The City in Rain

Sam used to say that a city felt more like a city when it was raining. Of course, Sam was from London, so he would say that. But I know what he meant. Streetlights reflecting in wet pavement, the sound of passing cars a rhythmic hiss of water. And nearly every time I am in a city, and it is raining, I still think of Sam, and him saying that. Odd things, the triggers to our memories.

I remember there was a time when I had a "Sam" story for everything. So much so, in fact, that some friends, subjected to more than a few of these, began to question whether this person had ever truly existed, or was just a creative invention of mine, a character developed to inhabit stories too preposterous to pass as my own experiences, too colourful, even, to be assigned to someone as bland as another Canadian. It is true that the details of Sam's story, as I learned it from him, were more than just a little bit incredible. Even that which failed to stray into the rare or miraculous would raise eyebrows simply by suggesting that one person could have been and done and experienced so many things in such a short life. It had, of course, all happened in distant England, making it rather difficult for any of us to confirm, and I can't say, myself, that I have never nursed the suspicion that this little hobbit-like Irishman was having us all on, telling his earnest tales with an inner smirk, having a secret laugh at the expense of credulous Canadians, like me telling kids in North Carolina that I did, in fact, live in an Igloo...

But Sam's history remained remarkably consistent throughout its many tellings, and bits of it did sometimes return to invade our shared present, like the call that came to the base from English Doctors, wondering when he would be back in England, still wanting to do tests, still searching for an explanation for what had happened to him, still looking for any explanation other than the one they simply could not accept, the one that was dark to them, the one they would have to admit was utterly beyond their reach - scientists devoted to UNDERSTANDING things faced with something that could not be understood.

At least, I liked that idea, and I still do, so I wanted to believe it.

I did meet his Hobbit parents, on several occasions, and they certainly had their opportunities to laugh and say " Oh, my! What has he been telling you?" and my friend displayed none of the awkwardness one might expect from someone in the presence of those with the power to scuttle carefully constructed myths. Sam, a creative person, was indeed susceptible to "exuberant embellishment" and I don't at all doubt that some of his adventures were coloured by it. But the most extraordinary aspects of the story would be pretty ballsy invention, if invention they were.
His parents could confirm he had, in fact, been in a certain state, and we could all clearly see that this was no longer the case.

At any rate, I relayed the stories as received. I suspect that the best of the Sam Stories are real, and the fact that they lie completely outside my own experience is not, to me, sufficient reason to change that suspicion. Of necessity, a great many things must fall outside of any one person's experience. "There are more things on heaven and earth, Horatio..."

But such things remain mysteries to me. They are not pillars of my belief. My belief rests on things much closer to home, things both more mundane, and, to me, far more miraculous.

Things like the laughter of children and a city in rain.

The existence of evil, suffering, and despair does not seem to me to argue against God. My formative years did not condition me to expect much else. It is, rather, the existence of any goodness at all, subtle as its outbreaks might be, that argues, achingly, FOR Him.