Paradox

     The trees screamed at me from across the road. The wind soared high up, so that hardly a breath swept over my face. The brown leaves were crashing and swaying like dull bells. I wanted to be up in the clouds, but I feared them. I crossed the road and climbed the ridge, high up with the wind and the trees, with these thoughts in my head:
     This night is a paradox that I have to hold in my hands. God is so close, the divine is breathing on my neck with the wind. I am thinking of how we humanity have twisted humanity. I am thinking, "man, hold to untwisted humanity, for it is the only reception of your salvation."
     I am overwhelmed with my sin. I can no longer bear my twisted soul. Should He not carry me away to the cold clouds with the dead leaves? And leave my empty body to be found by next year's campfire. I see a light, a strength to which I can cling. I am a woman, created by God, human. I have only this excuse, I am imperfect, to offer up as a basket to receive the salvation that floats down, clothed in grace. There is no other reason for this mercy but that I need it, and He wants to give it. I hold in my hands the poorest and best excuse ever known. My deep inadequacy is all that holds Him to His promise of grace.
     I will praise His name, for I am not an angel perfect, or a goddess that cannot fail. I am the nature of failure, and none could need Him more than I. So I, woman, will cling to my humanity with all that I have, and be made straight by His coming.
     This windy night named Hector has perhaps opened a view of the pleasure and thought of God at the creation of man. This paradox is of needing because of it and having fulfillment only because of need. I cry with Paul that we do not sin that grace may more abound, but we rejoice at the abounding of the precious grace. As an unfailing goddess, how could I know my Lord until I needed Him more than breath and warmth? The wind plucked at me, and I felt wide and narrow, strong and weak. Strong because His grace is stronger than the bent in my soul. He comes to straighten, not to break.
     I would rather be straightened than left with riches. I would rather be straightened than live as I am. I would rather be straightened than breathe the too fast air on the ridge. God, straighten me. I would not be perfect unless you made me so.
     These thoughts are still in my head many days later. Other thoughts join them, of desire and fulfillment, and how something can seem utterly important and unimportant at once. Paradoxes that pull my mind through stuffy clouds and fearsome forests. But I know the Divine Perfection that walks with me, and I am not afraid of the paradoxes.

Posh

     Jonas leaned on his hands, looking all around him. He was on the top of a grassy hill. In the direction the boys had rolled, he could see a valley spread over with pink and green and blue houses, all pale, like a faded rainbow. Little tiny people walked in the streets, and he wasn’t sure if they seemed smaller because he was so far away, or because they really were little and tiny. To the right and left, forest sprawled as far as he could see, or at least he thought it was forest. The trees were mostly blue, with white trunks, and some of them seemed to be floating. He rubbed his eyes, wondering if this was a dream. Ever since he’d waited for Sunny and saved her from Madame’s carriage, strange things had been happening. He wondered why he hadn’t thought of mother and Sunny very much, and if Madame had kidnapped him and he would see them again.

     Laughter came from behind him, sounding as if it had echoed from across the world and was only now arriving at his ears. He whirled around, looking over the flat, long top of the grassy hill. A tall person with bare arms was dancing and waving and shouting, but not at him.

     “I did it!” Jonas heard. It was Madame. She’s gone mad, right off her rocker. Jonas stepped backward and tripped over a stone hidden in the tall grass. He gave a little yell, and Madame became silent. The rock scraped his back, but he didn’t move, hoping she hadn’t seen him. “Boy,” she was calling. “You’re all right?” He still didn’t moved. Suddenly the grass rustle and parted, and she was there, closer than he’d thought she was. He stood up and moved away again, careful not to trip. “Are you?” she asked, her eyes bright.

     “I want to know where I am,” Jonas said, a bit more rudely than he would have if he had just met Madame. If she hadn’t dragged him through her house and into the yellow room, that is. Perhaps dragged wasn’t the word, but he hadn’t had much of a choice, had he?

     “The little people call it Posh, but they’re a bit silly. Its real name is Mina. We did it, boy, we did it!” she said, taking his shoulders and shaking him.

     “My name is Jonas,” he said crossly. He was beginning to miss his mother very much, and wished furiously that he were back beside the road, waiting.

     “Yes, yes, Jonas,” she said, staring over his head at the bright city. “This is all immaterial. You’re here, ready to fulfill your purpose.”

    “What is that?” he asked. “What is my purpose?” He repeated her words to keep himself from blubbing or something.

     “Your purpose?” she asked. Her face was far away among the tiny people, and she didn’t move her eyes to him.

     “You know it; I don’t,” he said, very shortly indeed. Now he was only afraid he was going to be too impolite to a lady and she would tell his mother. Madame suddenly looked very sad, and she sat right down, the grasses about her head.

     “My son is down in Poshland, and I can’t bring him out, because they don’t allow big people to enter their city,” she said. Jonas felt a lump in his throat, watching tears well in her eyes. “Do you see, dear boy?” She looked at him, then reached up and touched his hand. He sat down next to her, thinking she was a swell lady if she would only be like this always. “I couldn’t tell you I needed to take you out-of-world. Out of country is bad enough for many. I tried to keep you confused so you wouldn’t run away, not that I didn’t respect you, for you certainly have the right mind for this, and I even thought you would be a good companion for Dilly when he’s grown, for I know you would understand that there is more to life than earth, and won’t you go down and search for him, won’t you?” She took a very deep breath after all this, staring into his eyes. He looked over all her face, and at her hands, trying to make sure this wasn’t a trick, and he would be made into a ‘play’, or perhaps a slave condemned to forever repaint the entire city in different colors. He thought green would be nice, if that were the case. He still didn’t know what a play was, but he had the idea it was something like Mimi. He shuddered, and tried to bring his thoughts together.

     “How can I find him?” he asked, steepling his hands in his lap as father had done before he’d gone and died in the war. Silly man, thinking he could survive bullets and such. If Jonas had his way with it, everyone would share land, and live together, even your neighbors eyes were slanted or they were very tall or…Jonas shook his head, thinking something in the air was making him think too fast.

      “Check in the play-circus,” she said. “They thought he was a play, you see, and once they get those, they don’t like to let them go. I don’t think they hurt him, but if they treat him like the other plays, he’ll be teased something dreadful. What you have to do, is dye your hair blue, and act as if you’re a grown little. You’ll have lots of time before they figure it out. Come on,” she said, standing up quickly and walking down the hill in her bare feet. He hurried after her.

      “I didn’t say yes yet,” he said.

     “Why no, of course not,” she said, but she didn’t slow down. The steep hill didn’t bother her, and they were both soon at the bottom. “I’m only going to show you where to find the coco plant that will make your hair blue, should you decide to go and find Dilly.”

     The coco plant was on the edge of the strange woods, and its leaves were outrageously blue. She used the white petals in his hair, though, and told him he was very blue indeed. He was getting excited about seeing the colored city, and he didn’t pretend to not know what he would do anymore.

     “You can just walk right in,” she said, looking at his hair, and then at his pants. “Ask for a shirt at the circus. They won’t mind. They’ll like your pants, though. Don’t let them take them,” she said. He nodded, wondering how silly that would look, he walking around in his boxers, looking for a play named Dilly that perhaps didn’t want to leave with him, surrounded by real-blue hair and pretending to be a little, and it reminded him of the room of yarn at Madame’s house, because they’re hair was so bristly, and that reminded him of Sunny’s yellow dress that she sometimes wore, and then he knew that something was definitely silly-making about the air, because he was losing his edge. Madame led him along the blue and white forest and left him in sight of the first bright house, and she was already gone before he remembered to ask what Dilly looked like. He was tempted very much to explore that strange woods first, but he thought he would get lost, and how would he get back to earth then, and perhaps animals lived there, and would eat him, and he wished he could get some kind of mask to breathe through because it was getting very hard to think in this air. The city smelled like cotton candy, fresh made, still wisping off the stick.

The Doors are Gone

     “I am not mad, Jonas Barry,” she said, still staring forward. “I am only different.” She could have been laughing, but he didn’t want to assume. Assuming hadn’t helped in life thus far, for the first thirteen years. He was sure it wouldn’t help in the next thirteen.

     The room was absolutely square, more square than a room could usually be. Jonas looked hard at the walls, and had the feeling that this room was not part of Madame’s house. But how could that be? Such a thing was unexplainable. The walls were white, reflecting the yellow lights on the ceiling with intensity. Perhaps it was just the reflection that made the walls seem to shimmer, and move up and down. As if the perfectly square room were floating in the center of the house, a different kind of place than the other rooms. Jonas wondered, if Mimi, or one of the men with the names like his were standing outside the door, if they could see…

     Jonas’s mouth opened wide and he let out his lungs very quickly. Of course they couldn’t see, because the doors were gone. “Madame?” he asked, but he sounded like a thirteen year old boy that was scared to be left alone. He didn’t like that. Madame smiled and stepped close to him, putting her heavy arm around his shoulders. He was surprised that though her arm was slender, it was heavy.

     “It will be all right, dear boy. You’ll see your mother in one of these lives,” she said. That didn’t help him.

     “Where are the doors?” he asked. “I would like to leave.” The walls were smooth, shining, seemed to be made of light. A low hum was beginning, and rose to shimmer in his bones.

     “It’s too late, boy,” she said. Her face was no longer tender, but set, as if determined to do something. There was nothing in the room to do. “We’re going to be taken up. I need you to remove your shirt and shoes,” she said. Jonas only stared at her. She bent down and flipped off her boots. Jonas looked at her stockings, and his stomach began to squeeze tight. He thought of his mother, and wished she were on the other side of the light, waiting for him. The hum was very loud, and he gripped his head and tried to keep his thoughts in it. Madame leaned into his face and kicked at his feet, and he pulled off his shoes. The light was hot, and he followed her motion and pulled his shirt over his head. The heat came over his skin in waves, and he looked away from her bare, bony shoulders as she dropped her over dress to the floor. He stood up straight for a moment, but then a rushing whooshed past him and he crouched to the floor, afraid he would swept up and smashed against the wall.

     Roaring, roaring, roaring, all around him, pulling at his shoulders, his hair straight up, and then it was all gone.

     *

     “Oh my, Silla. What a funny play you have!”

     “It’s not my play. I only found it on the hill. I don’t know what to do with it. Should I touch it?”

     Jonas felt something flat rubbing his shoulder. His eyes were opened, and he felt as if he’d never closed them. He blinked to make sure he could. “Oh, I think the play is awake!” a little boy shout/whispered. Jonas rolled onto his back and looked up into the faces of two very small boys. He thought they were boys. Their hands hung at their sides, flat, with very short fingers at the edges of their wide palms. Their hair was bright blue, and standing up straight and bristly. Jonas stared at them, and his arms twitched without him telling them to. The boys scuttled back, their black eyes widening. “Oh, oh,” the one on the right said, putting his hand over his face. “Oh my, it really is quite a play, Silla.” Silla stepped close again, smiling and showing a mouth of sharp teeth.

     “Wake up, play. We’re ready for you,” he said.

     “I’m not a play,” Jonas said.

     “Waaah!” the one on the right said. “Don’t wake it, Silla. Put it back!”

     “I won’t hurt you,” Jonas said, sitting up. The blue haired boys ran backward, even Silla looking frightened. “Could you tell me where Madame is?”

     “Waaah!” they both screamed, turning and running with their paws over their faces. The hill Jonas was sprawled on was steep, but just when Jonas was worried that they were going to fall, they both made a little leap and tucked into balls and rolled off, disappearing into the orange sun-shadow below.

Need, Need, Need

The simplest things reach inside me and make me into something else. Pressure to say the right words, or perform in the best way possible. I only needed to encourage someone. Easy enough for me; I like seeing people perk up.
     This one wasn't a simple case. Pain was involved that I can only begin to grasp from afar. Frustration with God Himself, thoughts of punishment and self-pity. How could I help, I who's been given endless blessings, overflowing?
     I still don't know how to answer that, but I found out something else tonight. God feels our nerves and pain when things are hard, but He also likes it. It sounds weird and calloused, but it broke my heart when I thought it through. The hurt He shares with us is worth it, and doubled since His loved ones are hurting. Why is it worth it, and why does He love those moments of pain?
     If you're ready to burst with joy because everything in your life is going wonderfully, you overflow with praise for a while. But soon, you get used to the joy, and if given years of it, we would forget Him. I begin to forget Him after just a few days of perfect circumstances.
     When the pressure turns on, and I can't rely on myself, that's when I beg Him to come. Hard things, cruelty, abuse, stretching things, anger, deceit, hypocrisy from others...when these come, I need, need, NEED Him. I don't stop talking to Him. Nothing can tear my eyes from His face, because I can see the cliff I'll fall off if I do.
     I have a new perspective on hard things, now. I'm endlessly selfish, and this seems to be the only way to make me be who God made me to be. Utterly dependent. Nothing I can do on my own. It made me feel like an idiot that I need to go through hard things to be close to Him, but that's how it is. Not always. I just forget easily. I know God loves who I'm made to be after a changing experience, but He likes to see it happen, too.  The hard things don't seem so hard when they're nudging me toward the One I love the most.

Part Five: I am Not Mad

Jonas thought that he could go live in an ice cave like a hibernating bear after eating two plates of ham and potatoes, with rolls on the side. He didn’t think an ice cave would be pleasant; that’s only how he felt. When the giant clock across the room bonged 1:00, making Jonas choke on his water, Jones, James, and John stood as if they all shared two legs. They bowed toward Madame and strode through the door, one after another. Jonas watched them go, but he didn’t stop eating.
     “You might grow two inches after eating all that energy,” Madame said, sipping from a glass goblet. She had a tiny red smudge of jam on her lip.
     “At least three,” Jonas said, swallowing first. He looked at the smudge, but she only smirked and cut open another roll. “Could we talk about the family emergency now?”
     Madame let the roll rest between her teeth and narrowed her eyes. “Not yet,” she said, setting the bread back on the silver bread plate.
     “Could you give me an estimate of time that will-“
     “Talk like a normal boy, boy,” Madame said, pushing her chair back. “You can’t be older than ten. I want you to be an impressionable child, silenced by food and interesting sights. Can you do this?”
     Jonas blinked at her, and she beckoned him to follow. He slipped through the heavy door before it could close, afraid to be left in the room alone. The three men could come back, and do things eerily as one while he could only watch. He thought this as an excuse, to convince himself that interesting sights and food hadn’t distracted him from his goal. Madame was striding down the hall with great strides, and he had to run to catch her.
     “You’ve eaten, and you’ve proven your intelligence,” Madame bellowed. “Follow me, follow me.” Jonas looked behind him before he obeyed, wondering if the dolls would be better than a woman who was proving her insanity every moment. He wished fervently to be outside his gate, waiting. This didn’t feel like waiting, not with all the hustle and curtains and rooms they were passing through. Madame’s shoes clicked down stairs, and Jonas descended into the dark. The dolls and the three men seemed far away, and when his fingers brushed fur in his haste to find Madame, he gasped. “Follow, follow, boy,” Madame whispered from far ahead. Jonas jerked his hand away from the cold hair and ran. A door rattled open, and light streamed into the cold hall. He couldn’t stop himself from looking back, and he saw pacing yellow eyes before the door rattled shut again. “Don’t be so slow,” Madame hissed, halfway across the bright room. Jonas peered around, disgruntled.
     “You’ve eaten, and you haven’t necessarily proven your intelligence, Madame,” Jonas said in a clear voice. Madame stopped, but didn’t turn back. Jonas put his hand over his mouth and watched her shoulders shake.
     “I am not mad, Jonas Barry,” she said, still staring forward. “I am only different.”

Again, Where is God?

     Sometimes I think of God as I do of the Earth. It's so big, I hardly know it's there. It's round, it's moving fast, but it's too big to see. Like Yankee Doodle, I can't see the city because there are so many houses.
     God is everywhere. Why do I beg Him to be present? When I'm scared, or depressed, or stressed, why is my prayer that He would be near me? I know that there is no place we can hide from Him. I give myself too much credit if I think I can sin enough to make Him leave, while His grace still continues for those on Earth. Across the sea, below the Earth, in the darkest part of a city, He is there. I don't always feel Him. It seems then that He has stepped away, waiting patiently until I cleaned the vomit from my chin and wash my hands with bleach. As if my sin could push Him around, tuck Him away until I straighten up.
     Not so, I am humiliated to realize. God is always there, so where does He go when we can't feel Him?
Stand in the middle of a field, under a tree. Stand in a garden, surrounded by waving corn. Stand on a road in North Dakota, with yellow growth spreading out as far as the Earth goes. Close your eyes.
     Everything is still there.
Your eyes stare at blackness, maybe with a red tint from the sunlight. Still air, and dirt beneath your shoes. Easy enough to say the tree is gone, the plants are gone, the yellow is gone, God is gone. But that is not truth. That is not supported by any fact. No evidence, only the feeling of a moment of blindness.
     When I want the glory of God in my church, my home, I'm going to ask for it differently. God's grace is so great that in the darkest of places, He is still there, watching us with pained love in His eyes. When our eyes are stretched open, and we see Him, we worship Him with all that we are, He is there. When our eyes are shut, or squinting open halfway, fluttering between vision and blindness, He is still there, waiting for us to look and see His beauty.
     It's comforting and solemnizing. God isn't one to know everything as He watches from a great tower of Heaven. He knows everything because He is there, inside the knowledge, watching it all unfold. I feel nothing but faith, at times, but I have that trust that He is all around me. I want those moments of blindness to be short, and I want to open my eyes even while my hands are still dirty. I can never get clean enough anyway. I shouldn't waste time waiting until I feel clean and then begging Him to come. Not when He's waiting there with His hands held out for me to take.
     Annie Dillard had a friend that was blind, and was healed of her blindness. The friend could not see in three dimensions. She had no concept of depth or distance. She saw things as patches of color, splotched across her eyes. Annie Dillard tried to imitate her friend, and managed to see the world as colors, not things, for just a moment. I've tried it many times, and I can only do it halfway.
     Envisioning God all around me, even as I sin and close my eyes to Him, brought Annie to my mind. God's omnipresence is difficult to comprehend. We have no examples of what it is like. I wonder if I look at the world as patches of color, with no depth or distance, nothing beyond what I've been told is there. I want to take the cap off everything, and let it spill over into the sky. God doesn't end. He is everywhere. I only have to open my eyes and see what He wants to show me.
     What a terrifying God. "Fearful in praises, doing wonders." The song of Moses, Exodus 15, is fascinating.     I beg Him to open my eyes to His presence, already here.

Names much like yours

   Jonas stepped backward and almost bumped into Madame.

     “I’m so sorry, Jonas,” she said. “Mimi! In the corner, I told you.” The doll was stiff, only three feet from Jonas. It blinked its eyes, big like owls’ eyes, and then spun back to where it had come. Its arms went down, straight at the elbows, and its eyes snapped shut. Jonas wondered if the doll was waiting, like he did.

     “Why do you have the skin of a mouse, Madame?” he asked, as a first question.

     Madame grinned. “I have many things, simply because I like them,” she said. She was wearing a bright blue suit, with short sleeves.

     “You like dolls,” he said. “How does Mimi move when you tell her to?”

     Madame strode across the carpet and pulled Mimi’s hair from her neck. “She’s a robot, see?” Jonas blinked at the wires that came from the back of Mimi’s head.

     “What’s a robot?” he asked. He was beginning to feel a little dizzy.

     Madame’s mouth drooped. “Never mind, Jonas. A machine, that’s all.”

     He nodded, disappointed that she couldn’t explain. His stomach rumbled.

     “Let’s go eat dinner, shall we?” Madame smiled again. He followed her through the fancy door.

     “Didn’t Lily tell you? Family emergency,” she said. “She won’t be back for a week.”

     “Why didn’t she wake me?” Jonas asked.

     “I don’t know, Jonas. Let’s not worry about it,” she said. “Dinner awaits.”

     Jonas wondered how dinner felt about waiting all the time, and wished there weren’t so many new things around him. It was clear that Madame was what Papa had used to call a ‘collector’. He saw a room full of jars, and another of brilliant yarn. They went down two flights of stairs, and Madame didn’t speak. Jonas wondered if Lily was still here. He looked behind him a lot, expecting Mimi to be following, blinking her dead eyes.

     He was relieved to see three men in the dining room. They had grey hair, and white skin, and their eyes were very dark. Jonas wasn’t relieved anymore when they all turned to him at the same time, and said ‘hello’, one after another, in the same voice. Wasn’t anything normal in Madame’s house? He bowed and said ‘hello’. Madame became very happy, and showed him to a seat across from the middle man.

     “How are you feeling, Jonas?” the middle man asked. “My name is Jones, much like yours.”

     “I am fine,” Jonas said, though he wanted to say that Jones wasn’t much like his name, and he wanted to see his mother, thank you.

     “Have you recovered fully, Jonas?” the man on the left asked. “My name is James, much like yours.” Jonas nodded and stared at him.

     “Are you well enough to eat, Jonas?” the man on the right asked. “My name is John, much like yours.”

     Jonas said, “Yes,” very shortly, and wanted to roll his eyes and stuff his mouth with the rolls that the maid was putting before him. The men watched him for a few minutes, and finally began to speak with Madame. He didn’t hear much of what they said, being concerned with the steaming ham that was on his plate.