I Passed a Rape Stare Test

Or rationale to why God wakes people in the small hours of the day.

This entry will offend people who insist there shall not be God or the idea that they are the person of God. If that’s you, I urge you to skip it.

A pain of annoyance, a dull irritation came over my eyes accompanied by an anxiety pang woke me from sleeping. My eyes opened to the dark. I turned on the low light of the table lamp revealing a bleary, frosted viewpoint now pinching the corners of my irises.  It was the 4 AM hour.

Within moments, my vision clarified and the dull annoyance became clear along with the origin of intrusion into my sleep. It was God (again).

People mistakenly believe that God is not a sleep interrupter as an entity, that He is uncaring about a person’s reasoning. The reality is that God is uncaring of your sleep when He needs to look into your reasoning. This was one such occasion.

I was too groggy to be scared, yet. I recalled a scene, as from a flipbook now feeling irritated, accused, alarmed, and confronted. It might be a good time to indicate, as a queried human, I am also a woman, being given a growth inquisition at 4AM.

You see, a few months ago, I got out of my car to retrieve my mail from the mailbox. I then saw a young man. He had stopped his walk on the street about 30 feet directly in front of my car. He was alone with his dog, peering directly into my car. It would be more honest to say he was peering into the driver with a predator’s stare.  This was a swiftly complicating stare.

The intent to overpower a person with physical force is communicated by peering directly into the eyes, with intensity, not allowing the other person to evade the gaze from predatory eye-lock. The stare emanates from power inversion. It conveys overuse of force and disparity in survival prospects. You feel this stare carry a chill to you in warm weather as the hairs on your arms stand up. The nasal senses open to smell for anything that resembles death. The whole body becomes alert to physical attack.

This was a rape stare.

The problem with this stare is that it is far past leering or lingering too long in a jelly stare to dwell on a pretty girl. Contrary to desires of the courts, economists, pundits, politicians or reporters the rape stare is simply not non-existent. They can no more wave away the stare of a hunting mountain lion. They would deny the experiences of their fellow man, as if they were lying all day long, but this is a well known moral failing. People see it on college campuses. They witness it in offices and public cafeterias. People see and would notice without excusing. There is no fine or prosecution for this strange indiscretion. An onlooker might feel powerless, as if witnessing a man defecating in public.

I am now aware, at 4 AM, that God sees it as well.  (Did something happen?)

I know that God is a solid judge of intent. For instance, Jesus had said, in plain red text, that if a man had thinking design to commit adultery, that this transgression was already done according to God. This is a God who witnesses and judges the transiting thought wheels of acts to intent.

You see, a stare can express intent without action the same way a catcall expresses intent, but with witnesses. It dawned on me at that moment that possibly the only witnesses to this event were myself, this man, his dog and God’s witness; which presents a lonely and humbling feeling.

Had God seen the acts of this man’s mind and the blankness of my own during this very uncomfortable occasion? The reasoning of my aggressor was not offered. I never expected to have this information. Would you ask a stalking big cat why it’s chosen you for lunch? You’re not special. You are simply an opportunity target in the path of a predator.

Upon recollection, I got back into my car. It was at that time the gaze was unavoidable. I was astonished for a long second with some shock. I chose to lock the car and turn over the engine. I slowly pulled forward. The man did not move from his spot. He did not want to unlock this stare. I didn’t really give him much of a choice, because I maneuvered around him. I made sure not to impair him, injure him or his obstacle dog.

This was followed by question.  A mini-inquisition if you will.

Do you know why you did this?

It was then I started to become very afraid of God. Unsure yet why I was scared, my instincts were to be honest, to tell God all truth in my knowledge set and withhold nothing. I had not thought of why I did this. Now I was supposed to know and think of it and tell God… at 4 AM.

I chased my logic as far back as I could with adrenaline punch. As if running around in a low-lit library searching an archaic Dewey Decimal card file system bearing hurry sweat, I pulled something. Yes - something for God, because I had fear and compulsion and dread of not producing some answer for the Almighty.

“I did not want to hurt the man and his dog,” was my reply.

Suddenly an understanding hit me, like a crashing wave of simple certainties about this matter. There was a scorpion’s nest of treacherous potentials involved in this One-act play. Whatever test this was, I passed. Even though I was the object target of intent aggressive enough to trouble God, no one was harmed.

I had the upper hand in this situation. I had the protection of a 2-ton machine with automatic locks and this man had a blonde doodle dog. I could have chose to overpower him, harm him, increase the differential for conflict and make aggressive physical contact, but I did none of the above.  He expressed intent to harm me, but I chose not to harm him. I would have surely placed myself in legal jeopardy in choosing to injure him.  However, I would be lying if I said the law was top of mind during the event.

Self-defense is complicated.  Conflict avoidance is not always a character flag for cowardice. Sometimes it is just a way to help yourself from being mired in a spiral of unending battles to determine a meaningless conflict.

What was the meaning of this?

Entanglements with evil predatory intent. Get off the scene immediately.

Things were not as they seemed. Psychotic or evil seeming people are often vulnerable to harm. They manufacture harmful outcomes on impulse due to flawed reasoning. This information doesn’t make me a crisis communications bomb tech. However, I am certain if someone intends to harm me, that aggression doesn’t necessarily earn reciprocity.  

That’s heavy information I didn’t grasp consciously before my wake-up inquisition with God.

“And he said to the human race,
    “The fear of the Lord—that is wisdom,
    and to shun evil is understanding.”

Job 28