Premonition

Overall, this weekend will rank fairly high on my list of enjoyable weekends. My Friday morning started with a brief negotiation for a raise (due to increased job responsibilities) that went so ridiculously well, I still find it absurd. As if Fridays were not wonderful enough. This weekend was also the first meeting of the course I’m TA-ing, Introduction to Islamic Studies. So, Friday (7-10pm) and Saturday (9-4pm), I listened to Dr. Sookhdeo give a (very) concise history of Islam. It was refreshing to know that the majority of his lectures were refreshers for me, and that I was able to answer students’ questions without sounding like a moron. This was also the first time I’ve been exposed to a Christian perspective on Islam from a true academic. Dr. Sookhdeo is not apologetic about the inherent problems in Islam, nor does he shy from challenging the Western church to protect our fellow Christians living as persecuted minorities in the Muslim world.

After class on Saturday, I went to see Amazing Grace, an excellent film with a powerful and convicting story.

It is this morning that has me a bit bothered. I’d intended to visit a friend’s church but they canceled services do to inclement weather. It wasn’t really bad out, I thought. My church hadn’t canceled services, and neither had another church I was interested in visiting. The roads didn’t look slick, but by the time I left, a soft, wet snow was beginning to fall. Flurries, I thought. I’m from Chicago, this is nothing. I left early, assuming all the other drivers would be taking their sweet time getting to-and-fro. And the roads really weren’t bad. When I started. By the time I’d almost reached my destination, I’d slowed down considerably, and was driving cautiously.

And then I sensed something. I was coming up on a curve in the road – one I know to be sketchy even in fine weather, when you are not paying attention and take it too fast. This will be difficult, slick, I thought. Slow down as much as possible and do not touch the breaks unless absolutely necessary. And, whatever you do, don’t fishtail. Wouldn’t that suck if I fishtailed and went over the small grassy median? Wouldn’t it?

That’s exactly what happened. I let off the gas, downshifted and began to take the turn. The car in front of me was going too quickly and needed to break, thus I had to follow suit or rear-end him. My back end fishtailed; I tried to turn away from the median but got pulled towards it. Somehow, I managed to check my mirrors for cars behind me (there weren’t). I tried to turn into the turn, hoping to avoid crossing the median and just stop facing the wrong way on the northbound side of the road, and continued to pray for no cars. Thankfully, there were no cars behind me, or on the southbound side of the median, because that’s where I stopped, facing southbound but at an angle. My car had gone up and over the median (curbed, maybe six feet wide, with grass and bushes.) I remember hoping the bushes would stop me and keep me from going into traffic. But there was no traffic, and as I came to a stop, a car coming southbound saw me, stopped and buffered me from other cars. I was safe but still a hazard to other drivers. I realized then that though I’d remembered to push in the clutch, I hadn’t taken the car out of gear and I was stuck. I don’t think the cars coming up behind me realized I’d not been their southbound company a moment earlier and just thought I was stalled. It took a few tries to get my car to start, get in gear and move out of the way, onto the only spot of shoulder along the road. A very, very kind man with his son stopped to make sure I was ok, and offered to follow me where ever I needed to go. (And he did.)

THANK G-D I’m fine. My car is fine, and no one else was hit or skidded because of me. I was able to spend the afternoon with a friend playing computer video games which, while a splendid waste of time, was also a pleasant distraction from an upsetting event.

What has me bothered is the premonition. This type of thing happens to me frequently, only it typically does not actually involve me. I have hunches, intuitions, or dreams; most often dreams. I hesitate to call them prophetic because, well, they don’t feel prophetic, and many of them having nothing to do with G-d. I don’t know what prophetic is supposed to feel like; I just don’t feel like that. But I know when some things will happen and when other things won’t happen. These events are not always good, nor always bad. For the most part, they are usually things I can do nothing about, and so I’m never really sure what to do with this information.

I’ve generally don’t discuss this openly. Recently, I started telling a few friends when something happens involving them that I’ve dreamt about, but no one seemed to respond, so I stopped. Last week, a close friend had a rough day. I’d dreamt about it weeks before, but I don’t always know the outcome of events, so I didn’t say anything. Should I? Does it matter? What is the purpose?