Why do we fret from day to day wondering what will come of life's turns and loops?
As a cold raindrop crept down the young boy's forehead, another fell on his lip. He tasted in that raindrop the coldness of love lost, the tragic neutrality of desolation. The confusion of tears travelling in all directions and the rain pelting made for a wet and constantly changing frame. Lying crooked in the cobblestoned gutter he cried. His head nestled firmly against the cold concrete curb, the muscles in his neck tight, propped his back up off the stony road as he arched with agony. The young boy tried to place the bottle upright on the edge of the curb but misbalanced, it slid off and shattered on the stony street beneath, a foamy white puddle emanating from the broken glass.
He gazed at the buildings around him and wondered when the pain would cease. Occupied momentarily by an old man sitting across the street, the boy's mind halted on its spiralling quest. Clutching a foam cup the man knelt on the sidewalk, his back to a flat brick wall, dividing a boulangerie and a high-end women's clothing boutique. Either the writing on the cup or the look on the man's face prompted a passer-by to drop in a coin, because the old man said nothing. For the next few minutes the boy sat up and watched the old man from his place in the gutter across the street. He watched as the old man sat absolutely still, his head hung low, only to rise occasionally to reveal a weary face and deep, lonely eyes.
As the old man's head rose again his eyes fell on the boy. Murky blue. Suddenly a tingling sensation in his side, a vibration from the boy's pocket. He rummaged in his jacket pocket for his mobile phone... As he read the text message the boy's eyes began to moisten again,
Mum wants to know if you've talked to the priest yet?
Hit me back to let us know you're okay man.
The boy pressed button at the top of his mobile phone and the screen went blank as he put it in his pocket once more. All he could think about was how alone he was. Maybe the priest thing was a good idea after all, he thought. He had seen a sign for Cathedral St Jean a few blocks up the hill. He got up and wiped his hands in his jeans, sopping wet and muddy. The cold air grew colder as he walked headlong into the wind. The cracks in the boy's lips deepened, tiny pricks of piercing pain as the meat in his bottom lip opened up to the elements. He was alone again. As the boy walked up the cobbled street, many more people began to emerge. Evidently it was that time where the businesses were closing for the evening.
Questions
A glance Heavenward would present the rolling black clouds shrinking at the leading end to fit into an invisible case, the effect sharpening the tip of the cloud so that it now looked both ominous and grief stricken. Questions ran through the boy's mind all over again. As the boy let his mind soar, it grew so full he felt his legs would give way under the sheer weight of his thoughts. Concerned eyes glanced at the young boy's face. He saw the eyes. The fingers pointing. The scowls. Somehow the attention was releasing, like pain swapped for humiliation. Two young girls walked past and offered something verbally. They seemed polite. Sweet. The boy turned his body as he walked, looking at the girls, expecting that they might turn around. Bump! He collided with a big man walking in the opposite direction.
The man yelled something in French. The coffee he had been holding was now on the pavement. Shoved, and the boy fell backward. He tripped on the edge of a stone and fell. Fortunately he landed on his bottom in the middle of the wet street. Back to the position he had chosen for himself only a few hours prior.
As he sat in the street once more all he could imagine were the murky blue eyes of the old man with the foam cup. For whatever reason we can end up lying on our backs at some point in life. Sometimes it's a choice. Sometimes it isn't. But it is always a choice to stay there.
As the boy walked into the chapel he felt the dampness of mildewed air on his face, tasted the moistened wood and the aroma of flowers decaying. He glanced up at the ceiling which stretched higher than anything he'd ever imagined, rafters like the bit of skin holding your tongue in your mouth lined the ceiling making it look like the mouth of a baleen whale had enveloped the place. Jonah was back in God's plan. As the boy stood pondering, "bonjour" came the little French voice of a man in a white tunic, one hand holding a pair of glasses, the other, a book.
"Hello," I mustered up. "Do you speak English?"
"Very little," the priest said shyly.
"Je veux parler avec vous s'il vous plait."
"Biensur." Nodding his head to confirm he both understood and was obliging, the priest motioned eagerly for the boy to come into a room which looked like his office. He grabbed a chair from the corner of the room and moved it to a place where it faced his own and gestured for the boy to sit down. "Sit down. Now you speak. I will listen."
The journey ...
Yesterday I was having a conversation about the concept of the journey with a class of senior secondary students. One boy offered the notion of a journey with God, that on the way to where we are going, we always need God. Together we surmised that there are two trajectories in such a journey. The stable God path, a plateaued line that never wavers, and our own chosen path, which if you can imagine, begins parallel to the God line but zig zags away from it and back to it depending on the circumstances in which we find ourselves, closer to God in times of need, further away when we find uncalculated momentum. In France that time I had been on my return to the God line, searching for any listening ear on the way, and finding that as I got closer to God I was increasingly liberated from the pain and uncertainty that lay farther away.
In life we see the murky blue of foam cups with desperate eyes. We see the tilting, withering flowers trying to make it in the damp and we experience the feeling of freefall that precedes the still saturation of street sitting. But there is blessing within the yearning. Sitting on a cobbled stoned street in France I remembered a sign, I backtracked and I found the listening ear of a Priest without much English, but enough to understand. God was there.
When I returned to France it was with a renewed lens through which to look. I didn't look for a church sign out of need but in celebration and expectation. I didn't look at the old man on the street out of fear or disgust but with prayer and hope in my soul. Dampness didn't overwhelm me. It was weather conducive to the typical cuisine, warmth and unity, love. Arm in arm with the girl of me dreams who I'd married six months prior we walked those same cobbled streets and all glory to God there was no emptiness attached to the place, no fear or isolation in the atmosphere. Where once I had felt those things and pinned them to that place God had unpinned them and thrown them away.
He has turned my sorrow into joy, my desperation into dancing. So why do we fret? Do you not yet see? Have you even understood the central tenet of Jesus' promise? There is a plan for you, to grow, to overcome and to rise higher than you could possibly imagine. So get up off the wet floor. It's not your place of rest. Do not fear uncertain eyes. Comfort them with the understanding within you that this is not the end of the story. God never fails.
David Luschwitz is from Zetland, Sydney and is passionate about equipping people to "Renew their Minds, Revive their Spirit and Reclaim their Lives."
Check out the vision and mission statement at www.davidluschwitz.com.
David Luschwitz' previous articles may be viewed at http://www.pressserviceinternational.org/david-luschwitz.html