After “Breakfast with Henry Ford” by James Opie (PARABOLA Winter ’08)

Why is being interrupted so jarring? Looking out my office window I see people walking. They are moving. Walking forward. Those who are standing are swaying just a little. Why is it that the stopping of movement has such an effect on us humans where bumping into someone’s shoulder, even with a polite “sorry,” is an irritation?

Anyone who has practiced some form of meditation has probably been told to “still the mind” or “cease the flow of thoughts.” Even meditation practices that shy away from commands to “quiet the mind” still at least suggest an interruption in mental chatter. The call to mental stillness is ubiquitous in spiritual communities and yet, for some of us (most of us?) being told, subtly coaxed, or gently lead into stillness is an act that is as simple as balancing on the head of a pin.

So it was one summer day riding to work on our bicycles when B—, riding behind me, had the opportunity to watch me fly over my handlebars and crash into the pavement after I yanked on the brakes to avoid hitting a careless driver’s turn. When once I was smoothly gliding over the Earth I was interrupted by a traffic intersection. My thought as I was hurling towards the pavement? Don’t hit your face. I did. Though only slightly.

Two weeks later I had the opportunity to watch B— slam into a car pulling out of a parking garage. Her thought just prior? Don’t scuff your new white shoes. She did. Though only slightly. Thankfully we are both fine, if initially some what shaken.

So here we were. Two urban cyclists interrupted by Ford’s legacy and our last thoughts were tangled up in the way we look. How perfect for New York City!

In the film Fierce Grace, a documentary film about the life of spiritual vanguard Ram Dass, Dass remarks on his mental state just as he were having a stroke. Much to his surprise his thoughts were not of the Divine or God, but were of the pipes on the ceiling. According to him, here he was “Mr. Spiritual” and when given the ultimate test, “failed.” Did he?

If the Divine is (at the very least) This Here and Now, and our thoughts do have some place in this existence, are not the mundane thoughts and concerns just-pre-trauma as Divine as any other? Could not our concern of our hair at the time of death also be of God? Would it not be the ultimate cosmic joke to become intensely aware of one’s dirty dishes just as it all came crashing down?