To be a part of the unexplained beauty of things that can only be called divine...
The other day, as I was driving frantically home to Indiana through the beautiful hills of West Virginia....(after a long-overdue vacation with the family in North Carolina)...I made a phone call to the man who suffered a heart attack on my flight to Beijing. I called to see how he was doing. It was a long overdue phone call and I felt guilty for even calling...I really did care and think of him often.
The response startled me...Edward sighed and sounding full of emotion, he said, "Thank you so much! You saved my life!" He thanked me over and over again, as if each exclamation wasn't adequate enough. No self-abasement would have deterred his whirlwind of praise and thanksgiving. He begged me for my address, so that he could send me flowers...and then he told me of all the tests he had undergone since our fated meeting on the plane. The same tests I had carefully explained to him that he should request. He had followed every word from my mouth as if it were the map for his life. He did, in fact, go straight to the hospital when we landed in China, and he had several tests conducted on his heart since then, including a regular cardiologist who now follows his heart condition very closely.
Edward spoke of how he had just returned from China, and that his wife wanted so badly to talk with me and thank me. Just then, I heard commotion in the backgroundand he said he wanted to hand the phone to his wife and other relatives. Voices clamoured over the phone, shouting excited "thank-you"s and "you saved his life" and other sweet combinations of thankfulness. Again, overwhelmed, I muttered "you're welcome" with a smile hanging on my voice. His wife's lovely, thickly-accented voice begged me to come and visit and stay with them in Washington, asking me to keep in touch, and hopfully to connect in China someday. My heart nearly leapt out of my chest for the excitement of hearing that Chinese slur and the familiar open arms of Chinese hospitality...welcoming me...I stranger to them....
And as I sat there, denying that it was all my doing...I thought...you know, if I saw nothing divine, nothing beautiful, nothing redeeming, nothing miraculous and beyond explanation in this world, then I would never have had the inclination or the desire to do anything good...I think I would have then given up on the world.
...But I do! I do see those things, and it's the spark of awe I retreive from those experiences which cause my soul to want to reply in like fashion...to join...to be a part of that! No, no, I am not divine...but oh, to be a small part of the divine that happens under our hands...under our hearts, covered only by our "reason"; sensibility...
The response startled me...Edward sighed and sounding full of emotion, he said, "Thank you so much! You saved my life!" He thanked me over and over again, as if each exclamation wasn't adequate enough. No self-abasement would have deterred his whirlwind of praise and thanksgiving. He begged me for my address, so that he could send me flowers...and then he told me of all the tests he had undergone since our fated meeting on the plane. The same tests I had carefully explained to him that he should request. He had followed every word from my mouth as if it were the map for his life. He did, in fact, go straight to the hospital when we landed in China, and he had several tests conducted on his heart since then, including a regular cardiologist who now follows his heart condition very closely.
Edward spoke of how he had just returned from China, and that his wife wanted so badly to talk with me and thank me. Just then, I heard commotion in the backgroundand he said he wanted to hand the phone to his wife and other relatives. Voices clamoured over the phone, shouting excited "thank-you"s and "you saved his life" and other sweet combinations of thankfulness. Again, overwhelmed, I muttered "you're welcome" with a smile hanging on my voice. His wife's lovely, thickly-accented voice begged me to come and visit and stay with them in Washington, asking me to keep in touch, and hopfully to connect in China someday. My heart nearly leapt out of my chest for the excitement of hearing that Chinese slur and the familiar open arms of Chinese hospitality...welcoming me...I stranger to them....
And as I sat there, denying that it was all my doing...I thought...you know, if I saw nothing divine, nothing beautiful, nothing redeeming, nothing miraculous and beyond explanation in this world, then I would never have had the inclination or the desire to do anything good...I think I would have then given up on the world.
...But I do! I do see those things, and it's the spark of awe I retreive from those experiences which cause my soul to want to reply in like fashion...to join...to be a part of that! No, no, I am not divine...but oh, to be a small part of the divine that happens under our hands...under our hearts, covered only by our "reason"; sensibility...
posted by Adalia at 1:19 AM
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