I was putting the kids to bed at the end of a busy
weekend when I noticed some people walking down our road. This is
pretty unusual, but I assumed they were just going for a walk, like I
often do. A few minutes later, my son came down the stairs asking
why strangers were coming down our lane. Right away, there was a
knock at the door.
At the door were a couple of young men. They apologized
for bothering us but they had had trouble on the road and were
wondering if we could help. I said of course. I would call my
husband and see if he could help them, thinking maybe he could give
their vehicle a boost or pull them out of the ditch or whatever.
“Oh,” they said, “Actually, we were thinking
maybe we could just use your phone. Our helicopter is in the middle
of the road and won't be going anywhere soon. We don't think anyone
will be able to get by.”
“Helicopter!?!” I exclaimed. This was just so not
what I was expecting.
“Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that. We were flying
from Brandon to Winnipeg and we had to make an emergency landing on
the road. So maybe if we could just use your phone to call a cab.”
They need the cab of a semi-trailer to pull it out of
the way?!? As I went to get the phone for them, I tried to imagine
who around here would have a tractor trailer to haul a helicopter
somewhere.
“Did you crash it?” I asked with concern as I handed
the one guy the phone, though they seemed relatively fine and unfazed.
“No, we just had to land it quickly.”
I asked them if they were just out for a ride. It turns
out that they work in the diamond mine industry and were heading to Ottawa
before going back to work in the Northwest Territories. They had
planned to be in Ottawa by Monday, but now it would obviously take 3
or 4 more days, what with waiting for parts and all, and there the
helicopter would sit in the middle of the road.
By now, my husband had come out to see what was going on
and he was quickly filled in. The guys still kept mentioning this
cab that they wanted to call. They were wondering where the nearest
town would be where they could get a hotel for the night. We figured
the closest place would be Portage.
“We could just get a taxi to take us there, then.”
Oh! The cab they needed to call was a taxi-cab! Now
there's a brilliant idea! Except that it's not - out here. The
nearest taxi service would be in Portage. Waiting almost an hour for
a taxi to come from Portage to take them back to Portage seemed a bit
ridiculous. So my husband offered to take them to a Portage hotel
where they could stay the night and make their necessary
arrangements, which they gratefully accepted.
It struck me how each party assumed that their own
experience was what was “normal”. They neglected to mention that
they had mechanical trouble with their helicopter, as though
that were an inconsequential detail; I assumed they were traveling
in a car or truck and needed a bigger truck to assist them. They,
being city guys I think, planned to just call up a taxi to take them
where they wanted to go; I, being a country girl, assumed a cab
was the cab of a truck (which may not have been the most intelligent
assumption, even for a country girl), and when I finally did realize
what they meant knew that calling a taxi wasn't really an option.
The whole experience was so out of our “ordinaries” that is was
almost as if we were speaking different languages.
This time around, it just made for a funny story and an
opportunity to do a kind deed for some strangers. Other times,
though, these kinds of assumptions about what is “normal” or
“acceptable” can create real barriers between people,
opportunities to invalidate another's experience, feelings of
superiority or inferiority when in reality we are simply different.
It is so easy to be critical and judgmental of people who don't look
like us, or act like us, or believe like us, or drive the same kind
of vehicle as us (!), but we have received a higher calling from
Jesus, a calling to compassion and understanding and patience. We,
as humans, never know the whole story with all the details of another
person, so we are called to be wary of passing judgment. I know I
find myself being critical of people who I think are being
judgmental or who I think are in positions of power and
are using that power to the harm others. But somehow, I don't notice any
convenient exceptions in Jesus' command to not judge, and so there I
am, back at square one. So hard, and yet so important. Like moving
the helicopter blocking the way.
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For
in the same way
you judge, you will be judged, and with the measure you use,
it will be measured to you.”
Matthew
7:1-2
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