Shear Coincidence

 

A Zen monk was bicycling through a residential neighborhood in East Vancouver, Washington. He was pedaling along a random side street, miles from home, as a consequence of meandering around checking out garage sales, when by chance he came upon a man pinned underneath his lawn tractor beside the curb in front of his home. The monk took in the scene and asked himself, “Is this really happening?” He raced up to the man and set his bicycle down.

“Are you all right?” he asked the man, a typically but not grossly overweight Caucasian man in his fifties or sixties, evidently the homeowner. The tractor was on its side, half off the curb; the man was lying on his side with his legs underneath the steering wheel. He was struggling with the tractor, but in his position, could not budge the tractor or slide out from under the steering column.

“I just need to lift this off me,” he replied. The monk lifted the tractor by the steering wheel and with some effort wrested it off the man’s legs.

“Are you okay?” the monk asked again, concerned the man’s legs might have gotten crushed or something.

“Yes, I’m fine,” the man said, “can you help me up?” The man extended his hand and the monk helped him to his feet. It took somewhat more effort than lifting the tractor, actually, but between the two of them, they managed it. “Thank you very much,” said the man.

“Anything broken?” the monk asked, incredulously.

“No, I’m fine. I just need to get this back onto the lawn.” It was becoming apparent that, thankfully, the tractor had not actually come to rest on the homeowner’s leg—he had basically remained ensconced in the seat as the tractor tipped over. The two of them pulled the tractor back up over the curb and onto the lawn. The monk got on his bike, circling around to make sure the man was all right. The man was trying to get the mower started and looked like he was about to roll off the curb again.

“Let’s get this away from the curb a little more,” said the monk as without getting off his bike again he helped the man push the tractor farther onto the lawn. Feeling self-conscious about hovering over the man any more, the monk then slowly cycled away, surreptitiously looking back to make sure the man was out of trouble.

Down through the years, when the monk related this story, he invented a companion fellow monk who asked him, as they bicycled away: “Now, do you believe there’s a God?”

And in the story, the monk had himself replying, “No. It is not necessary to conclude there is a personal God who is constantly and personally interested in a billion billion billion outcomes, from suburbanites pinned under lawn tractors to the scores of college football games. I am, however, beginning to suspect that, one, there is a natural beneficent tendency at work in the universe, and two, that everything is connected.”

To which the fictional companion retorts, “I have no idea what you just said. I prefer to believe in a personal Jesus. It’s just easier that way.”

And the first monk replies, “It’s a free country.”

 

© 2014 Douglas J. Westberg. All Rights Reserved. Please reblog, share, link to, but do not copy or alter.