text: Yesterday I met death. I've met him hundreds of times before, I've just chosen to ignore it each time. Do you remember that old story about the man who runs from death? He goes town to town, desperately fleeing apparitions he sees, only to realize the eventual cause of his death was his own flight. He comes to know its invevitability. I don't believe in spirits or apparitions of death but I do believe in divine symbolism. Something made us what we are today. Perhaps it is as the scientists believe and we are all products of random chance, thrust into existence through a one in a billion event. Perhaps the theists are correct, or at least one of them. The truth is that whatever put us here has a proclivity for irony. If God is the creator then I think I'd like to meet him. He has a funny sense of humor. If chance and naturalism are to be our God, then we simply interpret things as symbols and choose to draw meaning from them. Either way I believe firmly in a divinity of symbolism. Sometimes I will see a person at a bus station and they are looking right at me. I don't have the usual social anxiety about staring, perhaps rudely, at someone, especially if they are looking at me. It is during these times I find myself across the street from a stranger locking eyes in a seeming battle of wills; who will glance to their boots first? And perhaps it is a battle of wills for them - or a masculine urge forcing them to keep their eyes pinned to a stranger. They may twist their features to appear tougher, scuff their boots like a charging bull, or maybe they will simply stare back. It is these I have begun to fear. The one who flexes their muscles or sucks in their gut I can see as yet another scared, emasculated, and rejected figure looking to win an arbitrary mental battle. They are always the first to break down. *The second you look away so do they. Their eyes look like mine* It is the ones who stare back with no feeling of embarrassment or shyness that have made me recognize the symbols I have for so long chosen to ignore. Life is made of cycles; beginning, middle, and end. Each has carried its own unique symbol throughout history in every culture around the entire globe. *The face of death looks an awful lot like me* So when they stare back I see fire in their eyes. The cold face of death. That is what so many choose to ignore. It is the face of the person sitting next to you. It is the man sitting in the library window. It is your husband or your wife. And I don't mean to make you paranoid or to suggest I check over my shoulder at nights. I only invite you to stare back next time. To meet death at the bus stop and invite him into your home. Because if you don't invite him in, if you don't find a way to drink tea with him, he will find his own key.