I said to Ed that the way to people's hearts is through their stomachs at their favourite restaurants. For once Ed, my old neighbour from Saskatchewan agreed with me. My old neighbour called yesterday, a Sunday when everything was full of smoke here in downtown Chilliwack. It reminded me of when the King George Hotel burned in Melville several years ago.
We woke up to the news that the Banner restaurant in downtown Chilliwack was on fire. It was a fixture of our downtown where folks have been eating and having coffee for years. Streets were blocked off as flames engulfed the building. It was to be a day of fire engines, police and ambulance sirens. It was a day everything was ripping apart at the seams.
Every year on this weekend there is a vast, vintage car display in downtown Chilliwack. With several main streets blocked off for the fire and the car show, traffic flow was turned upside down and inside out. It seemed the entire 90,000 people here were trying to get around the downtown with little success.
The city seemed to be bent out of shape. The SWAT team was called out with its scary police presence, and the people affected were holding their, breathes. Sadly, two people drowned on the Vedder River, in spite, of efforts to save one victim who was rushed to the hospital. Even the weather was contrary. Thunderstorms are somewhat rare in the Fraser Valley, but the thunder rolled, and the lightning flashed at dark as if we had no right to sleep in peace.
Ed, said to me yesterday, “Some days fires, storms, accidents and death demand our attention. It is like going golfing and getting hit on the head with a golf ball that rattles your brain, makes your eyes water and staggers you into another dimension. You begin to think maybe death is out to get you.” I asked Ed if someone’s golf ball had hit him. He said, “Once and that was plenty for a lifetime.”
It isn’t much fun to consider that death might be out to get us. I read a true story of a man named Tom who was a pilot. As a young man, when Tom was flying at 30,000 feet, his plane exploded, and all were killed except him. As Tom plummeted to the earth, his parachute refused to open, and when it finally did so, it was in shreds hardly breaking the speed of his fall. It seemed Tom was falling to his death and he prayed to God for help. A woman was in her driveway and saw the horrifying scene unfold in the sky. Knowing the person in the parachute was in desperate trouble the woman prayed for his safe descent. The ropes of his parachute caught in two trees breaking Tom’s fall and landing him gently to the ground near the woman.
Some might call it a coincidence, but I believe God intervened to rescue Tom. There is a time for everything even our death. Christians know the safety ropes of faith in Jesus who lands us gently in heaven.
