A few days ago, a friend stopped me and asked, “What’s going on in this town?”
What’s going on in this town? Mahomet. The town with a desirable school system. The town with a very low crime rate. The town where the “happiest” people in Illinois live. A town of 15,000 people, most of whom leave their cars unlocked and their garage doors open.
Even last Saturday morning I made the comment that the news in Mahomet is predictable, for the most part. I could schedule out the next year and be about 95 percent full on stories for this town.
But the last couple months we’ve experienced a few glimpses of true heartbreak. And I think that sometimes when our hearts are broken, our vision gets cloudy and we often forget to see the good that is around us. And there is still a lot of good in this town.
This may be a simple illustration, but it was powerful for me. Sunday night, I slept on the couch. I’d put information out about Dracy Pendleton throughout the day on Mother’s Day…and I knew that the police did not know where he was. Logically, I knew he probably wasn’t in Mahomet anymore, but another part of me thought about him being in the woods near my home. There was absolutely no reason for me to believe this, but it crossed my mind.
So, the lights are off and it’s very quiet in the house. I’m sleeping and then all of a sudden I hear a loud engine roaring through my neighborhood at 4 a.m.. I popped up, looked out the window to see a white van speeding towards a curve that should not be taken at more than 20 mph. My head said, white car-did he steal another one?
I knew he’d be so stupid to steal another car and just drive around Mahomet in that car, so I laid back down. Then the same van came back through my home, still speeding, but going the wrong way down a one-way street.
Whether it was Pendleton or not, at this point, I got scared. Even though my rational mind was telling me that I was making stuff up, my heart was racing and I could sit still. So, I got up, like a 7-year old girl, and turned the lights on in my living room.
Within a couple minutes, I could feel myself calm down. I looked at the light and thought about how many times I’ve felt scared or stuck or disillusioned, then the light comes on to show me what’s really there and I feel comforted.
I’ve had a tough time this week. Not because of Pendleton or because of any of the unusual things that have happened in our community lately, but just because I’m a human being. I just hurt. And I fear that everything is going to crumble soon. What is going on in my life?
But, the truth is that there is so much light everywhere. Yesterday, I got to watch a boy, who didn’t seem to have many friends, cheer on his classmates (not just his teammates) at Junior Olympics. My daughter has cooked delicious food for dinner all week. I watched a group of friends console their classmate when she got hurt. I watched a parent hold her daughter for two hours straight because the child was cold.
And I guess that’s the thing. Yes, bad things do happen. The bad things most certainly don’t make sense, and when they happen all at once, we ask, what is going on? I’m not sure why people are so drawn to conflict and why the the bad often consumes us even when there is goodness everywhere, but it does.
But I also think that sometimes we just need to get up and turn the light in the living room on. (The light just didn’t turn on itself. I had to turn it on.) Darkness cannot overcome light.
We live in a great town. Not just because we are ranked on Niche.com or recognized because we fit into some statistic. This is a great town to live in because in good times and in bad times, people take care of each other.
In the face of tragedy or in the face of unexpected chaos, this town has pulled together to show love and support to those who needed it most. We pray for each other, cook meals for each other, spend time with each other and try to lift each other up.
Bad things are going to happen everywhere and to everyone. But when you have friends and even strangers who will put aside everything to support you in your time of need, that means everything.
I think that’s what’s going on in this town.
