Minutes of Meetings with God
and with Myself

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The Clown on the Bridge

A very loud noise, a sort of big bang, interrupted my efforts to concentrate, first on the task of getting one foot moving after another as I did my usual long walk, and then on several other things that were going on in and around my life; all of which were bothering me and swirling in my head. I try to walk about 4 miles, three or four times a week. It isn't easy for me to do; I'm usually very stiff and achy-sore for the first half of the walk, but, after that, the discomfort eases up and I feel altogether much better, not only for the rest of the walk, but for most of the rest of the day.

I will admit that my first reaction to the noise was pretty lame: "What in the world was that?" Then I rapidly concluded that it must have been the sound of a semi-truck tire blowing out on the nearby express-way. We live, and I walk along a road, right next to the expressway. Tires blowing out on trucks are a fairly common occurrence, and sometimes the blowout is so loud it sounds like a bomb going off. Like the sound I'd just heard. Usually it's nothing serious.

I kept walking out toward the River Raisin, still trying to work through all the things going on in my head. I was "sort of" praying as I was walking along. Most of what I was doing was just plain "fussing" with God over situations that seem so unjust and unfair to me; they were things that seemed like they were senseless; they were bad things that were happening to good people.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of the volunteer fire department's "pumper" truck speeding along the expressway in the direction from which the loud noise had come. Then a deputy sheriff's car sped past. I knew then that the noise had not simply been a blown tire. Somewhere, southbound, on the expressway, there had been an accident. I kept on walking.

It's about a mile and three quarters from our house to the spot where the road that I walk dead-ends near the river. From there, I head back home. I made my turn-around in the usual place and started toward the house.

All the time, I was thinking about walking. Left, right, left, right; relax, stretch out that kink, that ache, and ignore that pain; breathe in (one, two, three, four, five, six), and breathe out (one, two, three). And, in between all that, I was fussing at God: "How could you let this, that and the other thing happen … especially to such good people who don't seem to deserve any of what they're going through … haven't they already suffered enough!"

After walking about a quarter of a mile from the river, I saw that traffic on the expressway was starting to slow down. As I walked, the traffic on the highway quickly decelerated to a complete stop. It was rapidly becoming clear that whatever had caused the racket I'd heard was serious and pretty close by.

Suddenly, I found myself praying, "Lord, whatever happened, please let everyone, including the rescuers, be alright!"

I wasn't thinking about walking anymore. I wasn't thinking about any of those other unjust or unfair things that I'd been obsessing about. I was wondering what was going on down the expressway. I came to the bridge across the expressway that would let me get home. The overpass gave me a glimpse of what had happened.

About three quarters of a mile down the road, a vehicle had gone into the median. It looked like it had flipped. There were emergency vehicles and rescuers all around the wreck. I could just see enough to know that they were working very hard trying to help whoever was in that vehicle.

Traffic was backed up on the expressway from the point of the accident for probably two miles or farther. Things were more like a parking lot than like an expressway. I looked down at the cars, literally inching along below the bridge. Some drivers had their car windows down and would look up at me. Some asked what was going on. I told them about the wreck up ahead and which lane was closed. They quickly took the hint and merged over at the first opportunity.

There was lots of activity continuing around the accident scene. It was evident that things were going to be tied up for quite some time. I don't know why I started to do it (perhaps in some impulse to "not just stand there, but to do something" that might help in some small way), but I began trying to direct traffic from my perch on the bridge. I began pointing in the direction of the lane that was still open.

I must have looked quite a sight, up there on the bridge. I was in my exercise clothes. I had on a bright blue baseball cap, and a burnt orange sweatshirt with a oversized white t-shirt leaking out from underneath. I was using my wife's shocking pink wrist-weights that day, so those were dangling just above my hands. I was drenched in sweat. I can imagine that more than one driver who saw me thought, "what is that clown doing up there?"

At least some of the drivers understood what I was about and merged over. After several minutes of my repeated pointing, traffic between the accident scene and where I was on the bridge began to pick up speed. Some of the truckers radioed back to their fellow drivers about what was going on, and the truckers slowed traffic in both lanes so that people would have more space to merge before the bridge.

Briefly, there was a clear lane between the bridge and the accident. A wrecker, coming from Dundee, had made most of the trip edging slowly along the shoulder of the road, but he was able to drive the last half mile to the accident scene much faster using the lane that had cleared.

For a while, traffic moved at between 35 and 45 miles per hour. But, there were some drivers who either didn't see my signals or ignored them and sped on up the lane that was closed. Soon, traffic slowed to a stand-still, again.

And, me, I just kept waving people over to the right lane, the one that was still open. Some people waved back, in apparent gratitude and merged over. Some people made other, less appreciative gestures, and kept on in the lane that was closed; they made bottlenecks at the accident scene.

About the time that the accident was cleared, my wife pulled up behind me in the car. "Where have you been, what are you doing?" she asked, worried.

"There was a wreck. I was helping." I replied.

"That is my ministry," I thought to myself as I walked on home.