The Streets of Heaven Are Crowded With Angels Tonight

I was going to tell you about Segovia today, but I don't want to anymore.

Today I got only bad news. The first was about the 32 poor students of Virginia Tech whose lives were ended by a sad, sad man and his rifle. As I did not now any of these people, and it is not my country I will not speculate the tragedy further, but mark my words: no amount of metal detectors, or security guards with more guns, is going to reduce the amount of these annual killings, that have already become a twisted escalating game.

But the thing that really struck me was the news about a single man passing away. That man was a teacher of mine. Not one of the incompetent fools here, but a true teacher. I can honestly say that I probably learned more from him, than from any other human being in my life. And I would like to tell you a bit about him.

He was a wise man. Every time I tell someone about him I jokingly say, that during the years that he taught us, my friends and I could not come up with a single question, to which he wouldn't know the answer. And not just about religion, theology, or philosophy, that he taught us, but about anything. He would tell us exciting stories from the ancient Greece, Rome, Persia and the Far East. He could trace every word or term back to its Greek, Latin, Arab or African roots. He wouldn't just tell us the "what", he would tell us "why".

He was a just man. Not once did he have to raise his voice to me and my friends, even though we were the loudest boys in the class. Whenever we would start creating too much ruckus, all he had to do was to snap his fingers once, point at us, and give us a meaningful look, and we would quiet down. I remember one day; we were joking around loudly during a class and instead of throwing us out he told us: "Guys, you are so funny, that I am going to write those jokes down and laugh at them at home all weekend." And we knew that this man could take us down with his words in a blink of an eye. I don't think there is a single person among those, that he taught that would not respect him. He never forced his opinions on anyone. He always separated historical facts from his own views, and gave room to views of others.

He was a good man. Of course he, too, had his flaws like all of us do, but I never saw any. He was never boasting with his enormous amount of knowledge, never pretentious, never arrogant towads his students, he never made fun of anyone, at least not in a negative way. He was nice, funny, understanding and interesting.

So I ask you this. Picture this man for a while. Picture his round face, his wise eyes, his majectic moustache and a grinning smile. Picture his huge belly, his legendary suspenders and his brown shoes. And please think about him for a while.

He was many things, but to me he was a mentor, a model of character and a friend, I like to think, and I will miss him. I am not a very religious man, but I sincerely, truly hope that he has gone to a better place, and I hope you join me.

Lepää rauhassa, Matti Tiilikainen.