While driving north along 29, I glanced over at my daughter, sixteen and slumbering next to me as REM, Ben Folds, Dolly Parton and the Beatles graced the heavy droning of my tires on the interstate. She was exhausted after four college visits. The music and the solitude led my thoughts wandering about this sweet thing who used to ride with me in our car as a bald and gurgling infant.

One of those rides I remember quite vividly. Karen was just a wee one strapped in her car seat. Too young to leave at home, still nursing, I brought her to a warehouse in Bladensburg to sort and bag discounted groceries for parishioners (at our previous church) through the SHARE food program. Another volunteer, MaryJo, drove her hatch back stuffed with groceries bags as well. Together we had pulled over to reorient ourselves (we were lost) when suddenly I heard my daughter scream as a mighty jolt snapped my neck forward and back. My friend, who had been leaning into my passenger window, was thrown across the sidewalk. Though MaryJo looked a bit dazed, she got up on her own and Karen, whom I quickly unstrapped, clung to me unharmed. My car had to be towed away. An impatient driver had tried to drive through us when stymied by a traffic jam.

What ensued now amazes me. At the time, stuck in “flight” mode, I could only repeat, “I just want to take my baby out of here.” The driver barely issued an apology even while an army of pro-life pilgrims emptied out of the bus that stood idle at the red light next to us. They came to offer medical aid and testimony as witnesses. Once the police officer arrived, she ticketed the reckless driver (who was not quite certain who owned his car) and then turned to cite me, for parking illegally. That’s when MaryJo, now standing, recovering from her blow, pointed out that I was pulled over to the side of the road legally. To my advantage, her years as a civil rights lawyer had honed her advocacy skills. The car I was driving (though now totaled) was a tank of a sedan recently sold to me by my brother for a few hundred dollars, “because you have a growing family.” Its crumpled steel had protected us. Now, I am scandalized by the “promiscuous grace” God showered on us that day. The angels who poured out of the bus, the swift thinking legal counsel and my valiant steed all point to a God who is not satisfied to intervene but occasionally wills to do so with a splash. This is the mark of the God who created whimsy in pomegranates, peacocks and power in the Pacific. This is the God who allowed a woman to bathe his feet with her tears.

To tell you a secret, I’m not like Abraham. I never would have obeyed if requested to sacrifice my child. I would have wheedled, stomped, argued, begged and eventually jumped on the next boat out of town with Jonah, as far from sacrificial altars and Nineveh as possible. I certainly never would have tied a bundle of kindling on Karen’s back for a secret hike up a remote mountain. Nor could I have accepted her death or harm in that accident.

Hurtling along 29, I felt silent words rise to my lips as I mused over the cast of characters and their director who attended a young, scared mother stuck on the side of the road with other people’s groceries, 16 years ago. “Why do you love me so much?” I thought. “How do you know my heart so well?” I wondered. “Why did you spare me and my baby?”

Before the accident happened, I had been doing a good deed for my fellow parishioners. My life of faith was comfortably steadfast and well practiced. What struck me as I ferried my daughter home from her exhausting college tour, was how God had been so much more than faithful to me and the others in that small crisis so long ago.

At St. John’s, children are taught a tidy faith with steadfast prayers, tucked-in uniforms, neat paint covering un-glorious brick and cinderblock. Students and teachers mix learning with service and grow in wisdom, knowledge and virtue. For this we can be both grateful and confident that they have been well taught.

Sometimes, unexpectedly, even as during my accident, His promiscuous grace seeps through the mortar and emanates through the well tended building. Sr. Lois will fan my four year old’s delusions of grandeur helping him build a castle where he can rest after slaying dragons and ogres. Sr. Kathleen and Mrs. Harris will approach with great tidings, “The ducks have come back to make their nest. We’ve seen them.” My third grader will sling his thumbs into his belt loops and adopt a heavy Texan accent as he relives Pecos Bill for his classmates. Even seventh graders, alone, under the cover of night and in the sanctuary of their rooms, will begin to hum or even sing lines from their upcoming school show.

Perhaps 16 or so years from now, they will look back and marvel at sacrifices made, the care and patience and preparation that were poured into their learning at St. John’s. They may peruse the cast of characters in their lives, the steeds, the lawyers, the angels. They may wonder at God’s bounty and ask, “Why do you love me so much? How do you know my heart so well? Why did you spare me? Shored up by sturdy formation, they will know that God loves them faithfully, to be sure. With time and curious memories, they may even accept that God loves them beyond duty, deeply, abidingly, and scandalously with His promiscuous grace.