It is Inevitable

“Meeting again after moments or lifetimes, are inevitable for friends.” I recently read this in Illusions written by Richard Bach. On the surface, this is the story of two men who are pilots flying old pre-WW1 bi-wing planes giving joy rides to people in the jet plane age. It is a small book, less than 150 pages, but it has taken me over a month to read because of all of the issues it has made and offered to be meditation topics. The above is just one.

What does it mean to be inevitable? If I look in Websters, one definition is inescapable. I made two very close friends when growing up in East Orange, New Jersey; I also made another close male friend and an even closer female friend. The world was good. I had two friends that I ran the streets with and got into all sorts of mischief with and had two friends that I went to the movies, the library, and other semi-intellectual activities with. I say semi because we were just approaching our teenage years.

Then tragedy struck; on my thirteenth birthday, my father moved us to a ne town in New Jersey. It was only twelve miles away by train, but an infinite number of miles if you consider culture. I was immediately out of my league and had to catch up as if I were in a race for my life. It’s not that I forgot about my four good friends from East Orange, it’s just that I had so much more to learn, such as shining shoes (ouch) and wearing a jacket and tying a tie. I had trouble tying a tie every day of my life until I retired at the age of 75. Psychologically, I am still that pre-teen street boy from New Jersey.

Will I ever meet them again as Richard Bach says? Now I know what some of you will say. Yes, I will meet them in heaven; when we die we will meet all of our family and friends in heaven. We will rejoin those we love in God’s realm, because that is the promise of Jesus. Well friends, I don’t believe that. Heaven to me is a state of being. God is within us; therefor, heaven is also with in us. When we die, our soul becomes a part of God, as it was before we were born.

So, yes, Richard Bach, I have met my friends. Several times. Every time I think of them, at the age of 80, I meet them. I meet them not as they look at ages 12 and 13; I meet them as they look at ages 79, or 80, or 81; because they are my friends, and they have aged as I have, not so gracefully, except for Barbara; she was a beauty back then, maybe a little chubby, but still a beauty. but George, and Ronnie, Artie, and Russ, we are all just old guys leaning against on a fender of a 2023 Chrysler, remembering what it was like to play stickball on 19^th street. We were friends then and we are still friends now. It is inevitable that we meet again and again. And we are still friends.