madzar32@hotmail.com (a short story)

More than ten years ago, I think it was the winter of '98, when the global network was still into its childhood years, and far from the 'peeping tom' years that followed, I opened an e-mail address. Actually, my friend M. that worked in an internet-cafe opened it for me. "Try with madzar" I told him, "because of the surname". "It's busy" answered M. after checking on the computer. "Is madzar32 ok?" he said. "It's all right" I told him without even thinking.

Now, all that would have been long forgotten and the e-mail address would have drown into the sea of zeros and ones if I deleted it, but I didn't. And now, especially now, something is intriguing me. The number 32. You ask why. How can a two digit number upset me. What is so threatening in that number? Actually there is. Because as I write this, there are just two hours left till my 32 birthday and that little detail, that worthless number doesn't give me peace. All kinds of scenarios are running through my head. Is there any meaning to the number? Can it be that my friend M. was led by an unseen force, a whisper in his ears to choose that number? Is something bad going to happen, an accident perhaps?

* * *

The night is cold and the sky sprinkles light snowflakes that hesitantly fall to the ground before they are gone forever. (Maybe they hesitate and fall sadly cause there is no one to watch them, no one to be amazed by them). The clock on my lap-top shows 00:41. That means that it's already my 33rd birthday and I'm still alive. Now I can peacefully write the last sentence of this short story, close my lap-top and go to bed.

sleeping.little.face.

Meditating on life while watching the face of your sleeping child. So comforting...so hopeful...

Dancing with the Bible in her hands

It takes just few seconds of the hip-hop and R'nB beats and the bodies start to move. Immediately the rhythm that flows through these kids veins starts to pump and express itself in movements. And there, among everyone, is this tiny dark-skinned girl, almost half the size of everyone else. Dressed in a cute violet Nike outfit she is moving like a professional break-dancer stealing our attention and smiles. She is shining, all carefree and alive. When we watch her dance we become alive too. Someone gave her a Bible with pictures. And she is dancing with the Bible in her hands. What is this girl made of? Dancing like this. The night is cold and the night is dark. The future is much like the night. But she is dancing. With the Bible in her hands.

No matter what they do, your kids will always be your kids. You will always love them. So make space, my heart, make space for many kids! Spread your wings and receive them. Don't complain of the smelly kids, don't complain of the loud and wild kids. Don't look down on them, don't get proud my heart. And let mercy and love flow like a river. Let them flow like a great flood from our hearts. Let the love of our Perfect Parent come among us. Cause we are dirty, and we are wild, and we are smelly, but he loves us. Let the love and the kingdom of our Daddy come! And we will dance, right here, in the trash, we will dance, with Bibles in our hands...

September 8, 1960. Nativity of Blessed Virgin

Importance of being able to rethink thoughts that were fundamental to men of other ages, or are fundamental to men in other countries. For me, especially - contemporary Latin America - Greek Patristic period - Mt. Athos - Confucian China - T'ang dynasty - Pre-Socratic Greece.

Despair of ever beginning truly to know and understand, to communicate with these parts and these distances, yet sense of obligation to do so, to live them and combine them in myself, to absorb, to digest, to "remember". Memoria. Have not yet begun. How will I ever begin to appreciate their problems, reformulate the questions they tried to answer? Is it even necessary? Is it sane? For me it is an expression of love for man and for God. An expression without which my contemplative life would be senseless.

To share this with my own contemporaries.

Thomas Merton wrote these words in his diary 50 years ago but it's like describing my heart today.