On 75^th and 5^th, across from Central Park, I watched a black man in a yarmulke careen around the corner toward a sure collision with a white woman in a straw hat and jeans pushing a rolling suitcase. She looked equally prepared to travel and garden. He looked physically fit and late for a meeting.

He saw her, reversed course instantly, and briefly ran backwards at the same pace to avert a catastrophe. Looking up and smiling, he said “good one, God.”

I never saw her face. I don’t know if she was amused, annoyed, startled, or oblivious.

I know, however, that she never broke her pace.

And I know he never lost his peace.

And nobody fought over right of way (It was hers. She was on the right side of traffic. He was hugging the fence to make a left turn from the left lane.)

Nobody argued.

Nobody stooped to name-calling.

Nobody asserted their dominance

It was just two people not hitting each other, because one saw a problem, fixed it, and praised God every step of the way.

It made me think about my own walk.

1. Can I change course when needed?

2. Can I do it cheerfully?

3. Can I give God the glory?

Flexibility brings options.

Cooperation builds bridges

Gratitude births possibility.

I’ve seen this moment go the opposite way 100 times. We probably all have.

A painful collision.

An ugly confrontation.

A needless escalation.

As frustrated, wounded, weary adults, we will too often stand our ground in this moment in response to emotions we pretend aren’t there.

In surrendering to that temptation, we will then mismanage a situation we’ve been learning to handle since kindergarten. No sharing. No apologizing. Just pedal to the metal, using our physical, intellectual, emotional, or political weapons to fight, and letting the strongest win.

One of the realities of city life is that we share space with millions of people we haven’t chosen to join. We are not meeting up to walk together on 5^th Avenue. We both just happen to be there. In His infinite wisdom, however, God has put us in the same place, at the same time for such a time as this.

Whether we are competing for space on expressways, mashed together on subways, careening toward each other on walkways, or impeding each other’s progress in doorways, we will find OUR way obstructed by legions of inconsiderate goons who have the nerve to have their own lives.

The Bible has words for these horrible people: neighbors.

And it has a prescribed posture toward them: love them as yourself.

We often associate this command with Jesus’s radical witness of love expressed to the rich young ruler, as the second of the most important commandments.

The concept, however, appears pretty frequently in the Old Testament. Leviticus 19:18 (NIV) says ¹⁸ “‘Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.”

And Leviticus 19:13a (NIV) says “Do not defraud or rob your neighbor.”

Leviticus 19:15 says don’t pervert justice, or show favoritism, but judge them fairly.

And Leviticus 19:16b says don’t do anything that endangers their life.

So we don’t get to cut them off in traffic, or speed angrily past them, or condemn them as intrinsically awful just because they have the audacity to be in our way.

And even Leviticus 19:17, which tells us to openly and directly rebuke our neighbor for wrongdoing, is not instructing us to curse them out at the next light, but to make sure that we don’t remain silent and hate them in our heart. That’s not for them, it’s for us.

We don’t get to enjoy our murderous thoughts, even if our neighbor has the audacity to be as human as we are.

Instead, our privilege is to use the tools God has given us, including forethought, humility, awareness, and speed, to get out of someone’s way, and give Him praise.

On this day, I watched a man walk with God through the moment, and, in an illustration of Hebrews 12:1, keep on running his race.

Travelling mercies, Beloved.

Look both ways before you cross.