The Jury
Tuesday, May 25, 2010 at 7:00AM MAD21 By Michelle (Graceful, Faith in the Everyday)
I sighed heavy and groaned as I slid the folded paper from the envelope and read the opening lines:
“Michelle DeRusha, you are hereby summoned and notified that you have been selected to serve as a juror during the two-week jury term beginning May 10. You are required to appear in Lancaster County District Court as instructed below.”
Jury duty.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve always viewed jury duty as a giant pain in the neck. One simple letter and my well-oiled life turns upside-down. Now suddenly there were arrangements to make with my employer, childcare to schedule, transportation to and from school to arrange – to say nothing of the hours and hours of sitting in a stale, airless courthouse waiting room.
I appeared at the Hall of Justice at my appointed time. The waiting area was packed tight, row upon row of potential jurors crunched into folding chairs. An older woman motioned to me from across the room, pointing at an empty seat next to her, and I graciously squeezed in, glad not to have to lean against the wall with my achy back.
We made small talk about the chilly weather, the drizzle, the whipping wind. “So how long have you been sitting here?” I asked her.
“Since 1,” she answered. I looked at my watch and sighed.
As our chattering quieted I surveyed the room.
So many faces, so many different walks of life, I thought to myself, gazing at my neighbors. There were the business executives, buttoned into pin stripes, muttering quietly into cell phones, typing furiously on Backberrys. And the retirees, clutching bulky handbags to chests, bent over Sudoku and Newsweek. A few teens in tattoos and tee shirts slouched in chairs. A soccer mom tottered on the edge of her seat, designer dark-wash brushing well-worn dungarees. African-Americans, Asian-Americans, an Indian man, a woman wearing a dark head covering. A young man dozed, elbow propped on knee, faced slumped into hand. A tired-looking woman with a pale face and grey roots read a romance novel.
Two aisles ahead, three or four jurors broke into amicable conversation, complaining good-naturedly, their laughing and joking piercing the quiet.
Pages turned. Bodies shifted. Legs crossed and uncrossed.
We waited.
And then it dawned on me, a sudden, sharp realization: we need to take care of one another. All of us need to do our part. Without exception.
“This is it,” I thought. “This is life happening right here. Here we sit, in it together.”
Observing all those different people together in once place – young and old, wealthy and not, professional and working-class, black and white – I realized the simple truth: we are here, on this Earth, for a purpose. We are here to take care of one other, to love one another. To serve.
“No man is an island entire of itself,” the poet John Donne wrote. “Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the Bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
It’s not just death that connects us but all of life – its thrills and agonies, mountains and valleys, rains and droughts. And the action we take – whether good or bad – impacts so much more than our own selves.
Frederick Buechner says it like this:
“As we move around this world and as we act with kindness, perhaps, or with indifference, or with hostility, toward the people we meet, we too are setting the great spider web a-tremble. The life that I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place and time my touch will be felt.”
I wasn’t selected as a juror last week. After about an hour in the waiting room, 36 of us filed into a courtroom, where the district judge informed us that the plaintive had issued a plea just moments before the trial was set to begin.
But as I walked past the metal detector, down the concrete steps and into the howling wind, I realized I had learned a lesson about duty – civic and otherwise – just the same. We touch lives every day – family, friends, neighbors, strangers. We set the great spider web a-tremble. It's up to each one of us to decide how that touch will be felt.
Michelle is a Christian wife and mother of two originally from Massachusetts now living in Nebraska. She is a part-time writer, editor and fundraiser for Nebraska PBS/NPR. Michelle loves to write about how her family illuminates God's presence in her everyday life, and on finding (and keeping) faith in the everyday. Michelle enjoys reading, running and writing. Be sure to go visit her blog, Graceful, Faith in the Everyday.
Family Life, Jury Duty, Relationships in Family Life
Reader Comments (6)
Andy Andrews has written the most wonderful book about this very thing. It's called The Lost Choice. I HIGHLY HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend it! It's one of those life changing books.
Yes we are so interconnected, aren't we? Life occurs even in waiting room watching other people Good post, Thank you.
Great post! Oh,I how I remember that waiting, waiting, waiting and never being chosen for a jury. You are so right that we are given the opportunity each day to touch peoples' lives. It doesn't matter whether we are waiting in line at the supermarket, in a doctor's office or in a court building, the opportunities are there for us to make a difference. A pleasant attitude certainly makes the time go faster. It's like what I told my grandson at age 2, when he pitched a temper tantrum about having to take a bath: "You are going to take a bath. You can do it kicking and screaming or you can have fun with it and play in the water, but either way, you are going to take a bath." He made the right choice. If he could understand the difference at age 2, one would think we would all be able to understand it as adults?
Thanks so much for visiting and commenting on my blog. I hope I will see you there again!
Love this reminder. Everywhere and every moment, there is opportunity. We can see, reflect, love, grow, care, and embrace life. Great post.
Well said Michelle, I felt like I was sitting in the courtroom with you! It certainly is our Duty and such a small one in the midst of our Lords Sacrifices!
Katie
In '72 I was on a jury in Redwood City, CA. My only time. I was about 3 months pg, sick and tired most of the time, and bored out of my mind with this particular case that went on for about 3 weeks and then came to an outside agreement -- a construction company fighting another company. Found out later when the atty called that they and the judge were concerned about me, but since I didn't ask to be released they didn't suggest it. [I didn't know I had an option and was afraid I'd be sent to jail or fined for asking... I was much younger, obviously.] Nearly 40 years since then it's never come to pass. I remember enjoying the fellowship with the other jurors. Very nice to me. Your insight, and your heart-flow, shows much godly grace and wisdom.