I went with Agnes to Sally’s office in Woodstock to sign the papers to allow the sale of the monastery. After the legal documents were passed around and signed, Sally and her boss shook our hands as though we had just won the lottery. When I took Sally’s hand I stared deep into her eyes … a difficult thing for me to do with a woman … and squeezed her fingers with a little force. Her eyes avoided mine and she quickly slid her hand from my grasp as I began to apply pressure. I was learning nothing from this, but perhaps making a fool of myself. If my memory of Sally on that day in the woods had included wings behind her shoulders, I would today have thrown my arms around her right in front of Agnes and the office manager and felt up Sally’s back. I should be glad I didn’t do that, actually.
People shake hands when big things happen or soon will, but I doubt that a warden on death row shakes the hand of a prisoner about to be electrocuted. Our execution looms in the background of this well kept realty office. Ten men's lives will be all but snuffed out when they’re sent forth into the cold and their home is sold to a latter day robber baron from New York City. All to pay the bankers on Merchant’s Quay so the Gang of McFour can borrow more money and flush it down some other drain. We're no doubt getting kicked off the mountain because a small group of religious fools in Fermoy doesn’t know how to handle money and investments. But I’ll never know the truth.
And the truth doesn’t matter anyway. Nothing matters when you have no control. A monk controls nothing, for his fate is in the hands of a loving Father. I would be lacking faith to worry that God can’t help us. In fact, I know he can, so I suppose I'm worried he doesn’t want to. But I know he has always taken care of me and there is no reason to believe he will stop.
I just worry a lot.
No comments:
Post a Comment