what makes us who we are...

I was in the city (Rochester) recently at a home I'm not often at, and when I was outside alone I realized there was a fight beginning to happen within a few hundred feet of me. I was alone in the episode - it was only me noticing what was about to happen... I prayed that the fight wouldn't actually take place, and that the Lord would have his hand over each of the people in the scenario, and actually it didn't happen after all the screaming and yelling at one another. I was surprised, just because hey - it was a late Saturday night, and I thought surely someone would be drunk or stupid enough to being the scuffle. I was grateful for the fact that it didn't end up happening, but found myself walking to the back of the property where I was, even closer to where the fight was about to happen. I had no fear in it - just felt like I wanted to be closer. I thought at one point as I stood close to the fence that maybe a gun would be part of the issue and that possibly I would be a statistic in Rochester's list of deaths/shootings but wasn't afraid. I don't fear death - it'll happen when it happens, and I know the Lord holds my path. I had thoughts of 'what if', thinking it wouldn't be so bad, going to heaven in a sudden and (hopefully) minimally painful way... but alas, the scuffle was not to be. I was fine, and walked away with many thoughts about what makes us who we are.

What makes us do things like that - act out in aggression against others? What makes me the peaceful person who only apologizes to my irate neighbor who is screaming at me from her door for no real reason? Why can't I engage that animal part of me that brings me to a place of anger and hate that I would step outside of my humble life and be the person who people fear? Sometimes I think it wouldn't be so bad... to have something about me that people would see as fearful... uncertain... indecisive... short tempered. What makes me who I am, and what makes those people who they are/were?

I figure it has to be my faith base - knowing what the Lord teaches, and being so ingrained in me that I follow blindly without even a thought of anything else. I know people who are certain of themselves to know that they'd react violently - aggressively - defensively, even if it wasn't their fight. I don't understand that type of mentality. Who are they that makes those decisions okay? Was it their upbringing? A bad incident that brought out the worst in them? I know a man who was in Vietnam, and was shot at... more than 30 years later he was part of a paramedic unit that happened to be near a shooting, and he instantly became a different person. He withdrew and regressed into the man who was in Vietnam. He's never been the same person since. It destroyed his marriage of 20+ years... he lives alone... I don't know what happened, but he needs medication to keep him even... life has become a battle ground for him again, and he can't get beyond it.

I don't know that reality. Vietnam is a part of me, simply because of my father who was part of that war, and the book I put together of his and his friends' photos of their experiences there. They were part of the very early years of the conflict, being called "Advisors" instead of army soldiers... but it makes me wonder what happened in all of that where it could possibly, if my father was here, change him from who he was in my life, to a person in a state of paranoia where he couldn't tell the difference between reality and what he remembered being in the midst of in Vietnam.

In any case, I learned a lesson in my faith that night - being so close to what could have been an ugly confrontation between people I didn't know, but was close enough to for me to be in the mix of the problem. I pray for those people - for them to find Jesus, and to be better people than those who act like animals. I trust what my life will be will affect those types of people, and maybe help them find peace in life... but it's a lifelong effort.