Riding the Love bus: situation solved!

Before going to bed a few nights ago, even though it was already late, I decided to visit the Association website.  There I found the wonderful sharing you recently posted and felt I must get the experience I told you about on paper so it could be shared, too.

Association day is always such a huge spiritual uplift, a coming home, a joy, and a clear and satistying answer to just about every mortal question that I may initially begin the day with.  But nothing is better than stepping into the room where the Association address is waiting for me to quietly study it on Sunday afternoon.  This is my holy time.  Prayer comes so easily.  The spiritual discovery that opens up as I read and pray, ponder and read some more, stays with me for such a long time afterward.

After this year’s address reading, thoroughly alive in Spirit’s universe, I bopped off to the bus to ride back to the place I stay while in Boston.  After boarding, I noticed that though there were no more people waiting to step in, the bus wasn’t moving forward.  Impatient with the apparent inertia, passengers started storming off the bus, expressing their discontent to the bus driver. She responded in kind, referring to an “emergency” on the bus that was making her unable or unwilling to continue until it was resolved. The situation seemed quite heated and I looked around meekly to see who might be the “emergency” in need of help. The only possible culprit I could see was a man who was sitting quietly, albeit defiantly, in the first row of seats. His feet were up on the seat. 

Not sure of any human steps I could take, I closed my eyes and turned right to the answer to the question from the Address - “Where are [we] living now?” In Love!  In a spiritual universe where there is only one kind of man—God’s man—who is, as MBE illumines, “obedient to the Mind that makes them”.  I was quick to correct the suggestion that I had to do something or think something in order to rectify the situation on the bus.  No, that would be futile, because we were (and are) already living in heavenly harmony. I deemed the bus the “Love bus”, filled to the brim with divine Love, with “no inertia to retard or check its perpetual and harmonious action”. 

Gently, a thought nudged me: “The man who seems to be causing the bus driver to be so upset doesn’t know that he is the problem”.  How could that be?!  But I was obedient to the spiritual leading. I opened my eyes and turned to him from where I was seated.  I said, “Excuse me, sir, but I believe the bus isn’t moving because the bus driver wants you to leave the bus.” He looked surprised but unwilling to budge.  I turned my thought back to the one kind of man God reflects—Godlike man.  I simply refused to believe there was any other kind—be it in the form of the bus driver, the people storming off the bus, or the man who was sitting side-saddle on the bus.  In the middle of this thought, I overheard the driver’s conversation with one of the passengers who was leaving and learned that she was upset because the man had his shoes on the chair though she’d asked him to put them on the floor, he had been unwilling.  Ah, ha!  I gently turned back to the man, informed him of the fault that he was committing, and asked him, lovingly, to put his feet on the floor so we could continue on our way, adding that we were all being very patient in waiting for the bus to continue.  The man again looked surprised and then stood to approach the bus driver.  He appeared to be intoxicated to some degree.  Their conversation was brief, but he agreed to put his feet on the floor.  Before turning away, he asked the driver “Are you a mother?” To which she replied in the affirmative.  His reply was completely unexpected - “Happy Mother’s Day!” 

A few stops down the road I saw the opportunity to give my seat to another mother, wishing her a happy mother’s day as well.  At the next stop, I heard a bit of a commotion coming from that same man.  Peering through the crowd at him, I gathered that he was trying to get the college student next to him to move so he could give ME his seat!!  He told the boy that I’d given my seat to a woman and that I should now have his seat.  I chuckled to myself, as man’s sweetness, thoughtfulness, and alertness to good was clearly in charge of his thinking!

The bus driver stepped off the bus, causing everyone to groan, and soon returned with two policemen.  Realizing that they were coming for this man, I took the opportunity to greet each one and comment on the man’s kindness and obedience.  I asked them to be kind in return, that he was of no harm.  I was, of course, speaking of God’s man.  They were so friendly in response and said they would take good care of him.  As he passed me when the three exited, this new “friend” said he thought he was going to jail.  I assured him that he had no reason to go, as he was a good man and they would take care of him.  Off went this peaceful and obedient trio.  Though the bus driver seemed pleased with the result, I took no sides in thought, knowing, rather that it was God who was driving the Love bus and Christ was “at the helm of thought” for her and all.

The rest of the ride gave me several more opportunities to see God’s work where some inharmonious situation seemed to appear. It really was a field ripe for the harvest.  Every day and moment is!  But it wasn’t work at all - the Association meeting and Address had given me such a clear, strong, undaunted view of where we are all living, that all I had to do was to be willing to stay there. The rest was Love’s doing.