silence and last words

in a city far away someone writes tonight,

“I will participate in the demonstrations tomorrow. Maybe they will turn violent. Maybe I will be one of the people who is going to get killed. I’m listening to all my favorite music. I even want to dance to a few songs. I always wanted to have very narrow eyebrows. Yes, maybe I will go to the salon before I go tomorrow! There are a few great movie scenes that I also have to see. I should drop by the library, too. It’s worth to read the poems of Forough and Shamloo again. All family pictures have to be reviewed, too. I have to call my friends as well to say goodbye. All I have are two bookshelves which I told my family who should receive them. I’m two units away from getting my bachelors degree but who cares about that. My mind is very chaotic. I wrote these random sentences for the next generation so they know we were not just emotional and under peer pressure. So they know that we did everything we could to create a better future for them. So they know that our ancestors surrendered to Arabs and Mongols but did not surrender to despotism. This note is dedicated to tomorrow’s children…”

- an Iranian blogger

::

my nasturtium shoots are thriving. thriving and the lushest green. each morning i open out my window and lean on the sill to see their progress. they never say anything, but they are thriving.

::

"... - not an ordinary silence, silence as nothing to hear, but silence that makes itself heard if you listen to it the way Pilate listens to the silence of the man with the split lip. The Gospel that is truth is good news, but before it is good news, let us say that it is just news. Let us say that it is the evening news, the television news, but with the sound turned off.

...

Truth simply is, and is what is, the good with the bad, the joy with the despair, the presence and absense of God, the swollen eye, the bird pecking the cobbles for crumbs. before it is word, the Gospel that is truth is silence, a pregnant silence in its last month, and in answer to Pilate's question, Jesus kept silent, even with his hands tied behind him manages somehow to hold silence out like a terrible gift. "

- frederick buechner, from telling the truth: the gospel as tragedy, comedy & fairytale. (harpercollins, 1977)

::

i have a recipe card for my mother's banana loaf. alongside the last birthday card she gave me, and the inscription to me on the inside of a bible, it's one of few words i have in her handwriting amongst my belongings.

she would have been 62 this week.
yesterday i took her recipe and adding blueberries and some buttermilk, i made muffins. deliciously moist with blueberry burst, and sweet.

::

i told him through my tears i was angry. that i was hurt. i wanted to hate them. but that i had been thinking. thinking that i might be hit by a bus tomorrow. and i was thinking that if i could pause time just before the bus hit, allowing me one last chance, it is them i would go to, in that slice out of time before the impact, so i could make peace...

what would you tell them?, he asked.

i would tell them that i loved them. more than they would ever know. and i had never stopped. and that it was all going to be alright. i would tell them that they were precious.

he said nothing. he just nodded. because this was the truth.

::

none of us is promised a tomorrow. mindful, we might treat each with the reverence and extravagant truth of our last.

LB