Saturday, June 12, 2010

Catching a girl

It happened last week in Brussels, the capital of Belgium.

A man went to shop in the department store H & M.
54 year old Matteo Janiri.

Meanwhile, 3 floors up, the 4-year old girl Philine managed to escape the attention of her parents.
She climbed onto the railing of the escalator.
Lost her balance and fell into the gap between the floors.

She yelled and screamed while falling and this made Matteo Janiri look up.
He realized a child was falling down.
And he realized she was falling right down to where he was standing.
Instinctively, he spread his arms and caught the girl.
And saved her life.

This story was reported in the Belgium newspaper "Het Laatste Nieuws".
Whose journalist interviewed the deeply shocked Matteo Janiri shortly after the amazing event.

This Matteo was most impressed by the fact that he happened to be in the right place at the right time to save the girl's life.
And this, according to him, had come from his decision not to go to the department store by car but by tram.
This public transportation system made him arrive later in the department store compared to if he had come by car, so he believed.
By coming to the department store later, in his opinion he arrived in time to catch the girl.

Matteo should get a medal and a kiss from the girl.
But his theory of the tram making him be in the right place at the right time makes no sense.
There must have been thousands of reasons why it was him that happened to be there to catch the girl.
So, there are no reasons.
There are no explanations.
It simply happened.

But, H & M, how about installing escalators where no children can climb on anymore?




.

1 comment:

Dawn Pier said...

Your contention that what happened "just happened" is terribly pessimistic and not very spiritual at all Michel. I personally believe that it was not just a coincidence that he was there at the right time - because "There are no coincidences." The girl was saved for a reason and he did the saving for a reason. The Universe operates in a very intentional way and there is always a reason for everything that happens to us. That is my very strong belief based on how this phenomenon has worked throughout my life.