Windows of the Soul

It amazes me how you can look into someone's eyes and know exactly what they are thinking.  It amazes me even more when that happens with a complete stranger. 
I was pulling into the Walmart parking lot and as I put the car in park, the car I was facing was violently jolted.  I looked up to see a huge SUV backing up from a collision with the little Honda in front of me.  I saw the lady who was driving the offending vehicle and she saw me.  We made eye contact for what seemed like 5 minutes but couldn't have been more than a couple of seconds.  In that blink of an eye, I knew that she was not going to take responsibility for what she had done.  She made a big show of getting out of her car and walking around her vehicle and the other car.  I watched her this whole time and she made furtive glances in my direction.  I took note of her license plate as she got back into her car and drove a little further up the row and parked a bit aways.  She hovered back by her car for a bit, so I hoped that she was writing a note for the owner of the other car with her insurance information, so I decided to go about my business.  I went into the store and made my purchases.  On my way back to my car, I saw the guilty driver walking up to the store with her kids in tow.  I checked the windshield of the Honda, and I was not shocked to see that there was no note there.  I looked back at the store and the lady had stopped in front of the doors and was looking at me.  At that point, I took out my cell phone and took a picture of the Honda's damage, walked over to the SUV and took a picture of it's plate and the huge dent in the front bumper and got back in my car to write a note.  I told the owner what had happened, I put the other car's information and my cell number in the note and slipped it into the car's open window. (I'm sure that if I had left the note on the windshield, the woman would have taken if off when she returned to her car.)
Strangely enough, I did not receive a phone call from the Honda owner.  My hope is that the guilty woman had the car owner paged in the store and did her insurance exchange in person.  But I could tell from her face that she would not have done so willingly.  It reminded me of a lesson I taught to the kids in church a few weeks back about having a "word of honor". I explained that being honest is not only about what we say and do when we interact with other people, but it is more strongly shown by what we do when no one is watching us.  Do we do the right thing when no one is around to see our decisions?  With some people, the guilt is written all over their faces!

Caution! Religious Content!

So, on our way home from church today, my husband mentioned that he'd heard something about another shooting happening today.  My heart sank since this shooting is coming so rapidly on the heels of the Aurora, Colorado shooting.  There was indeed a shooting this morning, in a Sikh temple in Wisconsin.  My first thought was, "Why are there so many crazy people these days?" Many times the first inclination is to blame the media or video games or political parties, but I disagree with that.  In the case of adults, I think there is no one to blame but the shooter.  Not gun control policies, not their parents, not their therapists.  Every person has the right to choose for themselves.
Unfortunately, other peoples' decisions effect the lives of people around them.  But this is the purpose of life here on this earth.  To be tested and prove ourselves worthy to be called God's Own.  How can we be tested if nothing bad ever happens to us?  Although it breaks my heart when I see children suffer and die, when I see injustice in this world, I think to myself, "What am I going to do about it?" In some cases, the answer is nothing.  Sometimes there is nothing you can do about tragedy, except learn to  find peace amidst the storms of life. 
I heard a quote that says something to the effect of, "Internal peace cannot be dependant on your external circumstances." So even though horrible things are happening in the world, we don't have to stir ourselves up in anger or sorrow, especially over things that we cannot change.  We can do our part to help out and share our opinions, but we don't have to let the ills of the world create a home in our hearts.  We can have peace knowing that all wrongs will be righted and all injustices that happen in this world will be corrected, either in this life, or the life to come.  Of course all of this depends on your belief system.  I find great comfort in my spirituality. 
This leads me to another thought.  A brother at church today shared a thought with the congregation.  He said that as he watched the news and the weather and heard about the droughts and the hardships around the country, he was reminded of how God has punished nations in the past and that we, as a country, have forgotten our religious heritage.  He challenged us all to encourage our neighbors to read their holy books, be it the Bible, the Torah, the Koran, etc.  We need to be reminded of our relationship with God and how much we need Him in our lives.  A lot of what he said rang true to me, and I think I need to be more conscious of the people around me and encourage them to find a greater spirituality. Obviously I would love for everyone to be at my church, but I think most churches are good and teach truth.  Peace can be as contagious as anger.  If more people developed internal peace, I think the world as a whole would be a better place.