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