A TIME TO...

Congratulations at the Library of Congress

2012-01-30T20:05:00.000-05:00

Congressman John Garamendi congratulated me for having my book listed in the Library of Congress.

My "Boomer & The Babe" Radio Interview

2011-11-07T17:32:00.000-05:00

Learn about me and my novel A TIME TO... by listening to my Nov. 7 interview on "The "Boomer & The Babe" show.

My "Networking Squared" Interview

2011-10-21T22:14:00.003-04:00

Listen to my interview about A TIME TO... with Al Crawford and Colin Mcconnell that was recorded on 10/21. Fast forward the audio player to the 76:30 mark of the program to hear the interview that provides insights into the book and its origins.

Truth Can be Stranger Than Fiction

2011-08-26T20:43:00.006-04:00

Read about the amazing true story that inspired me to write A TIME TO… at 9/11 Remembered.

Video Trailer

2011-08-15T16:21:00.000-04:00

"A Must Read for Peace Corps Volunteers, Past and Present"

2011-07-02T15:15:00.003-04:00

Barbara Henkin, Peace Corps Volunteer (Jamaica, 1969 - 71) says, "Being able to reflect on past experiences and then being able to put them into perspective is a rewarding thing to do. Al Masterson's opportunity to do this (albeit frightening) is an inspiration for readers of this book to do the same. The author, through Al, is very skillful in helping us to answer the "why" questions we all face in our own lives.

"Al's Peace Corps experiences in Ethiopia evoke particular memories and life lessons learned for this former Peace Corps volunteer. The opportunities we encounter and the choices we make have such a profound influence on the rest of our lives. Tadese, Al's Ethiopian friend and colleague while serving, reminds one of the richness and rarity of the chance to be immersed in a different culture for an extended period of time. Lessons learned during the Peace Corps experience do indeed enhance and enrich the lives of those who serve........the old but true adage that material things don't equal happiness; that we need to give back; that life isn't always fair; that we should always try to look at the "big picture"; that taking risks can cause the discovery of unknown talents; that smiles can equal an "international currency"; that it is so important to "listen to your soul"; and many more.

Thanks to Ron Peterson for the reminder that capturing and appreciating the moments of one's Peace Corps experience is indeed a worthwhile endeavor!"

Note: A TIME TO... is part of the Peace Corps Collection in the Library of Congress

"I highly recommend this book..."

2011-06-17T15:15:00.005-04:00

A TIME TO... is not a book merely to entertain. It is a book that could provide a healing venue for those who lost loved ones on September 11 and the days afterward. Al Masterson represents all the victims of this tragedy… I highly recommend this book to readers who enjoy a well-written novel intertwined with historical facts.
— Tannia E. Ortiz-Lopés (catholicfiction.net) and publisher of http://timewithtannia.tripod.com
Read the complete review here.

"An Engaging Exploration of Faith, Trust and Hope"

2011-06-12T13:51:00.003-04:00

Shaeri Richards, author of Dancing with your Dragon, says, "If you enjoy exploring issues of trust, faith and hope, 'A Time To... A Baby Boomer's Spiritual Adventures' by Ronald Louis Peterson will provide you with many hours of reading pleasure. Set during the World Trade Center attack on 9-11, this well written novel focuses on the life of one man caught in the towers during the attack. As he faces his death, protagonist Al Masterson is led on an amazing spiritual adventure back through his life and we journey along with him, from his childhood struggles with a school bully, to his days in Ethiopia as a Peace Corps Volunteer, to his career as a television journalist. As Al is taken back to key moments in his past, we see how his life experiences have caused him to lose faith. "How can God allow this to happen?" is a question that comes up often for him. Yet even though his life has many challenges, Al's higher nature continually inspires his actions. In the end, the purpose of even the most difficult events of Al's life becomes clear, as he chooses to respond with faith rather than bitterness, and compassion rather than revenge. I enjoyed reading this book, and my soft heart was melted to tears more than once."

By the way, I highly recommend reading Dancing with your Dragon because it will help you harmonize your physical and spiritual lives in very stimulating ways.

"The Best, Most Original Book I've Read in Years"

2011-05-20T20:27:00.000-04:00

Faith Filled Family Magazine says, "A TIME TO... is a captivating book right from the beginning. The author's use of words draws readers directly into the story and captivates their interest by making them feel as if they were there...

..."Overall, A TIME TO... is well written, and relatable. It is the best, most original book that I have read in years. It is clearly written, and well thought out. I would highly recommend it."

You can read Michelle Danko's entire review and inspirational stories in the spring edition of Faith Filled Family Magazine.

"A GREAT new spiritual book!" - Anglo-Catholic News Service

2011-05-20T06:45:00.000-04:00

Rutherford Card. Johnson says - I have had very little time for discretionary reading these days, so when I not only read a book, but call it a page turner, that ought to say something. That is precisely what I would call A Time To... by Ronald Louis Peterson. The novel claims to be a baby boomer's spiritual journey, and it is just that. But, the message is one that ought to resonate with every man, woman, and child, no matter what their age.

Ronald Louis Peterson drew on his own experience growing up in New York, working as a Peace Corp volunteer in Ethiopia, and as a media and public affairs professional. This gives the book a great deal of realism. Also, the novel is filled with historical facts from the various periods of Al Masterson's life. While some younger readers might not know about all of these events, I do not believe this detracts from the message of the story at all. Whether young or old, and no matter where you are in your own faith journey, A Time To... will speak to your heart.

A TIME TO... Reviews

2011-05-06T20:58:00.000-04:00

Midwest Book Review says, "Thousands of deaths make it easy to not see individual stories within those thousands. "A TIME TO... A Baby Boomer's Spiritual Adventures" is a novel powered by a memoir as Ronald Louis Peterson tells the story of an individual who embraced the second half of the twentieth century and found spirituality and life through it all, before facing the tragedy of 9/11. "A TIME TO..." is a thoughtful read, recommended--Five Stars."

CatholicFiction.net says, "A TIME TO... is a special look at life and the people God places there to help us as we grow in faith, hope, love and charity. It's an enjoyable book that takes the reader to many unexpected places with many interesting characters."

Louise Cardone-Calabrese says, "Very moving, stimulating lots of soul searching... setting afire long frozen feelings, making them warm and flexible again--Five Stars."

LStan07 says, "A TIME TO... is quite the pleasant surprise. Not your typical 9/11 tale, this story takes you on a personal journey with the main character, Al Masterson, to rediscover the best qualities of humanity. A great juxtaposition to see how one of the darkest tragedies in history can serve as the backdrop for some of the most beautiful examples of what makes life worth living. A great read--Five Stars."

Featured on Souls Code

2011-05-05T19:18:00.000-04:00

I'm honored to have an excerpt of my novel featured on Souls Code.

My Interview with Family Fiction

2011-05-05T09:31:00.002-04:00

Family Fiction just posted its interview with me. Ronald Louis Peterson Q&A: Ron Peterson FamilyFiction.com

Video Review

2011-04-15T16:20:00.000-04:00

My Lit Chick Show Interview

2011-04-13T06:48:00.000-04:00

Visit The Lit Chick Show

The origin of A TIME TO...

2011-01-01T17:35:00.002-05:00

We all see life and events in our lives differently for many reasons; often age and experience are major factors. In the case of an event like 9/11, American adults experienced it much differently than children because adults knew intuitively from their lives that 9/11 introduced a new kind of war in which American civilians suddenly found themselves in the middle of a scary global battlefield. As I struggled to come to terms with this new reality, I began to recognize that 9/11 had adversely affected me spiritually. It had threatened to kill some of my soul’s most prized possessions: love, faith, hope and charity. When I concluded that others probably felt the same way, I began to play around with story ideas that would address these issues in a positive way. The final result is my novel, A TIME TO ….

A TIME TO… is a story about Al Masterson, a baby boomer and a risk manager who worked in the World Trade Center on 9/11. It’s about an historic tragedy and a soul-searching metaphysical journey, about a child’s love and his special gift, about the killing of an enemy and the imprisonment of a friend, about losing faith and then finding it as a Peace Corps Volunteer thanks to a peasant girl in famine-stricken Ethiopia, about discovering the power of hope during the last days of an iconic African emperor, about being victimized by the treachery of a coworker and rising above it in an act of charity, and about discovering one’s soul. It’s about how Al’s life was changed forever by a spiritual adventure that culminated with an amazing, satisfying ending at ground zero.

Reflections of a Baby Boomer

2010-10-23T07:25:00.002-04:00

Much has been said about the Baby Boomer generation being an influential force in the world, but little has been said about how the world has influenced the lives of Baby Boomers. More has happened in the last 65 years than has happened in any other similar period in human history. The world has evolved and is evolving at a much faster pace than ever before and we are all trying to adjust to it.

Try to explain what growing up in the 50's and 60's was like to teenagers today and it would be like George Washington trying to explain to Boomers what life was like back in the 1700’s; it is that much different. One of the big changes in the world is that many Boomers are still in the prime of their lives thanks to improvements in health and nutrition. As a result, they are in a unique position to still shape the world of ideas if nothing else.

Boomers lived through the Cuban missile crisis, 9/11 and all the wars in between; through the assassinations of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King, Jr.; through the civil rights, women’s rights and gay rights movements; through cycles of unprecedented economic growth to a world economic crisis of historical proportions. Now, as the world gets smaller and smaller, Boomers find themselves reflecting on all of this; they want to make some sense of what they have lived and will live.

A TIME TO… is a story about a Boomer who thought he was about to die in an instant. In that moment before passing to the next world, scenes from his past flashed before him that focused on spiritual milestones which had shaped his life. This was a revelation because he had not fully appreciated that these events had been defining moments until they were mysteriously presented to him in this way.

Hello, its Me

2010-07-06T07:05:00.006-04:00

As if life didn't have enough unwanted surprises lurking around every corner, 9/11 provided another that had been unthinkable before. What could be worse than knowing that we all could be blown up, vaporized, while going about our everyday business?

It's a question that wouldn't leave me following 9/11 until I came up with a satisfying answer. The only thing worse, I finally concluded, would be living a life without love, faith, hope and charity. Before 9/11, I had taken these principles for granted, like the air we breath. All of a sudden I realized that they aren't a given, that unless we all nurture them in our lives, they would all just disappear. I couldn't bring myself to imagine that, so instead I imagined a story about how one man came to realize this truth with God's help.

God, that inner voice of ours so hard to discern at times and so easy to hear at others, has a way of teaching us critical lessons just when we need to hear Him most.

What's Going On?

2010-06-18T09:29:00.012-04:00

Now that I have posted many excerpts from A TIME TO... , in the coming months I want to share my thoughts about why I wrote it. I'll start by saying that it began with a whisper from God. At one time in my life if others said God whispered something to them, I would have raised my eyebrows and thought to myself, "OK, they are wacky."

Since then, I've come to understand that people don't mean (in most cases) God speaks to them with a human voice. He speaks to our spirits, because He is a spiritual being that lives in each of us, whether we know it or not. This gets a little tricky because some people receive spiritual messages and think it is God delivering them. The way to distinguish between God's voice and another's is by analyzing the message. If it promotes love, faith, hope & charity - it's God speaking. Otherwise, don't pay attention to it. This is where I think the terrorists got it wrong on 9/11.

Look for more insights about how/why A TIME TO... was written in the coming weeks and months. I'll also share comments I've received from readers.

The Hells Gate Treasure

2010-05-05T09:10:00.004-04:00

Excerpt #29 from A TIME TO...

Under the Hells Gate Bridge is a special place for Al and anyone else who knows the story of the sunken gold treasure that rests directly below the span which now carries long freight trains to and from Queens and Manhattan. Ever since Al was told that a fortune in gold went down there with a Dutch ship in the 1600s, he fantasized about recovering it for himself and his family. He just had to figure out a way to get the gold without being killed by the water’s powerful undertow, which claimed the ship, its crew and cargo. Many tried to claim it, but lost their lives instead of finding their fortune. So, when the bridge was built above it, the name, “Hells Gate” came to mind and stuck.

Al is mesmerized by the hundreds of swirling finger-like funnels of water that pull down anything on the surface of the East River as it flows under the Hells Gate.

“So close, yet so far,” Phil says when he arrives and interrupts Al’s reverie.

“What are you talking about?” Al asks.

“The gold… man, you’d think they could take one of those little submarines down there and just attach some cables from a big crane and pull it up.”

“If it were that easy, somebody would have brought it up a long time ago,” Al notes.

“Yeah, you’re right. So close, yet so far,” Phil repeats, more profoundly this time.

“Have you ever wanted something so bad, but something or someone prevented you from getting it, even though it was right there in front of you?” Al wonders.

“I can think of a few things,” Phil says softly.

Al understands Phil to mean he would have had his parent’s marriage survive. Being a rock star was probably another of Phil’s “So close, yet so far” wishes.

Al had one of his own wishes at the top of his mind at the time – dating Helene Colangelo – which he had kept to himself.

“So, you’re not dying?” Al asks to get the conversation back on track.

“No, man, I’m not dying. But I thought I did a few times,” Phil says with a chuckle.

Al stares at Phil with irritation written all over his face.

“You don’t believe me? Well, I guess I wouldn’t believe me either if it didn’t happen. It’s hard to explain. I’m not talking about being dead physically. My body didn’t shut down, but everything else inside me did. Suddenly, I was just a blank page with no past, only a here and now. It was kind of scary and exciting at the same time because everything that was familiar became strange, and I had to learn about everything all around me again, but this time with new eyes.”

Suddenly, this scene from Al’s life froze and Al now says out loud to himself,” What is this? Am I dead now? Is this a dream? What’s happening to me?” No soothing, mysterious voice speaks to him now as it did earlier. The only response is an unsettling silence that lasts about half a minute before the scene unfreezes and resumes where it had paused.

“”I don’t know what you mean? Your body’s dead when your heart and brain stop working. You died some other way?” Al asks incredulously.

“Yeah, you’ve heard of people whose body died and they have an ‘out-of-body-experience’? Well, just the opposite happens to me. My body is functioning, but it has nothing to tell it what it should be doing. That part of me is dead.”

“Very strange... I still don’t get it, but I’ll take your word for it,” Al says as Phil leans over the railing and stares blankly into the East River. “Is that why you … you, ah, eh, keep chan… I mean why you have so many different personnaaal….. why you have lots of interests?” Al asks, wishing he hadn’t.

“You know, it’s kind of funny. The first time it happened, I was in shock. It just kind of paralyzed me for a little while. I didn’t know up from down, or in from out. But then I figured it out,” Phil reveals.

“Figured what out?”

“Figured out that the person I was did die, which was sad, but it was great to move on from all the problems and hurts of the old me. The only problems I had going forward were deciding who I was going to be and what I was going to do as the new me.”

“Sorry, I have enough trouble figuring out who the original, one and only me is. How can you do what you just said without going crazy?” a befuddled Al asks.

“Maybe I am crazy... maybe. But, I’m sure I’d be crazy if things stayed the same, if the old ‘me’ didn’t die... very crazy.”

Al and everyone else who knew Phil and his many selves think he is crazy. Some even call him “The Crazy Chameleon.” But as Al relives this moment in his life, he better understood Phil’s explanation. Like Phil, Al had assumed different roles over the course of his life – child, son, brother, student, friend, enemy, adult, Peace Corps Volunteer, employee, coworker, husband, father. And while it wasn’t quite the same as what Phil experienced, Al at least now could understand him a little better. In this moment of distant reflection, Al sees Phil less a comical, crazy character than a guy who was just trying to cope the best he could with the trials of his life.

“So, when you said, ‘A dead man doesn’t want, need, or care anything about power and glory,’ what exactly did you mean?”

“Haa, ha, ha,” Phil laughs as he throws a stone into the river. “I don’t know. It just came out of my mouth. But you know, each time I change, I get new wants, needs, and cares. And, somehow, after going through the changes, “power” and “glory” become less and less important to me. I’m just interested in finding a comfortable place for me in the world. Hey, power and glory never last. Believe it or not, I’m looking for something in my life that lasts.”

“So, why do you want to be class president? What’s in it for you, if you don’t want power and glory?”

“Simple, I don’t like some of the things going on in our school, and I don’t see or hear anyone else running for president who says they’ll do anything about them. I’d really rather let someone else do it. Who knows, maybe I’ll get something done and discover something about myself that I don’t know.”

“Hey, man, I’m glad you’re not dying,” Al tells him sincerely.

“Yeah, me too,” Phil says matter-of-factly. “Dying inside scared me a lot the first couple times. But physical death really scares me… just too final. Once my body is gone, it’s gone.”

A Dream... A Cartoon... and God...

2010-03-13T15:07:00.002-05:00

Excerpt #9 from A TIME TO...

At St. Peter’s Catholic Church on the lower east side of Manhattan, in the shadows of the World Trade Center’s imposing twin towers, a NYC fire department chaplain contemplates the dream he had the night before.

He struggles to find meaning in it since the situation he found himself in is so out of character. When was the last time he cleaned his living quarters? He has had a housekeeper for as long as he can remember.

But there he was in his dream dusting furniture and vacuuming dirt from the floors. The other strange thing about his dream is 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 began choking on the dust and that’s when he woke up.

As he sips his coffee, a passage from the book of Genesis comes to mind. “…For you are dirt, and to dirt you shall return.” Maybe that is it, he thinks. The night before, he had discussed death at length with several fire fighters at Ladder Company 6. It isn’t a subject the fire fighters speak of often, even though they each had friends who lost their lives while battling fires. A couple of these fire fighters almost died on the job. Frank is one of them.

“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 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?” asked Father Tom.

“Why? Don’t you think it’s weird?”

“…Not at all. God works in mysterious ways,” Father Tom advised.

“I guess so. Sure, you can use it,” Frank confirmed.

“I’ve told you guys this before, but let me say it again,” Father Tom said with a lump in his throat. “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?” whispered Steve, another firefighter.

“Certainly…anything,” Father Tom encouraged.

“Does God determine when we all die?” he asked as if he were a child.

After a brief pause to collect his thoughts, Father Tom responds, “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 offered.

“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 continued.

“I don’t get it. Did you answer my question?” Steve asked with a puzzled face.

“No. No. But now I can,” Father Tom said. “You see, God created all life and everything in our physical world. 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 to a degree that death. It’s not that God willed that untimely death. He just lets nature take its course.”

“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 saves some and not others,” Steve explained.

“Wait a minute,” Father Tom interjected. “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. 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.

“Again, you’ll have to get the answers about why this is so from God,” Father Tom reiterated. “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 asked.

“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.”

Father Tom’s gift from God is his ability to empathize with others, to help ease their sufferings. He listened, really listened to what they had to say about what was troubling them, and how they expressed themselves. That’s why his responses were always so effective in helping others. Father Tom’s gift was realized later in life. It wasn’t apparent in his childhood.

Something happened that shifted his view of the world. That something was very complicated in ways, but very simple in another. Father Tom told anyone who asked about the change in him this way, “I found God and then He found me when I was drawn to the priesthood.”

One thing that didn’t change from his childhood was his tendency to overstate any health concern. He was and is today a full-fledged hypochondriac. Those who know him have fun with it. “Looking a little under the weather Tom,” his fellow priests would say whenever they wanted to engage him in conversation. Father Tom accepted this character trait just as he accepted his prominent nose. It wasn’t one of his better attributes, but that’s who he was. In his later life, he came to see his hypochondria in a more positive light. In those times of concern, he found himself turning to God in prayer, and that he thought to himself is a good thing. Anything that brought him closer to God couldn’t be all bad.

A Lack of Faith

2010-01-04T13:27:00.004-05:00

(Al and Tadesse walked half a day in the Ethiopian countryside to get answers to their pressing questions from the wise man of a local village, Tsehye. They didn't know much about him. Tsehye at first pretended he only spoke Amharina, Ethiopia's national language. Once he could trust them, Tsehye spoke in English directly to Al about his lack of faith and shared his wisdom on the subject.)

Excerpt #8 from "A TIME TO..."

“Why? What do you mean? You sound angry,” Tadesse said with surprise.

“Yes. Why are you so angry? Was it something God did?” Tsehye asked in perfect English, with a scholarly British accent.

“What the... You know English?” asked an amazed Al.

“Yes, I know English. I picked it up at Oxford University,” said Tsehye with a grin. “Please tell me why you have a problem with my wisdom. It also sounds like you have a problem with God.”

Al and Tadesse looked dumbfounded at each other. “God? What God?” Al responded after Tsehye’s surprise wore off and his question registered.

“”OK. I see. You are one of those,” Tsehye said.

“One of what?” Al shot back.

“One of those people who turns their back on God when some tragedy or painful experience happens to them,” Tsehye said as he sipped his coffee.

“Who are you?” Al asked sternly.

“I’m a wise old man. Probably too wise for my own good,” Tsehye replied lightheartedly.

“”Why did you lie about your English? You were a student at Oxford, but you’re living like a poor peasant in the middle of nowhere. Something is not right. No more lies. Explain yourself,” Al demanded.

“Yes. Don’t treat us like fools,” Tadesse added.

“You came to me. I’ve shared my thoughts with you. Treating you like fools?” Tsehye repeated with a hint of irritation. “I lied about my English to protect myself. I had to be sure you were not a threat. You said yourself, ‘Change is in the air... big change.’ You must know there are government agents everywhere, ready to arrest anyone who would like to see change.

“I was poor... my family couldn’t afford to send me to school... But I was able to get an education by working odd jobs at a Christian mission. I did everything from making charcoal to washing clothes. In return, they paid me money, that I gave to my parents. They let me live with them, and they schooled me. I was a very good student, they told me. So good, that they helped me get a scholarship at a prep school in Addis Ababa. By the time I graduated, I was the top student there. I became somewhat of a celebrity because of my humble family history. One thing led to another, and before I knew it, I was in England, attending Oxford. A rich businessman paid for it,” Tsehye said while shaking his head as if his story was hard for even him to believe.

“I never met him. He never contacted me. Several years after I graduated and returned to Addis, I heard that he had died. A part of me wished that I would have had the opportunity to thank him, and a part of me wished that I had the chance to curse him. You see, I was a misfit... a man without a culture. I preferred Western music, art, literature, clothes, food and even English. It was what I had come to know best. My goals, my success all told me that Western culture was superior. Nobody came out and said that, but it was implied. Nobody ridiculed Ethiopian culture, it just didn’t matter. So, when I returned to Ethiopia to live after graduation, I couldn’t relate to most Ethiopians. And they treated me like the foreigngee I had become,” Tsehye said as he closed his eyes and turned away. The pain in his voice explained the tear that he wiped from his cheek. “Excuse me. I don’t know why I told you this. It is the first time I spoke these words to anyone but myself.”

“You talk about ‘faith’ and ‘God’ like you know them well,” Al said haltingly, as if walking on thin ice. “How has your faith and God helped you? Look at what you’ve become.”

“Ah, yes, by the grace of God, look at me now,” Tsehye said proudly. “I’ll finish my story another time. Now, I want to hear yours... the reason why you came to see me today,” Tsehye said gently and with great compassion.

“Tell me... this God that you talk about... Is he good?” Al asked.

“Of course... the ultimate good,” Tsehye replied.

“Is he all powerful? Can he do anything... even miraculous things?” Al continued.

“He can and does move mountains, heals the sick and raises the dead,” Tsehye said. “If that’s what you mean.”

“OK. Then why does he let things happen that leave innocent people dead or behind bars for the rest of their lives? I’ll tell you why. Either he chooses not to act, to prevent these things from happening, which makes him less than good. It makes him cruel and indifferent, like someone standing by and doing nothing when he sees a child about to be hit by a car but doesn’t push that child out of the way even though he was standing right next to him,” Al said with bitterness.

“Or, he doesn’t exist. I think he doesn’t exist because how could an all-powerful God exist and just not save innocent people from untimely deaths, or injustices that they have to live with for their entire lives,” Al added as he slapped the rock they sat around.

“What can I say? It sounds like you have already made up your mind... but maybe not, since you’ve come all this way to talk about it,” Tsehye said. “How long have you felt this way?”

Al looked at Tadesse then into Tsehye’s eyes and said, “Ever since a friend of mine killed someone to protect me. It was a big mistake. The guy he killed was just playing around with me. My friend is now spending the rest of his life in prison to pay for his mistake, and the guy who was playing around is dead. Two lives lost because of me....,” Al confessed. “And, because there is no God.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Tsehye told Al.

“Sorry about what?” Al blasted.

“Sorry you have suffered so much. I know there is a God,” Tsehye replied. “Blaming yourself for those things is wrong.... and just because you say there is no God doesn’t make it so.”

“How... How can you say all this? How do you know?” Al countered.

“First of all, you’re not responsible for what others do. God is not even responsible for what people do. Only we are responsible. God has given us the freedom to do as we please. For some this is a blessing, but for others, it is a curse because they make bad choices. To make matters worse, some of those who do terrible things don’t accept responsibility. Some even say ‘God’ told them to do it,” Tsehye lamented.

“Yeah, crazy people... only crazy people hear God talking,” Al interrupted. “God never said anything to me.”

“Ha, ha, ha... Are you sure?” Tsehye asked. “Maybe you’re not listening. Maybe he’s speaking a language you don’t know.”

“Yeah, maybe... Hell, you’re speaking English and I don’t know what you’re saying. So, I guess anything is possible,” Al offered.

“OK. Let me try to say it another way. God doesn’t speak to us with words, except those in the Bible. He speaks to us through our souls, our spirits... that part of us that is not of this world. It’s only when we engage our spirits that we can hear God. After all, he is not of this world. He just created it. To say there is no God, when we have Bibles and houses of worship all around the world, makes no sense. It makes a lot of sense to say God has spoken to the writers and the builders, and those who have revered their divine creations. Do you really think this is all just a collective fantasy?” Tsehye asked.

“Yes...wishful thinking for a God who takes care of those who pray to Him. It hasn’t worked for me,” Al said defiantly.

“Ah, so you did believe at one time,” Tsehye responded.

“I told you... If He exists, and I doubt it, He’s turned his back on me, and lots of others. Just look at the news everyday. Look at the poor, starving people in your country. So, I’ve turned my back on Him. I treat Him as if he doesn’t exist. It doesn’t make any difference to me if he exists or not. Either way, I’m living my life without Him,” Al declared.

“Are you sure?” Tsehye asked Al again. “Your bitterness speaks loudly. It tells me your soul is in pain. Listen to your soul tell you there is a God... a mysterious God who doesn’t seem to care about you and others in this world. You wouldn’t be so angry if you didn’t believe. God is alive and well in your anger. Can you hear your spirit talking to you?”

“No. I don’t hear anything,” Al said with a hint of confusion and a trace of disappointment.

“Then, I can’t help you, not now. You’re not ready,” Tsehye told Al.

Aiding the Enemy

2009-11-16T07:17:00.006-05:00

(When an old foe returns and wants to resume a relationship where it left off, we can engage or redefine the relationship. When Al faced this circumstance, he did both because his conscience gave him no other choice.)

Excerpt #7 from "A TIME TO..."

“Always so brave when you’re with a crowd,” Al said, looking eye to eye with Billy.

“I don’t need anybody else to take you. The only reason I didn’t do it when we were kids was my dad. And, since he ain’t around anymore, guess what?” Billy said as he handed his bat to the tall Apostle, and motioned for his two buddies to give him and Al some room.

Al took a boxing stance facing Billy, and repeated to himself his Disciple mantra, “Be tough, brave, intelligent and loyal.”

“I never liked you. You always rubbed me the wrong way,” Billy seethed.

“That’s your problem,” Al shot back. “I always minded my own business, but you.... you weren’t happy unless you were making my life miserable.”

Billy swung his fist hard at Al’s face, but missed when Al moved to the side and deflected it with his open hand.

“You didn’t always mind your own business, Daniel Boone.... Always bragging about coming from Kentucky, like you were somebody special,” Billy corrected Al, as he swung again, hitting Al in the stomach this time.

Al backed up to catch his breath. “I only talked about Kentucky when people asked me about it. Special...? Me...? Confused! Lonely! Freak!....was more like it,” Al barked as all those hurtful memories rekindled a fire in him.

Before Billy could respond, Al lunged at him, landing two blows... one to Billy’s side and the other to his nose, which started to bleed.

A startled Billy backed up a few steps and wiped the blood, which had trickled down into his mouth with his hand. Billy, now enraged, pointed at Al with his blood-soaked finger and said, “Now.... now you learn a lesson you won’t forget, Daniel.”

“Get him Billy! Yeah!” urged his fellow Apostles.

“Go away! Take that stuff somewhere else!” shouted an elderly woman from her third-floor apartment window overlooking the fight scene from across the street.

“What was that Grandma? I can’t hear you!” laughed the tall one.

“You’ll hear the police when they come!” she shouted even louder.

Billy swung his fist wildly at Al a couple times, but didn’t connect.

“Come on! You can do better than that,” mocked Al.

“Shut up and fight,” Billy demanded, before grabbing Al’s arms and wrestling him to the ground. As they rolled around on the sidewalk, they exchanged punches. Billy’s bloody nose smeared blood on both their clothes. It was a bright red on Al’s white tee shirt, brown on his tan jacket, and a darker shade of burgundy on Billy’s sweater.

“How do you like that?” Billy scowled after landing a solid punch on Al’s right ear that dazed Al for a couple seconds.

“Here’s some mor, mor, mor....” Billy stammered as his eyes rolled up into his head and his body began shaking wildly. He let go of Al. His body looked like a fish’s that had been pulled from the water and tossed on land.

“What the hell is wrong with you Billy?” the lanky Apostle asked incredulously.

Just then the sound of a police siren started growing louder as it approached them from a block away.

“Come on! We gotta get outta here,” screamed the tall Apostle, as he began running down the street in the opposite direction.

“What about Billy?” the other Apostle asked with concern.

“What about him? He’s either possessed or really sick. Nothing we can do,” the tall one said as he continued running. The lanky Apostle shrugged and followed his buddy down the street.

Al watched Billy flop around for a few seconds before he knew he had to do something quick or else Billy was going to hurt himself seriously. If he continued to hit his head against the sidewalk and roll over onto the broken wine bottle that was now just a foot away, he could even kill himself.

He remembered seeing his cousin flop around like that on the carpeted floor of his home during a visit. His aunt and uncle wrapped him in a blanket so he wouldn’t bang into things in the room. Since Al didn’t have a blanket, or anything to wrap Billy in, Al got down on his knees behind Billy’s head, and lifted him from his armpits while wrapping his arms around Billy’s chest. He held on as tight as he could. The force of Billy’s convulsions knocked Al off his knees and onto his backside. Now he could more securely cradle Billy between his knees while holding onto his chest with his arms.

Billy’s face and head were bloodied, bruised and scrapped when the police car pulled up to the curb, along side Billy and Al.

“Break it up!” commanded the officer who popped out of the passenger seat of the cruiser.

“It’s not what you think. We’re not fighting now,” said a breathless, blood-stained Al.

“Officer...Officer! Two of the young hoodlums are getting away!” shouted the woman, who had called the police, from her third-floor window.

Ignoring the woman, the officer responded to Al, “Is that right? What then?”

“He’s sick! Look at his eyes!”

“Officer... Officer! Can’t you hear me? Don’t let them get away!” the woman pleaded.

“Lady, please...first things first!”

Billy continued to twist and turn as if jolts of electricity pulsed intermittently through his body, and Al hung on despite Billy’s head butting his head several times.

“Is he on drugs?” asked the policeman who had been driving, as he exited the car.

“No. One second he was fine, the next he started shaking like crazy and his eyes... his eyes went blank.”

“Sounds like an Epileptic seizure. We’ve got some padding in the car,” the driver said as he rushed to get it from the trunk.

“I think he’s dead! His body stopped shaking. It’s not moving at all,” Al said to them.

The first officer checked Billy’s pulse before saying, “No. His seizure is over. It just took a lot out of him.”

Billy, still cradled between Al’s knees, with his back propped up against Al’s chest, moaned as if he had just begun feeling the effects of what had just happened to him.

“You must have gotten me good,” Billy said to Al, while he opened and closed his eyes, and regained his consciousness.

“No. You... you had a seizure,” Al told Billy.

“What?” said a puzzled and exhausted Billy.

“Yeah. Your friend probably saved your life,” said the first policeman.

“Friend? Where are my friends?”

“Right next to you,” said the second policeman.

“You... you helped me?” Billy said in amazement.

“Yeah,” Al replied matter-of-factly.

“Why?” a dazed Billy wondered.

“Somebody had to keep you from killing yourself, and I was the only one around,” Al replied.

“Where are my Apostle brothers?” a surprised Billy asked.

“I’m guessing they’re at least five blocks away by now. They took off just before the cops got here,” Al told Billy.

“Officer! Officer! You let them get away,” the woman shouted from her window across the street.

“Lady, you’re right. We’ll get ‘em next time,” said the first policeman.

“Why.... why didn’t you run too?” Billy asked Al.

“I don’t know. I couldn’t. I thought about it. I guess I didn’t think I could have lived with myself if I left you like that,” Al replied uncomfortably.

“Here,” said the second officer as he handed Billy a handkerchief. “Wipe the blood from your nose and face.”

Billy took it and slowly wiped off his blood.

“I wouldn’t have done the same for you,” Billy said somberly before covering his eyes with the blood-stained handkerchief and hanging his head. “I wouldn’t have done the same for you,” he repeated as he began sobbing.

“You don’t know that, but it doesn’t matter,” Al said as he got up off the ground. “We aren’t friends, but that doesn’t mean we have to be enemies,” Al said as he walked away. After taking a few steps, Al stopped, turned around to Billy and said, “Maybe you’ll return the favor some time,” before he continued on his way to Sal’s Place.

God's Voice of Love

2009-09-27T19:04:00.000-04:00

(People have heard God speak to them for thousands of years. When it was one of the great prophets relaying His words, we accept it and even rejoice. But when someone we know, a neighbor or family member, tells us about what God told them, we are at least a little skeptical. And, nobody would have been more skeptical than Al. That's why Al reacted as he did when God spoke to him.)

Excerpt #6 from "A TIME TO..."

“Are you religious?” Al replied.

“I go to church when I can. I believe in God. Is that what you mean?” Paul wondered.

“Angels? Do you believe in angels too?” Al pressed.

“Sure. Aren’t they part of the God package?” Paul said rhetorically.

“What would you say if I told you somebody thinks I’m an angel?” Al asked Paul.

“You got a new girl friend?” Paul replied with a smile.

“Al rolled his eyes and chuckled, “No. I’m serious. A young girl at the shelter thinks I’m an angel God sent and she’s convinced her mother that I’m an angel too,” Al confided.

“But you don’t have wings? So, how did they mistake you for an angel?” Paul teased.

Al retold Paul the story about his visit with Almaz’s family, Berhanu’s subsequent conversation with them, and the doctor’s prognosis.

“So, do you have any miracles up your sleeve?” Paul asked Al.

“A miracle...? Yeah, that’s what they expect from me. Do you have any ideas?” Al prompted.

“Hmm... Well there’s parting the Red Sea, and it’s not too far from here. Or, there’s turning water into wine and feeding thousands by multiplying a couple loaves and pieces of fish. I’d mention raising someone from the dead, but let’s stick to something more doable,” Paul teased more.

“Funny. Ha, ha. Maybe I’d better forget about a miracle,” Al concluded.

“No. Don’t do that. You just need to be creative. Find out what it would take for Amaz’s father to regain his will to live, then you’ll have the miracle you’ll need to perform,” Paul suggested.

“I’m back to square one. I need to talk with Berhanu,” Al realized.

The next morning Al arrived early at the shelter and pulled Berhanu aside to talk as soon as he saw him. “Does Almaz’s father think I’m an angel?” Al asked Berhanu.

“No. He thinks his wife and daughter are crazy,” Berhanu told Al.

“What would he do if I told him I am an angel?” Al supposed.

“He’d think you are crazy,” Berhanu said confidently.

“What if I proved I’m an angel?” Al wondered.

“Now, I think you are crazy,” Berhanu admitted.

“Let me explain. The doctor told me that Almaz’s father will die unless something happens to end his depression. The pneumonia will kill him. Didn’t you tell me that faith in God is all that keeps the poor like him alive? Well, the depression has apparently stolen his faith. So, unless his faith is restored, he will die. I want to be his angel and do something miraculous so he will live for his sake and for his family’s. But, I need your help,” Al explained.

“What changed your mind? You weren’t going to tell them you are an angel,” Berhanu inquired.

“Almaz. I saw something in her face the other day. I don’t want her to become bitter, like someone I know. And, I can’t just stand by and watch her father die if there is something I can do to prevent it,” Al told him.

“OK. How can I help?” Berhanu offered.

“The doctor told me they have no home to return to. I don’t know what he meant. Can you find out if they are homeless now and anything else that may be causing the depression? You already told me about his son. I want to prove to him that I’m an angel by doing something miraculous,” a committed Al told him.

“But you are not an angel. You can’t make miracles happen,” Berhanu reminded Al.

“Yes and no. Just because I’m not an angel doesn’t mean I can’t perform a small miracle. I’m hoping that will be enough,” Al replied.

"OK. I’ll talk with them today and let you know what I learn,” Berhanu confirmed.

“Thanks,” Al said as he tapped Berhanu’s shoulder.

A miracle... Al needed a miracle. Why not? Why not one more in the string of miracles that were taking place that year, 1974, in Ethiopia? Wasn’t it a miracle that Peace Corps Volunteers eradicated Smallpox from the world that summer in a remote Ethiopian village? Wasn’t it a miracle that the remains of a three-million-year-old human ancestor were discovered not far from Dessie, providing clues to the origin of human life, and wasn’t it a miracle that the days of Ethiopia’s ancient feudal system were about to end? While Al had no idea now what would be needed to make this peasant farmer whole again after everything he had been through, somehow he knew that the answer lived deep inside himself in a place he avoided ever since Tommy killed Billy.

When Berhanu sat down with him later that day to report what he had learned, Al listened carefully for anything that would tell him what to do. He just hoped that it wouldn’t require a journey he wasn’t prepared to take.

“His name is Serranen... Almaz’s father,” Berhanu reported to Al. “The land he had farmed was owned by a prince. Serranen’s family worked that land for many generations for the same royal family. The prince had decided to sell his land to another royal family because he needed the money to continue living his privileged life. Harvests had been bad in recent years and then this draught put him in debt. The new land owner had his own farmers, so he told Serranen to leave. But where could he go when all he knew was farming and he didn’t know anyone with land who could put him to work?

“He and his family were walking for two days, looking for work, when some thieves took the few things they owned, including all their food. In the fight, Serranen broke his foot. The next day, their son wandered off into the wilderness to find food for his family. He returned a few hours later with a sack of berries. He had eaten his full before filling the sack for his family. But, by the time he returned, he had become very sick. His mother rushed to him when she saw him struggling to walk and breath. Within a few hours, he was dead. They buried him in a field of wild flowers not far from the road they were traveling. The berries were apparently poisonous, so they went hungry for two days, until an empty lorrie returning to the Dessie shelter stopped to pick them up. They were amazed when it dropped them off at the shelter,” Berhanu related.

"Almaz and her mother’s prayers were answered. Serranen didn’t pray. He was too angry by that time to talk with God as a result of what had happened to his son, with his job and the thieves. Almaz believes that you, being an angel, had heard her prayer and sent the truck to save them. It didn’t take much to convince her mother that you are an angel," Berhanu concluded.”

As Berhanu told the sad story, Al closed his eyes and slowly shook his head, ‘no’ after hearing about each hardship, and nodded ‘yes’ when he heard about the impact they had on Serranen.

“I can’t do this. How can I help him when I feel the same way about God? I don’t blame Serranen for feeling as he does,” Al told Berhanu remorsefully.

“So he will die, leaving Almaz without a father and Abebech without a husband? Can’t you just pretend as you said before and give them a small miracle?” Berhanu pleaded.

“I can’t give him back his son or his job. Those are the only miracles that matter to him now,” Al said softly.

“He just needs to know that in spite of everything, God is with him and loves him,” Berhanu whispered.

“How? I’m not a magician. The last time I tried to be one, when I was a kid, my tricks backfired on me. ‘God is with him and loves him? ...after everything that’s happened to him?” Al said sarcastically.

Just then, this scene from Al’s life froze and the mysterious voice that he had heard earlier in his life said, “Isn’t it time that you stopped blaming God for what happened to Billy and Tommy?”

“It’s you again. What’s happening to me? Where am I? Who are you? What do you want from me?” Al demanded.

No answers came. The voice just repeated its same question. After a long pause, Al finally said, “Why?”

Then for the first time ever, the voice responded to Al. “God didn’t hit Billy with the bottle. God didn’t put the gun in Billy’s hand. God didn’t create the animosity between the Apostles and the Disciples. God didn’t convict Tommy,” the voice said with kindness.

“And, God didn’t do anything to prevent these things either,” Al snapped back. “God has given humans laws to follow and the freedom to do as they please,” the voice replied compassionately.

“It’s not that simple,” Al protested.

“Yes, it is,” declared the voice.

“No!” Al screamed.

“And, isn’t it time that you stopped blaming yourself for what happened?” the voice added. “If I didn’t help Bookie fix the game, Billy would still be alive and Tommy would be free,” Al declared.

“You made a mistake. Learn from it and move on. God forgives mistakes ... so should you,” the voice responded.

“I can’t. I want to, but I can’t. Please tell me how,” Al pleaded.

“Ahhh. Now we are getting somewhere. You can’t do anything to help Billy or Tommy. They are in God’s hands, but you can do something to help Serranen and his family. It will do wonders for your soul.” the voice counseled.

“”I’ll try, but I’ll need help. Do you have a suggestion?” an exhausted Al asked.

“Listen to your heart,” the voice said just before the scene with Berhanu resumed where it had stopped.

“Yes, God and his love are with Serranen, even now,” Berhanu told Al. “Suffering is part of our lives here. Serranen knows this, but he needs a reminder to understand that God hasn’t abandoned him.”

Al looked thoughtfully at Berhanu in silence for a few seconds and then recalled Tsehye’s earlier words to him, “Your bitterness speaks loudly... It tells me your soul is in pain. Listen to your soul tell you there is a God... a mysterious God who doesn’t always seem to care about you and others in this world.” Al then covered his eyes with his hands, bowed his head, and wiped a tear from his eyes.

“What is it?” Berhanu asked. “Was it something I said?”

“Yes, and something an old wise man told me a few months ago,” Al said as he regained his composure. “I will do everything I can to help Serranen live,” Al said just as an idea came to mind. Tsehye is a landowner. “Perhaps Serranen could work for him,” Al thought.

“What will you do?” Berhanu asked compassionately. “I will try to be in spirit the angel Almaz thinks God sent to save them. I hope to show Serranen that God is with him to help restore his faith and his health. And, I hope to move on with my life and not be held back anymore by a mistake I had made years ago,” Al whispered.

The Psychic

2009-08-30T16:40:00.000-04:00

Sometimes we find answers to difficult questions that pop up in our lives by looking at the world a little differently. And, some people are better at doing this than others, as Manny learned while he worked on a feature story for his TV station's news department.

Excerpt #5 from "A TIME TO..."

Manny began his interview with a simple throwaway question just to get Janice comfortable and talking, “What does it mean to be a psychic?”

“Ha, ha, ha, ha.... oh, I’m sor... ha, ha, ha,” Janice laughed uncontrollably for half a minute.

Manny and his camera operator turned to look at each other with puzzled expressions.

“You...you don’t understand. I know what you meant. You want me to tell you how I can see the future, talk to the dead and know where to find hidden treasure. But, for some reason I took your question literally and it struck me funny because being a psychic means spending many of my waking hours in a dream state...living with one foot in the physical world, bound by the laws of physics, and another foot in a world where space, time and things have no intrinsic meaning...a world where images and sounds are produced from activities in the physical world. So, it’s really a funny experience,” Janice explained. “...In a strange, rewarding, scary, mysterious way.”

This scene from Al’s life then paused, and as it did, Al wondered if the flashbacks of his life that began with him as a seven-year-old and continued on to this Manny interview with Janice were a type of psychic experience. Her description of what psychics experienced reminded Al of what he felt now as the images of his life filled his consciousness, without regard to space and time. But he was no psychic, so the images cascading before him had to be something else. With that thought, hanging like a rain cloud about to burst, the scene with Manny and Janice resumed.

“Yes, tell me about your psychic powers and what you’ve done with them,” Manny said to get the interview back on track.

“Some people can forecast the weather by interpreting nature’s signals, others do it by measuring indicators with scientific instruments. I forecast events, retrieve past events, solve mysteries and speak with the dead by tuning in to the spirit world. We are all spiritual beings, but only a few can live in that extra dimensional world while they are still living in this one. Most people intuitively know there’s more to life than just this physical world. Religions are testaments to that. But actually living in the spiritual world, experiencing its unfamiliar dimensions, is something else. Don’t ask me how I do it because I don’t know. You’d get the same answer from great artists and athletes, if asked how they can perform as they do.”

“You said you tune into the spirit world, but you can’t say how?” Manny said to confirm what he had just heard from Janice.

“I focus my thoughts on a person, place, event or thing – then somehow I ‘see’ images and hear conversations in my mind that relate to them. I don’t know where they come from or how I can do this. It mystifies even me. It’s like I’m dreaming,”

“What is the most memorable psychic experience you’ve had?”

“The one that was more amazing than all the others? The one that almost left me stranded in the spirit world? The one in which I sat down for dinner with all my ancestors and we talked about how their views of the physical world have changed since they left it?”

“Yes, tell me about that one,” Manny said with more skepticism than anticipation.

“A few years ago, I was having a rough period in my life. I was very sad...depressed really. Nothing was going right. Everything I did, the choices I made, turned out to be the wrong ones, adding to my problems. Ironic, I know...a psychic making wrong choices. At the same time my parents passed away within months of each other...one from a freak accident, the other from a broken heart. To make matters worse, people who I thought were my friends, really weren’t. So to set the record straight psychics, at least this one, doesn’t ‘see’ everything. People and situations can and do fool me. But my psychic abilities rescued me from myself.”

“I was sitting in my home, holding a family heirloom, a brass goblet, that has been passed down from generation to generation for about five hundred years. As I ran my fingers along its side from top to bottom a vision of a dinner party at on old English inn not only appeared in my mind, as other visions have done before and since. But, this time I was actually in my vision. It was as if I were transported to mid-evil England. Then, it really got strange. My mother and father greeted me and began introducing me to everyone else at the long table that seated at least one hundred.”

“There were grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins – going back before America was even discovered...before the ‘Old World’ knew it was old. Everyone was dressed in the clothes they wore when they were living in the physical world, so it was like viewing five hundred years of fashion. But the years didn’t separate them socially. They all knew everything about life on earth before and after their physical deaths. When the family’s patriarch, the one who began the tradition of passing the goblet, spoke to me, he seemed to know everything about my life, including my current troubles.”

“‘Your parents haven’t stopped talking about you since they arrived. All of us here, your family, have witnessed your recent trials and wanted to do something to support you,’ he told me.”

“’’Your father and I suggested that we all get together like this to create a lot of energy in one place so that you could use your psychic power to connect with us,’ my mother interrupted.”

“’We all whispered in your ear at the same time to pick up the goblet so you could visit us,’ my father added.”

“’’This...this...this is...amazing. I’m actually here with you...on the other side,’ I told them. ‘Heaven...? We’re in Heaven?’ I went on.”

“’Ha, ha, ha, haahh...Almost,’ Richard, the family patriarch replied. ‘Actually, we’re in Heaven’s waiting room. We’ve come out to meet you here. The waiting room itself takes the form of places on earth where we’ve lived and it can change in an instant to another place depending on the occasion. Right now we’re enjoying the inn I had owned. Notice that everyone is drinking from goblets like the one in your hand.’ Then he added that, ‘The goblet in your hand is the one I passed to my eldest child, when I died, as a reminder to enjoy life on earth because it is so short. All of us here now also know that it is filled with hardships and suffering like those you’re experiencing. You should spend some time now with each of us, to talk about our lives to get some perspective. I think you’ll feel a lot better,’ he added.”

“So, that’s what I did, and he was right. The pain I had felt after losing my parents disappeared because I saw them so happy in their new life. They weren’t really gone. They just moved to a new place, a better place, where they were healthy and very happy...so being sad about their deaths made no sense anymore. Sure, I missed them but how could I feel bad when they had moved to the most cherished address in the universe...a place more magical than Disneyworld?”

“Are you sure it wasn’t a dream...that you weren’t really asleep, imagining all this?” Manny asked.

“You know, that’s an interesting question because more than one of my family members at this dinner party told me that when they looked back on their physical lives on earth, they thought those lives were dreams. Their eternal lives, and everything that came with them, as amazing as they would have seemed to them before, were now more real and more meaningful than what they experienced as physical beings.”

“No, I wasn’t dreaming. While back there my mother told me about a note she had left me, tucked in the pages of her Bible. After I returned to this world from my family visit on the other side, I found the note, just as she told me. In the note, she said that she would do her best to connect with my psychic powers from the other side, that I should have a drink from the family goblet for her, and that she would always love me,” Janice told Manny as she wiped away a tear from her eye.

“You told me you were ‘almost stranded’ in the spirit world.’ How did you return to this world?” Manny asked.

“I was having such a good time; I didn’t want to leave them and their world. I didn’t want to return to the physical world and all my problems. As a result, I couldn’t focus and use my psychic powers to return. I was stuck between the two worlds and didn’t know what to do about it. Then Richard told me that my time would come soon enough, that I had been given special gifts to share with others who could benefit from them in the physical world, and that once I fulfilled my purpose here, I would then be able to rejoin them forever.”

The Bag Lady

2009-07-21T08:50:00.000-04:00

We all make choices everyday in life. Some have more consequences than others. When the consequences turn bad, we would like to press the "Re-do" button, which isn't always possible. That's when living can become a real challenge, as one woman discovered.

Excerpt #4 from "A TIME TO..."

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 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 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 emotional states. 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 photos of her previous life and an angry young office worker who wasn’t 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 seethed 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 before. Things just happened. People responded. She made choices, and here she was. It was as simple as that. If she could do 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 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 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 lead 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 resolved to do that, a new wave of blame, guilt and circumstances knocked her down. So, she turned to alcohol as her lifeline.

As she looked at the photo on top of her collection and placed herself in a happier time, she finally realized that she couldn’t get from here to there on her own. And, she wept as she gathered up the rest of her belongings while on her knees.

“Are you hurt? Can I help you?” asked a passerby who stopped and leaned over to help the bag lady.

“Hurt? Yes. Can you help me pick up the pieces of my life?” she replied as if she were talking to herself while wiping away the tears.

“I was thinking more about picking you up from the floor,” said Al as he offered her a hand.

The bag lady waved off his hand, saying, “I’m OK. I’m just packing up my stuff. Some guy tripped over my wagon.”

“Do I know you? Your voice sounds familiar, but I can’t place the face,” Al said.

The bag lady looked up and recognized Al from her previous life and quickly turned away. She didn’t want him to make the connection. She had gone out of her way to find places that were far from her former life.

“I doubt it mister,” she said with a hint of fear.

Al’s curiosity increased as he heard her distinctive voice again – a voice he had associated with unhappy times many years ago. He squatted down next to her and looked at her face to face, studying her features. His memory bank worked hard at matching the raspy voice, the puffy, weathered face and sad, sunken eyes with someone he knew in his life, but he couldn’t place her, and he didn’t want to make the situation any worse for the bag lady by staring at her any longer, so Al stood up and walked away.

But after taking a dozen steps, Al turned back and caught up with the bag lady, who had quickly gathered her things and was walking as fast as she could in the opposite direction. “Valerie? Is it you?” Al asked incredulously.

“No.” she said quietly as she continued walking away.

“That’s the last thing you said to me at the office when you walked away from me the last time I saw you. I’ll never forget that day, and how you look from the back as you walked away. It is you, but it can’t be!”

The bag lady opened her teary eyes slowly and looked into Al’s inquisitive eyes with fear and humiliation. “Yes, Al. It’s me, Valerie,” she said with remorse.

“I don’t believe it. What happened to you?” Al shook his head in disbelief and said, “I’d like to talk with you to find out but can’t now. Please call me, he said sincerely as he handed her his business card and ten dollars.

How ironic she thought to herself. Just when she was ready to accept help from someone, the someone offering help was Al.

“I will,” she said softly. “Thank you, Al.”

“Please call me today. I’m leaving the country tomorrow for a week,” he said as he turned and hurried off to work.

The Coney Island Fortune Teller

2009-06-24T15:02:00.000-04:00

For those growing up in New York City in the 1950's, Coney Island was a very special place. It was their Disney World before Disney World was a glint in Walt Disney's eye. Sometimes we need to creatively reflect on our lives before we can appreciate everything that we have experienced. It was on an end-of-school-year, Second Grade, class trip that provided the occassion for Al Masterson to make some sense of his life then and now, some 40 years later.

Excerpt #3 from "A TIME TO..."

Aaahh, Coney Island

It was strange now to Al that back then Spook-A-Rama was just an amusement ride, but now it had become a metaphor for life, or at least those times in his life when he crept along in the dark without a clue, twisting and turning from frightening experiences that inevitably popped up. Whenever one of life’s unpleasant surprises hit, Al always wished that he would have had a heads up, so that he could have been better prepared to deal with it. That way, he could have either closed his eyes just before the mummy appeared and pretended it wasn’t there or he could have been ready to look the mummy straight in the eyes and say “boo” first.

Perhaps that’s why Al fantasized now that he had walked into Madame Marie’s Fortune Telling Parlor instead of passing it by with his classmates as he did on that Coney Island visit. The questions he now had on his mind were those of a fifty-one-year-old man. He wondered how his life would have been different if he had known then the answers to those concerns that materialized later in his life.

Al imagined that he walked through a beaded door and into a small, dimly lit, shadowy room where an elderly gypsy woman sat alone on one of four, rickety wooden chairs that surrounded a scratched up, old wooden table. Several lit, white candles on the table gave a warm, mysterious glow to the woman’s weathered face. Their flames danced in the bowling ball-sized, clear glass ball that was perched on a stand to her right.

She was busy placing strange picture cards face up on the table from a deck in her hands. The Frank Sinatra song, “Young at Heart” played softly on a phonograph – “You can go to extremes with impossible schemes. You can laugh when your dreams fall apart at the seams.”

“Are you here to talk with Madame Marie?” she asked without looking up from her cards.

Al hesitated for a moment before replying, “Yes. Yes.”

The woman raised her head and said empathetically, “Of course you are. Madame Marie knows all. Don’t be afraid. I can see your future. You are so young, with so much life yet to live. For just one dollar, I will tell you what your life will be like.”

“What can you tell me?”

“I can tell you many things. What do you want to know? Madame Marie knows all.”

Before Al could answer, the Frank Sinatra record came to a premature, distorted end when the power went out. The dying turntable moaned, “And, if you should surrviivveee toooo.”

“What the hell?” blurted an annoyed Madame Marie.

“I got it. I got it,” trumpeted her husband from another room.

“You got what?” countered Madame Marie.

“A fuse. I got a fuse.”

“What the hell happened?”

“Don’t know. Just turned on the air conditioner, and kapooey.”

“Hey, I told you that thing was broken. Don’t mess with that now. I’ve got a client.”

“OK. OK.”

“Now, where were we?”

“Can you tell me if my loved ones will grow old? ... What my purpose in life is... if I’ll live my dreams ... what my biggest problems will be in life... and if I’ll answer them successfully?”

“Of course... of course... Madame Marie knows all. The answers to all your questions are right here in these cards and in my crystal ball. But are you sure you want to know the answers to these questions? What will you do? How will you feel, if what I tell you isn’t what you’d like to hear?”

“I’d rather know. I don’t like painful surprises,” Al said as he pulled from his pants pocket, a wadded up dollar bill and placed it on the table in front of Madame Marie while the Frank Sinatra record began playing again. “Fairy tales can come true, they can happen to you, if you’re young at heart.”

“I fixed it. The power is back on,” roared her husband proudly from the other room.

“Yeah. Yeah. And, don’t mess with that air conditioner again,” she said while turning off the record player.

When she sat back down, Madame Marie swiped the dollar bill off the table and stuffed it in her blouse with one hand, before grabbing the deck of cards in her other hand. She closed her eyes and shuffled the deck several times before placing it on the table in front of Al.

“Watch what I do,” she told Al as she cut the cards and placed the deck back in front of him. “OK. Now, you do it,” she said pointing to the deck.

Al cut the cards. Madame Marie then took the deck and turned up five cards side-by-side on the table. After studying them briefly, she looked at Al and shook hear head “No” slowly a few times before telling Al, “Not all your loved ones will live to an old age like your grandmother. But, she won’t grow much older herself. She’ll leave this world soon. It will be a natural passing and she will be at peace. You will miss her – her words of wisdom, of pride in you – her love that she expressed in so many ways. But part of her will live on in you for the rest of your life – the part that gives you a quiet confidence when things don’t go the way you would have liked them to. She’ll whisper that you can turn lemons into lemonade, and often you will.”

Al closed his eyes and reflected on this premonition.

“Not so fortunate will be a friend of yours. Tommy will go to jail for killing someone. It was an unfortunate accident, but you felt responsible and it will haunt you for the rest of your life. You’ll always wonder if you could have prevented it.”

“What can I do to prevent it?” Al inquired.

“Discourage him from joining a street gang,” Madame Marie advised.

“I will. Now that I know, I’ll discourage him. I won’t let him join,” Al said sincerely.

“Good. It will save a life, and keep Tommy from throwing his life away. It will also keep you from suffering a lot of pain.”

Madame Marie then replaced the five cards back in her deck and put the cards on the table off to the side. She reached for her crystal ball and slide it in front of her. After passing her fingers across its surface, the ball glowed from its core. She stared intently into the light, squinting as she said, “The cards can only say so much. My crystal ball will tell us the rest.”

“Crash!” “Screeeech!” “Damn!” came the disturbing sounds from a nearby room in the house.

“What?! What? What now?!” an angry Madame Marie yelled.

“I was changing the light bulb on the kitchen ceiling. The light fixture slipped out of my hands and kabang, all over the floor. It almost hit the cat,” her frustrated husband explained.

“No. Not now. Not now. Go outside,” Madame Marie implored.

“I’m cleaning this mess,” her spouse said apologetically.

“OK. Then go,” she said with disgust.

Madame Marie collected herself and refocused on the crystal ball that began glowing again. “You’ll spend most of your life searching for your purpose in the world. You’ll look for it in the people around you, in your work, in the things that give you pleasure. At times you’ll think you’ve found it, but then something will happen and you’ll be disappointed. You’ll feel like a leaf blowing in the wind, which will create lots of anxiety. This feeling will come and go as the years pass and as you find pieces of the jigsaw puzzle of your life that fit. One day you’ll wake up and conclude that your purpose in life is to complete the jigsaw puzzle.”

“I don’t understand,” Al told the fortune teller.

“Of course you don’t. How could you? You’re only eight years old,” she replied with a smirk.

“Can’t you tell me in another way that will help me understand?” Al asked innocently.

“How about this? A jigsaw puzzle has many pieces, just like your life. But they only create their picture when all the pieces are connected in the way they were made. And, the only way to put a jigsaw puzzle together is by trial and error. It is really a process of elimination to find out what works and what doesn’t. It will be the same thing with your life as you try to learn your purpose. Jigsaw puzzles can be very frustrating when you can’t easily find the next piece you need. The same thing will happen in your search. It takes time, but with persistence the jigsaw picture reveals itself. That’s the best I can do. Does that make sense?” Madame Marie asked with a hint of compassion.

“I don’t like the trial and error part,” Al replied with a pained expression.

“Ha, ha, haa. Yes, nobody does,” Madame Marie acknowledged. “Now let’s look at another question you want me to answer. You’ll have many dreams for your life as you grow older. You want to know about them, so I’ll tell you. Most of your early dreams will be about what you want to do in life and who you want to be like. For a while, you’ll want to be a professional baseball player because you’d get paid lots of money to play a game and you’d be famous. But you won’t want to be just any player. You’ll want to be the next Mickey Mantle and play for the Yankees. Ah, but that’s not to be. You’ll be a very good baseball player on your local teams, but you won’t play professionally. When that dream begins fading in high school, you’ll replace it with one about following in the footsteps of America’s astronauts who’ll walk on the moon. But, the closest you’ll get to the moon will be a visit to New York’s Planetarium. Then you’ll…”

“Wait! Wait! You’re telling me about dreams that don’t come true. Isn’t there something I could be doing now to make at least one of them come true?”

“Not unless your hand-eye coordination and your eyesight miraculously improve. You’ll need these gifts if you’re going to hit good pitching and to pass the eye exam for pilots.”

“If that’s the case, I won’t waste my time dreaming about these things.”

“OK. That’s your choice.”

“I don’t want to be a failure. Now that I know, I won’t dream the impossible.”

“OK. Now I see a dream that will come true. You’ll want to travel the world to visit interesting places and meet interesting people. And, you will. For two years, you’ll live in a land where the first humans walked on earth a couple million years ago… a land mentioned in the Bible. For many there, life will still be the same as it was over two thousand years ago. And, you’ll be there at a time of upheaval, when people question their government and their leaders. And, you’ll question things about your life then too.”

“Will it be a good experience?”

“For the most part... And, I see other good experiences. You’ll be happily married and have a loving family. You won’t be rich and famous, but you’ll have a variety of rewarding jobs that use your talents. And, while you’ll always wish that the jobs paid more and you won’t like all your co-workers, you’ll be happier than most.”

“What jobs will I have?”

“Well, you’re an adventurous spirit, curious, and a risk taker, so they’ll all reflect that. You’ll be a journalist and a corporate public relations counselor before becoming a risk manager.”

“That sounds interesting. So, will that be my last job... a risk manager?”

“Probably. A big cloud is blocking my view of your later years. I’m guessing it means that you won’t live long enough to retire. I’m sorry.”

“Am I dead? Ah, I mean, I hope you’re wrong,” Al said to Madame Marie, his imaginary fortune teller.

“I hope so too,” she replied. “But, I can say without question that your big problems will include failed school courses, lost friends, loves, jobs, money, self esteem, injustices of all kinds and the anxieties these experiences all bring. You won’t have the answers to all of them. In fact, at one particular time in your life, when the problems pile up, you’ll have no answers. That’s when you’ll turn your back on God because you’ll feel he turned his back on you. And, your life won’t be quite the same after that.”

“Do you smell something burning? Al asked.

“Burning? Oh, no! I forgot all about it!” Madame Marie shrieked as she ran into the other room.

“My bread! Will you just look at it?” she said rhetorically from the kitchen. “It’s ruined.”

With that, Al’s imagined fortune telling experience ended and the scenes from his life picked up at Coney Island with him and his classmates standing in front of a barker who was promoting “The world’s only three-ringed flea circus.”

9/11: Not Just An American Tragedy

2009-06-08T09:51:00.000-04:00

Based on many news reports, observers would think that 9/11 was just an American tragedy. The truth is that the lives of millions of people around the world would never be the same again as a result of what happened that day. All our lives have become intertwined in many ways in today's fast-changing world.

Excerpt # 2 from "A TIME TO..."

One, Small World

While Al switched trains, half way 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 15-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 exporting world-class coffee beans has been going on in Ethiopia for decades, Tadesse’s dream was to sell the finished product, where most of the profits are made. Something a Peace Corps Volunteer teacher said to him 27 years ago stuck with him.

The teacher, a colleague at the high school where he taught wood working, had been fascinated after learning that the world’s first coffee beans were 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 of say “Russian vodka” or “Swiss chocolate.”

“How could Ethiopia give the world this universal drink, including its name, yet not get the credit and profits others do?” the teacher wondered.

Since then, Tadesse 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 came to New York to change some lives for the better in Addis Ababa.

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 barked.

“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,” Tadesse countered.

As soon as he said this, he remembered a time and a place many years ago when Ethiopia’s Emperor, Haile Selassie, had just been dethroned and put under house arrest by the new ruling military party. Tadesse, like many in that country at the time, wondered what the change would mean to them. There was fear of the unknown mixed with a hope that life would get better for him, a poor country boy who was the first in his family to attend a university, and everybody else in the country – everybody that is, except the rich landlords and the few they favored.

His assertion to Tenaye that “They can’t make up laws to suit themselves” rang in his ears as he saw himself three decades ago standing in his 10th-grade class in Nekempte, Ethiopia, responding to a student’s question, “What will happen to the uneducated people in Ethiopia – those who don’t know about the laws of the new government – if they break a law?”

Tadesse’s answer - “I don’t know” – underscored the volatile, uncertain time politically. Everyone had to be careful about what they said and did. Later, Tadesse asked his Peace Corps teacher friend the same question, and he didn’t have an answer either. That helped dispel the myth among many Ethiopians that Americans knew everything. In spite of that revelation, or maybe because of it, their friendship grew. When the time came for the foriegngee to return home to the states, Tadesse called him "brother" and the Peace Corps Volunteer hugged Tadesse goodbye while wiping away a tear from his eye – knowing that this would probably be the last time they’d ever see each other. They exchanged letters for the next year, but time and political circumstances ended their long-distance friendship.

“Tenaye, listen to me. It will be OK,” Tadesse consoled. Tadesse, who earned a reputation in his community as a strong, intelligent, persuasive man, would clear his son tomorrow when he returned home. “I’ll meet with the police and Alemu’s principal. This is his first year at the school. He doesn’t know Alemu,” Tadesse said reassuringly.

“I shouldn’t have called before your meeting. Good luck. I love you,” Tenaye replied.

“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. Goodbye. I love you,” Tadesse said tenderly.

Just then, Tadesse’s 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 was 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.

Welcome to my "A TIME TO..." blog

2009-06-04T19:54:00.000-04:00

I grew up in New York City and visited the top of the World Trade Center with my new bride in 1980. Something very powerful happened within me after I witnessed the Twin Towers collapsing on television as I worked in my Michigan office. The horror of such an unimaginable event raised so many questions about life in general, and my life in particular. They were primarily spiritual in nature and from them my first novel was born. The purpose of this blog is to provide readers with insights and commentary about "A TIME TO..." along with related excerpts. I hope you enjoy them.

Excerpt #1 From "A TIME TO..."

A Dream... A Cartoon... and God...

At St. Peter’s Catholic Church on the lower east side of Manhattan, in the shadows of the World Trade Center’s imposing twin towers, a NYC fire department chaplain contemplated the dream he had the night before. He struggled to find meaning in it since the situation he had found himself in was so out of character. When was the last time he cleaned his living quarters? He had a housekeeper for as long as he could remember. But there he was in his dream dusting furniture and vacuuming the 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 began choking on the dust and that’s when he woke 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 to himself. The night before, he had discussed death at length with several firefighters at Ladder Company number six. It isn’t a subject the fire fighters spoke of often, even though they each knew friends who had lost their lives while battling fires. A couple of them almost died on the job. Frank was one of them.

“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 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?” asked Father Tom.

“Why? Don’t you think it’s weird?”

“Not at all. God works in mysterious ways.”

“I guess so. Sure, you can use it.”

“I’ve told you guys this before, but let me say it again,” Father Tom said with a lump in his throat. “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?” whispered Steve, another firefighter.

“Certainly…anything,” Father Tom affirmed.

“Does God determine when we all die?” he asked as if he were a young child.

After a brief pause to collect his thoughts, Father Tom responded, “Let me first ask you this before I answer your question. Does God determine when we are born?”