Zen, and the Art of Lifting a Car Out of a Ditch

So a funny thing happened on the way to the Zen center today...

(I get to say things like that because I'm in seminary.)

The reason I was driving to the Zen center was because my Prayer and Spirituality professor (an ex-Jesuit monk turned Zen master) thought it would be a good experience for all of us to get our meditation on together for a few hours.  I had my GPS giving me directions, but still flew right by the entrance to the Zen center, as it was hidden by trees and surrounded by a shady fence.  The road looked like it was about to meet up with a highway, so I decided the smart thing to do was to back up into a driveway I'd just passed, and use that as my means of turning around to drive into the Zen center parking area.

Smart.  In theory.

What I did not realize was that the tall grass to the side of the driveway was actually coming up from a giant ditch that ran the length of the road.  So, because my reverse-driving ability has been rapidly deteriorating (see dented fender), I naturally wound up halfway in the ditch, with the front of my car resting on the road, my back right tire sitting on the bottom of the ditch, and my back left tire floating stupidly in midair.

I may have uttered a profanity.

After slamming the car door in anger, I ran back the 70 feet or so to the Zen center, where I found several of my classmates gathered.  On the verge of tears and with panic shaking in my voice, I cried out "I GOT MY CAR STUCK IN A DITCH!"  My friend Kristi tried to comfort me in her lovely motherly way, while another classmate pulled up in his pickup truck; his face lit up when the group informed him that the time of glory had come to him and his truck in an opportunity to tow something.  Meanwhile, I saw movement by my car off in the distance, so Kristi and I hastened over to the house to explain to the inhabitants why a seemingly abandoned Chrysler was teetering on the edge of their driveway, while Grant (the guy with the truck) and Mike (another classmate) looked at the car to assess the situation.  Kristi and I knocked on the door, and it opened to reveal a lovely Hispanic family.  I immediately began lamenting the day I decided to pursue bilingualism with a French degree, while Kristi explained the situation to the children, who translated our plight into Spanish.  The mother nodded in a mix of concern and confusion, and Kristi and I walked back to Mike and Grant at the car.

"We can't tow this out."

"What do you mean we can't tow this out?"

"We're afraid that if I pull you forward, we'll scrape the bottom of the car too much and knock off the oil pan or the engine.  And that's expensive to fix."

Crap.

"You'd be better off calling a wrecker to come get you.  Do you have Triple A?"

"I don't know..."

Fun fact: I DO have Triple A.  My parents mailed me the card months ago.  In my hazy, panicked mind, I could only think of my State Farm card.  Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.  I should have just sung the jingle, maybe Fran my agent would have teleported from his St. Louis office to help me out.  Didn't think about it at the time.

"There's a body shop up the street.  We could walk up there and see what they have..."

Exit Grant and Mike, to the body shop.

Meanwhile, the Hispanic family has emerged from the house to see how the progress is going.  Kristi tries to explain in Spanish why the guys were walking away, while I watch in alarm as one of the kids almost runs into the side of my car with his bike.  Just what I need, a dent from a wayward bicycling fourth grader.

Soon enough, Grant and Mike return saying that the body shop doesn't have anything to help us.  One of the Hispanic guys drives off to get a car jack from somewhere, and somehow Kristi, Mike, Grant and I start walking back to the Zen center.  I forget what happened in-between.

As we reached the gate, a crazy thought popped into my mind:

"What if we just got the whole class to come out and lift up the front end of my car, and push it back?  Do you think that would work?"

Grant and Mike blinked at me.

"That might work," says Grant.

"Could be dangerous though...if you hit the gas too hard you might accidentally run someone over," says Mike.

"We could put it in neutral."

"Yeah, neutral would work," agrees Grant.

"We could try it," says Mike, "as long as we don't run over somebody...that'd be even more expensive!  Haha!"

Haha.

So Kristi goes inside to rally the troops, Mike and Grant walk back toward the car, and I hover in the entrance momentarily before following Mike and Grant, like a puppy walking with its tail between its legs.  About the time we reach the car, the rest of our class emerges from the gate.  Let me give you a quick demographic of my class: 10% men, 90% small, skinny women.  Seeing them walk up the street, I didn't have much hope.  But here they all were, enthusiastic and making silly arm-flexing gestures.  Worth a shot, right?

After explaining why the car can't just get towed out, and figuring out how to get the car into neutral (that whole push-your-foot-on-the-brake-to-change-gears thing kind of eluded me under the present circumstance), I climbed into the car to steer while my 16 classmates gathered around the front and right side of the car.

"1!  2!  3!"

Seeing all those faces pressed up against the windows of my car isn't a scene I'm likely to forget anytime soon.  But somehow, the combined strength of 16 seminarians was working - the car was moving!  And then the car was stopping, dropped back down on the ground amidst many sighs of exhaustion.  Maybe this wasn't working after all...

"1!  2!  3!"

The car starts sliding backwards again, feeling ever more horizontal, until it stops once more.  This time, I see lots of cheering, clapping people through my windows.  Nothing like lifting a 1.5-ton car by hand to boost group morale.  Unfortunately, I was still too much in shock to fully celebrate.  But everyone said the car looked fine, and I cautiously drove back to the Zen center, thanked people weakly, and located a cushion to plop down on.  It was one of those moments where the amount of gratitude I was feeling was enough to move me to tears, besides the tears that were threatening to come flowing forth at any moment as a result of the stressful circumstances.  I'm worried I may not have appeared thankful enough...in reality, I didn't think I could express my thankfulness without giving way to an all-out breakdown that would have been counterproductive to the Zen meditation we were all about to engage in.  So I just sat on my cushion and stared blankly at the floor.

For the next two hours, we all got our Zen meditation on, balancing on cushions in variations of the lotus position, walking slowly and mindfully in circles around the creaky room, chanting Buddhist sutras, and participating in a tea ceremony. Because that's what everyone does after extracting their vehicle from a ditch, right?

Zen is all about clearing your mind and just BEING.  Unsurprisingly, I wasn't too good at that given the circumstances.  Plus, my feet kept falling asleep, and my perpetually-slouched back kept aching to sit straight and still for prolonged periods of time.  Halfway through the first meditation session, I slowly began to uncross my legs, bending my right leg vertically in front of me and wiggling my toes around to try to get some feeling back into them...

"BE STILL!"

Crap.  The Zen master saw me moving.

"AND KNOW...THAT...I AM."

Oh.  Okay then.  I'll keep wiggling my toes around and sitting unorthodoxly.

"BE STILL...AND KNOW."

That's a nice sentiment.  Be still and know.  It has a certain calm certainty about it.  Squeezing my foot now, trying to urge some of the blood back into it.

"BE STILL."

Stillness is not my forte.  Teetering back and forth on my little cushion, worrying that my car was damaged in some unidentifiable way and planning on breaking down on the interstate on the way home, and thinking about what my parents' reactions were going to be when I told them I backed the car into something AGAIN, I was really anything but still.

Regardless, I was surprised at how quickly the time went by as I sat there staring at the wall, and at how much more calm I felt about everything after the two hours of meditation were over.  Even though my mind wasn't the clearest of things, I was able to make some sense out of the situation, and be amazed at the power of community in action.

In ancient and operatic theatre, there is a plot device called deus ex machina; literally, "god out of machine."  When things in the plot get too twisted up and there seems to be no solution, the gods come down out of the sky, fix everything with their godly powers, and the unresolvable plot is resolved.  Looking back at my car, hearing Grant and Mike tell me that they couldn't tow it out, all I thought about was how much I wished God would just reach a giant hand down from the sky, pick up my car, and set it back on the road.  That would be nothing for God; it'd be like me picking up a Hot Wheels car that flew off its track.  But in the end, that's what happened: 16 pairs of God's hands were sufficient to lift me and my car up, and set us straight and back on our path.  Stressful as it was, it was truly a remarkable experience of the power of community in overcoming what seems impossible.

Meditate on that!