By the turn of the century, it had been well known for several years that elementary particles have virtually no respect for the speed limit set by Einstein and his fellow physicists. Yet, though annoying, the individual violations were so incredibly slight as to constitute more of a parlor trick than a serious challenge to relativity.
As it happens, photons depart the starting gate, then arrive a single second later at the finish line, one hundred and eighty six thousand miles away. However, a few of them will inevitably manage to shave off an infinitessimally tiny fraction from the elapsed time and arrive before all the others in what might be refered to as the penultimate photo-finish.
As we all know, this is the unfortunate consequence of quantum uncertainty: a phenomenon which photons are damn well willing to prove, even if it means pissing off everyone in the Einstein bunch.
Now as a theoretical basis for a faster-than-light space drive, this odd quirk would seem to have little practical application. Even if it could be harnessed into the design of a space ship, our intrepid explorers, or their descendents, could look forward to arriving at their destination 500 light years away in something less than two tenths of a second less time than their competition in a ship limited to the mere speed of light: hardly a basis for pre-selling tickets on the first excursion boat to Aldebaran.
Undeterred, one Terrence Middleton, an obscure physics professor who retired from a Midwestern community college, devoted the better part of his golden years investigating this phenomenon.
What bothered Mr. Middleton was the same thing which bothers nearly all lovers of science fiction. This was the sheer injustice of being compelled to explore the universe entirely within the perverse confines of the imagination, while millions of worlds, each filled with wonders beyond count, circled the myriad suns clearly visible every evening in the night sky.
Though not a particularly religious man, Mr. Middleton railed at the presumption of a God who carelessly dangled great plums of mystery and wonder before Man's eyes, yet witheld from him the means to reach for them. This could not possibly be, thought Mr. Middleton, and so concluded that God must have encoded the design for a practical spaceship somewhere in the laws of physics.
Mr. Middleton's optimism rested entirely on the aforementioned habits of the mischevious photon. He reasoned: if he could create a field in which all paticles behaved as faster than light photons do, what then? Could these particles be coaxed to even greater feats? Could they travel fast enough to knock off, not milliseconds, but years from a trip to the nearest star?
Sadly, Mr. Middleton never found out. After twenty years of an unproductive life, according at least to Mrs. Middleton, he passed away quietly in his sleep, dreaming, now doubt, of hacking his way through the jungles of Mongo.
But happily our story doesn't end there. While still alive, Mr. Middleton had managed to acquire a son-in-law, one Delmer Hackney, who Mrs. Middleton eventually put in charge of disposing of Mr. Middleton's personal effects. The mounds of scientific curiousa were instantly consigned to a yard sale, except for the 30 or so notebooks which Mr. Middleton had filled with notes and calculations, and which Mr. Hackney found oddly compelling.
Not that he could understand any of it. Mr. Hackney was neither a Great Thinker nor a Man of Vision. His job as night watchman at the local foundry actually exceeded his financial ambitions. Yet for all that, he was also an inveterate tinkerer. He was constantly taking things apart and putting them back together differently so as to make them work better, whereupon, mostly, they not only failed to work better, but at all.
All this lifetime of tinkering and failing had resulted in a basement full to the bursting with boxes and shelves of spare parts from every conceivable domestic apparatus, appliance and gadget - and more on the way.
It was in this millieu that Mr. Hackney subsequently spent his evening poring over his late father-in-law's notebooks - dreaming of the day he would transform theory into practice, and the stars suddenly as close as the neighbor's back yard.
Now here is where our story jumps vertically off the rails and into Looking Glass Land. Because, patient reader, there were two rather obvious reasons why Mr. Hackney could never design and build a faster-than-light space drive. No, make that three. First, Mr. Hackney was himself a man of no great skill or intelligence. Second, Mr. Middleton's notebooks might just as well have been written in Mayan pictographs, for all Mr. Hackney could make of them. And third, even if Mr. Hackney had been a certified genius, there was absolutely no way, as latter experiments have proven, that any of Mr. Middleton's theories could have produced an above average Pinewood Derby car, let alone a space drive.
God, we must assume, had grown weary of Mankind's greatest inventors failing, time after time, to find a vehicle suitable for getting out there and exploring His universe. Thereupon, it would appear, in a fit of divine petulance, he flung the answer down to Earth where it landed, willy nilly, in the basement of Delbert Hackney. It happened like this:
Late one evening, after an unusually tiresome bout with Mr. Middleton's notebooks, Mr. Hackney cleared off a workbench and began to construct a working prototype of a space drive. There's no telling what was going through his mind at the time. To this day, his biographers record his claim that the notebooks had given him a "Clear Vision" of what an interstellar space drive should look like. Clear vision or no, what emerged early the next morning from that work bench had nothing whatsoever in common with Mr. Middleton's theories. Yet - it worked.
Now let's pause here for a moment to catch our breath and briefly review this astounding chain of causation. Physicists uncover a cabal of particles behaving naughtily. This inspires a second rate physics teacher to embark on a fruitless search for the will-o-the-wisp of economy space travel. Finally, this sparks a mere hobbyist to slap together a four foot tall working model of an interstellar space ship in his basement.
!
As you are most likely aware, the Delbert Hackney residence has now long since been declared a precious and extraordinary historical monument, and is only accessible to well credentialed historians, archivists and scientists. However a complete facsimile, right down to the last loose floorboard and rusty nail, has been constructed a mile or so from the Lincoln Memorial and is accessible to the public, although tickets are harder to come by than an interview with the Pope.
If by some miracle you ever get a chance to visit that facsimile, do take a moment to drink in what is probably the most astonishing link in this unending chronicle of impossible coincidences. There you will see, sitting on top of a Craftsman tool box next to Mr. Hackney's workbench, a spiral bound notebook, open to display a grease smudged page filled with Mr. Hackney's own hand writing.
And why, you ask, does this seemingly insignificant bit of flotsam play so prominent a role in Mankind's quest for the stars? I'll tell you why in due course, but first:
Well, there, upon completion, the finished prototype of Mr. Hackney's interstellar spaceship sat. It being the weekend - about 4 a.m. on a Saturday morning - all Mr. Hackney had left to do was stumble upstairs to bed.
And that was that. Men who fail repeatedly aren't necessarily conditioned to expect failure, but throw in a good night's sleep, followed by a hot shower and a football game or two and suddenly the prospects of interstellar space travel abruptly begin to dim. By Sunday afternoon, Mr. Hackney had decided to put off testing his space ship until he had time to re-check a few of his calculations.
Months went by. Winter turned to spring, spring to summer. The little spaceship found a nice, cozy corner in the basement, where it was, indeed, like the first issue of Action Comics among piles of recent National Geographics. Then came the 4th of July, and Mr. Hackney's date with history.
On a whim, which was of course the only reliable motivator of Terrence Middleton's son-in-law, Mr. Hackney resolved, by hook or crook, to take the darn space ship down to the park and set it off at dusk before the annual fire works display. Accordingly, around 6 P.M. he hauled it out and put it in the back of the pick-up, and he and the Missus headed out for the park.
The park was already beginning to fill up with eager spectators and the fire works guys were just starting to set up. Mr. Hackney carried his interstellar space ship over next to the fireworks, sat it down on the ground, and attached about 30 feet of wire hooked to a remote. The fire works guys asked if the thing was dangerous but Mr. Hackney just laughed and said no, no it wasn't, and that it probably wouldn't go off anyway so they might as well have some fun with it. It looked for all the world like a bunch of PVC drain pipe strapped together, with four crude fins attached at the base. For the occassion, Mr. Hackney had painted it silver and stenciled "X-9" on the side. Don't ask.
But by golly X-9 was dangerous, as the two mile wide crater which had been the former site of Middletown, Michigan would have testified if Mr. Hackney had misplaced one tiny transister. More on that later.
Anyway, while it was still dusk, everyone backed off and Mr. Hackney pushed the little red button on the remote. There was a lot of smoke, or maybe more like steam, and X-9: Mr. Delbert Hackney's interstellar spaceship prototype began to rise majesticlly off the ground. Everyone agreed it looked pretty cool.
When it got about 15 or 20 feet in the air, there was a brilliant flash and the whole park became brighter than a summer day at noon. Then the spaceship, well, just went. It was like a silver column which instantly bored into the sky up to beyond the limits of vision. There followed an ear splitting clap of thunder as the air rushed in fill the void. You've heard real thunderclaps before. Well, this was a lot worse.
Needless to say, the whole crowd was struck dumbfounded, including Mr. Hackney. Babies wailed, dogs barked, and the fireworks show afterwards was as anti-climactic as the last episode of The X-Files.
Fortunately (or not, take your pick) for Mankind, present in the crowd was a chemistry professor from Middletown Junior College, who had the sense to understand what had just happened. The rest, as they say, is history. Which brings us back to that notebook sitting on top of the Craftsman tool box in the basement of Mr. Hackney's facsimile house in Washington.
Well, one thing led to another. The chemistry professor asked the dazed Mr. Hackney a whole bunch of questions. Then he called so and so, and so and so called so and so, and pretty soon the government guys with the coke bottle glasses and pocket protectors got involved. At the time it was all very hush hush, "eyes only", burn after reading, and so on.
But what we know now is that recreating Mr. Hackney's interstellar space ship prototype would have been damn near impossible if they only had Mr. Hackney's own dubious recollections to go on. And here's the thing. Mr. Hackney never kept records or made schematics of the stuff he whipped together in his basement. Never that is, except on this one, single occassion. And that's why the value of that notebook, now kept under twenty four hour guard in a bunker at an Air Force base outside Tempe, Arizona, is greater by far than all the first editions of all the plays Shakespeare wrote, or whoever it was who actually wrote them.
As it was, it turns out Mr. Hackney was not, shall we say, a meticulous record keeper. Remember the two mile wide crater that Middletown barely escaped becoming on that historical July 4th evening? Well, there are more than a few of those out in the Arizona
Friday, December 9, 2011
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Astronomy
Look for God in a centipede,
or the smell the rain brings, or motherhood, or when night falls.
Or when life is riotous, or quiet.
Don’t ever let anyone tell you they
know God better than you do.
My dear friend, I have spoken with you before of my conversations with Matthieu while I was a student at the Academy. And, as I have recounted, those conversations are divided by the moment I came to know the true nature of God. All of them before that moment are pleasant to remember, but of an order not nearly as profound as those which followed.
In time I graduated from the Academy and embarked on my professional career. Yet often I returned to Matthieu's wonderful cafe, where he kindly allowed me to embrace the wisdom he had gained from listening, with a compassion only a few are able to apply, to the stories his varied patrons vouchsafed to him. What follows is my best recollection of one of those stories...
*****
Have I told you of my friend Arnaud? No?
Why then, allow me to introduce you to him by way of short lesson in Astronomy.
Astronomers have speculated that a gigantic world lies somewhere in space far beyond the orbit of Pluto. They do not know this for certain, but surmise it because only the gravity of such a distant world can account for all the various bits of debris which are regularly pulled into our solar system from beyond the gravitational reach of the Sun.
Now I am a man of no great imagination, but sometimes I have wondered what things would be like on that distant planet. All around our magnificent Sun the inner worlds cluster in light and warmth. On some, white seas of dust and towering cliffs stand out in sharp relief. On others, great geysers of molten lava arc upwards through the mist. And on this beautiful blue sphere of ours: Life.
Moving further out we find stately giants, enraptured by constant maelstroms of ever changing hue. Now comes Jupiter, with its arabesque striations and swirling eye, the color of a rich Bordeaux. Then Saturn, with its bright rivers of glowing rings. Now Uranus, attended by seven moons. Then a lovely blue opal, Neptune. At last we come to Pluto, the lonely witness to God's incomparable brilliance.
But beyond even Pluto, in the furthest outlands of the Sun's domain, perhaps there exists a massive, cold world, doomed to circle a distant point of light forever. I've wondered. What would it be like to live there? What would it be like to call that place your world? Would not the loneliness of that incredibly distant place rob you of purpose? Would you not then come to appraise your life as pointless? Or worse, inconsequential?
*****
When I first met Arnaud here at this cafe I must admit I was not impressed. He was then a novice priest assigned to a church in one of the most impoverished districts of our great City. His history, as I learned, was unimpressive. He was of stout, Flemish stock, and accepted the vicissitudes of life with the fatalistic passivity for which the flamandok are famous. He rather expected his new parish would diminish as it had been doing for many years before his arrival. Yet, to his credit, he applied himself to increasing his flock with a fervor, at least initially, not common in a man who gracefully accepts defeat. But in due course, life's predictability began to weigh on him heavily. Eventually, he gave up.
But afterwards, something odd happened. Abruptly, his flock began to increase. New faces began to appear in his church every Sunday. New requests for God's succor and comfort filled his confessional. I remember talking with Arnaud about this years ago. He was not prepared for it. But he was a man suffused with the stout wisdom of a drayman, and rose to the occasion with blunt purpose.
Now he has become Cardinal Arnaud. However I am certain his aim was not to achieve status, but to save souls. If you want, I will arrange for you a dinner date with him and you can see for yourself...
In any case, after the fortunes of Arnaud's church began to rise, I determined to go there and attend one of his services. I doubt if I will ever forget that visit. Imagine if you will, the milieu. The church was nondescript, even dingy. I met Arnaud at the portico. As I shook his hand he seemed distant. All of the sudden he went lax, and stood there staring across the street. I turned and followed his gaze. He was looking intently at a man accompanied by a young couple. The man had just rounded a corner and stood motionless, looking back at Arnaud.
Frankly, the man was stunningly handsome. His dark, lustrous hair and pale face bespoke of serious intent. In dress he favored muted grays and silver. It was autumn, and he wore a knee length coat of black cashmere and black leather gloves. The man gestured to the couple who accompanied him, directing them towards the church. The couple crossed the street, climbed the steps in front of us, and entered the church. The man stayed behind.
Arnaud nodded to the man across the street, as if acknowledging some sort of favor. He nodded to Arnaud in return and then retreated back the way he came. It wasn't until later, after the service was over and this priest and I were enjoying an aperitif here in this cafe, that I was able to ask him about this curious incident.
Arnaud leaned back in his chair and looked up vaguely at the ceiling. This is what he said:
"The man you saw..." he began, "that man goes by the name of Edouard Badeau. Have you heard of him?"
I considered. "It certainly sounds familiar," I said. "Isn't he involved in banking? Investments? Seems to me I might have read about him in Le Monde..."
Arnaud nodded. "You have." he said. "He is the youngest, and to date the wealthiest, of a family whose roots go back hundreds of years into the history of our nation. From time to time, whenever some vast merger or investment offering is reported in the news, his name often surfaces. Yet little is actually known about him, save that he likely makes more money while waiting in his car at a stoplight than most of us earn in a lifetime."
"Oh." I said. "That Badeau."
"Yes."
"How then," I said, "did you come to know him?"
Arnaud looked up at the ceiling again, then began his strange story.
"There isn't much to tell." He said. "As you know, my church was losing ground long before I arrived here. Lord knows I tried to put a halt to that. Yet my congregation was growing older and slowly dying off. The young people of this district who represent our future could not be persuaded to favor the comforts of God over Mammon. I can't say I blamed them. As you know, my church is in a part of the city where people are starving, and they cannot eat bibles."
"But suddenly, against all logic or rational account, new faces began to appear in my church. And to my amazement, these were not the typical dregs, who, seeking a bit of warmth, swell a congregation only on the coldest of mornings. In fact, they were people of medium consequence, and hailed from all parts of the city. Some even came from distant suburbs, where churches offer far more tangible forms of satisfaction than a person of such simple means as I could ever provide."
"At first I was at loose ends. I thought perhaps my Parrish had become a fad. I prayed continually about this. Matthieu, God gave me an answer, as He always does, but I was not patient enough to listen."
"In any case I decided to stop asking about my sudden reversal of fortune and start acting upon it. I dedicated myself to the needs of my new parishioners. I challenged them, in hundreds of ways, to accept our Great Commission. And, to my delight, they have responded. These new members began to invest themselves in good works all over my community. Not only did the fortunes of my church begin to rise, but so too did those of my parish. Charity fostered hope, hope fostered ambition. Industry followed and poverty began to recede. There is yet much work to be done, but God has captured a march against the darkness, in my district at least."
"Wonderful!" I said. "You are to be commended!"
"No." Said Arnaud after a long pause. "It was not me who deserves the credit. That belongs to this odd, powerful man, Edouard Badeau. I will tell you why."
He continued. "It wasn't long before I discovered the reason why all these new people had come to my church. All of them were those whose paths had crossed Edouard Badeau's in the course of his business dealings. By some means he had had convinced them to come and attend my church."
Arnaud frowned in concentration. "The miracle, if you can call it that," he said, "was, so far as I can determine, that not one of these people were of the kind who you would expect to gracefully accept the rule of God in their lives. They were men and women who had ascended the ladder of success most often by willfully ignoring the sensitivities of their fellow men. Yet by some sort of magic, Edouard had overcome their callous natures and given them reason to follow God's commission, by a road which led through my church."
"When I determined it was Edouard Badeau who had brought these people to me, I decided to visit him. One evening I ventured into the heart of our financial district and arrived at his offices. The hour was late and the guards were not particularly receptive. They told me he had left for the night, but on a whim I persisted. I asked them to contact Monsieur Badeau and tell him it was I, Arnaud Leclercq, who wished to speak with him."
"In a few minutes I was told Edouard was actually there and that I would have my audience. I was directed to an elevator, which took me to a suite at the top floor of the building. Monsieur Badeau was waiting there. After greeting me with silence and a handshake, he led me to an expansive sitting room adjacent to his personal office. The view beyond the floor to ceiling windows was breathtaking. Our great city is so beautiful at night time. It came to me then that this was where the angels themselves would chose to look out and admire it."
" "Now, dear priest," Edouard began after we were seated, "what is on your mind?" "
"I will not attempt to recall for you our entire conversation, only the last part of it. I wanted to know what twist of fate had made this man my benefactor. Edouard answered all my questions politely, yet with tactful evasion. One would have thought he had played no part at all in my good fortunes. Yet I knew this wasn't the case. Shortly I tired of this game."
"Monsieur," I said, "with all due respect, I will consider my visit here a failure unless I leave with an answer to at least one of two questions."
"Edouard stood up and looked down at me. "Which are?" He asked."
"Why," I said, "do you send your acquaintances to my church? And why do you not come there yourself?"
"I will never forget the striking tableau which followed. Edouard walked over to the window and stared out for a few moments, then turned back to me. His face, indeed his entire bearing had transformed. All trace of the man who had greeted me at the elevator was gone. Matthieu, if someone asked you to paint a picture of cold, uncontrollable arrogance, you could do no better than to paint one of this man at that moment. I felt as if I had grown physically smaller."
" "Arnaud Leclercq," he began, and in so doing turned my name into a soft, piteous thing in his mouth, "I will answer only your first question, and then you must leave." "
"I could only nod"
" "You do not know what it means to be a soldier." He said. "I do." "
"He paused. "And because I do, I can do things which no man like yourself would ever consider. I fight battles in places you and your puny church are not allowed. And I always win. Why I picked your church is of no great matter, but these people I send to you are my tithe... nothing more. Give them over to God if you want, or don't, but otherwise leave me out of it. And, do not try to enter my world again, unless you wish to become like me." "
"It took me a few moments to realize he had finished talking with me. I rose and bowed slightly to him, then turned and left. Throughout, Edouard stood motionless, as if encased in ice. I never spoke with him again."
"During the walk home I found myself filled with conflicting emotions. I thought at first I hated Edouard. I hated his cold hauteur. I hated him because of his wealth and because he was handsome. I hated him for all the reasons which people like me, who believe ourselves to be inconsequential, hate people like him, who are surrounded by the stark evidence of their own consequence. I could not think of any reason to thank God for allowing this ruthless man to participate in my life.
"But all at once it came to me with perfect clarity. In this universe, only the robes of God are those which cannot be stained by contact with filth. As for the stains which despoil our own robes, we ask God to wash them clean and He mercifully obliges. But I wondered, could it be that having been made clean, we set ourselves apart from the company of men who live in perpetual darkness? And if that is true, what agents would God select to go among such men and pull them back into the light? At that instant my heart welled over with pity for men like Edouard Badeau. Then, to my absolute surprise, gratitude. I will speak no more of this him..."
*****
So there my friend, you have the story of Arnaud Leclercq, and Edouard, his mysterious patron. And perhaps my little lesson in astronomy will have made things more clear for you. Out there in space, at the very limit of the Sun's feeble gravity, I fancy there lies a cold, lonely world. Yet every year as it circles round, this world pulls out of the abyss a few bits of nameless flotsam and sends them hurtling back to join the brotherhood of inner worlds.
Perhaps Edouard and others like him share a kinship with that far off world. They do not know God as we do. Perhaps they never will. But maybe they are like an army's distant, solitary scouts, caring instinctively in their desolate hearts for their brothers, yet doomed to never know the camaraderie of the campfire.
Or maybe they are God's fingertips, which reach out to the loneliest of men and pull them back into His loving embrace.
And may peace go with you always.
end
Chris Rhetts
11/29/2009
or the smell the rain brings, or motherhood, or when night falls.
Or when life is riotous, or quiet.
Don’t ever let anyone tell you they
know God better than you do.
My dear friend, I have spoken with you before of my conversations with Matthieu while I was a student at the Academy. And, as I have recounted, those conversations are divided by the moment I came to know the true nature of God. All of them before that moment are pleasant to remember, but of an order not nearly as profound as those which followed.
In time I graduated from the Academy and embarked on my professional career. Yet often I returned to Matthieu's wonderful cafe, where he kindly allowed me to embrace the wisdom he had gained from listening, with a compassion only a few are able to apply, to the stories his varied patrons vouchsafed to him. What follows is my best recollection of one of those stories...
*****
Have I told you of my friend Arnaud? No?
Why then, allow me to introduce you to him by way of short lesson in Astronomy.
Astronomers have speculated that a gigantic world lies somewhere in space far beyond the orbit of Pluto. They do not know this for certain, but surmise it because only the gravity of such a distant world can account for all the various bits of debris which are regularly pulled into our solar system from beyond the gravitational reach of the Sun.
Now I am a man of no great imagination, but sometimes I have wondered what things would be like on that distant planet. All around our magnificent Sun the inner worlds cluster in light and warmth. On some, white seas of dust and towering cliffs stand out in sharp relief. On others, great geysers of molten lava arc upwards through the mist. And on this beautiful blue sphere of ours: Life.
Moving further out we find stately giants, enraptured by constant maelstroms of ever changing hue. Now comes Jupiter, with its arabesque striations and swirling eye, the color of a rich Bordeaux. Then Saturn, with its bright rivers of glowing rings. Now Uranus, attended by seven moons. Then a lovely blue opal, Neptune. At last we come to Pluto, the lonely witness to God's incomparable brilliance.
But beyond even Pluto, in the furthest outlands of the Sun's domain, perhaps there exists a massive, cold world, doomed to circle a distant point of light forever. I've wondered. What would it be like to live there? What would it be like to call that place your world? Would not the loneliness of that incredibly distant place rob you of purpose? Would you not then come to appraise your life as pointless? Or worse, inconsequential?
*****
When I first met Arnaud here at this cafe I must admit I was not impressed. He was then a novice priest assigned to a church in one of the most impoverished districts of our great City. His history, as I learned, was unimpressive. He was of stout, Flemish stock, and accepted the vicissitudes of life with the fatalistic passivity for which the flamandok are famous. He rather expected his new parish would diminish as it had been doing for many years before his arrival. Yet, to his credit, he applied himself to increasing his flock with a fervor, at least initially, not common in a man who gracefully accepts defeat. But in due course, life's predictability began to weigh on him heavily. Eventually, he gave up.
But afterwards, something odd happened. Abruptly, his flock began to increase. New faces began to appear in his church every Sunday. New requests for God's succor and comfort filled his confessional. I remember talking with Arnaud about this years ago. He was not prepared for it. But he was a man suffused with the stout wisdom of a drayman, and rose to the occasion with blunt purpose.
Now he has become Cardinal Arnaud. However I am certain his aim was not to achieve status, but to save souls. If you want, I will arrange for you a dinner date with him and you can see for yourself...
In any case, after the fortunes of Arnaud's church began to rise, I determined to go there and attend one of his services. I doubt if I will ever forget that visit. Imagine if you will, the milieu. The church was nondescript, even dingy. I met Arnaud at the portico. As I shook his hand he seemed distant. All of the sudden he went lax, and stood there staring across the street. I turned and followed his gaze. He was looking intently at a man accompanied by a young couple. The man had just rounded a corner and stood motionless, looking back at Arnaud.
Frankly, the man was stunningly handsome. His dark, lustrous hair and pale face bespoke of serious intent. In dress he favored muted grays and silver. It was autumn, and he wore a knee length coat of black cashmere and black leather gloves. The man gestured to the couple who accompanied him, directing them towards the church. The couple crossed the street, climbed the steps in front of us, and entered the church. The man stayed behind.
Arnaud nodded to the man across the street, as if acknowledging some sort of favor. He nodded to Arnaud in return and then retreated back the way he came. It wasn't until later, after the service was over and this priest and I were enjoying an aperitif here in this cafe, that I was able to ask him about this curious incident.
Arnaud leaned back in his chair and looked up vaguely at the ceiling. This is what he said:
"The man you saw..." he began, "that man goes by the name of Edouard Badeau. Have you heard of him?"
I considered. "It certainly sounds familiar," I said. "Isn't he involved in banking? Investments? Seems to me I might have read about him in Le Monde..."
Arnaud nodded. "You have." he said. "He is the youngest, and to date the wealthiest, of a family whose roots go back hundreds of years into the history of our nation. From time to time, whenever some vast merger or investment offering is reported in the news, his name often surfaces. Yet little is actually known about him, save that he likely makes more money while waiting in his car at a stoplight than most of us earn in a lifetime."
"Oh." I said. "That Badeau."
"Yes."
"How then," I said, "did you come to know him?"
Arnaud looked up at the ceiling again, then began his strange story.
"There isn't much to tell." He said. "As you know, my church was losing ground long before I arrived here. Lord knows I tried to put a halt to that. Yet my congregation was growing older and slowly dying off. The young people of this district who represent our future could not be persuaded to favor the comforts of God over Mammon. I can't say I blamed them. As you know, my church is in a part of the city where people are starving, and they cannot eat bibles."
"But suddenly, against all logic or rational account, new faces began to appear in my church. And to my amazement, these were not the typical dregs, who, seeking a bit of warmth, swell a congregation only on the coldest of mornings. In fact, they were people of medium consequence, and hailed from all parts of the city. Some even came from distant suburbs, where churches offer far more tangible forms of satisfaction than a person of such simple means as I could ever provide."
"At first I was at loose ends. I thought perhaps my Parrish had become a fad. I prayed continually about this. Matthieu, God gave me an answer, as He always does, but I was not patient enough to listen."
"In any case I decided to stop asking about my sudden reversal of fortune and start acting upon it. I dedicated myself to the needs of my new parishioners. I challenged them, in hundreds of ways, to accept our Great Commission. And, to my delight, they have responded. These new members began to invest themselves in good works all over my community. Not only did the fortunes of my church begin to rise, but so too did those of my parish. Charity fostered hope, hope fostered ambition. Industry followed and poverty began to recede. There is yet much work to be done, but God has captured a march against the darkness, in my district at least."
"Wonderful!" I said. "You are to be commended!"
"No." Said Arnaud after a long pause. "It was not me who deserves the credit. That belongs to this odd, powerful man, Edouard Badeau. I will tell you why."
He continued. "It wasn't long before I discovered the reason why all these new people had come to my church. All of them were those whose paths had crossed Edouard Badeau's in the course of his business dealings. By some means he had had convinced them to come and attend my church."
Arnaud frowned in concentration. "The miracle, if you can call it that," he said, "was, so far as I can determine, that not one of these people were of the kind who you would expect to gracefully accept the rule of God in their lives. They were men and women who had ascended the ladder of success most often by willfully ignoring the sensitivities of their fellow men. Yet by some sort of magic, Edouard had overcome their callous natures and given them reason to follow God's commission, by a road which led through my church."
"When I determined it was Edouard Badeau who had brought these people to me, I decided to visit him. One evening I ventured into the heart of our financial district and arrived at his offices. The hour was late and the guards were not particularly receptive. They told me he had left for the night, but on a whim I persisted. I asked them to contact Monsieur Badeau and tell him it was I, Arnaud Leclercq, who wished to speak with him."
"In a few minutes I was told Edouard was actually there and that I would have my audience. I was directed to an elevator, which took me to a suite at the top floor of the building. Monsieur Badeau was waiting there. After greeting me with silence and a handshake, he led me to an expansive sitting room adjacent to his personal office. The view beyond the floor to ceiling windows was breathtaking. Our great city is so beautiful at night time. It came to me then that this was where the angels themselves would chose to look out and admire it."
" "Now, dear priest," Edouard began after we were seated, "what is on your mind?" "
"I will not attempt to recall for you our entire conversation, only the last part of it. I wanted to know what twist of fate had made this man my benefactor. Edouard answered all my questions politely, yet with tactful evasion. One would have thought he had played no part at all in my good fortunes. Yet I knew this wasn't the case. Shortly I tired of this game."
"Monsieur," I said, "with all due respect, I will consider my visit here a failure unless I leave with an answer to at least one of two questions."
"Edouard stood up and looked down at me. "Which are?" He asked."
"Why," I said, "do you send your acquaintances to my church? And why do you not come there yourself?"
"I will never forget the striking tableau which followed. Edouard walked over to the window and stared out for a few moments, then turned back to me. His face, indeed his entire bearing had transformed. All trace of the man who had greeted me at the elevator was gone. Matthieu, if someone asked you to paint a picture of cold, uncontrollable arrogance, you could do no better than to paint one of this man at that moment. I felt as if I had grown physically smaller."
" "Arnaud Leclercq," he began, and in so doing turned my name into a soft, piteous thing in his mouth, "I will answer only your first question, and then you must leave." "
"I could only nod"
" "You do not know what it means to be a soldier." He said. "I do." "
"He paused. "And because I do, I can do things which no man like yourself would ever consider. I fight battles in places you and your puny church are not allowed. And I always win. Why I picked your church is of no great matter, but these people I send to you are my tithe... nothing more. Give them over to God if you want, or don't, but otherwise leave me out of it. And, do not try to enter my world again, unless you wish to become like me." "
"It took me a few moments to realize he had finished talking with me. I rose and bowed slightly to him, then turned and left. Throughout, Edouard stood motionless, as if encased in ice. I never spoke with him again."
"During the walk home I found myself filled with conflicting emotions. I thought at first I hated Edouard. I hated his cold hauteur. I hated him because of his wealth and because he was handsome. I hated him for all the reasons which people like me, who believe ourselves to be inconsequential, hate people like him, who are surrounded by the stark evidence of their own consequence. I could not think of any reason to thank God for allowing this ruthless man to participate in my life.
"But all at once it came to me with perfect clarity. In this universe, only the robes of God are those which cannot be stained by contact with filth. As for the stains which despoil our own robes, we ask God to wash them clean and He mercifully obliges. But I wondered, could it be that having been made clean, we set ourselves apart from the company of men who live in perpetual darkness? And if that is true, what agents would God select to go among such men and pull them back into the light? At that instant my heart welled over with pity for men like Edouard Badeau. Then, to my absolute surprise, gratitude. I will speak no more of this him..."
*****
So there my friend, you have the story of Arnaud Leclercq, and Edouard, his mysterious patron. And perhaps my little lesson in astronomy will have made things more clear for you. Out there in space, at the very limit of the Sun's feeble gravity, I fancy there lies a cold, lonely world. Yet every year as it circles round, this world pulls out of the abyss a few bits of nameless flotsam and sends them hurtling back to join the brotherhood of inner worlds.
Perhaps Edouard and others like him share a kinship with that far off world. They do not know God as we do. Perhaps they never will. But maybe they are like an army's distant, solitary scouts, caring instinctively in their desolate hearts for their brothers, yet doomed to never know the camaraderie of the campfire.
Or maybe they are God's fingertips, which reach out to the loneliest of men and pull them back into His loving embrace.
And may peace go with you always.
end
Chris Rhetts
11/29/2009
Friday, May 6, 2011
This legion, by the whim of destiny defiled,
stands outside the frosted panes to watch
the dance of those
upon whom fortune smiled.
Where will they go?
-Off to clear the streets of driven snow.
Not to quiet arbors where Tyche delves,
nor in front of mirrors
caressing the image of themselves.
Later, before the fire,
steam rising from their coveralls
hair plastered with sweat -
Prepared to meet God
with neither apology
nor regret.
stands outside the frosted panes to watch
the dance of those
upon whom fortune smiled.
Where will they go?
-Off to clear the streets of driven snow.
Not to quiet arbors where Tyche delves,
nor in front of mirrors
caressing the image of themselves.
Later, before the fire,
steam rising from their coveralls
hair plastered with sweat -
Prepared to meet God
with neither apology
nor regret.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
THE VOICE OF THE WIND
Fate uncertainly commits our lives to many different roads. Some of these roads are high and narrow, on which a single misstep invites unimaginable peril. Some roads confuse, others reveal. Some twist down through dark valleys beside joyful streams which empty unexpectedly into lakes of despair. But to my mind the hardest roads to travel are those which run straight and even through empty, level fields beneath cloudless skies.
These straight roads are a burden on the heart, which for want of anguish never knows the joy of being released from it. Traveling on them, the body may be fed but the soul is starved. There the spirit yearns for nothing more than the faintest scent of an ocean or the shallow arc of a low hill to break the stark, level horizon.
It was on such a road as this which I, a promising student, found myself upon entering the Academy. From an early age I had been considered a sort of prodigy. Whatever the discipline, I had always been first in my class. In fact, my studies usually took me beyond the limits of those who taught me.
Yet one thing was missing. And to me it was the most important of all things. I knew of, in fact had even studied, that invisible power which fills the voids inside men and makes life for them more than just the labor of living. There are many names for this power, but most men simply call it God. This God, whoever he was, had chosen not to fill the emptiness inside of me.
And so I entered the Academy. Perhaps I was hoping God had planted a useful passion somewhere in the pages of a book or beneath the lens of a microscope. I searched everywhere, earning as I went along the regular praise of my fellow academicians. Yet as the years went by, little did they know how hollow I was inside. For always, almost every day, I begged God for guidance. Yet never once did he answer me. This then was the state in which I found myself as I approached graduation.
Through the years at the Academy I had become a habitue of a little cafe near the campus. The owner was a pleasant old man by the name of Matthieu. Some evenings, when business was slow, I had the pleasure of his company as I dined.
I was not then a man who much appreciated the rewards of true friendship. For this reason, my relationship with Matthieu never transcended the usual formulae of routine pleasantries. I sensed however that Matthieu was not like me in this regard. Yet he was patient, as if he was waiting for a certain moment. But that moment never seemed to arrive.
The day was fast approaching when I would graduate, leave the Academy and its comfortable environment to seek some post in life consistent with my considerable knowledge.
One evening I went to the cafe and for the first time found Matthieu was not there. Mildly concerned, I inquired as to his whereabouts and was discretely informed by one of his waiters that Matthieu's wife had passed on. I neither asked for nor received any further details. Yet this matter weighed heavy on my heart.
I made sure I went to the cafe every night after that. It was only after several days however that I found Matthieu back at his usual post. Despite a heavy trade and an early hour, he kindly sat down beside me as my dinner was served.
"My friend, I am truly sorry for your loss." I said. "I wish there was something I could do or say which would be of any help to you."
"Do not be troubled." He said. "This isn't a time of sorrow for me, but a time of joy. My Sophie is in a better place. I am quite sure of that!"
"A better place? Where? And how can you be so sure?" I blurted.
"I know, because God told me." Matthieu replied.
Now this made me pause. I gazed into his grey eyes and considered my reply. I decided on this:
"Matthieu," I said, "I have no wish to question anything which gives you comfort, especially now. Yet I must ask, how can you possibly believe God himself has spoken to you? I grieve for your loss... as much as I am able. I myself have begged God most of my life for guidance. Yet never once... as I say, not even once has God spoken to me! How can you say he would speak to you and not to me?"
And now the moment which Matthieu had been waiting for had finally arrived. He sat back and measured me with his kind eyes and began to tell the story which transformed my life.
"My friend," he began, "when I was young I was as fey and full of doubts as you are now. I married early and took a position as junior accountant at a big firm in the City. I worked hard and the hours were long. Yet Sophie and I were very happy, and our life together seemed full of promise."
"We considered a family, yet decided to wait until we could afford a proper home to raise the children. A few years went by. I continued to work as hard as I could and in due course, by the grace of God, things seemed to be coming together."
"Then came that fateful day when I returned home and found my beautiful wife in a state of terrible agitation. I asked her what the matter was.
"She had been to the doctor a few days previous to inquire about a small but persistent pain. The doctor had ordered tests and that day had talked with her about the results."
"That small pain was in fact the first pang of a terrible quickening. Some men call that quickening cancer, but I came to know it as the thoughtless judgment of an uncaring God."
"So, after the crying and the denials, began the treatments. My friend, cancer is a brave and resourceful adversary. One should even grow to admire it were it not for the sheer incompetence by which it chooses its victims. We fought it with every means at our disposal."
"For months on end the doctors brought their magnificent weapons to the battlefield. Their chemicals and machines killed the cancer's dark little armies by the thousands. Yet however many of them died, more rose to take their place. Towards the end, we began to lose hope. Every foot we gained against the enemy came at the cost of two."
"I tell you now these doctors were heroic. Yet even they at last conceded defeat. And so they implored me to take my beautiful Sophie home from the hospital and keep her comfortable until the inevitable end of this hopeless war. I acquiesced."
"All this while I begged God for mercy. Like you, every night I prayed and then waited in silence for an answer. Yet God never once spoke to me. In time I became consumed by rage. Was I not worthy? Perhaps I was not. But even if this was true, why should my precious Sophie suffer and not me? At last I came to believe that a god who has no voice has no place in the lives of men. So I shut him out of mine."
"Sophie at last took to bed and I knew she would not leave it until she traded that place for the grave. She had become so pale! Yet every word which escaped her dry lips breathed back into the world the full measure of the love with which she was filled. I cried for her the rivers she could not."
"A curious thing about life is how little regard it has for tragedy. While my life was coming apart, the needs of my job failed to stop and wait for me to satisfy them at a time of my choosing. Cruel as this may be however, I understood. Fortunately my sister Anne had consented to take care of Sophie while I attended to the demands of my employers."
"There came the time when on behalf of a wealthy client, my employer asked that I review the accounts of a foundation which maintained a certain museum. The museum was hundreds of miles away and the review would require an extended visit. I could not decline the assignment."
"I kissed my Sophie goodbye, hoping as I did that she would linger on at least until I returned."
"You may not know of this museum. I didn't. It was the project of an obscure church and its aim was to commemorate the hero's of Christian history. Our client only wished to learn if his donations were being fairly spent."
"I departed early one morning by train and arrived late in the evening at Metz. The museum director greeted me at the station and kindly drove me to my hotel across from the museum, where I spent a restless night."
"The next day I visited the museum and began my audit. I worked for hours, verifying accounts and expenditures. This went on for several days. Each evening I would call home and learn from Anne, not unexpectedly, that Sophie's condition was steadily worsening."
"Finally one morning I came to the end of the audit. All of the books were in order. I was anxious to return home, make my report and hasten to Sophie's bedside. Yet my train was not to leave until much later in the evening."
"As a way of passing time, the museum director suggested I tour the actual museum, which I had only viewed while passing from my hotel to his offices. I was not particularly excited by the prospect, yet out of courtesy accepted his invitation. Since he and everyone else was busy attending to prior commitments, the director appointed Pierre, the janitor, to show me around. Thus began one of the oddest experiences of my life."
"Pierre was a quiet man of diminutive aspect. At first, his shy, humble nature seemed to provide ample evidence for why such men become janitors. We toured the exhibits of the Apostles, of Paul, then of all the other Catholic Saints. At each exhibit Pierre provided a short, reverent exposition."
"As the tour progressed I began to notice something about Pierre which seemed strange and out of place. To my mind, inexplicably, his presence seemed to add a sort of luminescence to each display. It was almost as if he himself was a lamp which seemed to outshine all the lights in the museum."
"When we reached the exhibit of Saint Augustine, Pierre turned to me."
" 'You are troubled.' He said."
"I considered. 'Yes.' "
"He stared, almost through me. 'You want a cure for this.' "
"It was not a question. 'Yes.' I said."
"He considered. 'I am not myself a significant man.' He said. 'But my father is. He is a very great doctor. Do you need a doctor like that?' "
"I smiled and humored him. 'Yes I do.' "
" 'Shall I ask him to visit you then?' He said."
" 'No.' I replied. "It isn't me who needs a great doctor. My wife..."
"I didn't want to say more. He looked at me questioningly and almost imperceptibly shook his head. 'If you wish then...' He said with a sigh."
"In due course the tour came to an end. I thanked Pierre for his time and shook his hand. By then the hour was late. The museum director rushed me to the station barely in time to catch the train. I did not arrive back home until well after midnight. And so begins the strangest part of my story."
"I slept in a room next to Sophie's that evening so as not to disturb her. Oddly, I slept that night as soundly as I had in months. I didn't wake till close to noon the following day. I dressed quietly and tiptoed downstairs."
"Now I cannot describe to you how I felt when I reached the kitchen."
Matthieu paused. A tear rolled down his cheek.
"What?" I said finally.
"Sophie was there." He said.
I tried to muster another "what" but found my voice somehow constricted. Matthieu nodded.
"A man cannot reconstruct in words the true nature of moments like that." He said. "I think she said something like 'I thought I would make you breakfast... I am feeling so much better...', but that is just a guess."
Matthieu shook his head. "In any case, she was out of bed, alive and vital."
"I do not know how long it took me to regain the power of speech. But I was long finished with the wonderful breakfast she had prepared for me and half-way through my second cigarette before I was able to ask her how this glorious thing had come to pass."
"She told me that the afternoon of the day before she had been visited by a doctor who claimed to be a friend of mine. She could not remember his name, or exactly what it was he did to her. Yet shortly after he left she found herself able to rise from the bed. She was weak at first, yet though out the evening she gradually regained her strength."
"And that was all I was able to know... then that is. Oh the questions I posed to her were legion. Yet her answers didn't tell me any more. Strangely, what I perceived to be a miracle, she seemed to regard as little more than the chirping of a robin or the budding of a rose."
Matthieu paused, as a man who has painted a masterpiece and considers the final brush strokes. He continued.
"That was over 40 years ago." He said. "Since that time we have raised six beautiful children and enjoyed the company of so many of theirs'. This cafe was our dream, and has opened doors for us into the lives of countless interesting and worthwhile people, among whom you yourself are not the least. But that is not the end of my story."
Matthieu stared at me, waiting... but for what? I had the odd feeling that in some way I had become part of his story.
Then he became a boy. He looked down at the table as a child trying to manufacture an excuse which he knew his Mother would not believe.
"Less than a week ago," he said, "I stood before Sophie's bed, waiting on the same fate which I had waited for over forty years before. I held her dear, thin hand and prayed. But I did not pray this time that she should rise from that bed. This prayer instead was all that a common man can offer as thanks for God's mercy. These were her last words:"
" 'Dear husband', she said, bestowing on me a title surpassing that of the greatest of kings..."
Through the tears, he struggled to continue. " 'Dear husband, before I go I want to tell you a secret...' Then she told me what the doctor had told her so many years before."
"She said, 'It was not me he had come to save... It was you.' Then she died."
I reached over the table, held his hands in mine, closed my eyes and silently mouthed the words to the first real conversation I had ever had with God. I cannot count the number of them which I have had since then.
My friend, the voice of the wind is not the wind's, but that of the trees which are moved by it. He who thinks the wind has nothing important to say has never sailed, nor heard the song of rain thrashing against a window. And those who believe God has no voice will one day know that all of our lives He is shouting at us. And may peace go with you always.
End
These straight roads are a burden on the heart, which for want of anguish never knows the joy of being released from it. Traveling on them, the body may be fed but the soul is starved. There the spirit yearns for nothing more than the faintest scent of an ocean or the shallow arc of a low hill to break the stark, level horizon.
It was on such a road as this which I, a promising student, found myself upon entering the Academy. From an early age I had been considered a sort of prodigy. Whatever the discipline, I had always been first in my class. In fact, my studies usually took me beyond the limits of those who taught me.
Yet one thing was missing. And to me it was the most important of all things. I knew of, in fact had even studied, that invisible power which fills the voids inside men and makes life for them more than just the labor of living. There are many names for this power, but most men simply call it God. This God, whoever he was, had chosen not to fill the emptiness inside of me.
And so I entered the Academy. Perhaps I was hoping God had planted a useful passion somewhere in the pages of a book or beneath the lens of a microscope. I searched everywhere, earning as I went along the regular praise of my fellow academicians. Yet as the years went by, little did they know how hollow I was inside. For always, almost every day, I begged God for guidance. Yet never once did he answer me. This then was the state in which I found myself as I approached graduation.
Through the years at the Academy I had become a habitue of a little cafe near the campus. The owner was a pleasant old man by the name of Matthieu. Some evenings, when business was slow, I had the pleasure of his company as I dined.
I was not then a man who much appreciated the rewards of true friendship. For this reason, my relationship with Matthieu never transcended the usual formulae of routine pleasantries. I sensed however that Matthieu was not like me in this regard. Yet he was patient, as if he was waiting for a certain moment. But that moment never seemed to arrive.
The day was fast approaching when I would graduate, leave the Academy and its comfortable environment to seek some post in life consistent with my considerable knowledge.
One evening I went to the cafe and for the first time found Matthieu was not there. Mildly concerned, I inquired as to his whereabouts and was discretely informed by one of his waiters that Matthieu's wife had passed on. I neither asked for nor received any further details. Yet this matter weighed heavy on my heart.
I made sure I went to the cafe every night after that. It was only after several days however that I found Matthieu back at his usual post. Despite a heavy trade and an early hour, he kindly sat down beside me as my dinner was served.
"My friend, I am truly sorry for your loss." I said. "I wish there was something I could do or say which would be of any help to you."
"Do not be troubled." He said. "This isn't a time of sorrow for me, but a time of joy. My Sophie is in a better place. I am quite sure of that!"
"A better place? Where? And how can you be so sure?" I blurted.
"I know, because God told me." Matthieu replied.
Now this made me pause. I gazed into his grey eyes and considered my reply. I decided on this:
"Matthieu," I said, "I have no wish to question anything which gives you comfort, especially now. Yet I must ask, how can you possibly believe God himself has spoken to you? I grieve for your loss... as much as I am able. I myself have begged God most of my life for guidance. Yet never once... as I say, not even once has God spoken to me! How can you say he would speak to you and not to me?"
And now the moment which Matthieu had been waiting for had finally arrived. He sat back and measured me with his kind eyes and began to tell the story which transformed my life.
"My friend," he began, "when I was young I was as fey and full of doubts as you are now. I married early and took a position as junior accountant at a big firm in the City. I worked hard and the hours were long. Yet Sophie and I were very happy, and our life together seemed full of promise."
"We considered a family, yet decided to wait until we could afford a proper home to raise the children. A few years went by. I continued to work as hard as I could and in due course, by the grace of God, things seemed to be coming together."
"Then came that fateful day when I returned home and found my beautiful wife in a state of terrible agitation. I asked her what the matter was.
"She had been to the doctor a few days previous to inquire about a small but persistent pain. The doctor had ordered tests and that day had talked with her about the results."
"That small pain was in fact the first pang of a terrible quickening. Some men call that quickening cancer, but I came to know it as the thoughtless judgment of an uncaring God."
"So, after the crying and the denials, began the treatments. My friend, cancer is a brave and resourceful adversary. One should even grow to admire it were it not for the sheer incompetence by which it chooses its victims. We fought it with every means at our disposal."
"For months on end the doctors brought their magnificent weapons to the battlefield. Their chemicals and machines killed the cancer's dark little armies by the thousands. Yet however many of them died, more rose to take their place. Towards the end, we began to lose hope. Every foot we gained against the enemy came at the cost of two."
"I tell you now these doctors were heroic. Yet even they at last conceded defeat. And so they implored me to take my beautiful Sophie home from the hospital and keep her comfortable until the inevitable end of this hopeless war. I acquiesced."
"All this while I begged God for mercy. Like you, every night I prayed and then waited in silence for an answer. Yet God never once spoke to me. In time I became consumed by rage. Was I not worthy? Perhaps I was not. But even if this was true, why should my precious Sophie suffer and not me? At last I came to believe that a god who has no voice has no place in the lives of men. So I shut him out of mine."
"Sophie at last took to bed and I knew she would not leave it until she traded that place for the grave. She had become so pale! Yet every word which escaped her dry lips breathed back into the world the full measure of the love with which she was filled. I cried for her the rivers she could not."
"A curious thing about life is how little regard it has for tragedy. While my life was coming apart, the needs of my job failed to stop and wait for me to satisfy them at a time of my choosing. Cruel as this may be however, I understood. Fortunately my sister Anne had consented to take care of Sophie while I attended to the demands of my employers."
"There came the time when on behalf of a wealthy client, my employer asked that I review the accounts of a foundation which maintained a certain museum. The museum was hundreds of miles away and the review would require an extended visit. I could not decline the assignment."
"I kissed my Sophie goodbye, hoping as I did that she would linger on at least until I returned."
"You may not know of this museum. I didn't. It was the project of an obscure church and its aim was to commemorate the hero's of Christian history. Our client only wished to learn if his donations were being fairly spent."
"I departed early one morning by train and arrived late in the evening at Metz. The museum director greeted me at the station and kindly drove me to my hotel across from the museum, where I spent a restless night."
"The next day I visited the museum and began my audit. I worked for hours, verifying accounts and expenditures. This went on for several days. Each evening I would call home and learn from Anne, not unexpectedly, that Sophie's condition was steadily worsening."
"Finally one morning I came to the end of the audit. All of the books were in order. I was anxious to return home, make my report and hasten to Sophie's bedside. Yet my train was not to leave until much later in the evening."
"As a way of passing time, the museum director suggested I tour the actual museum, which I had only viewed while passing from my hotel to his offices. I was not particularly excited by the prospect, yet out of courtesy accepted his invitation. Since he and everyone else was busy attending to prior commitments, the director appointed Pierre, the janitor, to show me around. Thus began one of the oddest experiences of my life."
"Pierre was a quiet man of diminutive aspect. At first, his shy, humble nature seemed to provide ample evidence for why such men become janitors. We toured the exhibits of the Apostles, of Paul, then of all the other Catholic Saints. At each exhibit Pierre provided a short, reverent exposition."
"As the tour progressed I began to notice something about Pierre which seemed strange and out of place. To my mind, inexplicably, his presence seemed to add a sort of luminescence to each display. It was almost as if he himself was a lamp which seemed to outshine all the lights in the museum."
"When we reached the exhibit of Saint Augustine, Pierre turned to me."
" 'You are troubled.' He said."
"I considered. 'Yes.' "
"He stared, almost through me. 'You want a cure for this.' "
"It was not a question. 'Yes.' I said."
"He considered. 'I am not myself a significant man.' He said. 'But my father is. He is a very great doctor. Do you need a doctor like that?' "
"I smiled and humored him. 'Yes I do.' "
" 'Shall I ask him to visit you then?' He said."
" 'No.' I replied. "It isn't me who needs a great doctor. My wife..."
"I didn't want to say more. He looked at me questioningly and almost imperceptibly shook his head. 'If you wish then...' He said with a sigh."
"In due course the tour came to an end. I thanked Pierre for his time and shook his hand. By then the hour was late. The museum director rushed me to the station barely in time to catch the train. I did not arrive back home until well after midnight. And so begins the strangest part of my story."
"I slept in a room next to Sophie's that evening so as not to disturb her. Oddly, I slept that night as soundly as I had in months. I didn't wake till close to noon the following day. I dressed quietly and tiptoed downstairs."
"Now I cannot describe to you how I felt when I reached the kitchen."
Matthieu paused. A tear rolled down his cheek.
"What?" I said finally.
"Sophie was there." He said.
I tried to muster another "what" but found my voice somehow constricted. Matthieu nodded.
"A man cannot reconstruct in words the true nature of moments like that." He said. "I think she said something like 'I thought I would make you breakfast... I am feeling so much better...', but that is just a guess."
Matthieu shook his head. "In any case, she was out of bed, alive and vital."
"I do not know how long it took me to regain the power of speech. But I was long finished with the wonderful breakfast she had prepared for me and half-way through my second cigarette before I was able to ask her how this glorious thing had come to pass."
"She told me that the afternoon of the day before she had been visited by a doctor who claimed to be a friend of mine. She could not remember his name, or exactly what it was he did to her. Yet shortly after he left she found herself able to rise from the bed. She was weak at first, yet though out the evening she gradually regained her strength."
"And that was all I was able to know... then that is. Oh the questions I posed to her were legion. Yet her answers didn't tell me any more. Strangely, what I perceived to be a miracle, she seemed to regard as little more than the chirping of a robin or the budding of a rose."
Matthieu paused, as a man who has painted a masterpiece and considers the final brush strokes. He continued.
"That was over 40 years ago." He said. "Since that time we have raised six beautiful children and enjoyed the company of so many of theirs'. This cafe was our dream, and has opened doors for us into the lives of countless interesting and worthwhile people, among whom you yourself are not the least. But that is not the end of my story."
Matthieu stared at me, waiting... but for what? I had the odd feeling that in some way I had become part of his story.
Then he became a boy. He looked down at the table as a child trying to manufacture an excuse which he knew his Mother would not believe.
"Less than a week ago," he said, "I stood before Sophie's bed, waiting on the same fate which I had waited for over forty years before. I held her dear, thin hand and prayed. But I did not pray this time that she should rise from that bed. This prayer instead was all that a common man can offer as thanks for God's mercy. These were her last words:"
" 'Dear husband', she said, bestowing on me a title surpassing that of the greatest of kings..."
Through the tears, he struggled to continue. " 'Dear husband, before I go I want to tell you a secret...' Then she told me what the doctor had told her so many years before."
"She said, 'It was not me he had come to save... It was you.' Then she died."
I reached over the table, held his hands in mine, closed my eyes and silently mouthed the words to the first real conversation I had ever had with God. I cannot count the number of them which I have had since then.
My friend, the voice of the wind is not the wind's, but that of the trees which are moved by it. He who thinks the wind has nothing important to say has never sailed, nor heard the song of rain thrashing against a window. And those who believe God has no voice will one day know that all of our lives He is shouting at us. And may peace go with you always.
End
THREE STAGE HANDS TALK ABOUT GOD
The wind swirls and races high above the city. Sometimes, like invisible fingers, it reaches down into the dark chasms between high buildings, touches men, then returns and carries their residue to the four corners of the Earth.
One evening the wind reached down, felt its way along a broad avenue, whirled way down a darker side street, then lingered, twirling discarded matchbooks and gum wrappers in a lazy waltz, and waited. For, careless and fickle, the wind may go where ever it wants, yet always it pauses and waits when God is near.
It waited this time in front of the Charles Avenue Theatre of Modern Art. What few street lights still worked in that dingy part of town had long been on. In due course the theatre's red doors opened and the evening's last theatre goers spilled out.
They were an odd bunch of counterfeits. They wore their cheap suits and last year's formal dresses, made their judgments of the art they had just witnessed, then left, most of them by city bus. Yet they were not lovers of art. They were lovers of the lives they thought lovers of art lead.
Inside the theatre three stage hands were cleaning up. One small benefit of a theatre like that was the number of half pint bottles invariably strewn beneath the seats after each performance. The stage hands collected the bottles, drained them into a larger bottle they kept for this very purpose, then retired to sit, drink and talk at the edge of the stage.
From the lobby came the sound of a door opening and closing. In due course a man appeared at the back of the theatre. Now I will not try to describe what this man looked like exactly, because he looked more like everyone else than he did himself. Other than that, his clothes were threadbare, he had a wispy beard and big eyes surrounded by a web of fine wrinkles.
The man approached the stage. "Did I miss the play?" He asked the stagehands.
"Yes, 'fraid so." Said the old stagehand.
The visitor considered. "Well that's a shame. I heard the play was about God, and I so wanted to see it."
"Didn't miss much." Said the young stagehand.
"Oh?"
"Nope." Said the middle aged stagehand. "We all lost interest after the second act."
"Is that so?" Said the man. He thought for a moment. "Do any of you mind if I ask how the play went?"
The stagehands looked at each other agreeably. "Well," said the old hand, "the play was about a man who wanted to emulate God."
He continued, "In the first act, as a boy the man prayed every day that he would be able to do God's work. So he studied long and hard and after time became a great physician who saved many lives."
"I see." Said the visitor. "What happened next?"
"In the second act," said the young hand, "a mortal disease broke out in the man's home town. So he labored day and night and eventually found a cure. With no time to spare, the man prepared a big batch of his formula and began to administer it to all the townsfolk who were afflicted. At last, there were only two people left who had the disease. One was a two year old child and the other was the town drunk, an old man who had never known or cared for God. Yet the man had only one dose of the cure left and there was no time to make more. So he had to decide which of them he would save."
The visitor stared at the stagehands for several moments. "Well, which did he choose?" He asked.
The stagehands looked at one another. "I guess that's where we lost interest." Said the middle aged hand. "None of us paid attention to the last act."
This seemed to trouble the visitor. Then, looking back at the stagehands he said. "I see. I wonder though, which would you have chosen?"
This question plunged the theatre into a long, awkward silence.
The young stagehand spoke first. "Oh that is easy." He said. "I would have saved the child. She had many years left to live but the old man had only a few."
The visitor smiled. "That makes sense." He said.
"No it doesn't." The old hand said after a short pause. "Why rob the old man of life before he has a chance to find God? Cure him and perhaps he will seek redemption. The child is too young to have strayed from God in any case."
This answer seemed to deeply trouble the visitor. For long moments his head shifted back and forth, as if he was torn between these two choices. Then he looked back up at the middle aged hand. "And how would you have chosen?" He asked.
The middle aged hand had stopped drinking long before and was listening to the conversation with rapt attention. "I think we should have watched the third act." He said. "I think maybe we cannot know the right answer because where men see flesh, God sees the soul, and how is He to decide which soul is more precious than the next?"
With sudden comprehension, he stared intensely at the visitor. "Who," he asked, "would you have chosen?"
The visitor hung his head. Then came the awful tears. He tried to speak, then stopped. Words had become fatiguing and useless. Silently he turned and began to walk away, slowly at first, then running, as prey does from the eternal huntsman.
The visitor fled through the outer door of the theatre, then ran off and vanished into the night, but not before a little of Him rubbed off on the wind which waited outside.
Then the wind carried this little bit of Him high up above the city, where it whirls and twirls, then mixes and falls, like rain, into the hearts of men who will never know the depth of God's love for them.
END
One evening the wind reached down, felt its way along a broad avenue, whirled way down a darker side street, then lingered, twirling discarded matchbooks and gum wrappers in a lazy waltz, and waited. For, careless and fickle, the wind may go where ever it wants, yet always it pauses and waits when God is near.
It waited this time in front of the Charles Avenue Theatre of Modern Art. What few street lights still worked in that dingy part of town had long been on. In due course the theatre's red doors opened and the evening's last theatre goers spilled out.
They were an odd bunch of counterfeits. They wore their cheap suits and last year's formal dresses, made their judgments of the art they had just witnessed, then left, most of them by city bus. Yet they were not lovers of art. They were lovers of the lives they thought lovers of art lead.
Inside the theatre three stage hands were cleaning up. One small benefit of a theatre like that was the number of half pint bottles invariably strewn beneath the seats after each performance. The stage hands collected the bottles, drained them into a larger bottle they kept for this very purpose, then retired to sit, drink and talk at the edge of the stage.
From the lobby came the sound of a door opening and closing. In due course a man appeared at the back of the theatre. Now I will not try to describe what this man looked like exactly, because he looked more like everyone else than he did himself. Other than that, his clothes were threadbare, he had a wispy beard and big eyes surrounded by a web of fine wrinkles.
The man approached the stage. "Did I miss the play?" He asked the stagehands.
"Yes, 'fraid so." Said the old stagehand.
The visitor considered. "Well that's a shame. I heard the play was about God, and I so wanted to see it."
"Didn't miss much." Said the young stagehand.
"Oh?"
"Nope." Said the middle aged stagehand. "We all lost interest after the second act."
"Is that so?" Said the man. He thought for a moment. "Do any of you mind if I ask how the play went?"
The stagehands looked at each other agreeably. "Well," said the old hand, "the play was about a man who wanted to emulate God."
He continued, "In the first act, as a boy the man prayed every day that he would be able to do God's work. So he studied long and hard and after time became a great physician who saved many lives."
"I see." Said the visitor. "What happened next?"
"In the second act," said the young hand, "a mortal disease broke out in the man's home town. So he labored day and night and eventually found a cure. With no time to spare, the man prepared a big batch of his formula and began to administer it to all the townsfolk who were afflicted. At last, there were only two people left who had the disease. One was a two year old child and the other was the town drunk, an old man who had never known or cared for God. Yet the man had only one dose of the cure left and there was no time to make more. So he had to decide which of them he would save."
The visitor stared at the stagehands for several moments. "Well, which did he choose?" He asked.
The stagehands looked at one another. "I guess that's where we lost interest." Said the middle aged hand. "None of us paid attention to the last act."
This seemed to trouble the visitor. Then, looking back at the stagehands he said. "I see. I wonder though, which would you have chosen?"
This question plunged the theatre into a long, awkward silence.
The young stagehand spoke first. "Oh that is easy." He said. "I would have saved the child. She had many years left to live but the old man had only a few."
The visitor smiled. "That makes sense." He said.
"No it doesn't." The old hand said after a short pause. "Why rob the old man of life before he has a chance to find God? Cure him and perhaps he will seek redemption. The child is too young to have strayed from God in any case."
This answer seemed to deeply trouble the visitor. For long moments his head shifted back and forth, as if he was torn between these two choices. Then he looked back up at the middle aged hand. "And how would you have chosen?" He asked.
The middle aged hand had stopped drinking long before and was listening to the conversation with rapt attention. "I think we should have watched the third act." He said. "I think maybe we cannot know the right answer because where men see flesh, God sees the soul, and how is He to decide which soul is more precious than the next?"
With sudden comprehension, he stared intensely at the visitor. "Who," he asked, "would you have chosen?"
The visitor hung his head. Then came the awful tears. He tried to speak, then stopped. Words had become fatiguing and useless. Silently he turned and began to walk away, slowly at first, then running, as prey does from the eternal huntsman.
The visitor fled through the outer door of the theatre, then ran off and vanished into the night, but not before a little of Him rubbed off on the wind which waited outside.
Then the wind carried this little bit of Him high up above the city, where it whirls and twirls, then mixes and falls, like rain, into the hearts of men who will never know the depth of God's love for them.
END
THE THIRD PATH
Once upon a time there lived a man who had a wife who was pleasant, but not beautiful, two children who were able, but not prodigies, and a house which was comfortable, but not lavish.
There came a time when this man began to tire of the life which God had given him. Since he was devout, it never crossed his mind to ask God for more. Yet in his quiet hours of meditation, he sensed a great yearning to be someone else. Although his ration of life was no more than what an average man such as himself was entitled to, he felt jaded, and began to loose his passion for it.
In this man's village there lived a monk who everyone considered a great sage. One day the man visited the monk and presented him with his dilemma.
"You must make a journey," said the monk, "to find what it is which is missing from your life. When you are ready, I will accompany you."
"I am ready now," said the man.
Without hesitation, the monk rose and offered the man his hand. Together, they set out on a path which led from the village to the world outside. After a few hours, they reached a fork in the path.
"Which way shall we go?" Said the man.
"That is for you to decide," said the monk.
"But how can I know which of these two paths to chose?" Said the man.
"I cannot think of any advice which would be worthwhile to you." Said the monk. "Except that there are three paths to chose from. Not two."
The man considered this. Yet try as he might, he could make no sense of what the monk had said. "Three paths?" He said. "Where is the third path?"
The monk looked the man in the eye and spoke thus:
"My friend, only when you understand why you cannot see the third path will you find that which you seek. Make your choice now."
After some time, the man chose the path on the right and set his foot upon it. The monk stayed behind.
"Are you coming?" said the man.
"Not yet." said the monk. "Go and see what lies ahead."
So the man continued, alone. Now it happened that the right hand path led to a great and glorious city. Everyone who lived in that city was beautiful, and each of them were masters of arts and sciences. They welcomed the man with open arms, offered him a life of bright significance, and gave him an apartment in the city's highest tower.
The man resided in that great city for many days. At first, he felt as if the void within him had been filled. Yet gradually, with each ascension to another wonder, he began to feel as jaded as he had before. In time he came to realize that every wonder in life is diminished by the next.
So then the man set back on the path which had brought him to the city. When he reached the fork he found the monk waiting for him.
"How can you still be here?" He asked the monk.
"As I promised," said the monk, "I will accompany you on your journey, and I am a man of my word. Are you ready to chose another path?"
"I suppose I must." Said the man.
Upon saying this the man chose the left hand path. Yet as before, when he set his foot upon it, the monk stayed behind. With a sigh, the man continued on.
Now it happened that the left hand path led to a place of limitless poverty. People who lived there committed their lives to despair. They knew nothing of courage, of joy or even of God himself. At first, the man thought that place could not possibly offer him the answers he sought. Yet out of pity for those people he determined to stay.
For many days the man resided there. Each time he was presented with a reason for despair, he offered a reason for hope. Yet as time wore on, he began to realize that every joy in life comes at the price of one sorrow or another.
So the man then set back on the path which had brought him to the that place. When he reached the fork, again he found the monk, waiting for him.
"Did you not find your answer there?" Asked the monk.
"No."
"What now then?"
The man looked at the monk with scornful eyes. "I have learned nothing." He said. "And now I think you are not the sage others believe you to be."
"Perhaps that is so." Said the monk.
Together, the two returned to the village and the man resumed his life there. Eventually he grew old and began to die.
As the man lay dying, the monk visited him again.
"Peace be unto you." Said the monk.
"And unto you as well." Said the man.
"Have you forgiven me?"
"Yes."
"Why?" Asked the monk.
The man thought on this. Then, as he lay dying on his comfortable bed, his gaze wondered beyond the monk to his wife, his children and their children who were gathered around him, each of them with fathomless love in their eyes.
"Will you tell me then?" Asked the man.
To which the monk replied:
"It is because, dear friend, you chose the third path."
End
There came a time when this man began to tire of the life which God had given him. Since he was devout, it never crossed his mind to ask God for more. Yet in his quiet hours of meditation, he sensed a great yearning to be someone else. Although his ration of life was no more than what an average man such as himself was entitled to, he felt jaded, and began to loose his passion for it.
In this man's village there lived a monk who everyone considered a great sage. One day the man visited the monk and presented him with his dilemma.
"You must make a journey," said the monk, "to find what it is which is missing from your life. When you are ready, I will accompany you."
"I am ready now," said the man.
Without hesitation, the monk rose and offered the man his hand. Together, they set out on a path which led from the village to the world outside. After a few hours, they reached a fork in the path.
"Which way shall we go?" Said the man.
"That is for you to decide," said the monk.
"But how can I know which of these two paths to chose?" Said the man.
"I cannot think of any advice which would be worthwhile to you." Said the monk. "Except that there are three paths to chose from. Not two."
The man considered this. Yet try as he might, he could make no sense of what the monk had said. "Three paths?" He said. "Where is the third path?"
The monk looked the man in the eye and spoke thus:
"My friend, only when you understand why you cannot see the third path will you find that which you seek. Make your choice now."
After some time, the man chose the path on the right and set his foot upon it. The monk stayed behind.
"Are you coming?" said the man.
"Not yet." said the monk. "Go and see what lies ahead."
So the man continued, alone. Now it happened that the right hand path led to a great and glorious city. Everyone who lived in that city was beautiful, and each of them were masters of arts and sciences. They welcomed the man with open arms, offered him a life of bright significance, and gave him an apartment in the city's highest tower.
The man resided in that great city for many days. At first, he felt as if the void within him had been filled. Yet gradually, with each ascension to another wonder, he began to feel as jaded as he had before. In time he came to realize that every wonder in life is diminished by the next.
So then the man set back on the path which had brought him to the city. When he reached the fork he found the monk waiting for him.
"How can you still be here?" He asked the monk.
"As I promised," said the monk, "I will accompany you on your journey, and I am a man of my word. Are you ready to chose another path?"
"I suppose I must." Said the man.
Upon saying this the man chose the left hand path. Yet as before, when he set his foot upon it, the monk stayed behind. With a sigh, the man continued on.
Now it happened that the left hand path led to a place of limitless poverty. People who lived there committed their lives to despair. They knew nothing of courage, of joy or even of God himself. At first, the man thought that place could not possibly offer him the answers he sought. Yet out of pity for those people he determined to stay.
For many days the man resided there. Each time he was presented with a reason for despair, he offered a reason for hope. Yet as time wore on, he began to realize that every joy in life comes at the price of one sorrow or another.
So the man then set back on the path which had brought him to the that place. When he reached the fork, again he found the monk, waiting for him.
"Did you not find your answer there?" Asked the monk.
"No."
"What now then?"
The man looked at the monk with scornful eyes. "I have learned nothing." He said. "And now I think you are not the sage others believe you to be."
"Perhaps that is so." Said the monk.
Together, the two returned to the village and the man resumed his life there. Eventually he grew old and began to die.
As the man lay dying, the monk visited him again.
"Peace be unto you." Said the monk.
"And unto you as well." Said the man.
"Have you forgiven me?"
"Yes."
"Why?" Asked the monk.
The man thought on this. Then, as he lay dying on his comfortable bed, his gaze wondered beyond the monk to his wife, his children and their children who were gathered around him, each of them with fathomless love in their eyes.
"Will you tell me then?" Asked the man.
To which the monk replied:
"It is because, dear friend, you chose the third path."
End
...ELVES
If I had time, I would find and copy for you a piece I once wrote on the character of elves, who may not now exist distinctly, but have nevertheless woven themselves over time, by bits and pieces into the whole of the human race.
But since I don't, I will only recall for you a fragment of that piece which seems to bear on the present state of our friendship.
Imagine, if you will, two individuals in earnest discussion on a subject of extreme consequence. If they are men, they are almost certain to observe the ponderous courtesies of discourse. But if they are elves, one or even both of them are likely to be distracted by a butterfly.
Then one, or as I say, even both of the elves will pursue the butterfly. Later they will go on to chase separate interests for months or perhaps years. At last, by sheer coincidence, they will return to each other's presence and continue the discussion as if not a single second had elapsed.
Now it isn't fair to judge elves by human standards. But then why should we humans trouble ourselves with any form of regret for the delightful capacities which some of us have inherited from them?
But since I don't, I will only recall for you a fragment of that piece which seems to bear on the present state of our friendship.
Imagine, if you will, two individuals in earnest discussion on a subject of extreme consequence. If they are men, they are almost certain to observe the ponderous courtesies of discourse. But if they are elves, one or even both of them are likely to be distracted by a butterfly.
Then one, or as I say, even both of the elves will pursue the butterfly. Later they will go on to chase separate interests for months or perhaps years. At last, by sheer coincidence, they will return to each other's presence and continue the discussion as if not a single second had elapsed.
Now it isn't fair to judge elves by human standards. But then why should we humans trouble ourselves with any form of regret for the delightful capacities which some of us have inherited from them?
I MARRIED TWICE
I married twice, he said,
and lost,
I married God each time,
and trouble was the cost.
Should I bet on God again,
and let it ride?
Or should I this time take
the Devil as my bride?
end
and lost,
I married God each time,
and trouble was the cost.
Should I bet on God again,
and let it ride?
Or should I this time take
the Devil as my bride?
end
Friday, April 22, 2011
YOU AND I CONVERGE
Your's, a silver nimbus 'round a veil of gold and red damask -
Mine, a claim of sandy ground - a rough hewn wooden stake.
Your's, ivory and onyx inlaid on a bright Arabian flask -
Mine, dull pieces broken off an ordinary mosaic.
I am at once betrayed
by an undeserving heart's relentless surge -
Which steals the words that need be said
when you and I converge.
Mine, a claim of sandy ground - a rough hewn wooden stake.
Your's, ivory and onyx inlaid on a bright Arabian flask -
Mine, dull pieces broken off an ordinary mosaic.
I am at once betrayed
by an undeserving heart's relentless surge -
Which steals the words that need be said
when you and I converge.
MOUSE
Once upon a time there lived a great king who was sad because he had no God to believe in. After much thought he issued a decree. In it he commanded that on a certain day all the men of faith who lived in his kingdom were to bring before him the Gods they worshiped. On that day he would decide which God was the greatest of all, and this would be the one he would believe in. In due course that day finally came.
The king erected a pavilion on the main road which ran through his capitol and there sat on his throne while men of faith paraded their Gods before him. And what a fantastic parade it was! Huge idols of gold and silver on gigantic carts were wheeled by. The trumpets blew, soldiers, slaves, citizens and priests marched by, each in turn singing a brighter and more inspiring hymn. Yet as the parade progressed, the king seemed to tire of it. How, he thought, would he ever be able to choose a single God from this magnificent procession?
Finally, as evening began to fall, the last man of faith walked by. Yet how different this man's God was from all the rest! He seemed to be a humble man of pleasant, yet average disposition, dressed in a simple robe. In his hands he carried a satin pillow upon which rested the tarnished likeness of a mouse.
Confused and intrigued, the king called for the man to come before him. "What means this?" He asked the man. "When all the other Gods are so vast and splendid that you would consider as equal to them this tiny trinket?"
To this the man replied:
"Many years ago, some of my ancestors were out hunting and discovered a giant statue of a dragon, made of wax. They put it on a sledge, hauled it back to our village and housed it in a temple, where they worshiped it night and day. But after time, the wax began to soften. Curious, the most daring of my ancestors peeled away the wax and discovered beneath it the statue of a lion, made of wood. This lion we worshipped for many years, but after time, the wood began to rot. Some of my ancestors then tore away the wood and found beneath it the statue of an ancient sage, made of clay. For a while we worshipped the sage, but after time the clay began to crack Then, some of my ancestors chipped away the clay and found this mouse. It is not as terrifying as a dragon, nor as strong as a lion, nor as wise as a sage, but it is made of something which neither softens, nor rots nor cracks. And even though it is small indeed it is eternal. So that is why we worship it now, and always will."
I should like to end this story happily. Then I could say the king instantly decided on the mouse and fell to his knees. But we all know this is not the way men are, be they kings or paupers, masters or slaves. Men look for shelter in the shadows of grand and regal monuments. And truth by itself is not glorious until it is made larger by the impermanent arts of men, with clay, wax, wood and words. In that way men come to worship a God who may decide what is true, when it fact it is truth itself which decides who may be God.
So the king chose another God and the man returned to his village, beyond the boundaries of which Gods come and go, but inside of which truth never dies.
The king erected a pavilion on the main road which ran through his capitol and there sat on his throne while men of faith paraded their Gods before him. And what a fantastic parade it was! Huge idols of gold and silver on gigantic carts were wheeled by. The trumpets blew, soldiers, slaves, citizens and priests marched by, each in turn singing a brighter and more inspiring hymn. Yet as the parade progressed, the king seemed to tire of it. How, he thought, would he ever be able to choose a single God from this magnificent procession?
Finally, as evening began to fall, the last man of faith walked by. Yet how different this man's God was from all the rest! He seemed to be a humble man of pleasant, yet average disposition, dressed in a simple robe. In his hands he carried a satin pillow upon which rested the tarnished likeness of a mouse.
Confused and intrigued, the king called for the man to come before him. "What means this?" He asked the man. "When all the other Gods are so vast and splendid that you would consider as equal to them this tiny trinket?"
To this the man replied:
"Many years ago, some of my ancestors were out hunting and discovered a giant statue of a dragon, made of wax. They put it on a sledge, hauled it back to our village and housed it in a temple, where they worshiped it night and day. But after time, the wax began to soften. Curious, the most daring of my ancestors peeled away the wax and discovered beneath it the statue of a lion, made of wood. This lion we worshipped for many years, but after time, the wood began to rot. Some of my ancestors then tore away the wood and found beneath it the statue of an ancient sage, made of clay. For a while we worshipped the sage, but after time the clay began to crack Then, some of my ancestors chipped away the clay and found this mouse. It is not as terrifying as a dragon, nor as strong as a lion, nor as wise as a sage, but it is made of something which neither softens, nor rots nor cracks. And even though it is small indeed it is eternal. So that is why we worship it now, and always will."
I should like to end this story happily. Then I could say the king instantly decided on the mouse and fell to his knees. But we all know this is not the way men are, be they kings or paupers, masters or slaves. Men look for shelter in the shadows of grand and regal monuments. And truth by itself is not glorious until it is made larger by the impermanent arts of men, with clay, wax, wood and words. In that way men come to worship a God who may decide what is true, when it fact it is truth itself which decides who may be God.
So the king chose another God and the man returned to his village, beyond the boundaries of which Gods come and go, but inside of which truth never dies.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)