Playing God at Bondi

The stories stay with me – of people risking their own safety to save others from the Bondi gunmen.

For one, the hero who wrestled the rifle from one of the shooters. Also, one of the victims who shielded his wife from gunfire. He died, but she lived.

Then there was the five-months-pregnant woman who grabbed a three-year-old girl separated from her parents in the chaos. She hid the girl by laying over her, and gently reassured her that she was safe, that everything would be alright, while one of the gunmen stalked by metres away.

The woman couldn’t guarantee anyone’s safety, of course. But her ability to remain calm and be a strong and solid presence for a vulnerable child, even with screams and turmoil in the background, was incredibly moving.

If you’ve ever wondered about the meaning of life, surely this is part of the mix. Use whatever advantages you have for the sake of others. Even if you need to put yourself in harm’s way.

For me, this is “playing God” in the truest possible sense. That phrase is usually negative, connoting someone on a power trip who wants to call the shots and make everything about them.

The early Christians saw in Christ a radically different way to “play God”: to serve other people, not lord it over them. To “in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others”. This scrambles common perceptions about God and what it would mean to imitate him.

If this life is all there is, then to risk your life for another is madness. But it might also be the moment when heaven touches earth, when human life best channels the divine. Regardless of whether it makes earthly sense.

This Thinking Out Loud was first published on Facebook.