As my son mentioned to me recently, if a fortune teller had told Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley (above, left) three weeks ago that he'd be having a beer in the White House pretty soon with the President, the Vice President, and a distinguished Harvard professor, what would he have thought? Would he have imagined it would happen because he rescued a child who fell from a bulding? Would it be because he fended off a gang of killers? Maybe it would be because he arrested a major terrorist in the course of a traffic stop?
All these guesses might be more reasonable than what occurred. What no one could guess is that Sgt. Crowley would become famous because of his choice to make an arrest for misdemeanor disorderly conduct – a charge so minor it was subsequently dismissed. It's often not the little nature of the deed that counts but how people respond to it. In this case, the small-seeming event became world wide headlines.
It's those blasted little things that set our world on end. Tragically, a lifetime career of professional perfection can be ruined in a split second with a wrong clinical decision or one bad call at the wrong time. Forty years of safe driving and ideal citizenship can end with one glance away from the road leading to death. A clean reptutation built over decades can be marred in seconds by a scurrilous charge - whether true or false. One wrong line or two in an email can cost someone their well-earned job.
I saw this kind of thing happen to a veteran school teacher I helped defend early in my legal career. The teacher was charged with molestation based on a few words from a student up to no good himself. Although the teacher was aquitted and the child was shown to be a liar who made the charge because he was upset with a bad grade, the teacher's career, and life, were ruined.
It's no wonder that professional caregivers live with a certain anxiety about mistakes. After all, they have people's lives in their hands.
If we've heard it once, after an accident, we've heard it a thousand times: "It all happened so fast." Of course, if it happened in slow motion, the tragic mistake that leaves someone paralyzed or blinded could have been avoided.
All of this leads me to a perhaps surprising conclusion: We need to be humble and forgiving in the presence of our lives and the lives of others. No matter how strong and stable we may feel, the slightest moment, the most innocent comment, the least slip of the hand, can bring our lives tumbling down. Just ask the millions of unemployed walking the streets today. Many may have once have felt secure, even cocky, in their jobs as they looked with disdain on the legions of unemployed they have now joined. No one big thing happened to cause all of this sadness in our economy. Instead, it was a series of those blasted "little" things pilling one upon another until they became a worldwide disaster.
When we look around to see our lives, or the lives of others, in shambles, there is only one grace that will save us. It is Love.
What do you think?
-Erie Chapman
Journal of Sacred Work 
Leave a comment