I.October 2007
I'm young, dead, and smoking, coiled up sideways in a wiry black chair, my shaved head on one arm and bruised knees over the other. I stare through big black sunglasses at that electric kind of overcast as a hot, dusty wind comes and goes. It violently ruffles myself, the flowers, and two others.
"What do you think it is?" asks the girl sitting next to me.
She's texting, so this is an auto-response. I swing my feet madly off the side of my chair. The boy with us is not listening, but is rather, performing. He is doing barefooted pirouettes on the tall brick wall surrounding the garden. I study him as the archetypal man, and wonder as he turns and leaps with graceful arrogance: what in the world is within that?
"What do you think it is???" I reply. It's all I've got.
I don't know that in a year and a half I will confess to congregation great that Jesus is my Lord and Savior. I don't know that the light will manifest what is in darkness, and the two leading me to Christ at this moment will in time deny that some things are clear.
The girl shrugs, and smiles. I despise her for knowing something I don't.
"Evil" I declare, half-guessing.
The boy suddenly jumps between us and onto our cement table. He stares down at me, his face in front of the sun.
"Now we're getting somewhere!" he exclaims, and disappears again with one giant, pompous leap.
I light another cigarette and forget about these two, or the rest of the world, and begin to believe that I believe.
"Yes," I agree, and demand with all sincerity: "Where?!"
The girl laughs. I close my eyes. And though I hear it not, from my darkened, deadpan heart: a beat.
__
Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man. John 2:23-25
II.
July 2009
July 2009
"What does it mean to be born again?" a small, fierce native American woman asks me. She is as wide as she is tall; this is not an insult, or an exaggeration, but her true dimensions, which through our art class together, has attracted me to her. We continue working, making no eye contact.
"What do you think it means?" I ask. This, my standard response, gives me a few moments to ponder. It is months past conversion now; I am fully, and truly, Christian.
"I don't know, that's why I'm askin'!" she chuckles sweetly; this giggle sends her jewelry into a windswept vibration. I smile. The class listens.
"Well, to be born implies the beginning, right?" I ask, and think of what the other students, and teacher, are thinking. A song of charcoal, pencil, and exacto-knife-scratching hums about us. My voice is too loud, and the lights, they are (always) too fluorescent.
"So it means to start all over?" she asks. She is bent at a perfect 90 degrees, gluing pieces to a construction paper precipice.
"I think it's best described in terms of a state change," I offer, "where one goes from a state of not knowing God, to a state of knowing God. Does that make sense?" I say, trying my best to sound kind, or nice, however successfully.
"Hm." she exhales. Her eyelashes blink profusely over her big, darkest black eyes. She has no idea what I mean. I wonder what she's wondering, if anything.
The door swings open and some sunlight sweeps us, interrupting our conversation and allowing it to end. Sara Mahoney walks in, her class just beginning.
"Hey sweet" she says, with her ultimate, resolute kindness. I positively beam at her.
"Hi" I say. She spots me looking at her with a focused fondness, scrunches up her nose quick and inquires:
"Everything ok?" in her I-take-care-of-you-just-because sort of way.
"Uh huh" I say, trailing off in a giggle, and walk to her. Amidst this barren tundra, she is an awful, startling, daisy.
In this moment, there is a yet-unnamed baby in her belly. I greet her with a hug, and receive the light pouring out of her bright grey eyes. We chit chat of church, showers, babies, Jason, projects, cooking, love.
I stare past her sternum and know that beneath it is the wellspring of our mutual Lord. I look over her shoulder at the native woman, and think... nothing. Just a subtle, soft, nothing. My eyes back to Sara, I smile with a mixture of sorrow and surging elation; amongst the walking dead, together in this space, we live.
__
Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” John 3:1-8
