My Goofy Sister Faith

Smart people cross the street to walk on the other side when they see my sister Faith coming toward them.

I do too; she is so goofy and we don’t want her to bump into us as she tends to do, even to the most dignified men and women in town.

I suppose the problem is that she is blind, or at least it seems that way to me.

I once saw her walking on a telephone wire a hundred feet up in the night sky, on a stormy night. Why was she doing that?  I don’t know, I suppose she was excercising. Isn’t that goofy?

Maybe Faith is an alien from another planet. She pretends to see what I can’t see and she is as blind as a bat to what is right smack obvious and in front of her. It’s as if she lives in a different world but she is manifested in my world, like an overlay!

All the things that try to destroy smart down-to-earth people don’t faze her a bit, such as cancer and poverty, broken promises and betrayal, those really and truly horrible things, those bullets and bombs. She even smiles when she is locked-up in a room with them.

Me? I want to run away and hide or get out my sword, but not Faith, she just sits there like she’s watching a scary movie and eating popcorn. Sometimes I hear her chuckle inside that room full of serpents.

I read in an otherwise good book that Faith was the evidence of things hoped for, the proof of the unseen, which I think means invisible. Evidently that writer was goofy too. Does he actually want me to believe that Faith is the normal one? What was he smoking?

My sister is tiny; somebody said she was as little as a mustard seed. I’d like to see her get even smaller until she disappears; she makes me so mad and so jealous. I admit it. The things I have seen her do are downright flabbergasting. Someone said she moved an entire mountain, but I didn’t see that so I don’t believe it.

O God how do you tolerate my goofy sister? When will you slap some sense into her?

You know how much she embarrasses me when we’re together.

Some people pretend to like her and invite her to dinner. I think they expect her to bring a good present, but I know she won’t. She hates temporary and you can never bribe her like normal people. Oh she gives gifts alright, really extravagant gifts, miraculous gifts I’d say, but never on my birthday or Christmas, or when I need something pretty bad. No, she waits like I have all the time in the world and then when I least expect it, poof! Faith has her hand stretched out to me. Who can trust a friend like that?

God, why do I bother to complain to You about my goofy sister? You probably made her that way and you probably love her more than you love me.  Faith called me a dead-head, and You didn’t even punish her. Did I hear you laughing?  

(Painting by Mark Rothko)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Birth Days and Sun Rises

There are many things I will not miss about this old earth when I get to Kingdom Come. I won’t miss fear or anger or lies. And especially I won’t miss the way political parties addict people to the sensation of hatred from which they can conjure up a sick kind of loyalty and power. I suppose to be rid of every iota of evil is why God needs to wipe the slate clean and make a whole new world in the first place. I hope on my millionth birthday I don’t even remember all the bad stuff, not even a tiny bit.

But there are a few things I will miss very much. These are the things I should cherish the most while in this old skin because I’ll only have these swiftly flowing years to enjoy them. One is the sunrise on a clear morning over the ocean. I have spent many hours in cool darkness, watching and waiting for the exhilaration of the streaks of red in the night sky and for the bursting speck of light over the straight expansive horizon that illuminates only the east while the heavens around it lie still in deep darkness. Then within minutes this speck of light bursts forth into a coin of brightness rising steadily to give birth to a new day. Glorious sunrises over the ocean shower my soul with raindrops of bliss. I’ll miss sun rises when I am in the light-filled land where there is no use for them.

But most of all I will miss births and babies and little toddlers. I understand that in the happy land of immortality, where sickness, sorrow, and sighing have all fled away, where no anguish haunts us from the separation of death, where love reigns supreme, where there is no marriage because genders fade into the unity of God, babies will never be born.

Yet, how I will miss waiting for the birth of a new clean person into my world. How I will miss their energetic exuberance, their bright laughing eyes, their wonder and merriment. How I will miss playing and cuddling, and showing these little ones new and wonderful aspects of life.  If I am wise for my years, then I will cherish these days of flesh, and lock these beautiful memories safely away in a vault down deep in my heart. So on lazy days in the land of love, I can bring them out one by one, and gaze on them with a nostalgic smile here, and a giggle there. Then, if I can, I will go and fetch that one whose birth and early days I held in my vaulted heart, all grown up in glory, and together we will remember the striking beauty of birth days and sun rises on the earth of our birth, the land of mottled light and darkness.   

Me and God

I love Him but I can’t see Him. I know He is there because He proves it to me when He plays with time right in front of my eyes. Last week I thought I should try again to look for an agent for my book, The Immortal Life, and the very next day Beth told me that she spoke to her old friend from Bedford after thirty five years and it turns out that Sally is an agent and is willing to see my book. How did He do that?

A week later I went to my new book club to talk about Frankenstein with the Catholic ladies. When I arrived, there was only the leader there and no one else. She mentioned that there was a Mass going on in the chapel so I said, “Let’s go!” There was a small company of about five people in the Mass. It was being said for their new project. When we walked in the lay reader was reading the Book of Samuel, and was at the point when young Samuel was trying to sleep. He kept hearing his master call him. Several times Samuel got up and went to find out what he wanted only to hear the master say that he did not call him. Finally the master realized that God was calling young Samuel and had something to say so he told the boy that the next time he heard the call he should reply “Here I am Lord.” Everyone in the small congregation silently said, “Here I am Lord.” And then we said it together out loud a few times in the responsive prayer. After Mass my new friend and I went back into the sitting room to talk about Frankenstein. A couple of men joined us because we offered wine and camaraderie. When the small company emerged from the chapel I asked them what their project was, and the one man replied that they were going to syndicate content to Christians. I asked if they needed content and gave them my card. Once again my invisible but powerful Lord was encouraging me.

It doesn’t matter if nothing comes of these two incidents; God was showing me for the millionth time that He can orchestrate my life (and yours) any way He wants. I like that. I don’t have to try too hard or be too ambitious. I only have to try hard to listen and write what He wants me to write. As I’ve said, ‘I am the visible ghost-writer of the invisible author.’ That alone is not an easy job. Someone else has to do the marketing of all this writing. I’m glad to be reminded that it is the Author who markets for me.

I suppose that it isn’t really the Father God Himself who is orchestrating all these marvels, but it is His angel that He has assigned to me.  I hope that my angel is very good and perfectly serves our Lord. I would hate to have a flawed or tricky angel.

Every time, well almost every time, God plays with time to show me He is near I get so excited about it that I write it down in my hard copy Journal. I feel so sorry for the people who don’t believe that the invisible God is Someone to love and obey and that one day will become very visible and that forever and ever and ever in a sunny place.

I trust Him with my life because He can play with time and I wonder over and over again how He does that because I can’t, at least not yet.