Siren Call
I live near a busy road, and I often hear the siren on a police car, ambulance, or fire truck. It is an alarming sound declaring to the world that something bad has happened: somebody is in trouble or in danger. When I hear it, my imagination is immediately energized. If it’s a police car, I think of a road accident and the broken bodies that might be there or of someone being robbed or murdered. If it’s an ambulance, I imagine someone so ill or injured that it’s a race against time to save them; and if it’s a fire truck, I see a burning house and wonder what it would be like to lose everything, even loved ones, in the fire. Using my imagination in this way is depressing, and it is even more so when I realize that there is nothing I can do when I hear the siren. Oh, if only I could be there to help and comfort those so hurt.
But all is not doom and gloom because I also think of the men and women in the police car, ambulance, or fire truck. What wonderful people they are, rushing to save their fellow human beings! I might be able to imagine the scene that will confront them when they arrive at their destination, but for them, it will be stark reality: a bleeding mangled body in a crushed vehicle, an infant burnt in the fire, a young woman with multiple stab wounds. I will not go on. Enough has been said to explain why so many of these first responders develop PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). It is a serious disabling condition that can be life-long. The community is asking a lot from these good people to do what they do.
Recently I had a paradigm shift in my thinking. I changed my whole response to the sound of the siren because I realized that there was certainly something I could do: I could pray. Now, when I hear the siren I say a simple prayer, usually three words, “Help them, Lord.” Sometimes, I am more specific, and I might say, “Be with the paramedics, Lord.” It only takes a few seconds, but instead of being depressed, I feel part of the whole positive response to the event.
I am a progressive Christian. I don’t believe in the virgin birth or the bodily resurrection, but I do believe that there is a certain validity in prayer. I am not saying that you can cure sick people or perform miracles by praying. You can’t. When I pray, I am talking to myself, but as a Christian I have in the depth of my being something divine, the Holy Spirit. Therefore, when I pray, I am conversing with God. I speak to Him or Her, and I am open to receive intimations of a spiritual nature. But how can this prayer have any effect beyond the individual?
Let me digress for a moment. I had a cousin who never married, but she had a cat that she called Jazz because she had been a teacher of dancing. She loved the cat like a child. When she was 95, she became completely blind and had to leave her home, which was next to a park, and go into a nursing home. The cat was able to survive in the park because a neighbour put food out for it at night. But someone noticed the old cat in the park and contacted the city council to take it away. The neighbour who fed the cat heard that the council men were trying to catch it, and she hid it in her home till the crisis was over. When I phoned my cousin to tell her that Jazz was safe, she was very distressed because she just knew that the cat was in danger. There is no way that she could have known this, and I realized that there are aspects of our lives that we do not and cannot understand. I have since heard stories of mothers who just knew that their children were in serious trouble, and knowing about my cousin and her cat, I believe them.
I know it is trivial, and it could all have been just a coincidence, but it strengthened my belief that the Holy Spirit has both an individual and a group function in the world. As many Christians say in church every Sunday, “We are the body of Christ in the world. His spirit is with us.” In some mysterious way, the Holy Spirit connects all Christians.
Therefore, I call on every Christian, wherever they are in the world, to say a simple prayer when they hear the siren. It might help people in some way that we do not understand. It might influence the thinking of the first responders in a positive way. In any case, it would increase the intensity of compassion in the people praying, and that would be of benefit to the world. Apathy and inertia result from a lack of imagination. Compassion depends on it, and exercising the human imagination increases Love in the world.
Instead of being annoyed or depressed by the alarming sound, we can all make a positive response to the distressing situation that the siren is heralding. At night when we watch the TV news and see road accidents and criminals in handcuffs, it is too late to do anything. When you hear the siren call, that is the time to pray.
About the Author:
