On the other side of the bar, an old man shouts at the television. "DAMN HAMAS! ISRAEL SHOULD KILL THEM ALL!"
The bartender rolls his eyes at Sarah and me.
The old man talks loudly to his wife who is much too thin to wear black and I see her arm is in a sling.
"GOD'S PEOPLE SHOULD WIPE THEM OUT!
"You mean like the Inquisition?" I ask.
The bartender stifles a laugh and it's Sarah's turn to roll her eyes.
Obviously unaccustomed to discussion, anger flares in his cold blue eyes looking straight at me.
"THESE ARE MODERN TIMES," he says grabbing his wife by her arm in the sling and leading her to the door.
The bartender finally lets the laughter out.
Looking at Sarah I shrug my shoulders as she now stifles a laugh.
The political pundits continue to move their mouths saying nothing worth hearing.
News footage of bombs exploding and bleeding human beings illustrate whatever it is they're trying to say.
Suddenly there's BREAKING NEWS ... Comedian and film star Robin Williams is dead.
Mercifully Israel, Hamas and the political pundits disappear, eclipsed by the funny little man with boundless energy, thousands of voices exploding from his mouth as though fired from a machine gun.
He committed suicide.
As Sarah and I finish our dinner I'm struck that the death of one man is eclipsing the deaths of many.
It's a crazy world we live in ... growing so angry over politics and religion ... and incredibly sad over losing one who brought us joy.
There's nothing Holy about the first but something deeply spiritual about the second.
In the end, I think Robin Williams gave us everything he could and God knows we took it all, and rather than having his soul filled by giving everything away (you get love only by giving it away ... right?) ... so he took the one thing he had left for himself ... his life.
Unlike Israel and Hamas who just take each other's lives on the grandest of scales.
And there's nothing Holy about any of it.
