Holy Luck
Dear Eugene,
I need to write this down quickly. I must write it all down now, can't let a single detail go unrecorded. Let me mince not and with a single stroke summon the words into existence!
Yesterday morning I texted a colleague, a long time friend. I said Welcome back to the classroom, dear fellow student. It was our in-joke, like we are little kids going to school rather unwillingly. He went to the US for a marathon race this past weekend.
I crossed the border with my friend of 15 years, he texted back, and came back by myself.
My friend passed away on foreign soil.
I asked What happened? An accident? He said he will call me at night and tell me about it. I texted back, OK. Stay strong.
I checked his schedule: off at 6:30. So after work I quickly finished my dinner, asked my family to pray for my friend and for the conversation we were going to have. I walked my dog at 6. By 6:30 I was beside my phone, waiting, anxious but pretended not. Picked up my guitar and played a Bob Dylan. Then a country song full of longing (don't they all?). A barre chord muffled.
My phone rang.
With it the silly face of my friend appeared; I created a Hitchcock-themed avatar for him in my contact.
He came clean. He was talking about his car. The "friend" who passed away "on foreign soil" was his car. No "human" was hurt in his joke, if you don't count me. I was about to curse, and he said hold your horse-power, that the experience really was rather...traumatic.
So his story. I listened attentively. Recounting here in snapshots.
On Saturday his car suddenly lost power in the middle of a highway. In his heart he cried for help but it didn't change a thing. Slowly and surely his "friend" was dying, last breath inevitable and imminent. With whatever little residual energy it veered off to a smaller road. Finally it "knelt down"--a Cantonese expression (跪低) for an automobile breakdown...in front of a small church.
This has to be the plot of a most shamelessly corny Christian movie, I thought. But I knew he wasn't making it up. No, not this cynical friend of mine. (He had called me worse before, and I think both of us were right.)
Coincidence, of course. Life is full of coincidences, accidents, pleasant and not. Most "miracles" are isolated accidents exaggerated by the raconteur with an agenda, we say. May they well be.
The following is a whirlwind account of the slow and graceful unveiling of even more accidents and coincidences in the next two days. Pure corn syrup.
He left his car and went into the little church. The people there welcomed him, like they had nothing better to do on a beautiful September afternoon. Gave him help to handle his trouble. Drove him to his hotel. Dined with him. Like that was their weekend plan all along. Drove him from his hotel to his marathon the next day. Gave him more help, more rides. My friend offered them gas money; they refused. My friend treated his driver for dinner at the hotel; the guy picked the cheapest item, no appetizer, no drink, no dessert. Then an elder of the church welcomed him to his very own home, hosted him, and by the end of the two days drove him back to Canada. Close enough, he said.
Shameless soap opera. Tear-jerking moment one after another. My friend said the night before the marathon he had a peaceful sleep, which was a first. Every time before he ran a marathon he could never sleep well; too agitated. But not this time. Not even after brushing shoulder with death on the highway, losing his car and suffering all the subsequent commotions. He had peace.
Who wrote this flagrantly maudlin, mawkish schmaltz?
He told his new Christian friends what we Chinese call a car's breakdown in Cantonese: Kneeling down. Falling on his knees right in front of a church, he couldn't believe a metaphor so brazenly obvious, almost crass. Whoever behind it wasn't going for subtlety.
The day before he came back to Canada he sent his "friend of 15 years" to an auto scrapyard, "on foreign soil." Saying a final goodbye to his dear friend, he saw a conveyor belt like that in a crematoria, the metaphor now going from obvious to obscene. It was not about a fear of inferno. It was about a loss, of a friend, a family, of oneself, simple and permanent.
I prayed last night, he said. In his prayer he heard a voice, saying For every ounce of pity you had for your dying car, my heart was broken a hundred times over when you left me, my love.
My friend cried. A voice calling his very name, telling him his life story.
Coincidences, of course. The cynic, the Accuser said it's all in his head, in my head, in our heads. We are too eager to give credit to a "transcendence" that does not exist, have too many preconceived notions in us to see how mundane this all really was. Let's act more "enlightened" about the situation, about life. About death. All accidents. No meaning beyond what meets the eyes.
The Accuser has its own agenda, preconceived notions. It just wouldn't admit to them.
I shall tell the Accuser what was not an accident. My waiting for my friend by my phone last evening at 6:30 was not an accident. I've made a series of very deliberate choices to put myself there, all involved giving up my "preconceived notions" of how my life should be lived out. My praying for him for over a decade was not an accident. My tears may be haphazard but always came with pronounced intentionality. My years of visualizing, playing over and over in my head one day having last night's conversation was written in the star from day one since I first loved this friend.
What's more, I said to the Accuser, I wasn't the only one not living at the mercy of happenstance. The people in the little church all have their own busy life to live, but not busy enough to forget about truly living. They set aside time and energy, financial and emotional reservoir for a purpose they had yet to see, a brother they had yet to know and embrace. It's like their waiting there in the little church on the roadside that afternoon was meant to be, a preordained destiny a lifetime in its making finally fulfilled, stars collided, heaven and earth interlocked. They loved a stranger because God first loved them when they were still strangers to his way and his will.
What happened to my friend this past weekend was not an accident! There was no coincidence! It was Holy Luck!!!
Feeling lucky, Alex
I need to write this down quickly. I must write it all down now, can't let a single detail go unrecorded. Let me mince not and with a single stroke summon the words into existence!
Yesterday morning I texted a colleague, a long time friend. I said Welcome back to the classroom, dear fellow student. It was our in-joke, like we are little kids going to school rather unwillingly. He went to the US for a marathon race this past weekend.
I crossed the border with my friend of 15 years, he texted back, and came back by myself.
My friend passed away on foreign soil.
I asked What happened? An accident? He said he will call me at night and tell me about it. I texted back, OK. Stay strong.
I checked his schedule: off at 6:30. So after work I quickly finished my dinner, asked my family to pray for my friend and for the conversation we were going to have. I walked my dog at 6. By 6:30 I was beside my phone, waiting, anxious but pretended not. Picked up my guitar and played a Bob Dylan. Then a country song full of longing (don't they all?). A barre chord muffled.
My phone rang.
With it the silly face of my friend appeared; I created a Hitchcock-themed avatar for him in my contact.
He came clean. He was talking about his car. The "friend" who passed away "on foreign soil" was his car. No "human" was hurt in his joke, if you don't count me. I was about to curse, and he said hold your horse-power, that the experience really was rather...traumatic.
So his story. I listened attentively. Recounting here in snapshots.
On Saturday his car suddenly lost power in the middle of a highway. In his heart he cried for help but it didn't change a thing. Slowly and surely his "friend" was dying, last breath inevitable and imminent. With whatever little residual energy it veered off to a smaller road. Finally it "knelt down"--a Cantonese expression (跪低) for an automobile breakdown...in front of a small church.
This has to be the plot of a most shamelessly corny Christian movie, I thought. But I knew he wasn't making it up. No, not this cynical friend of mine. (He had called me worse before, and I think both of us were right.)
Coincidence, of course. Life is full of coincidences, accidents, pleasant and not. Most "miracles" are isolated accidents exaggerated by the raconteur with an agenda, we say. May they well be.
The following is a whirlwind account of the slow and graceful unveiling of even more accidents and coincidences in the next two days. Pure corn syrup.
He left his car and went into the little church. The people there welcomed him, like they had nothing better to do on a beautiful September afternoon. Gave him help to handle his trouble. Drove him to his hotel. Dined with him. Like that was their weekend plan all along. Drove him from his hotel to his marathon the next day. Gave him more help, more rides. My friend offered them gas money; they refused. My friend treated his driver for dinner at the hotel; the guy picked the cheapest item, no appetizer, no drink, no dessert. Then an elder of the church welcomed him to his very own home, hosted him, and by the end of the two days drove him back to Canada. Close enough, he said.
Shameless soap opera. Tear-jerking moment one after another. My friend said the night before the marathon he had a peaceful sleep, which was a first. Every time before he ran a marathon he could never sleep well; too agitated. But not this time. Not even after brushing shoulder with death on the highway, losing his car and suffering all the subsequent commotions. He had peace.
Who wrote this flagrantly maudlin, mawkish schmaltz?
He told his new Christian friends what we Chinese call a car's breakdown in Cantonese: Kneeling down. Falling on his knees right in front of a church, he couldn't believe a metaphor so brazenly obvious, almost crass. Whoever behind it wasn't going for subtlety.
The day before he came back to Canada he sent his "friend of 15 years" to an auto scrapyard, "on foreign soil." Saying a final goodbye to his dear friend, he saw a conveyor belt like that in a crematoria, the metaphor now going from obvious to obscene. It was not about a fear of inferno. It was about a loss, of a friend, a family, of oneself, simple and permanent.
I prayed last night, he said. In his prayer he heard a voice, saying For every ounce of pity you had for your dying car, my heart was broken a hundred times over when you left me, my love.
My friend cried. A voice calling his very name, telling him his life story.
Coincidences, of course. The cynic, the Accuser said it's all in his head, in my head, in our heads. We are too eager to give credit to a "transcendence" that does not exist, have too many preconceived notions in us to see how mundane this all really was. Let's act more "enlightened" about the situation, about life. About death. All accidents. No meaning beyond what meets the eyes.
The Accuser has its own agenda, preconceived notions. It just wouldn't admit to them.
I shall tell the Accuser what was not an accident. My waiting for my friend by my phone last evening at 6:30 was not an accident. I've made a series of very deliberate choices to put myself there, all involved giving up my "preconceived notions" of how my life should be lived out. My praying for him for over a decade was not an accident. My tears may be haphazard but always came with pronounced intentionality. My years of visualizing, playing over and over in my head one day having last night's conversation was written in the star from day one since I first loved this friend.
What's more, I said to the Accuser, I wasn't the only one not living at the mercy of happenstance. The people in the little church all have their own busy life to live, but not busy enough to forget about truly living. They set aside time and energy, financial and emotional reservoir for a purpose they had yet to see, a brother they had yet to know and embrace. It's like their waiting there in the little church on the roadside that afternoon was meant to be, a preordained destiny a lifetime in its making finally fulfilled, stars collided, heaven and earth interlocked. They loved a stranger because God first loved them when they were still strangers to his way and his will.
What happened to my friend this past weekend was not an accident! There was no coincidence! It was Holy Luck!!!
Feeling lucky, Alex
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