Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness throughout the world.

Special Treat Christmas Contest Entry– Bruce Newman

December 20, 2006

The Glue of the Universe

Bruce Newman

Though I’ve gotten better at not allowing it to overwhelm me I tend to be cynical at times. A flaw. What else is new? So when I lost my wallet in a Target store last Sunday evening I wasn’t very hopeful that it would be returned to me. The tide of cynicism especially began to rise when I tried to enlist the aid of young Target employees. My requests for help were often met with glassy eyed stares as if I’d asked them to solve Maxwell’s theorem on the fly. In my mind I began playing the part of Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. “My wallet is a write off. Yeah, definitely a write off.”

Not that I stood to lose a lot. The wallet contained ten dollars cash, three credit cards within spitting distance of max out, driver’s license, library card, social security card, Visa check card and a few other plastic cards ranging from insurance info to the grocery store discount cards that provide shoppers with money saving illusions. It was an inconvenience more than anything else. I use the Visa check card almost daily. I use the library card a lot and had no desire to show up at the local DMV to get a duplicate driver’s license. Once a lifetime to visit that bureaucratic armpit of the universe is enough.  But that’s life. And I had no one but myself to blame.

So after I haunted the isles of Target long enough to make people wonder what the heck I was doing, I went home. I called Capital One and had them cancel my credit cards. I went online and sent my bank an email letting them know about the lost check card. I was particularly worried about that because it accessed the money in my checking account. Though it had my picture on it somebody could easily use it for online purchases. The next morning a return email said they had canceled it and were sending a new one. I was somewhat worried about my social security card, with identity theft becoming a growing problem. But I thought that no smart thief would try stealing my identity if he really wanted to adopt a lucrative persona. He wouldn’t get far with mine. On Monday the bank gave me a temporary ATM card until my new one arrived. So I could survive until my new plastic image hardened once again into faceless consumer. Did I mention I was cynical?

Last night my son handed me the phone. It was Rosa and she had a strong Spanish accent. My mind morphed into a big question mark, quickly scanning all memory banks and chance associations as to who Rosa was and why she was calling me. She told me that her brother worked at Target and that he had found my wallet. She was calling for him because he was at work and her English was better than his. She gave me her address and I drove across town to their house.

When Rosa opened the door I said, “I know you.” Yes. I’d seen her at the gym a number of times. The same Sunday I’d lost the wallet in fact. A slender woman, thirtyish, with dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. She explained to me how her brother had found the wallet. They had looked on my driver’s license to find my address and then looked my phone number up. She told me to check and satisfy myself that everything was there. But I said that it was obvious to me that there was no need. The genuine sincerity of her smile and the simplicity of her whole demeanor persuaded me of that. She also turned down the money I offered as reward, telling me “if you want God to do right by you then you must do right by others.” The simple straightforwardness of that declaration was so refreshing to ears used to hearing legions of words used to justify every kind of behavior. Cynicism receded like a tractor-trailer in a Porsche’s rear view mirror. There was a cute little boy beside her who kept smiling and wanting to shake my hand, which I gladly did.

Sometimes when I’m sitting on the couch reading I’m not aware of the refrigerator’s hum until it quits. Only then do I appreciate how quiet the room becomes. There are so many nasty things going on in the world and their constant hum makes one forget the quiet. But here, in Rosa’s home, I heard the hum switch off and the quiet descend. And I told Rosa, with the best words I could find, how much of a pleasure it was to be in the presence of people who where the real glue of the universe, those who by their simple faith and matching actions (faith is faithfulness) kept things from completely falling into the abyss. Her eyes communicated thankfulness for my recognition and a humility that said she wouldn’t take full credit.

The mass delusion we feed on through the nightly news and other psychological white noise is that cohesiveness rests on what happens in political hot spots and planning rooms where “experts” gather like hyenas around a fresh kill. But I know different. The glue of sanity and restoration runs through unnoticed homes like that on 1313 Valley Run Drive where faith manifests in simple actions that keep us from spinning off into gibbering madness from the seeming abundance of meaninglessness. And their small act of faithful meaning acts like a drop of food coloring in a glass of water.

All this over a wallet, you might be thinking? Water drips unnoticed on a boulder for a thousand years and wears it away while a civilization fails with a sick whimper, crawling in its own vomit. Whatever does not command the servile attention of the self-absorbed is invisible to them because they only see that which flatters them and reminds them of the gods they believe they are. They make a lot of noise because, in their arrested development, noise convinces them that something is happening.

But during the high tide of cynicism somebody quietly picked up a wallet and went out of their way to find the owner. There was no noise. No trumpets were blown or awards given. But something was happening.

The universe was being held together, quietly, unnoticed. It was fitting that this happened close to Christmas. In the midst of an increasingly commercialized holiday there were still those who embodied its spirit. And for that I was thankful.

Bruce Newman

rbnewman55@netzero.net