Night Terror

I live in a pretty safe neighborhood. There's a middle school 20 feet away and a health center parking lot I see outside my apartment window. 

But last night the police rushed through -which isn't the first time. Last year there was a boy who choked a girl at the middle school who then took off running and the police were driving around like crazy looking for him. 

This time was different. 10pm I hear yelling and someone shout out, "He has a _____!!!!" and it sounded like either they said "bomb" or "gun". Originally I thought it was BOMB because that's what it had sounded like. 

I then had to think as I looked out the window at a cop trying to catch this man running past, "Is this it? If the bomb goes off am I going to die?" 

In the moment I was nervous and simultaneously calm. There was a duality: I feared for my mortality, but not my soul. So I was frightened over the outcome and calm in thinking "if it happens it happens..." 

Then I heard more clearly, "He has a GUN!" 

It's weird to think that someone evading the police who's armed is somehow less frightening or any kind of relief, but it was. I actually thought, "Everyone has a gun. We live in a country with no legislation on guns..." 

The police circled round and were having a hard time finding the man they were pursuing on foot. He was hiding somewhere around our apartment complex. 

Then I heard an altercation between the police and the man. They found him, yelled for him to get one the ground, and put his hands over his head. But the way he talked shifted the situation. 

He said, "I don't even have a gun. What are you guys doing? I haven't done anything..." 

It was clearly a black man, who seemed to be unarmed, and in that moment there was a possibility they had the wrong man. Suddenly with 10 other cops closing in i feared FOR the suspect. One black man presumed guilty surrounded by that many cops with guns drawn... 

And I listened very closely and thought, "If he's unarmed and they kill him right now I would testify as a witness in his defense" because he clearly wasn't a threat of any kind at that point. 

Once they apprehended him and took him away they started looking around for the gun -which they thought he had discarded. At this point I'm wondering, "What did he do? For this big of a man hunt, did her murder someone...?" 

And that's when a neighbor poked her head out and asked what crime he had committed. "He stole a car". 

All of this for a car theft. I'm standing there wondering if a bomb is going off or if an unarmed black man will be killed and it was all over a CAR. 

I get that theft is wrong and I would be upset if someone stole my vehicle, but I wouldn't want the thief to be executed or an entire neighborhood to feel terrorized because he fled with a gun. 

Then 30 minutes into the cops "wrapping up" the scene and securing the location I heard them laughing and joking around. And I thought, "Well I laugh and joke with my coworkers and they are 'at work' right now so..." But it was still kind of disturbing after everything that had played out to joke around about it. 

I was also frustrated with my response. On the plus side I prayed over the cops and asked God to be with them, protect everyone, and bring the truth to light. I asked for a peaceful outcome. And God showed up and didn't disappoint. 

But on the downside I was too invested in the circumstances and had annoying survival instincts kick in where there didn't need to be any. Logically and spiritually I was beyond it, but emotionally and physically I was still reactive. Like Albert Einstein being locked at the wrist by being handcuffed to a 7 year old child. 

At some point I crawled back into bed and let it go. I knew God was there and taking care of it, so I could let go of the situation. 

But I also realized how much that sort of thing can wound your heart. You don't think your heart is being vandalized during that situation because all you feel is fear/anxiety -but it diminishes your heart. I noticed I sort of "locked" my heart away within myself to protect it and had to work on freeing it again. And with the cops, it's like there was no heart in any of it. 

And you say, "Well of course not -this is life or death, screw the 'heart'!" 

But that's kind of the point. When we're driven to rationalizing and upholding that which disconnects us from our soul's CORE -the heart of everything -we attach to survival and ego. Why is there this sort of chaos in the world to begin with? So we disconnect from heart. 

And if it really is life or death, all the more reason to involve the soul and compassion and reason. 

My greater pain in all this was fear and losing the only real semblance of true "control" I had in any of it-which was control over my reaction to it. 

I pray for more soul and heart to lead us -especially cops -in what we do and how we react to the world.