But there he was in his dream, dusting furniture and vacuuming dirt from the floors. The other strange thing about his dream was that he couldn’t get rid of the dust. In fact, the more he cleaned, the more dust would appear. Finally, it got so bad that he had begun choking on the dust, and that’s when he had woken up.
As he sipped his coffee, a passage from the book of Genesis came to mind. “For you are dirt, and to dirt you shall return.” Maybe that was it, he thought. The night before, he had discussed death at length with several fire fighters at Ladder Company 6. It wasn’t a subject the fire fighters spoke of often, even though they each had had friends who lost their lives while battling fires. A couple of them at Ladder Company 6 had almost died on the job. Frank was one.
“It happened so fast. One second there was a clear path to the door out, the next, nothing but flames between me and it,” Frank had told Father Tom with horror in his voice. “I looked all over for another exit … other doors … other windows. Flames and smoke were everywhere. We’re trained to deal with every situation, but for the life of me, nothing came to mind that would save me. My heart was racing. I was dripping sweat and thought I was about to die.”
“Oh, thank God you didn’t,” Father Tom interrupted. “How did you get out?”
“A strange thing happened. ‘God help me, God help me’ I whispered over, and over. Then all of a sudden, images came to mind of some cartoon I used to watch when I was a kid on Saturday mornings. The next thing I knew, I was running through the flames that blocked my way out, just like the character did in the cartoon. I don’t know how I got out without being burned.”
“That’s a good story. Do you mind if I use it in a homily some time?” Father Tom asked.
“Why? Don’t you think it’s weird?” Frank looked around the room at his colleagues to confirm its weirdness.
“Not at all, God works in mysterious ways.” Father Tom gave Frank an affirmative wink.
“I guess so. Sure, you can use it,” Frank said, shrugging his shoulders.
Father Tom swallowed hard. “I’ve told you guys this before, but let me say it again…” He paused to look around at the faces in the room before continuing. “You are my heroes. God has truly blessed you so that you can put your life on the line again and again for people you don’t even know—‘For there is no greater love than to give one’s life for someone else.’”
“Father, can I ask you something?” Steve, another firefighter, whispered.
“Certainly, anything.”
“Does God determine when we all die?” Steve asked, looking and sounding like an inquisitive, innocent child.
Father Tom contemplated his question for a moment. “Let me first ask you this before I answer your question. Does God determine when we are born?”
“My mother and father had a lot to do with it,” Steve noted with a playful smile, evoking laughter from his colleagues.
“Ha, quite right, just as their mothers and fathers had a lot to do with their entrances into this world, and so on to the beginning of life on Earth.” Father Tom paced back and forth as he spoke.
“I don’t get it. Did you answer my question?”
“No. No. But now I can.” Father Tom stopped in his tracks and turned to Steve. “You see, God created all life and everything in our physical world.” He spread his raised arms to emphasize his point. “The natural forces that God created continuously reshape this world. You know ... the weather, the ocean tides, and earthquakes. So when someone dies in a natural disaster, God did determine that death to a degree. It’s not that God willed that untimely death; he just lets nature take its course.” Father Tom studied Steve’s face to gauge his reaction.
Steve leaned forward in his chair, stroked his face and looked into Father Tom’s eyes. “What about death by disease, accidents, murder, war? You know… things that come out of nowhere that take some lives and not others? It seems like God just saves some people.”
“Wait a minute. You’re getting ahead of me. As I was saying, God lets natural disasters, like tornadoes, take lives. Why God set up this world to have all kinds of life and health-threatening risks is a question only God can answer. I’ll include sickness and disease in this category. Then, there are those other risks that you mention, accidents, murder, and war that have more to do with the human condition.” Father Tom started pacing again. “We have some control over these things. I say ‘we’ in that they are tied to human activity and our free will. These wouldn’t be risks if God didn’t make our bodies so fragile and he didn’t let us decide how we use our bodies.”
Tim, another firefighter, entered the room just as Father Tom paused to look at Steve.
“What the hell is going on in here? Why so quiet?”
“Shush,” all the other firefighters urged, pointing to Father Tom, who was hidden from Tim’s view, on the other side of the room.
Tim turned to see Father Tom. “Oh!” He zipped his lips, and nodded awkwardly before taking a seat at one of the tables.
Father Tom nodded at Tim and picked up where he had left off. “Again, you’ll have to get the answers about why this is so from God. We just need to understand and accept that this is life. It’s up to each of us how we respond to it. Oh, almost forgot to mention evil and how it can influence the choices we make. So for reasons known only to God, we have natural disasters, all kinds of diseases, a body and a mind that bruise easily, and evil at work all around us that is responsible for lots of bad choices, including the taking of another’s life. The good news is that God helps us make choices when we listen to what he whispers to us.”
“So God doesn’t determine exactly when we will die; he’s just involved in the bigger picture?” Frank summarized.
“That’s the way I see it. And the bigger picture includes our eternal life with God. Life on Earth is like a school where we learn lots of things to grow our spirits. And, upon graduation, we go to one of two places: heaven or hell. Not all suffering is bad. For some reason, often it helps us to graduate with honors if we let it.”
My dream about choking on dust, that must have been it, Father Tom thought to himself as he finished his morning coffee. The conversation I had had with the men at Ladder Company #6 just got me thinking about our dust and the hereafter. He wondered what God was trying to tell him with his dream as he headed out the door to begin his day.
CHAPTER 5
Why Risk It?
As Al’s train made its way to Manhattan, he quickly organized his work day in his mind. Anything he couldn’t finish would either have to wait until he returned from his vacation, or he’d ask a co-worker to lend a hand in his absence on pressing matters. With his day mapped out, he could relax. An advertisement on the opposite wall of the train caught his eye and sparked some thoughts. The headline simply read, “Why Risk It?”
“Risk what?” he asked himself. Being a risk manager, it was an interesting question for Al. Before Al continued reading the ad, he played a game with himself to guess what was being sold. It was probably insurance of some kind, he surmised. Americans spent billions of dollars every year to keep from being hit by big unexpected expenses: life, health, home, auto, and accident insurance topped the list. Job loss and identity theft insurance were among the newer varieties gaining popularity, he reminded himself.
So, yes, he knew people were now insuring more things to manage more of their lives, to buy peace of mind. But before he went with insurance as his guess, thoughts about other kinds of risk that weren’t covered by traditional insurance came to mind. For example, advertisers were quick to point out risks to those who could use their products or services to protect themselves against everything from bad breath and other social concerns to crime, financial insecurity, personal development, legal concerns, and other threats.
Al shook his head in amazement as he began to comprehend, perhaps for the first time in his life, that he and everybody else in the world had so much at risk in just living e
very day. And it bothered him that advertisers often sold things as insurance against threats, perceived or not, so they could present their goods and services as a means to reduce or eliminate risks. In doing so, they found creative ways to generate consumer demand because they seemed to know consumers better than consumers knew themselves.
Then Al wondered if it was an advertisement that prompted him recently to consider buying a gun for the first time in his life. After a few seconds, he remembered seeing a TV news story about the elderly learning how to shoot would-be attackers. It reported that a growing number of elderly were enrolling in firearm education classes because they didn’t want to be victimized by younger, stronger assailants.
Al was so wrapped up in his mental gymnastics that he almost forgot about the game he was playing. He looked back up at the headline on the advertisement: “Why Risk It?” Armed with his new insights, he deduced that the ad was probably about financial threats since this train served business people commuting to and from work. To confirm his guess, he read the rest of the ad and then laughed out loud—which prompted strange looks from those who were closest to him.
It was selling an adult diaper for people who had lost some control of their body’s functions. Al hoped the advertiser had misdirected it. If not, he learned more about his fellow commuters than he wanted to know. Or worse, the message may be a foreshadowing of things to come for him.
CHAPTER 6
One Small World
While Al switched trains, halfway around the world in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, it was early evening. Tenaye Tiruneh expressed her concern to her husband, Tadesse, via phone about their son Alemu. Tadesse listened to her carefully explain that Alemu, a fifteen-year-old high school student, had been arrested by Addis Ababa police. Tadesse was in a New York City taxi cab, on his way to a very important business meeting that would determine the fate of his dream to open a vocational school in Addis for poor, uneducated children living on the streets of that city.
The boys would be taught to make furniture for homes and businesses locally and abroad. Upon graduation, they would have good-paying jobs waiting for them in Tadesse’s furniture factory. The girls would be taught the finer points of growing, roasting, blending, and packaging gourmet coffees for export. While the exporting of world-class coffee beans had been going on in Ethiopia for decades, Tadesse’s dream was to sell the finished product, where most of the profits were made. Something a Peace Corps Volunteer teacher had said to him twenty-seven years ago stuck with him.
The teacher, a colleague at the high school where Tadesse had taught woodworking, had been fascinated after learning that the world’s first coffee beans had been grown, roasted, and consumed in Ethiopia’s Kaffee province. He had told Tadesse in light of this fact that he was surprised Ethiopian coffee didn’t have the same associations around the world as, say, Russian vodka or Swiss chocolate. “How can Ethiopia give the world this international drink, including its name, yet not get the credit and profits others do?” the teacher had wondered.
Since then, Tadesse had often thought about that observation until he finally decided he’d do something to correct the injustice. He wanted the words “Ethiopian coffee” to roll off the tongues of consumers around the world whenever they talked about premium coffee. Armed with his successful furniture factory as collateral, and his dreams, Tadesse had come to New York to change some lives in Addis Ababa for the better.
As the taxi he was riding in darted from one lane to the next, stopping and starting to keep from bumping into the traffic all around him, Tadesse held his head in one hand and his cell phone in the other.
“Arrested! Alemu? Why? How?” he quizzed Tenaye.
Through her tears, Tenaye told Tadesse, “He was on his way home from school with a group of his friends. The police arrested them for vandalizing city property.”
“No! No! I don’t believe it! Alemu would never do such a thing!”
“It’s true. I talked to Alemu at the police station. He said they just drew pictures with colored chalk on the sidewalk, making fun of a rival group at their school. The school principal filed a complaint with the police because he thought they were making fun of him,” Tenaye explained.
“That’s crazy! Even if they were making fun of him, they didn’t break any law.” Tadesse clenched his teeth and strained his neck muscles as he spoke.
“The police said there have been many incidents recently in the area where city property was destroyed, and they see what Alemu and his friends did as the same thing.”
“It’s not the same thing. They can’t make up laws to suit themselves. Tenaye, listen to me. It will be OK.” Tadesse harnessed his rage to console his wife. “I’ll meet with the police and Alemu’s principal. This is his first year at the school. He doesn’t know Alemu.”
“I shouldn’t have called before your meeting. Good luck. I love you.”
“It makes me more determined. If something like this can happen to our son, imagine what the poorest street kids have to deal with. I’ll call you tomorrow, before my plane takes off. Good-bye. I love you,” Tadesse said tenderly.
As Tadesse hung up, his taxi came to a screeching stop—hurling him into the security partition that separated him from the taxi driver. With his face just inches from the driver, Tadesse’s chauffeur turned his head until their eyes met. While the driver saw terror, Tadesse saw an amused, smiling face, as if they were in a bumper car at an amusement park. In an attempt to calm Tadesse and to blame the other driver for the near collision, the taxi driver began yelling and pointing his finger at the other driver.
Tadesse’s face suddenly lit up with a soothing grin because the taxi driver was cursing out the “crazy, donkey’s ass” driver in Amharic, Tadesse’s native language. All of a sudden, this strange, huge, intimidating city became less so. It also gave him renewed hope that his proposal would be approved. After all, if the daredevil taxi drivers of Addis could find work in New York City, then anything is possible.
“Wendeme’, Taynahstiling. Indemineh?” Tadesse greeted the driver in Amharic. Instantly, they began a conversation that lasted the entire trip to Tadesse’s meeting place. Tadesse looked forward to eating dinner that night at the Ethiopian restaurant the driver told him about.
CHAPTER 7
The Bag Lady
Lower Manhattan, home of Wall Street, the World Trade Center, and Battery Park, was bathed in the sunlight of a dawning day. As thousands of workers rushed to their offices in the area, a bag lady slowly rose to a sitting position on the train station bench beneath the World Trade Center where she had spent the night. As she wiped the sleep from her eyes, the Statue of Liberty glistened from the warming sun’s rays on nearby Hudson Bay. Soon, the bag lady would be out on the street again to bask in the warmth that had departed, like all the workers, at nightfall.
Anyone who looked at this woman felt something—compassion, contempt, resentment, fear, and more—depending on their own personal biases. She unwittingly was a catalyst of emotions for everyone who saw her. Sometimes she benefited from this phenomenon and other times she was victimized by it.
She was always amazed when people responded to her so differently, even though she did nothing different, and this day was no exception from her last thirty or so nights and mornings in this station, on this bench.
“Please take this,” said the well-dressed business woman who was about her own age as she gently placed a five dollar bill in the bag lady’s hand that rested on her lap. As the bag lady looked up to thank the kindness, the woman had already disappeared in a wave of business people in a hurry to get to their jobs.
“Ah, this will be a good day,” the bag lady said to herself as she carefully placed the bill in a pocket of her tattered, stained, over-sized coat.
Crash went the rusted toy wagon she used to transport two shopping bags full of her worldly possessions. Sprawled all over the floor in front of her were clothes, a few kitchen utensils, some treasured pho
tos of her previous life, and an angry young office worker who hadn’t been looking where he was going before tripping over the bag lady’s wagon.
“Hey, are you trying to kill me or something? I ought to have you arrested, you bum,” he screamed as he got up off the floor, dusted himself off, and kicked the two shopping bags.
“Tim, good one. I’d give you a 5.5 on your landing. Want to try for a 6.0?” chuckled one of the two co-workers he was with as they continued on their way.
“Maybe this won’t be a good day,” the bag lady mumbled to herself as she gathered up her stuff.
Her photos, the most recent of which was five years old, were bundled together in one stack by a rubber band. As she held it in her hand, she closed her eyes and wondered how she sank so low. In spite of everything that had happened to her, she fought daily not to give in to the temptation to see herself as a victim, and as a result she remained, for the most part, the same person she had been. Things just happened. People responded. She made choices, and here she was. It was as simple as that. If she could have done it all over again, she would do things differently.
But now she found herself trapped in a life she hated, searching for answers that would lead her out of this hole she had helped herself dig. To ease her pain and her frustration, she drank, giving her temporary relief. Unfortunately, her drinking made things worse because it blurred her 15 thinking and interrupted her sense of purpose to reclaim her lost life, or maybe start a new, better one.
Her drinking began innocently, like taking an aspirin for a headache. But, because she took responsibility for what had happened back then and because just one drink lost its soothing effect, one drink led to another, slowly transforming her into just another nameless street person. In her lucid moments, like now when she tightly held onto the photos of her previous life, she knew that she had to stop drinking. In the past, just when she thought she had resolved to do that, a new wave of blame, guilt, and circumstances had knocked her down. So she had turned to alcohol as her lifeline.