It’s a balmy summer evening. Friends will be arriving any minute now for a weekly book study.

But what is this?

Through my open fourth-floor windows I hear a commotion down below.

I look out and see a woman in a wheelchair taking the blows of a man ramming his folded walker into her wheels.

Not OK, I think, as I grab my phone and keys and fly downstairs.

By the time I get out the door they have moved from the sidewalk to the parking lot in front of my apartment building. 

And now another man has joined the fray.

The two men are ready to come to blows, with Wheelchair Sister caught in the middle. 

Instinctively I approach and insert myself physically between the two men, my arm, my open hand, outstretched toward her.

“How are you doing?” I ask in a firm, clear voice, my eyes fixed intently on hers.

The two men back away, their rage repelled by some seen-though-unseen force. 

Wheelchair Sister fixes her eyes on me, grasps my outstretched hand and does not let it go.

The second man, still filled with rage, gets into his big white buffy SUV and burns rubber on the pavement as he peels out of the parking lot. 

I turn and see Wheelchair Sister and her companion move toward the sidewalk—she in her wheelchair, he with his walker, walking toward the low evening sun on East 11th.

What was that about, I wonder, as I wait for my book friends to arrive.

How easily we say, Lord, increase my faith! Which the Lord probably understands as a plea: Test me!

If I really want faith, I have to be willing, on a moment’s notice, to walk across the uncertain surface.

And if I want to be a channel of his peace, I can expect to be hurled into the midst of conflict.

Yet when the actual invitations arrive—too beautiful, too challenging, too immediate, too frightening—how tempting it is to push back, to resist. Perhaps to flee. 

Or, perhaps, to simply freeze in place. Or, simply, and very quietly, to slip away and hide.

But if I fix my eyes fiercely on the One who calls me, most especially in the perilous night, in the uncertain circumstance, in the undesired season, and walk into the mystery of his love, I become a channel of courage for those who, likewise, are invited to step out of the boat and to walk, with courage, toward the One who calls them. 

This is not my doing, but the work of Love, the work of the One who is Peace.