"For Thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety": God, Psalm 4, and the Flat Tire

PRELUDE

Last Thursday [August 19, 2010], I spent the afternoon chauffeuring my friend and his grandson in the downtown area, which has its rougher aspects, of the nearby big city. I am happy to be there for my friend. I would always gladly help in any way that I can, but the ability to be there has taken on greater meaning for me because he recently had a very close encounter with death.

My friend was hospitalized in serious condition in May. One of his sisters told me that one of the nurses said, "Right now we're fighting to save your brother's leg. After that we're fighting to save his life." I prayed. Others prayed. I submitted prayer requests to favorite prayer sites. With the grace of God, my friend is recovering, and in many ways it's a miraculous recovery, against all odds. He is always ready to help others, and last Thursday, despite his cast and swollen leg, he needed to accompany his grandson to a medical appointment.

We completed our mission, dropped the grandson off at his half-sister's place, and leisurely drove to the rural area where my friend now lives. Although our conversation was light-hearted, we were concerned about the surprise siege of my car by several potholes hiding under a thin layer of downpour under a bridge in that city. The potholes had briefly engulfed the front passenger tire in their sneak attack.

I nonchalantly said to my friend, "Not to worry. It's the front driver's tire that is thin. For once the passenger side is the safer side of the car!"

I also complimented him for his sensitivity to the tire's advanced state of degeneration by rejecting a short cut in the city because it included a gravel road.

THE "GREY STRAYS"

When we pulled into his driveway, we saw at least eight of the "grey strays" clustered around his porch. I feel affection for them, in part because they mysteriously appeared after my friend's release from the hospital. They are all varying combinations of grey and white. Their eyes are a startlingly beautiful green that matches the changing shades of green of my friend's lawn. Their eyes convey a wistful combination of silent wisdom tinged with sadness. I am not a cat expert, but I have never before glimpsed that touch of solemnity in a cat's eyes.

My friend reminded them that, although he had no food for them today, he would have food for them tomorrow. They quietly listened.

A SICKENING FLAP-FLAP-FLAPPING SOUND

It was close to 7:00 pm, which heralds twilight these days. I live two counties away and at an hour's distance. I waved good-bye to my friend and the dear grey strays. My friend, as usual, requested that I call him when I arrived home.

Minutes later, fortunately with the driver's window open, I heard a sickening flap-flap-flapping sound. It was coming from the driver's tire. I pulled onto the gravelly shoulder and stretched out the window. Sure enough, the tire was flat, in the rumpled zigzag shape that always reminds me of Charlie Brown's hapless grimace.

It is an isolated stretch of this major route. The town was several hills behind me. A driveway ahead of me wound up a hill to a residence. Someone was cutting the vast upswelling lawn on a ride mower. Otherwise no one else and nothing else were stationed on either side of the darkening road. Cars and trucks whizzed by in their own little worlds. I was the one sitting by the side of the road with a problem.

I breathed a quick prayer for safety, made a brief call to my friend, and then called my insurance company. Inwardly I groaned about probably having to spend an hour waiting by the side of the road. I had just gotten past all those policyholder confirmation questions that are necessary for the agent on the telephone but seem so never-ending and somewhat annoying to the stranded policyholder. A driver with a problem car is impatient to get to the core of the matter: when will the knight in shining armor dispatched by the insurance company arrive?

"CRIMINAL MINDS" OR A GOOD SAMARITAN?

It all happened so suddenly. The sound of tires on gravel, a car door shutting, the uttering of those precious words that directly state the problem: "You have a flat tire. Do you have a spare?"

He looked trustworthy. He was wearing some kind of uniform with his name --- Danny --- emblazoned across the white stretch over his heart. I explained to the agent that someone had stopped and asked if she could wait while I determined whether this was indeed a good Samaritan.

I opened the trunk, dragged out the laundry basket into which I had deposited only this morning the few items that had been languishing throughout my car for the past week, and yielded access to the spare, whose condition I could not vouchsafe.

Quick as lightning Danny scooped the spare from the trunk, leaned it against my car, retrieved tools from his car, and set to work.

Moving a few feet away, I explained to Cassie the emergency road services agent that Danny was instilling more and more trust in me towards him. However, I was a little uncomfortable because I had watched "Criminal Minds" the evening before, and the episode concerned a person who used uniformed disguises to lull his intended victims into the euphoric states of relief and safety ["Charm and Harm," Season 1 Episode 20]. Cassie giggled, telling me that she had also watched that episode yesterday. I asked if she could remain on the phone until Danny finished so that I would be assured that the spare really worked. "No problem," Cassie promised.

Needless to say, Danny knew what he was doing. And as soon as he was done, he neatly returned my items to my trunk and his items to his car. I barely had a chance to ask if the spare tire were good.

"Yes, it'll get you home and wherever you need to go," Danny gently informed me.

I enthused, "Thank you!"

Danny nodded and flew off [but not speeding] in his dark midnight blue car.

I then thanked Cassie for seeing me through to safety. From beginning to end less than 15 minutes had passed.

"FOR THOU, LORD, ONLY MAKEST ME DWELL IN SAFETY"

On the way home I whispered a prayer of thanksgiving for my safety. And then the reassuring words from Psalm 4 came, unbidden, to me: "For Thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety."

I love those words, and I love that short little psalm. And I love the times that those words have whispered through my mind. Do they come from me? Am I hearing the still, small voice of God? I tend to think that my mind is echoing God's whisper to me. It is an eloquent reminder of this amazing universe, based on love, that God created for us. As my favorite line from Shakespeare's Hamlet so perfectly describes our daily contacts with this vast, visible yet invisible universe: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy" [Act I, Scene V].

The next morning I did what I should have done several weeks before: I got up early to be second in line and have a new tire replace the spare, which now slumbers in its well until its next call to duty.

And as for God, Psalm 4, and the flat tire, God was with me all along, while knowingly and unknowingly I was putting my trust in Divine guidance and scrambling to maintain schedules and meet deadlines as I drove with a tire that, in all truth, should have exploded long, long ago.

Thursday evening, I ". . . both lay me down in peace, and sleep . . ." I gave the deep sigh of contentment that bespeaks answered prayers. I peacefully faced sleep, confident with the latest visible confirmation of the affirmation of God's ever present love: ". . . for Thou, LORD, only makest me dwell in safety."

Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness: Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress; have mercy upon me, and hear my prayer.

O you sons of men, how long will you turn my glory into shame? How long will you love vanity and seek after falsehood? Selah.

But know that the Lord hath set apart him that is godly for himself: the Lord will hear when I call unto him.

Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. Selah.

Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, and put your trust in the Lord.

There be many that say, Who will show us any good? Lord, lift Thou up the light of Thy countenance upon us.

Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased.

I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for Thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety.