Ten feet from safety

Dear Internet, I have hesitated to blog about this because the last thing I want to do is invite you to a self-centered, narcissistic, naval-gazing pity party. I figure you get invited to enough of those already. But now that I have moved from that phase (somewhat), I feel more free to share. On Sunday, I was 10 feet from safety. By that I mean I was parked about 10 feet from the store in which I was looking for a kitchen gadget.
At the front of my parking spot, where my front bumper would be, sat a shopping cart. Who knows who left it? Doesn’t matter. I wanted to get close enough to it without touching it, but also get close enough to keep from sticking out the back. No such luck. My front bumper touched the cart. It began to roll to the right. Near the end of its roll sat a large green truck, in which a man sat in the driver’s seat and a woman in the front. The woman immediately jumped out and cussed me up one side and down the other. Think of all the bad words you know that you could call a person; she said them. Several times. Loudly. Still sitting in my car with the driver's window down, all I could do was apologize. Several times. That seemed only to provoke.
I sat there and waited for them to drive off. It seemed an eternity. Then I sought safety in the store, where I lost all concentration, couldn’t find what I needed, came back out to my car and called my husband. Crying like a baby. He thought I’d been shot. It felt like it. No one has ever yelled at me this way, at least not in one full swoop and with such intensity over a relatively small slight. To my knowledge, the cart didn’t even hit the couple's truck. The man in the truck sat and remained silent throughout.
I’ve mulled this scene over many times over two days. The part that makes this health-blog worthy, I think, is this: What is appropriate when receiving such abuse? What made this woman so angry? (A friend said Monday she probably was a raging addict. Or related to one.) How might things have been different if my husband or another friend had been there? Would she have spoken?
My faith tradition teaches me not to respond in kind. And to pray for her. It also teaches me to cry out, seek solace, lament. It teaches me not to be holier-than-thou in the aftermath: “I would NEVER do anything like that.” Maybe not. But she and I are on equal footing in that we are both human and therefore both capable of hurting other people.
What is it about us, or this present age, or what have you, that makes us so reactionary? What is it that teaches us, “When threatened, attack? ... Withhold? Disappear?” What makes mercy and grace and forgiveness such foreign concepts? Many in my faith tradition would say, "Sin." Yes, but what does that mean?
Ironically, the title of a book I'm currently reading is "Everything Belongs" by Richard Rohr, OFM. The thesis: Everything that happens--and everyone--belongs because of God's love. Situations from Sunday test me. Does THAT belong? You have to wonder. One day I want to answer yes.