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Dear Eugene,

It's income tax season again, something I am thinking about, tax that is, and season, the cyclical turning over of life's pages to arrive at the familiar made new, expectations fulfilled but always gracefully more.

The father of a Syrian refugee family who lost all seven of his children this morning in a Halifax house fire is not thinking about tax.  He is in critical condition, but nothing is important to him anymore.  Certainly not income tax.  The house was new too, I saw it on the news and liked it a lot, could see myself in it, happily filing tax.

This morning, at around 12:30--no, not even yesterday, but this very morning, same day as today, a very present tense, and if you are to use your finger to forcibly move backward the hour-hand of a clock it wouldn't take so many as a few cycles for you to go back in time to 12:30 and ask yourself why you didn't do anything to stop the fire from starting.  You are with our Father now, Eugene.  Can you tell me what he was doing at 12:30 this very morning?

Jesus is weeping now, I can hear.  In fact I need to stop writing for a bit now because his sob is bothering me.  The tears on my face are his and I must ask him to stop implicating me on this sad affair that I can't claim to know enough to feel enough.  Who is this Vancouver Chinese father with tax on his mind to suggest he could speak the unspeakable for the Halifax Syrian father?  My life expectations are fulfilled, gracefully more too, as his seem to have been hitherto likewise, out of the homeland turmoils to this country's peace and plenty.  Only now there is no more pages for him to turn.  No need.  All burned.

Anywhere you find a lullaby,
Leave; safety is final danger.
When you come across a storyteller -
Know a house is being destroyed.

From the great Persian poet Rumi, a poem I read again today.  What is he saying?  That whatever gives us rest, that we worship like it's our eternal consolation, is a false god.  So leave.  A sorted-out life is a life in jeopardy, cradled in comfort and happiness as it might seem.  We are sold stories and peddle our own, recipes and guides, sermons and tracts; the stories all end in destruction.

The seven children are with their Father now.  Heaven smells of their prayer for their father's rest.

Yours, Alex

Comments

  1. RoseFebruary 21, 2019 at 1:13 PM

    After reading your latest blog with Kate “When Words Wound”, I can understand this piece a bit more. A friend once told me a story of her uncle who helped the residents in need after an apartment fire in Merritt (https://cfjctoday.com/article/563886/newly-opened-comfort-inn-helps-merritt-residents-need-after-fire). Her uncle, the owner, opened up his unfinished hotel as soon as he heard the bad news. My friend said "That's good news. Wouldn’t it be nice to have more people like these?"

    ReplyDelete
  2. RoseFebruary 22, 2019 at 7:06 AM

    "Wouldn't it be nice to have more people like these?" A Coquitlam man (and neighbors) saved 2 young boys from icy water yesterday (https://www.citynews1130.com/2019/02/22/coquitlam-hero-rescue-thin-ice/). Heaven rejoices!

    ReplyDelete

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