Axar.az presents an article, "Sic Transit” by John Samuel Tieman.

In my hometown, University City, Missouri, I am a City Council Member. One perq is a bit of status. It's not much status, that's true. But, for all the long hours I put in, it is a gracious recompense. It's humbling. I occasionally am introduced as “Honorable”, as “our distinguished guest”, that sort of thing. And I get my name on a plaque.

Two years ago, the Council voted to renovate our civic plaza. The plaza soon will be beautiful. In two weeks, a plaque will be dedicated, one that bears the names of the Council Members and our Mayor. My name is there.

The plaque is a small thing, but, narcissist that I am, for me a prideful thing. I am not a person who has such overwhelming and numerous triumphs that I don't note the small ones. Perhaps it was God who noticed my pride. Perhaps not. In any case, there is always someone or something, from emperor to council member, whispering, “Sic transit gloria mundi.“ “So passes the glory of the world.”

After a meeting last week, I went out a side door of the Council Chambers. That's when I noticed another plaque. I don't know why it was discarded in the back of the Chambers. But there it was, upside-down and dusty. It was hard to read in its dark corner. It was way too heavy to pick up. But I could tell, even in the dark and upside-down, that it bore the names of a previous Mayor and Board Of Aldermen (we were Aldermen back in the 1930s) and no explanation. It bore no explanation. Just names and dust. “Sic transit gloria mundi“. And so will we all.

On my walk home, I passed Christ The King Church. I was practically raised in that little Catholic church and its school. I paused. I prayed an “Ave”. For a moment, for just a moment, I prayed with my parents, brother, sister, grandparents, aunt, uncle, priests, nuns, Monsignor Ryan, Sister Mary Amabilis. With the exception of my sister, they're all gone now. I'm at an age where I have memories of my childhood, and I realize that, of all the folks in that memory, I'm the only one still alive. So I wonder, simply, what's left of it all? Even Leonardo Da Vinci wondered, at the end of his life, if anything was ever done.

I'm almost 76. I spend a lot of time thinking about God. I read theology. It scares me that, after almost eight decades, I've figured out next to nothing. But occasionally I catch a glimpse of – of what? When I'm walking home, when I pass that little church and its school, right there for just a second. And for just a second, right there in that old dusty plaque. In these, I see the love of all the folks who built my city. And all the folks who raised their children here, educated them, made a living, built a church and built a synagogue, went to a movie, bought a buddy a beer, went shopping. For that second, because I see all the love, I think that maybe, just maybe, I see God. Maybe.

Sometimes I feel there is this life behind things, a force that is benevolent in times of confusion, a force that reminds me that, for all the sadness, there's also all this beauty. I still don't know if I see God. I know I see an old plaque in a corner. I know I see a little church in the night. So this much I do know. I know I see the love. And this one thing I've figured out. It's not the pride that survives. What survives is the love.