Chapter 33: Help from the Heavens
“But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” Romans 10:8-10
Luke finally calmed down and slept, but he was awakened from happy dreams by a whirring mechanical noise, and something coming. Scanning the forever sky he caught sight of a strange something, coming down to meet him. At first he wasn’t sure what it could be. It glowed and sped like a meteor, but as it rapidly sank through the warm night air towards him Luke identified it as some sort of flying object. “Much too big for a bird, and there are no aircraft yet on the pretty planet of Timnalauren, so this here must be something of supernatural origin,” Luke deduced. “Perhaps the ‘chariot of the gods’!” he thought, remembering a phrase, and remembering where he was.
Then he grinned and got eager: True, that did sound implausible, especially after all that he had learned, and read, and at long last believed... but if it was so, he could hardly wait to meet ‘em! The object from the sky touched down gently on stilt-like landing gear, with a whirring roar and a cloud of dust swirling from its air turbulence during landing, like that of a modern-day heckicopter. This was no heckicopter however, as Luke could now plainly see the craft’s form: saucer-shaped, carved of adrianated blue porcelain, and nearly thirty feet in diameter. “Wow. I’ll bet you could fit a lot of somebodies good in there, anyway,” Luke guessed.
As a doorway opened in the underside of the craft and a mechanical staircase spiraled to the earth, only a solitary figure stepped forth however.
She seemed to be a young woman, but with healthy violet-hued skin--and quite a bit of it revealed too, by her bright red mini-dress. She was extraordinarily gorgeous, with sharply exotic features, smoky dark eyes, long and breathtaking brown hair, and a perfect and desirable figure including (the truth asks no pardon) the most seductive thighs imaginable. She smiled with milk-white teeth, and in a husky voice she said Hello.
For the first time in his life, Luke realized that the phrase breathtakingly beautiful was no mere metaphor, for indeed his breath was taken away, (and, coincidentally, his heart skipped a beat as well.) He fell to his knees, as any mortal man might, and he softly said, enraptured, “Wow! You must be a goddess!”
The young woman laughed, flattered and secretly proud, but also amused and humble. “No, of course not. Are there even such things? I am just a woman from another planet, an alien if you will. My name is Mikki.” 111
Luke was impressed anyway, since he had never met an alien, and hadn’t expected anything like this. “Wow,” he said again, “You’re very pretty for an alien.” Mikki asked him to repeat that, and Luke gladly did.
Then she sharply scolded him, “That’s racist, fella. The phrase you added, ‘for an alien’ implies that you have a stereotype that aliens aren’t supposed to be pretty112. Which is very foolish, considering that you’ve probably never met any other aliens. And it’s even more foolish, considering that the exact opposite is true--as you can now plainly see!” She posed a little: a quick sensual movement, some kind of mincing, prancing, bit of dancing. Luke was smitten. Then Mikki thought about it some more and decided, “I could probably criticize you for being sexist, too. After all, your statement reveals that you think it’s important for women to be pretty, so you can look at us as sex objects. I could easily get on your case about that... but I’ll leave that lecture to some other woman, because, I’ll admit it, I like being sexy!” she assured him with a wink.
Luke chuckled, agreed that he liked her being sexy too, and they became fast friends.
“My name is Luke the Hun,” said guess who.
“Pleased to meet you,” Mikki politely greeted him. Then she asked him, “Say, what are you doing on the top of this mountain? It’s a long, hard climb, and not much to see once you get up here.”
“Until you showed up that is,” Luke pointed out. Then, fondly, “I’d say it was worth my trip.”
Mikki laughed, flattered, and told him he was very kind. Then he wanted to know what had brought her there, so she told him, “Well, I like to travel. See a few worlds, take in some new cultures. It’s all about experience, man. The more you see, the more you know; and the more you feel, the more you Feel.”
Luke was overjoyed. Of course! Someone with so much experience must have all kind of good lessons to share with him! Assuming that’s why God had sent her, Luke tapped the palm of his hand and asked her for, “Wisdom, pleeease!”.
That put Mikki on the spot. She sorted through her repertoire for something good to share with him. Hmm. Lotsa good recipes. (Her roomy spaceship had a spacious kitchenette.) A varied collection of song lyrics. A list of the best bars on each planet. The best dirty jokes from a thousand worlds. (‘What did the naked mole rat say to the female earthworm?’ ‘I really dig you, girl.’)113 But what would pass for wisdom? She considered sharing the meditation techniques of the Monks of Fazzimalaren, or the Special Spiritual System of the Occultists of Cimberlin, but as she thought about those adventures now, they suddenly seemed empty and shallow: more fashionable than faithful, more trappings than truth. If it were not so, would she still be here, searching? Realizing she hadn’t really gathered much real wisdom on her long, enjoyable journey, Mikki gave an empty-handed shrug, and offered a charming, “Oops!”
Luke was disappointed. He had been so sure she had come to help him! Thinking perhaps if he was more specific it might prompt a fuller response, Luke wondered, “Have you ever heard about Jesus Christ?”
Mikki said she had heard rumors, but had never paid them much attention. Just one of those things. Busy girl, after all.
It was then that Luke knew why God had sent her to him. Not for his benefit, but for hers? No, for his benefit too! Like Jenny had said, “Sometimes saying it helps make it true.” Telling her about what he believed helped make Luke sure he believed it. Until then it had been like a good dream. Hearing his own voice speak the words in the still air, it finally seemed real, (and he rejoiced even more!) He gave Mikki his best recap of what had happened, how God had made the universe, and all people; and how people had sinned and separated themselves from God; and how Christ had come to take away the separation. Luke felt awkward at first to try to tell it, as a beginner; but the more he talked, the happier he got: it was easy to tell it, even for him. It was all so simple! He laughed at himself for not seeing it all along. As the two-year olds say, “Of course!”
Mikki’s reaction was a little different. At first she was shocked to hear this gospel preached. Hardly proper interplanetary etiquette! Then she blushed a little at the sin part. Then she got a little intrigued by the Jesus part, all the miracles and grace. She never made it to the finality of Luke’s ‘of course’, but she did manage a ‘Hmm...’. Luke’s sincerity and goodwill made an impression on her. Not only did the story have a happy ending, but it dealt with pretty serious subjects.114 Worth at least looking into, she now decided--especially since she was traveling and searching anyway. Might as well keep one eye open for more information, no? But right now, she had a date to keep...
Mikki laughed, as she checked her watch, and carefreely explained, “Gotta hurry now. There are lots of planets to visit, and a girl’s gotta keep moving on. There’s a planet called Earth not too many light years from here, and there’s a city there I was wanting to check out before too long. Place called Seattle. Happenin’ town. Good music and good joe. So you see, I really only have time for a brief stop here on this world. And Greece just happens to be the place with the best cuisine! And it is almost breakfast, after all!” She asked if Luke wanted to come down and have a meal with her, and most men would have jumped at the chance, but Luke still felt there was maybe something more to learn on the mounta
in. (How had Tom put it? “The Spirit told me to stay.”) So he told her he wasn’t going down just yet.
As Mikki started to pick her way nimbly down the side of the mountain, Luke asked her country-boy-wisely, “Um, wouldn’t it have been easier to land at the bottom of the mountain? Coulda saved y’self a climb.” But she gave a quick and not-too-technical explanation involving liftoff, and fuel consumption, and gravity bein’ easier to escape starting at the top of a mountain. “Besides,” she said with a flirty wink, “Climbing is good for the legs.” Luke nodded breathless agreement, and thanked her for her explanation, and then he wistfully watched her go down from Mount Olympus to have pancakes at the Hotel Hough with a clever man named Socrates.
Meanwhile, Luke sat beneath the sunrise sky and he waited for more blessings from heaven! Read a little, prayed a little, got up and danced a little, and then sat still and watched the golden morning. He was in a pretty good mood when Mikki came climbing back up.
She looked kinda sad. “What happened?” caring Luke asked, concerned.
“That Socrates guy is pretty smart, but...” she began. Then sighed. “All my gathering, all my gains, out the window! if what he said is true... He said something like, ‘A wise man realizes that he knows nothing.’ Something to that effect. I paraphrase. He was talkin’ with his mouth full. It was gross.” Then she lessened the blame a little, admitting, “They were great pancakes though.”
Luke looked positively upon the situation. “Sometimes it’s better to begin with nothing! Get all the old baggage out of the way to make room for truth.”
“But I’ve been looking everywhere, learning everywhere!” Mikki protested. It seemed like such a waste to start over!
“So maybe all the looking finally paid off. Maybe you finally found the one thing you needed to learn, for the rest to fall into place,.” Luke optimistically projected.
That didn’t add up, for Mikki. “But if I start over, clean slate, knowing nothing, then I’m going to have to travel to all the planets all over again!” She looked at her watch, disgusted by time constraints.
Luke had an idea, inspired by his own recent success: “Have you ever tried being still? Stop traveling for a while and just wait.”
Remembering that this was the Christian kid, Mikki playfully remarked, “But if I stop, I might fall behind. God might get away from me!”
“Or, He might catch up with you,” Luke pointed out.
There was something reassuring about that thought. About surrendering, and letting God Himself find her and rescue her. But she was still kind of skeptical. “I don’t know, can you see it though? Me as a believer?” It didn’t seem to fit with the fun, wild, old Mikki.
“So become a new Mikki! A better Mikki. Let God make you what He wants you to be,” Luke repeated good counsel. “Who knows? Maybe you’ll be the Witness to the Stars!”
Mikki laughed. “Ya think?”
“Hey, if I can be a witness to the Huns...”
“So that’s what you’re going to do next then? Be a witness to the Huns?”
The thought had crossed his mind. Saying it and hearing her say it made it sound even better. But scary. Luke laughed. “Who knows? Come back and ask me that question in a year!” A year. That length of time jogged his memory, and Luke added the promise: “In a year I can make a copy of this Bible for you. It’ll come in handy to have your own copy when you’re Apostle to the Planets.” Still trying to steer her in that direction... “No pressure.”
Mikki smiled. “A year then,” she agreed. “And I’ll keep my eyes open in the meantime.” They shook on it.
“Me too,” Luke agreed, wide-eyed, as he watched her climb up the steps into her spaceship. He caught himself ogling, and then his prayer for forgiveness gave him another idea: He promised to pray for her search, like Louise had for him, for a thousand years.
“A thousand light-years, anyway,” Mikki joked, as she started her engines. Then she blew kisses and was gone with a roar and a flash. (No, sadly, not that kind of flash).
Luke read his Bible the rest of that warm day. It was a beautiful day, with a considerate breeze, and Luke had a thought that would recur to him later on other lovely days. “Christ died for us, on a day like today.”
Then after a full day, Luke spent a long evening watching patiently, as the sky gradually darkened. He stared upwards in peace and joy as it glided nightward through a million shades of blue. He had a grand view indeed from his mountaintop perch, and he enjoyed not only the rich and loving sky, but also smiled contentedly at the tops of moonlit clouds down below him, pale and tender. And out on the thousand-mile horizon where there were no clouds, Luke caught sight of the thick and thriving forests and orchards, as they turned a warm green-black in the arms of the thick and sultry night.
Luke listened to the wind, for what else is there to listen to at the top of a mountain, above the mortal world? He realized in its gusty grasp that he had never listened to the wind before! Never solely the wind. And he closed his eyes and he took in its songs. It blew strong and full-of-itself across the peak of Mount Olympus, and as Luke felt its breeze and heard its whistle he knew what Bert had meant by the Young Night, because, he saw, the wind was young too! Young and Holy and No Chains Could Bind It. “Like me, now!”
Luke wished that he had brought his guitar up with him, because it would help pass the hours of waiting, and he might perhaps use it to join the wind in its songs to the world. He probably would have played Carlos Santana’s ‘Song of the Wind’.115 Instead he just hummed it in his head.
With no guitar to play, Luke had no choice but to simply count the pretty stars as they arrived. He was at 901 (he might have missed a couple that came in the back door) when he realized that the night was somehow suddenly lighter than it had been, much lighter than the mere moon could take credit for. So Luke looked back down to the mountaintop, sadly abandoning his task of meeting the million stars. But he was quickly cheered by what stood, or hovered, before him!
It seemed to be a woman again; but this time a Woman of Light! She was beautiful, of course, more beautiful than anyone he had ever seen (including even Mikki, even Jenny!), more beautiful than he had known a woman might possibly be. She stood tall and radiant in white robes, slim, goldenhaired and goldenhearted, and quite excited. She shone, with a divine light, and though Luke had obviously never been to heaven, he nevertheless correctly concluded, “You look like Heaven.” After being wrong the first time, one might have thought that Luke would be a little more cautious in his pronouncements, and he thought so too, but this time it was so clearly the real thing that he stated for the second time since that morning, “You must be a goddess!”
She shook her head, and quickly denied it, calling him by name: “Oh no Luke, I am no such thing. There is only one God, and it isn’t me. I am only a humble servant of the One, sent by grace to speed you on your journey.”
“An angel you mean?” Luke guessed.
She nodded and smiled--though she was always smiling, even when she talked. And sometimes her emotion would get the better of her and she would begin to dance and clap her hands as she talked with Luke, moving to the silent music of her joyful heart. And then she would laugh and unashamedly apologize for being distracting--though Luke didn’t mind at all, and despite her radiance and charm he heard perfectly every word she had to say, so rapt was his attention as she told him this: “Luke, my name is Janet. It is truly a pleasure to be sent to make your acquaintance. For you are well-known in Heaven, and we are all pleased by your good will and your questing heart. God Himself loves you and wants you to find what you seek, so that you may join us and share our joy!”
Luke, full of joy already at her presence, and heart leaping from her message, nevertheless was troubled in his understanding. “Not meaning to quarrel with you, miss,116” he said politely, “but if God wants me to know about Him, then why did he send a subaltern here to speak to me, instead of coming here Himself?”
The Angel lau
ghed, and spun, and danced, as she gestured all around them and then hugged her hands to her heart. “He Is here!” She proclaimed, with words that were at once both an explanation to Luke and also her own poem of praise to God. “Can’t you feel Him?” she asked, hard-time believing. “Can’t you feel the Love? Can’t you feel the Grace? Can’t you feel the Power? Can’t you feel the Glory?” And she spun and rose and swayed in the most graceful ballet of the spirit.
Luke was in love again, but he was also surprised: “Most of the angels I’ve been reading about are so commanding and imposing, sometimes even smiting and avenging. But you’re so--nice.” He tried to reconcile what he had seen with what he had read. Janet helped:
“‘And of some have compassion, making a difference: And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire;’” The Angel quoted. “Both ways come to the same thing in the end. Those who learn of God through his love will, once they know Him, comprehend His power. Those who repent from fear of His power will, when they are forgiven, experience His love. For you? I have been sent to show God’s love and goodness. And to give you this message: ‘Look about you, and Look within you, and be not fearful, but believing!’”
Luke was grateful, but he told her awkwardly that he had already kinda done that. Yesterday, actually.
“Oh.” Surprised, Janet checked her watch, and shook her wrist, perplexed. Then she shrugged. “Well then, look in Mexico,” she added as a puzzling afterthought. Luke was mystified as to what that might mean. (Women always keep one slightly mystified, even when they are angels.)
“But I have been looking for months, if not all my life,” Luke protested, feeling a sudden fear that he was being sent out on another endless quest, just when he thought he had finally arrived! “I don’t need another place to look; I need you to tell me how to find!”
Janet the Angel said simply, with love, “Faith.”
Luke protested again, not knowing if he had faith yet or not, desiring truth yet walled back by a lifetime of lies, “But how does one arrive at faith? Surely I need more knowledge first, theology and explanations, to know more about God so that I may believe more in Him?”
And The Angel smiled at his struggle of knowledge versus faith, and she gently whispered, “They are the same! The only things we really know, we know through faith!” And then she could contain herself no longer, and she danced among the stars, glorious and golden and filled with the Love of God, leaving Luke alone (though not alone), to consider his new mission of hope, with her last star-whispered word still singing in his ears,
Faith.