Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Garden-variety miracle

Dear Mitzibel alerts us to what, in Pretty Lady's world, is a fairly run-of-the-mill occurrence:

Attempted robbery ends in group hug

WASHINGTON - Police on Capitol Hill are baffled by an attempted robbery that began with a handgun put to the head of a teenager and ended in a group hug.

It started about midnight on June 16 when a group of friends was finishing a dinner of marinated steaks and jumbo shrimp on the back patio of a District of Columbia home. That's when a hooded man slid through an open gate and pointed a handgun at the head of a 14-year-old girl."Give me your money, or I'll start shooting," he said, according to police and witnesses.

Everyone froze, including the girl's parents. Then one guest spoke. "We were just finishing dinner," Cristina "Cha Cha" Rowan, 43, told the man. "Why don't you have a glass of wine with us?"

The intruder had a sip of their Chateau Malescot St-Exupery and said, "Damn, that's good wine."

...

"I think I may have come to the wrong house," he said before apologizing. "Can I get a hug?"

Rowan, who works at her children's school and lives in Falls Church, Va., stood up and wrapped her arms around the armed man. The four other guests followed.

"Can we have a group hug?" the man asked. The five adults complied.

Now, in Pretty Lady's opinion, this is a prime example of the Holy Spirit at work. One notices all the elements; simplicity, style, spontaneity, serenity. The Holy Spirit thinks on his feet, and never loses his cool. He works with the resources at hand--in this case, a bottle of Chateau Malescot and a charming lady named Cha Cha. And group hugs are the result!

Further, one must note that the mark of the Holy Spirit is grounded in Love, transcending Situation and Appearances. When one is operating from a position of ironclad, unconditional Love, there is no room for panic, rage, terror or unfortunate Sudden Moves.

Pretty Lady would like to mention, in closing, that a Kantian Categorical Imperative approach in this situation would have been of no use whatsoever. One cannot make a Blanket Rule that the proper response to having one's fourteen-year-old girl held at gunpoint is to offer the gunman a glass of wine; this would merely ensure that all the winos in Washington would find a way to acquire handguns and stalk the local junior high schools.

No, darlings, the superficial circumstances of miracles are always as unique as they are irrelevant. It is the meta-truth behind them which is forever the same.

5 comments:

Barak said...

While I agree that this is a pretty run-of-the-mill miracle, why bring the holy ghost into this? I have long noticed that the quality of a gathering is directly proportional to the quality of the comestibles consumed. The vintners at the Chateau (not to mention Cha-Cha) clearly deserve more credit for taming the beast than any supernatural being.

Cha-Cha apparently has a gift of being able to see whether someone is capable of pulling a trigger on another human being and the presence of mind to offer some yummy wine. I venture that her experience with children at the school where she works taught her all she needed to know for this situation.

Anonymous said...

Ah, but the Holy Spirit is different from the Holy Ghost. Or at least it is, in my cosmology. Whatever it was, it was Divine, whether you chose to spell it with a capital or lower-case "D".

The cynic in me wonders what a long, tense evening some 14-year-old three houses down experienced, waiting for her gunman/accomplice/boyfriend to come and finance their illicit vacation.

Anonymous said...

I agree with Pretty Lady that this was a miracle and not as common an event as we might like.

I also believe that we often forget that God deserves the credit and the glory for all of his creation - comestibles included.

Anonymous said...

Here here, duckman! Thank G-d for good wine and classy dames!

The Aardvark said...

Makes me happy.