Do you see them?

 

Do you see them?

It is like a buzzing fluorescent light

and the smell of baking ballast

Occasional flashes and dims

The artificial feeling of the air

the atmosphere filled with fear.

Eyes look away; everyone is nervous

the silent hypnotic enemy clouding the day

Nothing is friendly, nothing is normal

except the occasional glint in the eye

of a peaceful face.

Do you see them?

I wink and nod and try not to speak

knowing the affirmation that would be easy

the evil it would defeat.

If there is a moment, I speak softly, never saying more than,

"can you believe how beautiful this day is?"

Looking at the wind and rain out the windows, they get it; I've seen them, and they are pleased.

"It truly is beautiful!" as a flash of lightning almost blinds, followed too suddenly by a crash and a boom.

The eyes turn brighter, the smile open

"Nothing can stop us," she says. 

"Do you see them? I see them everywhere. Mocking the evil, laughing at Satan's show."

"It's a powerful weapon mocking the evil, seeing the beauty ever through the fog of fear."

"But this fear is different, electric and unnatural, and so many people are lost in the haze."

"They await the expert to tell them it is alright to breathe—the Godless Gospel from the national health team. Except for the anger, it does not challenge me, but the grief of seeing the degrading animal fight or flight and thinking that bureaucrats are holding the key. They won't know liberty on their best day, only fear in stages. And no bureaucrat can change that."

Apocalyptic seers prattle the narrative, quoting scripture and Endtime mythology as if their version is written in stone; false comradery and fake fellowship, on a flicker of a T.V. or computer screen, some fanciful victory they can only see in a dream. But there are the others. Can you see them? Those already walking the way? There is a glint in their eyes, smiles hiding, not wanting to boast in their confident stride.

Behind their eyes, you see it; there is no compromise.

"Satan cannot conquer, nor hasten or impede the prize. Every knee will bow, and one voice will rise. And it will not be timid, and it will not hide, glorious in volume like a healing sunrise.

Do you see them? They are here; they are with us.

Archpriest Symeon Elias - April 11, 2022

In my favorite local Chinese Restaurant, the owners' young boy works the cash register. When the Lockdowns hit, the restaurant closed, then it reopened with plexiglass partitions. I could tell the boy was depressed so each time I would pick up an order, I would joke with him. At first, he looked at me like I was crazy, like, "don't you know how serious all this is?" He warmed up over time and this afternoon, having grown a head since I last noticed, he came out from behind the counter and "barriers" placed his hands on my shoulders and said, "Covid's over. I want a hug." His mother reprimanded him in Chinese and said to me, "I'm so sorry." He said, "Mom, he always makes us happy; Mr. Robinson always makes us laugh" and he hugged me. How precious is that?!

I got word from a German friend that Franz Mohr, author/concert piano tuner, Steinway's chief technician for a generation, reposed at the end of March 2022 at 94 years of age. It was a great pleasure to have known him and worked with him. Through him, I met the widow of famed Evangelical Apologist Dr. Francis Schaeffer and came to know his work, which opened me to the theological works of C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton.

Franz was a bookend in my life experience since I met Corey Ten Boom and heard her World War Two experience firsthand as a teen. While she was in a prison camp, Franz was a teenage NAZI soldier conscripted at age 14, if memory serves. He was only seventeen at the end of the war, and just days before he was released to return home, his family was killed and his family home destroyed in the needless carpet bombing of Dresden. I thought, "How does one recover from that?" He saw the carnage and deprivation of the average teenage German soldier at the end of the war and came home to discover his mother's corpse rotting in the rubble of their family home. He told me that he turned all his grief into hatred for America and Americans and plotted to immigrate to America to do as much damage as possible. He made it to America and he was working and plotting then something wonderful happened. The witness of Christ from the mouth of a Baptist layman and co-worker did its work, and Franz began to realize that he was killing himself with his hatred and that he had to forgive. He gave his life to Christ and witnessed Christ every day of his life with his words and actions. He became an Evangelical mid-life. He told me the story thirty years later, close to his retirement from Steinway, and still, tears filled his eyes.

Now what I mean by bookend. Early was the great witness of Corey and nearly thirty years later, when I was struggling came the witness of Franz, both overcoming monumental temptations to hatred and bitterness to become instead great witnesses of the healing power of Jesus Christ. So here it is almost 30 years later and I hope I do justice to the memory and witness of Franz Mohr.

I saw Franz Mohr have a very healing effect on the great 20th-century concert pianist Vladimir Horowitz. I was introduced to Horowitz by Franz, because I was friends with the conductor Robert Shaw, who was like a son to the legendary conductor Arturo Toscanini, and Horowitz was married to Toscanini's daughter, Wanda. This introduction led to Franz and yours truly praying by Horowitz's bed, just a few weeks before he died. I'm not claiming conversion of Horowitz, just that he requested that we pray. As I learned at lunch that day, it was not the first time that Horowitz had requested prayer.

May Franz rest in peace, may his memory be eternal, and may he meet some unexpected friends on the other side.