There was no use denying it. “Yes, I was wondering. So why?”
“It was the best you could give me.” She didn’t turn from her work.
“Excuse me? The best ‘I’ could give you? I had nothing to do with this. I could build you something much better, but not this. How could you think…?”
“It’s all right, Anthony! I have no expectations. I am grateful to have found even this small place in your heart. I travel light”—she smiled as if at some secret thought—“and I make my home inside the simplest gifts. There is nothing to feel bad or ashamed about. I am thoroughly grateful, and being here is a joy!”
“So… because this is me, my world somehow, I have only made this small place for you? And for Jesus, I made a larger place, but it’s still only a run-down ranch house…?” He was suddenly saddened, and he wasn’t sure why.
“It is his joy, too, to be here. He gladly accepted the invitation.”
“Invitation? I don’t ever remember inviting him, or you for that matter. I’m not even sure who you are. I don’t know if I ever knew enough to invite anyone.”
Now she turned toward him, licking the spoon that she was using to stir the stew. “It wasn’t your invitation, Anthony. If it had only been left up to you, we probably would never have had the opportunity to dwell here.”
Again confused, Tony asked hesitantly, “But if not my invitation, then whose?”
“The Father’s invitation. Papa God.”
“Jesus’s Father… you mean, like God the Father?” Tony was surprised and upset. “Why would he invite you here?”
“Well, despite everything you believe about him or don’t, and by the way, almost nothing you believe about him is true… regardless, Papa God cares for you with relentless affection. That is why we are here. We share in his affection.” With that she ladled out a bowl of stew and handed it to him, along with a clean rag to use as a napkin.
Now he was angry! Here was the catch, the hidden agenda, the reason all of this was dangerous and a lie. Whoever this woman was, and despite being drawn to her much as he was to Jesus, she had uncovered his fundamental assumption, the true heartache that he knew lived in the belly of his pain. If there was a God, he was a monster, an evil trickster who played with people’s hearts, who ran experiments to see how much suffering human beings could endure, who toyed with their longings so they opened the beginnings of trust only to have everything precious destroyed. Surprised at his own inner fury and trying to calm himself, he took a bite of her cooking. It worked. The flavors seemed to attack his ire and settle him down.
“Wow!” he exclaimed.
“Good word, wow, one of my favorites.” She chuckled. “You are welcome, Anthony.”
He looked at her. She was scooping out food for herself, her back to him. The fire highlighted her dignified presence and seemed to ignite an invisible perfume that wrapped the room in a sense of liturgy. It made no sense that Jesus and this woman were in any way related to the God they spoke about with such consideration. If she noticed he had tensed up, it didn’t show.
“So does this Father God live here… in my world?” he asked, a brittle edge on the words, thinking about the collection of lights at the bottom of the property.
“He doesn’t, not as a habitation anyway. Anthony, you have never made a place for him, at least not inside these walls. While he is never absent, he also waits for you in the forest, outside the walls of your heart. He is not one who forces relationship. He is too respectful.” Her demeanor was as gentle as a feather. He would have preferred hearing disappointment in her voice. That was manageable. Kindness was too slippery and intangible. As quickly as the anger had risen he reburied it and took another bite of stew, changing the subject.
“This is spectacular! There are spices in here I don’t recognize.”
She smiled her appreciation. “Made it from scratch, secret family recipe; don’t ask.” She handed him flatbread, which he dipped and took a bite of. It, too, was unlike anything he had ever tasted.
“Well, if you opened a restaurant, you could make a killing.”
“Always the businessman, Anthony. Joy and pleasure have value only if you can turn them into commodities? Nothing like damming a river and turning it into a swamp.”
He realized how crass it had sounded and began to apologize. She raised a hand. “Anthony, don’t. I was making an observation, not a value statement. I don’t expect you to be any different than you are. I know you, but I also know how you were forged and designed, and I intend to keep calling that from the deep, from the lost.”
He again felt uncomfortable, as if she had somehow unclothed him.
“Uh, thank you, Grandmother,” he offered and again segued to another subject, hoping to find a safer one. “Speaking of food, in my state of being, you know, in a coma and all, is it necessary for me to eat?”
Her answer was quick and direct. “No! You are being sustained in the hospital through feeding tubes. That’s just not my idea of a good meal.”
Grandmother put down her bowl and leaned forward on her stool, drawing Tony’s attention. “Listen, Anthony, you are dying.”
“Well, I know that, Jesus said that we are all…”
“No, Anthony, that is not what I am talking about. You are lying in a room at OHSU and you are approaching the event of physical death. You are dying.”
He sat back and tried to take this in. “So, is that why I’m here, because I am dying? Does everyone go through this, whatever this is… this intervention? Is it to try and do what? Save my soul?” He could feel the hairs on his neck bristle as the blood began to rise with the flow of irritation now mounting. “If you guys are God, then why don’t you do something? Why don’t you just heal me? Why don’t you send some church person up there and pray for me so that I don’t die?”
“Anthony…,” she began, but he was already standing.
“I am dying, and you are sitting here doing nothing. I may not be much, and I have obviously made a complete mess out of my life, but am I not worth anything to you? Am I not worth something? If for no other reason than that my mother loved me, and she was a good religious person, isn’t that enough? Why am I here?” His voice was rising and his temper spilling through the cracks of his fears. He was desperate for some measure of control. “Why did you bring me here? So you could flaunt in my face what a worthless piece of crap I am?”
He stooped and walked out into the early evening. Fist clenched, he began pacing along the edge of the stairway, barely visible in the flickering light cast from the fire inside. In an instant, he turned back, stooped, and reentered, this time with a purpose.
Grandmother had not moved; she just watched him with those eyes. For the second time in less than hours he could feel another dam starting to collapse inside and with every ounce of strength he possessed, he tried to hold it back. It wasn’t enough. He knew he should run, but his feet were planted and his words emerged in spits of emotion. He was losing control. Suddenly he was shouting and waving his arms, caught between fury and desolation.
“What exactly do you want from me? Do you want me to confess my sins? Do you want me to invite Jesus into my life? Seems a little late for that, don’t you think? He seems to have found a way to be right in the middle of my mess. Don’t you realize how ashamed of myself I am? Don’t you see? I hate myself. What am I supposed to think? Now what am I supposed to do? Don’t you understand? I was hoping…” He broke down as a realization burst to the surface, sweeping over him. The audacity of it drove him once more to his knees. He covered his face with his hands as new tears coursed their way down his face. “Don’t you understand? I was hoping…” And then he said it, voiced the belief that had dominated his entire life, so deep that he was unaware of it even as he spoke it: “I was hoping… that death was the end.” He was sobbing and words could barely find their way through. “How else can I get away from what I’ve done? How can I escape myself? If what you’re saying is true, I have no hope. Don’t you
see? If death is not the end, I have no hope!”
6
HEATED CONVERSATIONS
What is to give light must endure the burning.
—Viktor Frankl
He awoke, still in Grandmother’s small hovel. He sat up. It was fully dark outside and the coolness of the evening slid past the hanging blankets at the entrance, sending a slight shiver down his spine. By the open fire two figures huddled in conversation. It was Jesus and Grandmother talking in hushed tones, something about a perimeter wall that had been significantly damaged during the night’s quakes. Aware he was awake, they now raised their voices to include him.
“Welcome back, Tony,” acknowledged Jesus.
“Thanks, I think. Where have I been?”
“Combination of comatose and fury,” indicated Grandmother.
“Yeah, about that, sorry.”
“Oh, please, don’t be,” reassured Jesus. “What you admitted to yourself was astounding! Don’t minimize it because you are embarrassed. We think it was profound.”
“Great!” moaned Tony and flopped back onto the blankets. “I am in love with death. How comforting.” He sat up again, a thought occurring to him. “But if that’s true, why am I fighting so hard to stay alive?”
“Because life is the normal and death the anomaly,” stated Jesus. He continued, “You were never designed or created for death, so by nature you fight it. It’s not that you are in love with death, but you are driven to give yourself to something bigger than yourself, something out of your control that might save you from your sense of guilt and shame. You ashamed yourself to death.”
“Reminds me of some others I know,” piped up Grandmother.
“Oh, now I feel so much better about myself.” Tony pulled a blanket over his head. “Just shoot me!”
“We have a better idea if you are open to listening.”
Tony slowly pulled the blanket from his head and stood up, grabbed a stool, and pulled it toward the warmth of the flames.
“I’m all ears, not that I can’t think of anything else to do and a million places I would rather be at this moment, but go ahead… not that I am going to agree or anything, and I’m still not sure any of this is believable anyway so… I’m rambling aren’t I?”
Grandmother grinned. “You just let us know when you are finished. Time is something that we have plenty of.”
“Okay, I’m done. You said you have a better idea than shooting me?” This should be good, he thought. God having an idea. Was that even possible? If you knew everything, how could you have an “idea”? He looked up at them looking at him. “Sorry, I’m done.”
Jesus began, “Tony, this is an invitation, not an expectation.”
“So tell me,” Tony interrupted with a sigh, “am I going to agree to this? Thought I might save us some time.”
Jesus looked at Grandmother, who nodded.
“Okay, then, let’s get on with it. What do I have to do?”
“Don’t you want to know what you are agreeing to?” asked Jesus.
“Did I freely choose to agree? I wasn’t coerced in any way?”
“You freely chose.”
“Okay, then, I believe you.” He sat back, a little surprised at himself. “I almost hate to admit it, but this not knowing is kinda growing on me. You have to understand, I never do this; I mean, I never just take a risk or trust someone without some sort of guarantee or at least a nondisclosure agreement… You don’t want an NDA, do you?”
“Never needed one before.” Jesus laughed.
“So, what do I do?”
“We… wait. We watch the fire go out.”
A strange ease had come over Tony, perhaps due to the recent confession and cathartic emotional release. Whatever the reason, he breathed deep and pulled his stool even closer to the logs that were dancing and popping, ablaze and excited by their own brilliance.
“Jesus, have I mentioned to you that you have…” He wanted to say “beautiful eyes,” because it was what first came to mind, but concerned about being inappropriate he changed it to “remarkable eyes.”
“Yeah, I get that a lot. Got them from my Dad.”
“You mean Joseph?” queried Tony.
“No, not Joseph,” answered Jesus. “Joseph was my stepdad, no direct genetic inheritance there. I was adopted.”
“Oh, you mean”—Tony pointed up—“your God Dad?”
“Yes, my God Dad.”
“I’ve never liked your God Dad,” admitted Tony.
“You don’t know him,” asserted Jesus, his voice unwavering, warm and kind.
“I don’t want to know him,” responded Tony.
“Too late, my brother,” returned Jesus. “Like Father, like Son.”
“Hmm,” grunted Tony, and again they were silent for a time, mesmerized by the dance of heat and gas as flames voraciously consumed their prey. Finally Tony asked, “Your Dad, isn’t he the God of the Old Testament?”
It was Grandmother who responded, standing up and stretching. “Oh, the God of the Old Testament! He kinda freaks me out!” And with that she turned and headed through a net of blankets and back into the bedroom. Jesus looked at Tony and they both laughed, returning their gaze to the dying embers.
Tony lowered his voice. “Jesus, who exactly is that woman… Grandmother?”
“I heard that,” came the voice from the other room. Tony grinned but otherwise ignored her.
Jesus leaned in. “She is like you. Lakota.”
“Like me?” Tony was surprised. “What do you mean, like me?”
“Tony, all of us belong to a tribe, all members of the two-legged Nation. My tribe is Judah and you have Lakota blood in you.”
“I do?” He was incredulous. “Is she my”—he paused—“is she my real grandmother?”
“Only according to blood, water, and Spirit, but not according to flesh. You are not related to her, but she is related to you.”
“I don’t understand.”
Jesus smiled. “And that surprises you? Let me answer your question another way. That strong, courageous, and beautiful woman in there is the Holy Spirit.”
“That woman, that Indian woman is the Holy Spirit?”
Jesus nodded and Tony shook his head. “Not exactly what I expected. I thought the Holy Spirit would be, you know, more ghostly, oozier or something, like a force field, not,” he whispered, “some old woman.” He lowered his voice till it was almost inaudible and mouthed the words, “who lives in a shack.”
“Ha!” Jesus laughed deeply and the voice from the other room spoke again: “I can do oozy. If you want oozy or ghostly, I can do that, too, and… if you don’t think I like shacks, you don’t know me very well.”
The ease of their banter and relationship was entirely new to Tony. No underlying tension, no eggshells or minefields hidden in the conversations. He could not even detect agenda masked inside their words. It was real, authentic, compassionate, easy, enjoyable, and felt almost dangerous.
A few minutes passed before Jesus spoke, barely above a whisper, “Tony, you are about to go on a journey…”
He laughed. “That sounds more like something Grandmother would say: ‘You are about to go on a journey, grandson,’… as if this”—he opened up his arms to include everything around—“as if this couldn’t qualify as a journey?”
Jesus chuckled softly. “Exactly like something she would say. Regardless, on your ‘journey,’ it is important that you remember you will never be alone, no matter what it looks or feels like.”
“Do I really need to know this?” He reached over and touched Jesus’s arm. “I’ve been sitting here trying not to remind myself that I already agreed to this, so if you’re trying to make me nervous, it’s working.”
Again Jesus laughed, quietly and authentically, giving Tony the comfort that he was indeed fully present to him, fully there for him. “I am not about making you feel nervous; just wanted you to know that I will never stop holding on to you.”
Tony took a
deep breath, searching for the right words before speaking. “I think I believe you, as much as I believe any of this. Not sure why, maybe because of my mom, but I think I do.” He paused before adding, “Thank you, by the way, for all that, you know, when I came apart on the way up here.”
Jesus patted him on the shoulder, a silent acknowledgment of what he had said, and continued, “Grandmother and I want to give you a gift that you can give to someone on your journey.” As if on cue, Grandmother parted the blankets from the other room and returned to sit with them. She had taken her braids out; her inky hair falling loose and free created a contrast with her wizened but radiant face. She was comfortable and at ease in presence and movement.
She stretched and scratched herself below her chin where a button was missing from her smock.
“I’m getting old,” she grumbled, “but what can you do?”
“Whatever!” Tony teased. This woman was supposedly older than the universe. “Exercise and diet,” he offered with a smile, which she returned.
With that she plopped down on the stool next to Tony, squirmed a little until she appeared comfortable while at the same moment producing from the folds of her garment what looked like several strands of light. He watched transfixed as she deftly brought various ends together, matching and connecting without thought or intention, but as light touched light their colors merged and transformations began. A length of iridescent aquamarine became a thousand shades of dancing greens, reds undulating against purples while white continuously flashed throughout. With each new shade and hue, a barely audible tone would begin and together merged and grew into a harmony that Tony could physically feel inside his body. Between her fingers emerged shapes, dark spaces in between the light pieces that were three-dimensional or more.
These patterns and figures became increasingly complex, and suddenly within the rich blackness in the hanging spaces small explosions began, patterned fireworks like multicolored diamonds suspended on an inky backdrop. But they didn’t disappear. First they hung in the emptiness, twinkly and shimmering, and as their tones united they stirred to a dance precisely choreographed yet free-form. It was utterly captivating, and Tony found he had been holding his breath as he watched. He sensed that the slightest breeze, even a whisper, might send her creations in directions unpredictable and maybe even ruinous. Grandmother’s arms opened wider to contain this treasure, and Tony witnessed the evolving of design that seemed impossible, as if his eyes could observe in ways his mind could not process. He was now experiencing the harmonies within his chest, from the inside, and the music seemed to grow as did the complexity of configurations. Hairline waves of brilliant color entangled with purpose and intent, each penetration creating a quantum participation, filaments of random certainty, chains of chaotic order.