Wait and Tremble: Part Three (Madame's House)

    “Not so blasted fast!” Madame screeched. Jonas looked at her stern grey hair, and wondered how Archie had the nerve to pretend he didn’t hear her. Her lips were tight, but her fingers flew over the yarn in her lap. Jonas watched Ma watching her. The yarn was red, like a cherry sucker. Jonas wondered if she was making something for a little boy to wear, or if she would only drop the piece in a dusty corner of her house. It seemed to help her with the stress of Archie’s driving. Madame glanced down and caught them watching. Jonas jerked his neck and looked out the window, but the jostling trees only made his legs hurt more. Madame used up the little ball of yarn she had before they came to a breathless halt before a tall house. Jonas looked at the old trees in the yard as Archie carried him in, trying not to whimper when his legs were moved.

     “It’s all right, Jonas,” Ma said. Her face was white. Jonas wished she would suck the red out of the yarn into her cheeks. He was afraid that she would be sick, or cry. He didn’t know what to do when she cried. He was remembering the last time she cried when the old trees grew dizzy and faded.

     “He’s a strong lad,” someone said loudly. “He’s got good bones in him.” Jonas squinted up through bright light into a bearded face. Ma was holding his hand, less pale now. The bearded man showed his teeth and patted Jonas’s head, then walked out. Jonas looked for Madame. He was in blue room, with fish painted on the walls.

     “Are you all right, Ma?” he asked. Ma jumped and jerked her eyes from the door.

     “Me?” she asked. “I’m not the one run over by horses, young man. How do you feel?”

     “I wasn’t really run over, Ma. Just kicked a good bit,” Jonas said, trying to move his legs. They were sore and bandaged, but they moved just fine.

     “Hush,” she said, smoothing his hair to the side of his forehead. “Rest now. I’ll take you home as soon as you’re well.” Jonas nodded, but he wanted to say that he didn’t want to go just yet. This room with the fish was more interesting than where he slept at home. He had a warm feeling that Madame had books and sailboats, and perhaps a pond to play in. He wouldn’t need to wait, here. He could read, and ask Madame questions. He was hearing his first question in his head, about the yarn, and then his eyes were so heavy.

***

      Jonas opened his eyes and shrank back. A very pretty lady was leaning on the table next to his bed, staring at him. The corner of her mouth curled when she saw his open eyes.

     “Bout time, sonny boy. I’ve been a-waitin’ for much too long,” she said. Her bottom lip pouted, and Jonas felt sorry for making her wait, though he knew all about waiting. He blinked, and let her help him sit up. “Soup,” she said, cupping his chin and holding a spoon full of yellow cream. Jonas opened and swallowed. His stomach grumbled as the first drops fell down his throat. She fed him almost faster than he could swallow, and he had the feeling of running a race when she finally scraped the bowl clean. She patted his head, and he said ‘thank you’, very quietly.

     “Doctor’ll be in, then Madame wants ta see you,” she said. She snatched the bowl and spoon and marched out. Jonas pulled down the cover and looked at his legs. They were stiff, but not as sore as they had been. The bearded man came in and poked about his legs, then took off the white wrapping and replaced it. Jonas tried not to look at the scrapes, but then he realized that it didn’t make him feel sick. The doctor bared his teeth at him, but only after the door clicked shut did Jonas realize that that was supposed to be a smile.

     “You’re a strange boy,” Madame said. Jonas jumped. He hadn’t heard her come in.

     “You’re a strange lady,” Jonas said, tilting his head to look at her. Madame leaned back and laughed, deep in her throat. Jonas stared at her. "What are you going to do with the yarn?" he asked. Madame was still laughing, with tears on her cheeks. Suddenly she stopped, and looked close.

     "I'm creating with the yarn, boy," she said. She looked fierce again. Jonas wondered if he should just be quiet. He nodded sagely, as if he understood creating.

     "Is my mother still here?" he asked. 

     "She is sleeping in her room," she said, jerking her finger toward the wall. Jonas's stomach loosened a little. "I think she likes it here," Madame said, raising her eyebrows. Jonas was interested by her eyebrows. They were exactly the same as her hair, stern and stiff. 

     "I like it here," he said. "I like the fish." She bobbed her head, stooping her shoulders.

     "Fish live in the ocean, so of course I like them. I'll show you the ocean room once you can get around a bit better," she said, moving to leave. Jonas watched her, wishing she could stay. "Understand, boy," she said, dropping her fingers to the mattress beside him. "You are not a normal boy, and so I say what I wish to you. Not all adults will be so kind." Jonas crossed his arms and listened to the sound of the clicking latch. Madame's presence seemed to linger by the bed, her fingers on the mattress.

Wait and Tremble-Part Two

    This is the waiting: 

     Sunny stood in the middle of the dusty road, dust already enveloping her short white dress. Her mouth was round , and her chubby hands pressed over her eyes. This was the waiting. Jonas took one step forward, knowing Sunny could not hear his voice over the hooves. The carriage windows were dark, and the driver was too high and fierce to see a small sun on the road. Jonas took a deep breath, and stopped waiting.

     He ran, kicking up stones like the horses, just even with the first team. There were two teams, and he knew the only way was to stop the first team before they reach her. He saw the flashing teeth as the bits were cruel to their mouths. Their heads were white, pure above him. He chose the last step, and jumped, soaring higher than he could when he was waiting. His fingers caught the edge of the bridle, slid, and stopped against a seam. He hung, still clinging when a hoof cracked against his thigh. The horse reared and pulled toward him, pulled the whole team toward his lane. Jonas rose high, high in the air, hearing the driver’s curses above his own shriek.

     “I cannot wait!” he screamed, over and over. The proud horse reared again, and the others followed, jerking the carriage to a complete sideways stop. Jonas still hung, his fingers and legs bloody from the horse’s kicks. The proud horse stood still, snorting its shame that it had allowed such a small boy turn him from his course. Jonas heard the driver clearly, walking toward him. He felt tiny hands at his back.

     “Let go, Jonas,” Sunny said. “I’ll catch you.” He lowered his legs slowly, and sat heavily on the ground. The horse leaned down and sniffed his legs, showing remorse now. The driver loomed above him, his face white and red in splotches.

     “Crazy kid,” he muttered, kneeling beside Jonas. He touched Jonas’s right leg, and Jonas took a big breathe.

     “Jonas isn’t crazy,” Sunny said. “He’s an orphan.” She crossed her arms, and Jonas winced away his desire to explain to her that orphan and crazy were not opposites, and that he was only fatherless, not an orphan, and that she was possibly the crazy one, freezing in the middle of the road like that. The door to the carriage slammed open, and a straight backed lady stepped down.

     “Madame…” the driver said, stepping back. “I’m afraid we’ve had an accident.”

     “I can see that, Archie. I can see we’ve nearly slaughtered two children.” She stood over Jonas, glaring at Archie. “If you wouldn’t drive so beastly fast, we could be less of a menace to the young ones of this country.” Archie stuttered his apology, and Jonas gaped at her. He’d never heard such a proper looking lady talk like that. “Where’s his mother?” the lady asked, bending over him. Her voice was gentle now. “We’ll get you to the hospital, boy.”

     “My mommy could put some bandages on him,” Sunny said, peering up at Madame. She held up her plump right arm. “See?” A white bandage was taped over her elbow. “I fell on the steps, and mommy put this on it.”

     Madame smiled. “I’m sure she’s an excellent nurse, but I’m afraid boy needs a little more than a bandage. Why aren’t you crying, boy?” she asked Jonas. He blinked at her. His legs hurt, but he was waiting again, and it never mattered when he was waiting. Madame didn’t wait for an answer, looked up as Jonas’s mother sprinted over the gravel.

     “Jonas, Jonas!” she shouted, kneeling beside him.

     “I’m all right, Ma,” he said.

     “We’re getting him to the hospital as soon as my driver turns the carriage around,” Madame said, flicking her hand at Archie.

     “What were you doing on the road?” Ma demanded.

     “Sunny was coming across. She never looks first,” Jonas said, tugging Sunny’s arm. She pulled away.

     “It takes too long to look,” she said. Ma gaped at her.

     “Go get your mother, child,” she said. Sunny grinned and dashed off. “I don’t understand her. She’s too young to be talking like that.”

     “Come along, Jonas, let Archie lift you in,” Madame said. Jonas didn’t understand what he was to do about it. Archie lifted him in with unwarranted puffing-Jonas was a slight boy- and put him on the coach bench. Madame sat beside him, and Ma clambered in. Sunny and her mother ran up a few seconds later.

     “Your daughter was in the road again, Collette,” Ma said. Collette’s face grew stern and she picked up Sunny and shook her a little. Archie clucked the horses and they burst off, leaving Sunny and Collette in a cloud of dust.

     “Not so blasted fast!” Madame screeched. Jonas looked at her stern grey hair, and wondered how Archie had the nerve to pretend he didn’t hear her.

Wait and Tremble-Part One

      Jonas had been waiting, waiting for longer than the usual person likes to wait. He had found something in himself long ago. Jonas liked to wait. Waiting was trembling with the branches, feeling the current of time through his veins. Sometimes, at the peak of his waiting, he felt as if an ocean tide were pulling him deeper, into the woods, or into the sky.
     One day, the old man from the rock garden asked him to wait. Not with words, or a note, or a melody, but in the way he opened his front to door, stretched over the porch to touch the ferns, and retreated inside as if pulled by his own tide. At first, Jonas stood still at the end of the lane where he’d been waiting, and stared, thinking the old man would open the door and change the message, at least subtly alter the movements he had made. Jonas leaned against the fence post and counted the leaves of the ferns that he could see from across the road. The sun rose high, and the man did not change his message. Jonas began to watch other things, looking for messages telling him to wait. The buzz was tingling through him as he stared around, finding the movements in the coned clouds, twisted grass, and a romping lamb with its mother. He waited, running his tongue over his lips as if to still them.
     His mother called from the garden behind the house, but he waited still. The road was dusty, and when a carriage went by, it made him choke. The carts went slowly, and he could wave at them, but the carriages screamed the opposite of ‘wait’, with their stiff, fierce horses and tight reins. Every time a carriage went by, Jonas shrank against the fence, and hoped his waiting had nothing to do with it. The corner was abrupt before his house, and they often caught him by surprise.
     Still his eyes roved, searching for what he was to see. To the right of the old man’s rock garden, there was a small hut. Jonas knew that a tiny girl and her mother lived there, and they did the old man’s cooking and laundry. The little girl was like a stream of sunshine, caught upon the carpet and bound into a short white dress. She capered as if she were made of light, and Jonas’ waiting had often ended with her. As a serious boy who had seen twelve summers, and she a ray of light who had only seen five, she was a perfect girl for a sister. He hadn’t asked her what she thought of it, but once, she had tripped across the road when she saw him waiting, and asked in her sunshine voice if he was lonely.
     The old man’s door opened, and Sunny peeped out. She smiled, though it was tiny, and the waiting seemed to explode into something vital. Jonas couldn’t smile back, with his heart pounding like a sped-up ocean against his chest. She frowned when she saw his wrinkled forehead, and danced down the steps. Jonas  wanted to hold her in my arms, and run away down the hill to the creek, but Jonas wanted her to stay in her own house more. The road. The road was bad. Jonas stared at the dusty road as her black shoes neared it. It was tan, ordinary. This waiting was strange. Jonas took deep breaths, and suddenly stopped. The warm air was not silent. A rumble was growing louder. He edged forward. It sounded like a snobby carriage, but it was different. He opened his mouth the call to Sunny to go back, but she was running, her blond curls bubbling behind her. A carriage exploded around the corner, its horses twice as proud as all the others.
     This was the waiting.

Love

     Something swept over me this week, something too fiery to hold inside. God just loves me. God just loves you. No reason. He feels like it.

    

  If I had two brains, I’d be juggling it from one to the other, afraid to try. This holy God, perfect and just and righteous, is also full of love toward us. All the things I’ve discovered about holiness are beginning to make sense. To be holy in bare response to His holiness is wise, genius, the only serious thing to do, as Kierkegaard would say. God understands us though, more than we can ourselves. We do not know how to be serious, not for eternity. Our seriousness is brief and flickering, and sometimes only achieved by Paul or A.W. Tozer. How perfectly convenient that this God, full of holiness, is able to see beyond our attempts at gravity and love us anyway.

     

     What made David(Crowder as well, read his book Praise Habit) sing God’s praises at the top his lungs was not only His holiness and might, but His love and beauty, exquisite beauty. God makes beauty out of ugliness. God does not only pull us to our feet, He transforms our beings into something breathtaking. I am sure that without new bodies in Heaven, breathing would be impossible. This is the glory of redemption. He not only saves our lives, He continually makes us perfect. Beauty that was once disgusting is twice glorious. If we’d been born perfect, where would the praise be? We would have no comparison for our sanctification. Praise my Jesus, He is making us holy and beautiful every day. Go ahead and shout about it.

   

  I would like to know how the Holy Spirit will be manifested in Heaven. He certainly does a lot of things.

Where are you?

Silence:

Take
Take till there's nothing
Nothing to turn to
Nothing when you get through
Won't you break
Scattered pieces of all I've been
Bowing to all I've been
Running to
Where are you?
Where are you?

Did you leave me unbreakable?
You leave me frozen?
I've never felt so cold
I thought you were silent
And I thought you left me
For the wreckage and the waste
On an empty beach of faith
Was it true?

'cause I...I got a question
I got a question
Where are you?

Scream
Deeper I wanna scream
I want you to hear me
I want you to find me
'cause I...I want to believe
But all I pray is wrong
And all I claim is gone

And I...I got a question
I got a question
Where are you?
Yeah....yeah
And where...I...I got a question
I got a question
Where are you?
Where are you?
Where are you?
Where are you?
-Jars of Clay

     Jasper, a main character in my book, asked this question today. The answer reverberated through my mind like a gong that shakes the walls, the one Pink Floyd had in their music video, the kind you hit with a hammer with all your body. My jaw is a little sore still. Where is God, when these agonizing things happen? With my lovely life, complete with running water and carpet and fantastic parents, I can say He's God, He's with you, He'll never forsake you. But what to say to Jasper? His innocence was stripped from him before he knew what it was. He has nothing to turn to, nothing to believe in. Where was God every moment he spent in despair, in agony, in grief from what his adopted father had forced him to do? When he bent over people he had tortured to save his mother, trying to weep, but unable to make the tears come? Every kind deed he did was met with a blow or a slash with a knife. Where was God in that?
     I couldn't answer this, and I turned to others for this. Theologians didn't know in their hearts. Sympathetic men  could not answer.
     When Jasper stood, and asked where God was when he killed, and when his mother was killed, making empty everything he did, Ravenna stood and said, "Right beside you, weeping for you."
     I trust her. She's felt the despair, the wild hopelessness. Eloi opened her eyes, and showed her where He had been all those times.God was never distant, never out of reach. He felt the agony Himself, and the pain of frustration that each suffering one would not turn and look, see the arms around them, ready to relieve them of their despair. 
     The hard part about God is that he knows the tormentor, as well. Free will, we all know. God feels the agony of all, not only the victim. This is one of the endless things that marks Him so far above our minds. Jasper as yet to understand this, but I believe he will.
     Jasper didn't stay to argue with her. He heard it. Through her, God is no longer silent to him. Jasper has something to believe, a prayer to pray. I'm always surprised when he bursts out with things like this, but it helps me to understand him. Watching his redemption has shown me much about God.