"What Use Is The Right Answer To The Wrong Question?'

The Right Question
By: Joseph B. Walker

There were a thousand reasons not to stop. I was running
late for a Very Important... well, whatever it was that I
was running late for that day. The freeway was busy -- I
might have caused an accident or something. Surely the
Highway Patrol would be along soon, and it's their job to
help stranded motorists, isn't it? And I had on my navy blue
suit, with a light blue shirt and a silk tie. Not exactly
car-fixing clothes, you know?

Let's see -- that makes 1,004 reasons not to stop. And
here's 1,005: I am the world's worst auto mechanic. Public
enemy No. 1 on the AAA's Ten Most Wanted list. Mr.
WhatsaWrench.

The first time I tried to change my car's oil myself I did
fine -- until I forgot to put the new oil in. The boys down
at the garage had a big laugh over that one. The next time,
I remembered to put in the new oil -- only I put it in the
transmission. That triggered a letter from the Society for
the Prevention of Cruelty to Chryslers. They suggested I get
a horse.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not feeling sorry for myself. God
has given me other talents to use for the benefit of
mankind. But I'm not sure how much it would have helped that
lady whom was stranded by the side of the freeway if I would
have pulled over and belched on cue. So I didn't pull over.
I drove on by, just like hundreds of other drivers on the
freeway that day. And I felt guilty about it. So I turned
off at the next exit and made my way back to see if I could
at least give her a lift or something. But by the time I got
back to her, an Hispanic gentleman had pulled in behind her,
and was tinkering away at her car's engine like he knew what
he was doing.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" I asked.

"No, thank you," the lady replied. "This nice man says he
can fix it." At that moment, a voice from under the hood
shouted: "OK, try it now!" The woman reached for the key and
turned it. The engine started beautifully.

"It was your serpentine belt," the man explained, wiping his
hands on his pants. "It slipped off. It's pretty worn. You
want to take that to a mechanic, get a new one put on."

The woman tried to give the freeway Samaritan some money,
but he declined and waved as she drove off. It wasn't until
we started walking toward our cars that I noticed he had
five more reasons not to stop than I did; his family was
sitting in the station wagon, waiting patiently. "Do you
stop and help people like this often?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Somebody has to," he said. "What's she going
to do if nobody helps?" And for him, that was reason enough.

In his final sermon, given the night before his
assassination, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. took as his text
the Biblical parable of the Good Samaritan. In the story, a
man is attacked by thieves and left by the roadside. Several
travelers happen upon him, but they pass by. Eventually,
someone does stop to help, although it is the one person who
might have had a reason not to. He is a Samaritan and the
victim is a Jew. Those folks didn't get along any better
back then than they do now. According to Dr. King, those who
passed by the injured man were asking themselves the wrong
question: "If I help this man, what will happen to me?"

The Good Samaritan stopped to help because he asked the
right question: "If I don't help this man, what will happen
to him?"