Chapter 35: The Bus to Glory
“Incline your ear, and come unto me: Hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.” Isaiah 55:3
They flew on through the night: Luke with eyes clenched sleeping nightmarily and nervously (“Don’t grip me too tightly now!”), and the Dragon with sharp eyes that shone in the dark. Each beat of huge wings seemed to take them miles, and by dawn they had reached the shore, and Daniel Speedboy coughed to wake Luke up, before setting him gingerly down in a small clearing.
It pays to have friends in wet places, Luke decided. Then remembering the verse, ‘As a man sows, so shall he reap’, he added the thought, It pays to have minded one’s manners also.
After the Dragon had flown off, Luke wandered out of the bush, until he came to a road. He walked south along the road slowly, getting his bearings, and feeling the sudden heaviness of his own limbs. Alone again, he felt sad and doubtful in the cold fall morning. As if the waves themselves had washed away his certainty, and the winds had buffeted his beliefs. Sure he had been visited by an angel, and borne across an ocean by a sea serpent, a whale, and a dragon…but sometimes the biggest miracles are the easiest to disbelieve. How brief and distant his first moments of faith now felt! How far the journey still seemed, now that there was no one to carry him! So he trudged weakly through the day, resigning himself to the journey, to doing his bit to ‘move partway towards God’, as Bridgette had put it.
But then, remembering the part about letting God draw him the rest of the way, he smiled again, and hoped for another ride to arrive... And eventually, as luck would have it, along came a rainbow-colored bus.
With a squeal and a lurch, the bus skidded to a halt alongside Luke the Hun, hot-tired and dusty on the dry autumn day. The door hissed open, and there leanin’ on the steering wheel looking casual was Who Else But The Really Cool Guy122. “Fella. Need a lift?” he said calmly and kindly. It was a timely offer, and Luke was glad indeed to see his old friend. He smiled and nodded slowly, and his football shoes thumped on the steep metal stairs as he swung himself up and boarded the bus.
Luke felt in his pockets for coins, and panicked when he realized most of his pay had been lost during the wild ride at sea! “Add that to the injunction to ‘Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal’--and where waves wash away,” Luke thought resignedly. Then thankfully, he found a few sneaky coins that had lodged in the bottom of his pocket. He counted them out. “$1.30 exactly!” he announced triumphantly, thinking what a clever coincidence indeed! “That’s still your fare, isn’t it?”
“Sorry,” said the driver. “For this trip it’s $1.75. Supply and demand, see. Got a whole bunch of people wanting to ride this bus!”
Luke looked around. Sure enough, the bus was full. Lotsa good people. On the right, there was a whole Lutheran choir, with a good-old-guy director named Harold and his wife Mary, leading many other wonderful singers. Behind them, strumming on a guitar and singing “This Bus is bound to glory, this bus...” was the legendary Bob Marley. At the back of the bus on the left, sitting quietly with his travelish cap pulled low over his eyes, was a gentleman that Luke recognized as the same Christian blues singer his friend Bruno had dragged him along once to watch perform when he played at their college, the great Mumblesmith himself!
And some even more familiar faces...! Surprise surprise, the entire blues band from the Thunderhouse in Chicago! Among them sat an old friend whom Luke was especially happy to see. Beaming and having trouble sitting still, there she was! Wonderful Miss Hosanna, beautiful and pure!
Wondering where this talent-laden, color-wrapped bus could be going, and why the extra fare, Luke asked Hammer the Driver, “Where we bound?”
Hammer smiled, and finally revealed the reason for his Dancing Soul and his Feeling of Youth: “Listen to the song. This bus is bound to Glory, brother! There ain’t no trains in this world, so it became my responsibility to get the people there. Ain’t I the lucky one?” he asked, looking forward to all the joy and wonder in the kingdom of God.
Luke was suspicious. “I thought salvation was a free gift through Jesus Christ. So how come I hafta pay you a dollar seventy-five?”
“It is!” the driver acknowledged, then added cryptically, “But we’re taking the scenic route. And somebody’s gotta pay for the petrol...”
A valid point, Luke agreed; but the fact was, he was still forty-five cents short. “Maybe I could just ride along partway, as far as this money will get me,” Luke suggested, thinking he still had that appointment in Mexico to keep anyway, and besides, partway was better than walking the whole nine million yards.
“Go partway towards Glory and then get out and hitchhike? Would you really want to do that?” When the driver put it that way, it did sound less appealing. Fortunately there was a counter-offer. “How bouts you give me that crafty hat, to pay your way.”
Luke had not expected that. Sure there was the part in the Bible about forsaking everything to follow Christ, but did it really mean everything? Luke smiled when he realized that if so, he had already been getting closer: the guitar was gone, his football shoes had been traded. All he really had left to start this new beginning was his Bible, and the clothes on his back. And the hat on his head.
“Not the hat! I may need it later.” Luke protested. The driver unhesitatingly offered up his own well-proven baseball cap in exchange. “No, not just to keep the rain off my head,” Luke explained, “but to lead the Huns! I’m thinking about going back, and trying to do that. And this hat is an heirloom, passed from father to son, chief to chief! A traditional symbol of authority!”123
“Ah. I see. But would you rather return with a symbol of authority, or the real thing? Why not return with real live God-given authority, and see what happens? No man will be able to resist you.”
Still skeptical: “And riding on this bus will gave me that?”
“It won’t hurt. But what will really help you is learning to lead a prayerful life.” Luke didn’t see the connection right away, so the Hammer explained: “Taking your hat off to pray is a gesture of respect, of course. Well, if you’re already wearing a hat, you don’t take it off unless you have something specific to say. But if it’s already off, well then you’re free to pray as much as you like, and maybe you’ll find lots more things to pray about!” Then he smoothed his own thinning hair, and added, “I’ve worn a lotta hats to protect my bald-getting head! So I know what I’m talking about. You’d be surprised how often the hat comes off, and just like that, Pow! Prayin’!”
Luke still resisted: “So how come it’s OK for you to have this hat then. Wouldn’t it interfere with your prayer life too?”
“Ah, but I’m farther along than you are: I already have good habits. Whereas you...” reaching out and helping Luke make the decision with a gentle tug on the white Rawhide Stetson, “...need to develop some.”
Luke let go of the hat, tucked Hammer’s curled baseball cap into his back pocket, sighed, and sat down in the front row. Then Hammer felt guilty about having gotten the best of the deal and passed Luke a silver and a kryptonite coin as well, “For emergencies.”
It had been hard to let go, but as soon as he sat down, Luke felt better about it. Here he was, after all, riding the Bus to Glory! In the passing lane, even! (It never took Hammer long to get her up to speed.) Luke was excited by the prospects, but he wanted to know, “So how do we get there? Do you really know the way?”
The Still Somewhat Cool Guy laughed, and admitted, “That’s what we’re gonna find out!” When Luke looked distressed by the presumably haphazard nature of their pilgrimage, Hammer added comfortingly, “Don’t worry, we’ll know it when we see it! They say the streets are gold and its gates are pearl, and everyone is always happy!”
It sounded like the kind of place Luke wanted to go, but he was still concerned: “But how will we find it at all? This is
a big world,” he spoke from experience.
Hammer winked and said Trust Me, but when Luke didn’t, Hammer went the extra mile and reassured him, “I’ve got a map.” He took it down from where it was tucked above his visor, and he let Luke look it over.
After studying it front and back, upside down and right side up, Luke sadly informed him, “This is a Map of Japan.”
Hammer laughed, and confessed, “Yeah, I know. A Hoplite named Haggerty sold me that, and I make sure I always keep it handy, coz hey. Ya never know when you might take a wrong turn and wind up in Japan.” Then he explained, “But the reason I showed it to you now, when it’s useless to us, is to make a point: “There are no maps, there are no roads; Just you and me on these streets of gold.”124 And then he reminded Luke what The Angel had basically said, “There’s only one way to Glory, son. Sit back and trust.”
With no other choice, Luke took a seat back near his friend Hosanna, to better enjoy the ride.
“Luke, good to see you!” she said excitedly, giving him a hug. Luke was glad to see her too. He asked how she had been, and her face lit up. “Great! The band finally came around!” she raved.
“I see that. Congratulations. What happened?”
Hosanna happy-shrugged, “I don’t know! Who can understand the ways in which God works? Perhaps it was singing my gospel songs that got to them. Maybe it was seeing the weariness of the world and realizing there just had to be something more! Or maybe they knew the Truth all along and they just got tired of denying it!” She shrugged and laughed again, and told him, “I don’t suppose it matters, does it? God has done his work, and now the Band believes, and here we are together on our way to Glory! Filled with joy unspeakable,” she added, squinting from a too-big smile.
“So we are going to Glory then? You trust the driver I take it?”
Hosanna shook her head slightly, looking wise, and smiling she touched Luke’s cheek and tenderly confided, “I think very highly of the driver. But it isn’t him in whom I am trusting!” Luke could practically feel her faith in Jesus radiating from her, and wondered why he still didn’t feel more of it radiating from the inside.
Hosanna rushed on, wanting to know how Luke had been, and how his quests were going. “Did you ever succeed in bringing about World Peace? How did that turn out?” Luke told the story of how he had changed his mind about running for office, and he told her about his ad hoc embassy to Penetanguishene, and he told her that despite those reversals he was still working at making the world peaceful, in his own humble loving way, and that anyone who cared to was welcome to join him: “Fixin’ to go back home and invite some people pretty soon...”
Hosanna smiled approvingly at that, and told him, “Way to Go!” Then she asked him hopefully if he had found out anything else on his journey. Coz here he was, after all...
Luke recapped the events as best he could, and tried to tell her of his own conversion back in Greece. When he tried to describe it, he began in excitement but ended in doubt, realizing he didn’t fully understand it. He couldn’t remember the exact process, nor could he explain how he had been able to feel so sure about things then...when he didn’t feel quite so sure now. He was starting to feel a little out of place among all these big-time believers for one thing. All these real-deal servants of God.
His brow furrowed, trying to puzzle out how this could be, if he was saved; and wondering, with a chill, whether he might not be destined to become another Bert...
With alarm, he remembered a parable that hit too close to home, for one who had believed on a stony mountainside! ‘Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth: And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away.’ How Luke wished for some roots!
As always, Hosanna caught his apprehension, and reassured him with a timely verse: “‘For if our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.’ God knows what He’s doing Luke! He has saved you, and will never let you go! If you ever feel yourself starting to slip, don’t trust that feeling. Trust in God!” Then she thought about how to account for the feeling in the first place, and realized, “I guess trusting God gets easier with practice. When you are new to this life, it is less familiar than your old, worldly self. It’s like learning a new language--you’ll struggle with it. So I guess it’s easier sometimes to pull back, retreat into the things you thought you knew. The safety of the familiar, after all--even though there’s nothing safe about it! But Luke? Don’t doubt whether you are really a believer. You are! And don’t doubt whether you were right to believe. You were! Don’t doubt at all: just believe!” She sighed. “It’s that easy.”
Consoled, but still not convinced, Luke turned to his former front-man, Sam the Blues Singer, for a fellow novice’s perspective. “What about you? How did you get involved in this scene?”
Sam shrugly spoke, in his deepgruffgravelly voice, sayin’, “John Lee said, ‘Blues the healer: It healed me, it can heal you.’ Once you get healed and happy, you may as well give thanks for it all and sing praise.” Then he corrected himself: “Sorry, old habits: I’ve been a blues singer longer than I’ve been a Christian. But truth be told, it wasn’t the blues that healed us; it was God, using Hosanna. She didn’t shame us, she didn’t threaten us, she just led us, and showed us a better way.”
That resonated with Luke‘s own experience, but one can always use a second opinion. So he turned to the Band’s bass player, the honorable Stanley Clarke125. Luke figured maybe a cool cat like that could explain it to him straight up, so that somehow even countryboy Luke might get how they had gotten there. Sure enough, that bad boy didn’t fool around: when Luke asked him why he had boarded the bus to Glory, Mr. Clarke straightforwardly said, kinda sly, “I gatta feelin’ everybody in heaven is gettin’ a little tired of listenin’ to harps. I heard a rumor that God… likes… bass...”
Luke nodded a “Right on,” and then he said quick Howdies to the rest of the Band, Reuben and Benson and Hearst and Luis, shaking hands and patting them on the back. Then he moved back a few rows and chatted with Harold the Choir Director when they were between hymns. The guy told him a ton of stories, but the one verse he shared that tied them together, and that really stuck with Luke and inspired him for his coming mission, was “James 2:17-- ‘Yea, a man may say Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works and I will shew thee my faith by my works.’” Harold would have gone on and talked Luke’s ear off about righteousness and responsibility and faith-in-action, if Mary hadn’t steered him back to his own duty of getting the singing started again. Then she quietly proved Harold’s point for him, by taking a wrapped square of sugary maple walnut fudge out of her purse and pressing it into hungry Luke’s palm with a wink.
Luke instantly wanted to be like those good people! wanted to be a shining child of God and a personal friend of Jesus Christ! wanted to be the one who fed, warmed and loved each of God’s little ones!126 But realistically, “What have I to give the world?” Luke wondered. Just a dirty cap and a couple of coins. He broke into a grin, and tapped his Bible: Oh yeah... and one other thing!
After singing joyfully along with the choir for a bit, at long last Luke slipped eagerly back to the back of the bus, to meet the craggy character known as Mumblesmith.
He approached cautiously, not quite knowing what to say to this legend, nor whether his presence would be welcome. Nor was he given any indication, for the bluesman simply watched with faint interest from beneath his tilted-low cap, with half-closed eyes and an enlightened smile. “Mr. Mumblesmith?” Luke finally courageously spoke timidly. “Hi, My name’s Luke, I’m a big fan of your music.” (‘healed Blues’, the man had called it, ‘saved Soul’, ‘Rhythm and redemption’.) Mumblesmith nodded what might have been a Thank-you. “Well, I was wondering;” Luke went on, “I’ve heard of your reputation, as one who has learned something about life, an
d about the Lord. I was hoping perhaps you could share some lessons with me, help me on my way, for I am still a searcher, still a learner… still a grower.”
There was a long pause, and a quiet whisper. “Excuse me?” Luke said, to indicate that he hadn’t quite heard. This time there was an even longer pause, and the bluesman’s whisper seemed even quieter than the first time. But Luke felt a tingle! Surely something important was being said! “What?” Luke asked loudly, to try to prompt an increase in volume. Mumblesmith whispered the same message again--something brief, something life-altering. If only Luke could make it out! His heart was beating faster now, with a strange excitement, knowing there was power being shared! “I’m sorry?” he said, cupping his hand to his ear and hoping the bluesman would repeat it a fourth time. The soft whisper came again, and Luke strained to make out the words. But he couldn’t hear a thing over his own heart, pounding, pounding--some ill-timed jubilation! As though it had heard the words that his ear could not! The words that would propel him to enlightenment!127 Had he ever been so close?
It was with great sorrow that he realized the songwriter was done speaking. Daring not to ask a fifth time, Luke pretended he had gotten the message, said “Thank you, sir,” and went back to his next-to-front bench, where he sank his head in his hands and alternated between mourning for what had been missed, and thrilling with the feeling of what had been shared! Hoping the words would come to him later. Somehow.
It was right then that their driver pulled off the road and wheeled into a ‘Bus R Us’ Gas Station, next to the Wayside Grocery. “Time to fuel up. We’ll take a ten minute break!” Hammer announced.
As the back rows shuffled by, exiting the bus in turn, Mumblesmith stooped beside Luke, leaned close enough at last, and said softly again, to Luke’s same heart-leaping response, the secret message: “The only voice you need to hear is His. It already sings within your heart.”
Of course! No wonder his heart had been making such noise. Still, Luke wasn’t completely sure what it was saying... doubtless because each human heart is made by God, and so speaks with the language of the angels. But soon I’ll learn to understand, Luke thought confidently. Everything. Soon!
He did know that it was saying something good! Luke felt the same way he had felt on the mountain. Or maybe even more so--there he had done so much hard thinking, but here he was letting all thoughts yield, and was purely feeling it: An intuition, a strong knowledge, a sense of wonder! That great joy! that unrestrained excitement! that deep peace, that soft reverence... that certain Presence.
Feeling the love of God! True, he hadn’t felt that height of emotion at every point since--he supposed that wasn’t possible. But neither had he felt anything like it, ever, even once, prior to believing. Not even close!
He was in a great mood once more. But like a true Hun: “I’d feel even better if I had a snack!” That single piece of fudge had only teased his sweet tooth. So Luke quickly wrote down ‘Voice’, took his dollar thirty, and went into the Wayside Grocery. The only thing better than God singing in your heart, is God in your heart and candy in your belly.