Yesterday, I was driving through yet another rainstorm on Merritt Island. There were no rainbows, and at times I felt like I was driving directly under Niagara Falls. Every now and then I would hit an enormous puddle, and this wall of water would shoot up and cascade over the windshield making it impossible to see.
It was not a fun ride home.
In order to avoid an accident, I had to drop far back of the car ahead of me, watch for when he hit water and then slow to almost a crawl as I approached the puddles. It took me almost twice as long as it normally does to get to the church, but I arrived safely.
Generally speaking, there are many things in my life that I need to slow down for. Just today a friend of mine, a fellow teacher, asked me to put together a grammar test the entire English Department would use. Normally, I would say “yes, no problem,” but today I was in a hurry. Today helping her would mean that I would have to rush through things and the thought of running out of time made me very cranky. Consequently, I was not the friend I should have been.
Jim Wallis writes in his book Rediscovering Values that one of the greatest predictors of whether or not we will help someone in need is whether or not we’re in a hurry at the time we’re asked for help. He gives the example of a 1970 Princeton University experiment with seminary students.
In the experiment, researchers told some seminary students that they would be speaking on the story of the Good Samaritan in a neighboring building. Other students were told they’d simply be speaking on the topic of vocations. Some students were told they had a few minutes to get to the building. Others were told they were already late.
As each student walked to their speaking engagement, they were presented with someone who was in need of help. Some seminary students stopped. Others did not.
What is interesting is that those students about to speak on the Good Samaritan were no more likely to stop than those students scheduled to speak on vocations.
The variable that decided if they would stop or not? Time.
Those who thought they were already late, more frequently than not, did not stop to help the person in need. Wallis writes, “They were simply moving too fast to even notice that an opportunity to help a neighbor was right in front of them.”
Wallis’s point was that being in a rush, hurrying through life can be blinding. It’s not that we don’t want to help others; it’s that we’re so busy and so hurried, we are as blinded as I was when I sped through the rising water on the road.
Time ensnares us, traps us. When we think we have too little, our hearts beat faster, adrenaline floods our system. Our vision literally narrows, blinding us to a large portion of the world and keeping us from being a good friend, or a good neighbor, or just a basic, loving, caring human being.
When it comes to being a good friend, there is always time. We just have to remember that and slow down.
