In The God Way

Life evolves

The Story

Divine Dinny

Christmas 2006

Notes on Marie

Reflections on a Deadline

Art of Spiritual Peacemaking

Beltain 2003

April Garden

June Garden

Reflections on a Deadline

It was the middle of the night and John was sitting at his trusty computer, playing an unregistered game of Tetris, realizing that it was past time to write a few pages for Fella's, or at least about past time. Fortunately he had been mulling this over for quite a few days, thinking it should be pretty easy to fill the two pages required. "I have surely come out of a most amazing period" he thought as he saw the largest Tetris piece ever, twice as many blocks as any other piece, suddenly fell into the most damaging spot. "I should have plenty to say."

Suddenly he got up, leaving the chair rolling as he dashed into the bedroom, over to his great-grandfathers desk and to look for his old Hewlett Packard 12C financial calculator. He found it in no time, among the loose piles of neglected correspondence. Biting his lip he moved his eyes to the other side of his desk, there they landed on the stacked piles of neglected correspondence resting quietly, like roosting hens, in their organizer trays. He bolted back to the rolling chair and cuddled up to the computer.

It took a couple of tries before he could remember how to enter the date into the fourteen year old calculator. His fingers had entered the date just as it should have been, 01.181988. But the display was set to two decimals, all he saw was 1.18. So then he entered 01.18.1998, but all that showed was 1.18. After a few blank seconds it came. Yellow f, 9. The display read 01.181998000. Yes, that was the date.

The date of the night his family had come home to seven fire trucks filling the street in front of their house. Their red lights blinking on and off, lit up the smoke floating low to the ground like a fog. He could see people walking everywhere. The police officer, who had also just arrived, blocked their street. "I am sorry, you can't go up there." The officer said stepping out of his car. The blue lights flashed behind his graying hair adding a new hue to the smoke filled air.

"Do you know the house number?" he had asked the officer who looked into the small spiral bound notebook that he pulled from his shirt pocket with a look that said he should have taken a little more care when he jotted the number down. "It's not 3039, is it?

"Wait right here" the officer said who rode his long legs into the crowd bustling about the fire trucks. He was back in a flash, his harshness gone. "You can go on up.

And go on up he did. Sure enough, it was 3039 indeed that was hosting the fire party. It looked like a party, all of the neighbors were there and many of the friends of his family. Beyond them flames gushed out of the basement windows hot and full. Flames could be seen in the first floor too. A chain saw started its roar and the firemen started to cut great gashes in the outside wall from which even more flames lit the night. He was mesmerized by the flames, could not believe what he was seeing, yet there it was, half of his world was burning before his eyes. Life changes, he thought, somehow knowing that this too, somehow, would be for the good.

The Tetris game which had continued to drop its pieces onto a loosing pile and exited on its own, brought his attention back to the computer by advertising the joys of the fully registered version. How long ago was that.

He focused on the calculator in his hand and continued, entering 05.121998, then pressing the Enter key. Then, blue g, followed by delta of days. The tiny screen on the calculator flashed on and off, like the lights of the fire trucks.

There it was. One hundred and fourteen.

"In the last one hundred and fourteen days I have experienced the loss of my home through fire, starting a new job, buying a new house and two weddings." He thought. "I should have plenty to say."

The he went off on a memory trip, traveling from that night of the fire, to the hotel suite, back to Kevin's and Dara's where he and his wife had stayed the first night, then forward to the little apartment on Queen Ann Hill were they had stayed after the money for he hotel had run out, up to the purchase of the new house, back to the fire. Hopping all about, was his mind, it was as if he had dropped a pack of cards along a trail and found himself picking them up, sometimes one at a time and sometimes a whole hand full. When his mind came to the days of hunting through the burned out building, the acrid harsh odors returned to his nostrils. Breathing a deep sigh he rolled a little closer to the monitor and moused his Internet connection open.

This was an example of just what had happened over the last one hundred and fourteen days. Before the fire his trusty computer filled the desk in his small room and was always looking for items in the valuable debris piled around it. It usually took him so long to find the calculator currently in his hand that frequently he would have forgotten why he was using it. Now all of that debris had its own little nests. Perhaps one day it would all be dealt with and put away, but for now he loved the fact that at least it was all in the other room. More than that he loved that he could place his glass of house blend tea and juice on a clear spot in easy reach and not have to worry about getting something wet.

While he clicked his way to NPR news and set the stream of hourly news across his computer speakers, he sucked a tongue full of the cool red drink and let it pool in his mouth. He held onto that glass with both hands, abandoning the calculator without thought. Before the fire his glass had been filled with water, after the fire the water is now enhanced with herbs and laced with juice.

The News broadcast came in strong and clear across the 3ComImpact IQ ISDN modem he had set up earlier in the day. The plan had been to write the pages first, because you never know how long it is going to take to reconfigure a computer. Besides there would be no need to connect to the Internet to write just a few pages. But before he started to write he opened the package that had just come form US West and took the manual into the bathroom with him. As he flipped through the the characteristically blue and white manual his excitement started to flame. Only fifteen minutes, the book promised. As he dropped off his load reading the specifications his thoughts had drifted back to the days at the refinery where he had first made his living by always knowing a little bit more than anyone else, and by having faith in technological innovation. Yes, his talk soon had back out of the bathroom and his plans for the daytime were ruined.

Hours had gone by moving this, adjusting that just to gel another cable to find a crowded home at the back of his PC. And then of course he had to spend a few minutes checking out the performance. By the time he came up for air hours had gone by, his wife was sound asleep on the new leather couch, and it was very late. Too late to put it off again, and at last he started to write. This is what he wrote.

"It has been years, many years, since I have set down to write creatively. I am afraid that I will be rusty, my style will creak and squeal from neglect and long misuse writing technical papers about issues that only a tiny number of people would recognize, much less understand. But I have been called to express the story I have seen and those that I have lived. I know that the only way to get past the pain is to start. Subject does not matter, it is all story, so I will have to start, and then I will be shown what to say."

It was true. We all know that. He just had to start, and this was it.

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