and nurses and other people available at our hospitals.
But to face the possibility of grief, of fear, most of us need something more. I certainly did.
I found myself hoping that the man in the ambulance had faith. That he had some bit of Scripture to cling to as his neighbor smashed his rib cage again and again in a furious bid to save his life.
Watching most of the TV talk shows, or even reading a daily newspaper can leave an observer with the impression that "everyone" is living a life of depravity and evil and loneliness. But I trust that most of us can find comfort in the satisfactions of living a life blessed with the comforts of love, family, friends and faith.
Thoreau's observation that "most men lead lives of quiet desperation" may be true, but that "quiet desperation" need not lead to misery. That, perhaps, was the real miracle of the stories readers shared with us about their favorite religious verses - in circumstances that might have led to despair, cynicism, doubt and faithlessness, these people found hope and joy and comfort.
Late one night, in a fleeting encounter, I prayed that was true for a stranger in an ambulance, and for his family and friends.
Last week, I wrote about the upcoming GaiaMind Global Meditation and Prayer event, but I gave you the wrong date for it. The prayer and meditation - planned to coincide with a rare alignment of Jupiter, Uranus and Neptuen - is scheduled for Jan. 23, beginning at 12:35 p.m.
LENGTH: Medium: 92 linesby CNB