Keys to Belief

KEYS to BELIEF

His eyes opened with a sharpened awareness that would not let him return to slumber. As far as he could remember, mornings were his special time of day. He arose and walked to the living room and sate in his recliner facing the large picture windows. No curtains covered these windows as they looked upon nothing but trees as far as the eye could see. The first gray lights of day were beginning to illuminate the sky. There was a perception of movement as the overcast sky was brightening. This movement seemed to match the wind that was blowing through the trees. There was a cold front arriving and its harbingers were at work.

He sat deep in thought. There was nothing to distract him, no TV, the computer was off and it was too dark to read without light. He meditated on the absolute fact that the sun would rise soon, that summer was slipping just a bit but would win out soon enough. Certainty he thought. The sun would rise. He was certain it would set at the end of the day as well. While the sun rising and setting were facts, the belief in those events took faith as well. His mind followed the thread to an event the previous day on his evening walk.

He had been walking several miles around the lake. The sky was bright blue. The air, while hot, was not intolerable. His hat had collected the sweat from his brow and his muscles were beginning to protest at what could have been another mile of walking. He decided to finish the walk and return home. As he approached his car, he reached into his pocket for the small valet key. His heart stopped as he realized that the key was not there. He searched the other pocket and his mind raced at all the places he could have placed the key all the while not wanting to face the reality of the situation. He reached carefully into his pocket and found the small hole he had forgotten and realized that the key was gone. What to do? He was alone with the main key and phone in a locked car. He was over a mile from home - a home that was locked with no foreseeable way of entering. He gathered his thoughts and with a calmness that was surprising to him, he set out to the trail head to retrace his steps. As he approached the trailhead, he looked down and there before him was the little shiny valet key. He reached down and smiled with understanding and went back to his car and on to home.

This could be looked at from two perspectives. The first one that he had turned and supplicated the heavens for assistance and it was given. The other is from a logical standpoint. There is a key. The key is in a pocket with a hole. The key will work its way out of the pocket quickly. The key would most likely be found at the beginning of the trail and within site as the key would most likely have worked its way out quickly. There are other variables such as someone else finding the key while walking by or it being kicked inadvertently out of the way. For the man, it was confirmation, a confirmation in his faith. As he reflected on this he realized the correlation between the key and faith for him. It was related to an event many years ago.

When he was much younger, he had traveled hundreds of miles to spend a Saturday afternoon floating down a river with a bunch of friends. The beginning of this journey was a calm head water capped off at the end by rapids with the equivalent of a slide over a small waterfall. It was a long and enjoyable time spent with friends chatting and catching up on old times. The brutal heat of summer was fought off by the chilled spring water. No insects seemed willing to bother anyone. Their feet were tickled as they passed over the plant life in the water. They began to approach the water fall and had to separate from each other so that they could go one by one. The younger man was concerned about losing his glasses in the waterfall but decided to go over it anyway. He approached the center where the water was all going and found himself flying over the small waterfall. As is almost always the case, with a splash, he was knocked from his inner tube. No problem, he found it before it had gone far. With glasses intact, he walked out of the water to his friends.

While they were deciding whether or not to go down again, a sinking feeling came to him. He reached into his pockets and found that the keys for the car were missing. He looked around and searched all his pockets but to no avail. He asked his brother if he had a spare key and his response was no. The situation became clear to everyone. Unless the keys were found, the prospects of going home that night were slim. The only spare key was over two hundred miles away. Everyone started to search the spillway and shallow waters around it. He went out to the middle of the water and calmly took note of his situation. Minutes went by as he thought things through. He reached out at that point and supplicated God for help. He realized that he had nowhere else to turn and that without some sort of miracle, they would be stranded. He calmly stood there, said a prayer in his heart and then reached down into the water and pulled his hand out. It was a simple motion which resulted in a set of keys in his hand. He did not grasp or reach for anywhere specific. He simply put his hand in and out of the water. In shared disbelief, everyone returned to shore. Well almost shared disbelief, for that event was one that brought faith to the man’s heart.

When he reached down and picked up that valet key, it struck a chord that went back in time. While even he could not deny the logic of the key being where it was, there was a certainty, a feeling of confirmation when that key was clasped in his hand not too unlike that event so many years ago.

-Shiidon Bahí Hawley, May 2011

So here we are, another story instead of a poem. I do write both but it truly depends on how I want to convey the thought or feeling that I am experiencing. I feel another streak of creativity coming but the mold allergy is dragging me down. I seem to be most creative at night but right now my head is groggy and my body is not cooperating with my desire to write. I am dragged into slumber reluctantly. The keys pictured above are my own. I am sorry to say it is not for the photo that they are in order of size and faced in the same direction. I get a bit OCD about things like that. It is what it is and another story of its own.

On an interesting side note. I have found myself inexplicably reading Persian. I went through first level elementary school book but only barely. It feels very odd to not only read it but to be able to recognize words in whole and not letter by letter. It could be because of the exposure I am getting in seeing it with my volunteer work but that can't be all of it. I feel like a scene in the move the 13th Warrior. Antonio Banderas (yah I know...) plays an Arab diplomat at the time of the "vikings" and has to learn some Scandinavian language. The scene that shows it in the movie is one where they are all talking at a campfire and first one word then another becomes understandable to where in a short time he suddenly knows the language. I am told my picking up written Persian is because I am a "heritage" speaker. Wow, I have a label. The next time a Persian thinks I am not Persian I will tell them with pride that I am a heritage speaker (:-)

Another interesting note about movies and languages. The movie is Code 46. In that movie the world has become more intermingled to the point that they all speak the same language. Men are referred to as hombres for example. The interesting thing to me though, is that they all said khoda-havez, which is goodbye in Persian. It was fun to watch Chinese people in Shanghai say it to an American who says it back as if it was their own.

I have said nothing about this story as it speaks for itself.