GERMFASK XIV

After quickly devouring his fried, green tomatoes, the stranger reached his long, slender arm beneath his chair and pulled a big leather-bound Bible from his briefcase and laid it on the table with a thud.  It was much more worn since they last time they had seen it. Bookmarks made from bright yellow and orange aspen leaves jutted from the bottom of the book like the wings of giant locusts being pressed between the pages.

Tom looked around the table at his extra-stellar friends. “Okay, are we ready? Is it time that you explain to me what the Church is?”

David wiped his mouth with his napkin and looked up at him, “I thought you knew everything?”  He sat up straight and stared with anticipation to make it clear this was not a joke.

Tom put his hand on David’s shoulder, “I never said I know everything. We know a lot, but there are gaping holes in our knowledge. We have a detailed history of humanity that you don’t have, but we have never had the scriptures to explain the gospel.”

David picked up Tom’s Bible and flipped through the pages until one of the leaves fell out. “Sorry,” he said as he picked it off the floor and stuck it back between the pages. “So now you have the scriptures and you people are so smart—a lot smarter than us emotional-thinkers—what then do you want from us?”

Tom smiled, “But you see, we have no tradition of the scriptures to draw from. We want to learn from you. After all, you’ve had the chance to study the scriptures for over two thousand years.  I guess we just don’t want to start from scratch . . . so please teach us.” 

Greg was to Tom’s left and scratching his head. His mind was pondering something and the pondering was written all over his face like bold print. “Say, Tom. Before we go down that path, trying to explain the Church . . . well, I’m intrigued. What do you know about us that we don’t? I mean about human history?”

Tom had wished that he had never mentioned that point, because he really came there that morning to learn about the Church.  He rubbed his face. “Okay, I will do this. I will indulge in some history but I won't answer any follow up questions . . . at least not until you answer my question about the nature of the Church.”

Tom looked at Greg, who was all ears, and smiled. Then he continued, “Hmm, ok we know that the earth really is very, very old and the earth scientists are not that far off. It is about four and a half billion years old.” 

David was shaking his head . . . but remaining quiet.  So Tom continued, “The dinosaurs died off because of a pandemic of the bird flu . . . as they were in the bird family after all.  The pandemic spread quickly and that’s why you have the piles of dead animals.  It wasn’t due to an asteroid hitting the earth. Actually the huge crater, beneath the water off Yucatan, is a huge volcanic caldera. There was no asteroid. It did erupt a few times, creating a couple of the ice ages. Let me see, we also know what happened to the Neanderthals.  They were genetically different from humans, but not completely different.  Actually, the homo-sapiens didn’t kill them off . . . but they were cursed by beauty.  You see, the Neanderthals were in Europe and other areas first. When the homo-sapiens arrived, the Neanderthals dominated them by not only mightier physique but bigger brains. The Neanderthal men had one downfall and that was that they found homo-sapien women irresistible.  They were as Venus to them. They left their own kind and bred only with the homo-sapien women. This led, like in the case of the Mule, a sterile off-spring. So, in the meantime the homo-sapien men were continuing to multiply with their natural mates and the Neanderthal linage came to an end.”  Tom noticed the totally uninterested looks on everyone’s face but Greg’s.  “So that’s that. Now to the topic at hand.”

Tom turned to David and slid his Bible in his direction.  David didn’t pick it up but looked at the group. “This is easy. The Church is the Bride of Christ. She is the organization of His people.”

Tom smiled again, “But David, you have to do much better than that. Those are only poetic words. We are serious about this. This information is crucial for an entire planet of people.” Tom slid the Bible even closer to David until it was touching his belly, “So, David, what really is the Church? How would you define it?  Are we (pointing to the group around the table) a church?”

David had a little frown, “No, I wouldn’t call this group a church. That would be somewhat of a sacrilege to the true church.”

Tom saw sifting in the seats of Father Randy and Debra out of the corner of his left eye. Then he asked David, “So how is that?”

“Well, for one, we have different beliefs here.  I think Greg and I have profoundly different views of what it means to be a Christian and we covered that before. The same is true with the Father here . . . and Debra. So we can’t be part of the same Church.”

“So there is more than one? Christ has two bodies? So He is a polygamist?” asked Tom.

Father Randy seized the opportunity, “That would be one area of historical disagreement.  The position of my church is that indeed there is only one Church and hopefully, one day Christ will restore the Church to one body. But for now it is divided.”

Tom looked at David, “So do you agree with that?”

David thought for a moment, “I don’t agree that the Father’s church is the one Church.  His church took a powerful detour hundreds of years ago and there are plenty of people in my church that would say that his Church is not real, or they are not even real Christians.”

Tom looked cautiously at him, “Do you believe that yourself?”

There was a minute of awkward silence then Mike spoke up, “You see Tom, before you came here we would never have these type of dividing discussions . . . and that was a good thing.  I think you are going to stir up trouble and people are going to get their feelings hurt if you’re not careful.”

Tom shook his head. “But this is insanity!  What is the Church is a very serious topic. It should be discussed by a group of people, each with a passion for the truth. But you people of the earth—and don’t forget that we are people of the earth too—only have emotional reasoning.  You wrap your discussion in layers of emotional factors and it is because of that, you get easily offended. Where I come from, we have these discussions all day long and no one would ever dream of getting offended because we each are obliged to the truth and not to just maintaining our own personal systems of feeling valuable.”

Mike seemed lost, and then he spoke again, “All I’m trying to say is that Jesus was the Prince of Peace.  It is wonderful that four or five people, with very different perspectives, can enjoy each other’s company once a week for breakfast. That is a breakthrough. That is all we really want.”

Tom, still shaking his head, “But the way you people do it is by pretending that all is well. You bury your disagreements because your longing isn’t for truth but for maintaining your own belief system at all cost. This fellowship of breakfast is what you call a farce.  The only time you debate a topic, or it seems like the only time, is to try and prove yourself right and the others wrong so you can feel better about yourself. It has nothing to do with finding the truth. I’m really surprise that you are not still in your Dark Ages.”

As soon as the word “farce” had come out of Tom’s mouth, Mike’s mind instantly turned to his daughter Ashley’s tough words the week before, what were they, “fucking charade?” He felt a pain in the pit of his stomach and it wasn’t the Tabasco on his Cowboy Omelet.

There was a tense feeling around the table. Tom looked around the restaurant. It was almost empty with its low point at eleven AM, too late for breakfast and too early for lunch.  Sharon was in the corner watching carefully.

Tom, turned back to David, “So where were we? Please be open and honest . . . what is the Church?”

David thumbed through the Bible in front of him. “As I was saying it is the body of Christ. God set up the church for a system of worship, fellowship, the sacraments, accountability and the Great Commission of taking the Gospel to the world.”

Tom shook his head, “You’re being a poet again.  Pick up the book and show me!  This is very important.  I’ve read your scriptures over and over during the past six months and I know it doesn’t use any of those words. Roughly there are about one hundred and ten times that the term, translated to English as ‘church,’ is used in the scriptures. It only refers to the church as a movement, group, congress, collection of people, loose association.  I just don’t see this highly structured thing with such clear cut marching orders as you describe.”

Father Randy, looking at his watch and obviously wanting to move things along, spoke up. “God has spoken to us in His scriptures, but sometimes, giving us more details through our traditions and history. It is in those traditions that we have created more of the structure of the Church . . . according to God’s will and good pleasure.”

Tom sat back in his chair and put his chin on his hand. He could see David’s disapproval to his right. He turned and looked at him, “So David, do you have trouble with that?”

“I wouldn’t put traditions and church history on the same level of the Bible. I pastor a Bible-centered church and everything we do is based on the Bible.”

Tom started laughing, “David, I’ve almost pushed the scriptures here into your lap and you’ve never looked at it once, at least not seriously.  Your beliefs seem to be totally based on your traditions more so than the Father’s. So, do we put the same value on traditions as scriptures?”

“No,” came Mike’s quick response.  “We don’t ignore our church’s traditions, but we don’t base our beliefs on this . . . say like the Catholic Church would.”

Tom said, “I have to disagree. I think you base your knowledge far more on your traditions than even Father Randy, and he admits that he bases his truth on traditions and church history.”

David stood up, “Folks, it is eleven thirty and I have a million things to do.”

Father Randy said, in an accommodating way, “Tom, I think your discussion deserves more time . . . so, next week?”  He then looked around the table to several nods. 

David spoke up, “I’m not sure. This is my busy season and our church has a fall ministry campaign that I’m in the middle of. I may or may not be back.”

Tom stood up and reached out to shake David’s hand (David was assuming it was a goodbye shake) but then the stranger said to him, “David, this topic seems to be as essential for you as it is for us. So, please be back next week.  How can you have a church fall campaign if you are not even sure what the church really is?”

As they walked away, Greg caught up to Tom and said to him, “Hey, could I have a word with you?”

Tom looked at him and gave a positive nod.

“Hey man, I want to hear more about the unknown human history.  Are there other people on other planets . . . oh, apart from your people?”

GERMFASK XIII

With the first frost under their belts, the quiet people of the upper peninsula had Autumn pulled up tight around their waists like a favorite pair of trousers. In just one week the gold of the hills had descended to the very edge of the creeks and convoluted lake shores. The season is short here, and the flakes of winter were floating, being suspended on simple imaginations that would quickly yield to realizations.

David Smith was seated with his cup of coffee. Debra, who was often late, was already there as was Mike and Father Randy.  Greg had mentioned the previous week that he might be late, something about picking up another load of firewood on the way through GERMFASK.  There was no sign of the stranger.

Once they were seated and Sharon had done her duty to to collect their appetites on a paper pad and the pencil back behind her ear, David spoke, "I don't know about the rest of you, but our little experiment with the stranger should be drawing to a close soon."

Debra looked puzzled, "Is he leaving?"

David frowned, "One should only hope."

Debra gave one of those crock-eyed smiles that communicate more puzzlement than good humor, "What's your problem with the man?  I personally find him intriguing."

"The man is an enigma, and I don't mean that in any kind of positive way. He is obscure and he is arrogant. I have bad feelings about him. I think he could even have something demonic."

Randy spoke briefly to Sharon who had come back to the table to inform him that they had some fresh-picked, wild morel mushrooms in and would he rather have those in his omelet.  "Would I?" came his bright response.  Then he turned to the table, "Brother David, I really don't think the man means to be arrogant, but he is just factual, at least the way he sees things."

"If I hear him say one more time that his people make decisions from logic and we, so-called, earthlings do it from emotions, I think I will excuse myself and leave and never come back. I frankly find that insulting."

"Who's insulting?" came Greg's voice as he walked up from behind them, shaking sawdust off his jacket.

Mike answered, "David here thinks that Tom is a bit arrogant, and I would have to agree . . .  at least to a degree."

As Greg sat down, he smiled big and said in whisper, "I find the man incredible! I for one am taking him serious about his claims of being an alien."

Debra elbowed him, "Remember Greg, he would correct you, he is not an alien but a pilgrim, a displaced earthling." She paused to sip her coffee but then halted and whispered, "And he is coming in the door."

Tom walked up and stood by the table looking leaner than usual, "Good Morning Lady and gentlemen." He took off his Indiana Jones-hat and stuck it under his chair with his briefcase.  He took a seat and pulled up to the table and looked around.  He turned and looked directly at Father Randy, "So how's the ole heart doing?"

Father Randy's jaw literally dropped to the point that coffee ran down his chin. He turned and looked at Debra.  She began shaking her head as to say, "I didn't tell him."

Father Randy then looked back at the stranger, "Uh, what are you talking about?"

"Father, it is clear to me that you've had some health issues lately and I assume it is your heart."

"Who told you this?"

"It is simply logic, logic without emotion." (David to his right let out a sigh)

"What logic?"

"What you call deductive reasoning.  I observed last week that you didn't look well. You lower eyelids were of a lighter pink than normal, telling me you've a touch of anemia from possible blood loss, maybe a surgery or a procedure. Then I noticed how Debra gave you a little caress when she greeted you last week.  She has never done that before. I heard the two of you talking about a trip down the Grand Canyon. You are a man of sixty. You told me that your father died from a heart attack when he was forty eight. You have a thin white arc around your irises, a sign of elevated cholesterol. I heard you order your omelet made with Egg Beaters last week, you had never done that before. By the way, I had to look that one up in my dictionary. Debra had quite a bit more sun after your trip. That tells me that she was outdoors more than you. The only reason that she would separate from her dear friend was if he was in bed sick or in a hospital . . . should I go on?"

"Holy shit!" came Greg's response. "Father, is he right?"

"He is. Yeah, I had a little coronary mishap in Arizona."

"Are you okay?" asked Mike.

"Fit as a fiddle. I do need to take better care of myself. It was God's wake up call, but I didn't want to bother anyone with this."

Tom looked puzzled, "So you literally think that God caused you to have a heart attack, just to get you to do something.  My-o-my . . . you must think that God is mighty manipulative, somewhat like a spoiled child."

No one spoke a word as Tom gave Sharon his order, or actually just approved her recommendation . . . as always some new tomato concoction.  Finally Tom turned to his right a bit, in almost a robotic manner, and spoke, "Michael, tell us what is going on in your life. I sense that there is a disturbance close to home for you."

Greg leaned over the table and looked Mike in the eyes with great a expectation, "Did he nail you too?"

Mike blushed.  "Okay, I do have some things I'm working on in my personal life, but it isn't something I want to talk about with this group."

They all sat in silence until Mike spoke again. "So I'm curious. What gave me away?"

"Over the past few months I've seen you discouraged or concerned about things in your church. But this time its different.  I notice how quiet you were last week . . . except to take two phone calls.  Normally you just turn your phone off during breakfast. After each call, you seemed more worried than before. But your look of worry is deeper than when it was been over one of your church members. This must be personal.  I know that you  have a daughter, as you told me the first time I met you. So, I suspect that there's something difficult going on with either your wife, your daughter . . . or both."

Greg was looking at Mike, "So, tell us what's going on?"

Mike's eyes filled with tears, "Nothing. What I mean is this is personal, something I do not wish to discuss here."

"Leave him alone," came David's plea. "Leave the man alone. He said it's personal so let it be."

Tom rotated to his direct right, "David, I wish I could share with you what I know about you, but you're a closed book. I do know that you have something to hide and I haven't figured it out yet."

David chuckled with an angry laugh, like a dare, "So share your great insight, I'm all ears."

Tom smiled and looked around the group, "You, David, are a rigid man. You see the world through a rule book. Those who do such, use rules as runs of a ladder.  They grab them and pull up hard, trying to escape the murky guilt that is wrapped, like an octopus, around their ankles.You also use those rules to push others down, in order to give yourself leverage to get above the haunting guilt."

David burst out laughing. "You are so far off the mark that it isn't funny."  He took a drink of coffee and continued, "It's my turn to dissect your heart.  You are an arrogant man, judging everyone around your, because you are a con artist and don't know the Lord at all.  I don't know what your game is, but the spirit is telling me that you are up to no good. Figuring out Father Randy and Mike is a Satanic power, not from the Spirit.  The Spirit's works are always loving, warm and nurturing."

"Just like when the Spirit of God slaughtered the Philistines . . . or the Egyptians." Tom said with a somber smile on his face.

Father Randy, the perpetual peacemaker spoke up, "Gentlemen, the topic this morning was suppose to be about the nature of the Church of Christ. I think we should go around the table and each of us share our traditional or personal views of the topic.  Speaking of which, I think we have gotten way off topic for the morning."

Tom smiled, "Actually Father, and I say this with the utmost respect, that I was dead-center with the topic. The point being, is not the Church, the essence that surrounds the people of God when they are together?  If so, I was exploring this notion that you earthlings, as you would call yourselves, sit behind these towers of stone.  You can't talk about the realities of your life because you are entombed in fear, a fear based on the emotion of feeling insecure in your self-esteem.  To me, and I'm here to learn, it would seem that the Church is a place where the Gospel has penetrated fully, thus the communication is pure and open and safe. Not layers of not being able talk about the essentials, leaving only the trivial as the only permissible subjects."

Oddly, they all focused on eating while the words of Tom were being slowly digested.

GERMFASK CHAPTER XII

Michael Monroe was a quiet man in his original demeanor . . .  yet, he had been quieter and more distracted than usual.  No one, save his wife Beth, knew about the chaos percolating up in his personal life and she only knew part of it.

Everything in his sphere of influence seemed to be in perfect balance, when suddenly they began to unravel like an un-fused rope end in a hurricane.  The tincture that turned the wine into vinegar was a young man, who went by the name of “Rude,” a preferred shortened form of Ruddy or was it Rodney?

Rude was a transfer from Detroit. He was rough around the edges, into the grunge scene, so it seems. The first time that Mike had seen him was at Ashley's, his sixteen year old daughter’s, volleyball game.  He saw the boy at the corner of the gym with his long, jet-black dyed hair, a chrome chain going from his billfold to his belt and combat boots. He didn’t like him. He had no clue at the time that Rude was there—precisely—to watch Ashley play.

Ashley had had a boyfriend who had Mike and Beth’s perfect approval.  He was a member of their church. He was clean-cut. He played on the basketball team and he worked at the Hardware store. They knew that Ashley wasn’t talking much of Jonathan as of late but they didn’t realize that they had broken up. But Mike and Beth also had no idea that she was now becoming total obsessed with Rude.

It wasn’t until Beth herd from Jonathan’s mother in Sunday school that Ashley was dating this new, bad kid named Jude.  Jonathan’s mother whispered to Beth at church a couple of Sunday’s later, “How do you feel about Ashley’s smoking?” 

“Smoking?” asked Beth with a puzzled look. Jonathan’s mom just nodded. Of course, she was saying those things to make sure it was clear that Ashley was the villain in the breakup with her son. It would be assumed that the Preacher’s kid was always the one in the white hat.

This led to a confrontation that afternoon. Mike and Beth sat in the parsonage living room and demanded to hear it all . . . which they would later regret.

 Ashley was stone-walling at first, but she knew this day of reckoning was eventually coming, so she finally caved in and told them everything. She poured the details on them so fast that Mike and Beth clutched the arms of the overstuffed chairs for dear life, like they were riding them down a class five rapids or a whirly ride at the state fair. 

Ashley stated that she was deeply in love, her words, and Rude is the man she has always dreamt of. She wants to marry him as soon as she graduates, or maybe move in with him. He has helped her see truth in the world for the first time. He writes music. He is a poet. He taught her to smoke pot, which does more for her than church ever did. She only smokes tobacco to train her lungs to inhale pot.

Being disoriented on the whirly ride, Beth finally shouted STOP!  SHUT YOUR MOUTH!!  Michael, say something!

None of Mike’s pastoral counseling classes had prepared him for this moment. Maybe he was prepared to help other parents deal with the situation with an emotional detachment, but not in his own family.  He was totally lost for words.  He prayed in his silent places.  He felt so scared. Ashley was sixteen and she had the power to trump anything he could say . . . by simply walking out the door . . . which she would eventually do.

Beth had demanded that Mike do something, at least about the pop-smoking. Ashley didn’t have a car to take away. Mike did ground her, but those were empty words to Ashley.  Mike, taking the best position that he could as a parent of a sixteen-year-old, but still a weak position, told her that she could never bring pot or even tobacco into their house or, or  . . .  “Or what?” Ashley demanded.

Mike was trembling on the inside. Beth was staring at Mike from the other side of Ashley, her eyes demanding that he man up. He spoke as if programed words were coming out . . .  “Or you can’t live here.”

“That’s fine. I didn’t want to live here anymore anyway. I’m sick and tired of playing Christian . . . so sick I want to puke all over your little church.”

Beth was sobbing uncontrollably.  Ashley packed up her Britney Spears overnight bag (which her non-Christian grand pa had given her when she turned ten).  It was a strange paradox a girl doing a grown up thing like leaving home but with a little girl’s suitcase. Apparently she had phoned Rude because the moment she walked the door he pulled up in is rattly and rusty Subaru.  They pulled out and up the street and they could hear his broken muffler echoing through the neighborhood.

Up until the threshold of their door, Beth had been screaming, “Where are you going?  You have to tell us where’re you going?  We will call the police if you don’t tell us.”

Ashley replied, “Don’t worry about it. I will be safe. But I can’t live here in pretend anymore. I just can’t stand this fucking Charade.”

Beth looked with horror, “Ashley don’t ever use those words in this house! I don’t even know who you are anymore.”

Ashley smiled, “You just don’t get it.  I won’t be using any words in this house anymore!  That’s why the hell I’m leaving!” She then paused and turned around, “And another thing dear mom, you have never known me!”

Mike and Beth both stopped at the threshold of their door. They didn’t want to take the family fight out into the yard where people could see them.  Mike had been evangelizing Clifford across the street for years. It would ruin their wittiness.  The Jorgensen’s lived just down the street. Stephen was an elder at their church.

In the silent, cultured stone split-level was empty and quiet . . . quiet except for the sounds of Beth’s sobbing.  Mike tried to hold her, but she seemed angry at him and pushed him away.  Finally she gave vent to the emotions building up in side of her, “Why didn’t you do something?  Why didn’t you stop her? Mike . . . what are we going to do?”

Mike was silent and numb on the outside. Inside he felt terrified.  His whole life had just been turned upside down.  He felt like he had just watched a horror movie, but when the lights came on, then he exited into the street from the theater, the monsters were still there.  You couldn’t put the genie back into the bottle. Their family would never, ever be the family they were just a week earlier.

They did call the police. The police treated it as a simple runaway, but the officer knew Mike and Beth personally. Beth demanded that he keep quiet about their problem.  He assured them he would. He went beyond what he was required to do.  He looked for the kids until he found the rusty car sitting in front of one of Ashley’s friend’s house.  He went in and talked with them. Her friend’s mother was offering Ashley a place to stay until this blew over.

As bad as things had become, it wasn’t the worse of things for Mike. That came a week later.  During their intensive and more personal than typical conversations, Beth said something that shook Mike’s world more that Ashley’s leaving had.

They were sitting in bed talking and Beth said, “Ashley needs to grow up and realize, like I did, that she needs to pick the good man to be with, not the one you are in love with.”  As soon as she said those words, she realized in her lapse of vigilance she spoke much more honestly than she intended.

“What does that mean?” Mike asked. “Are you saying you married me, not out of love, but out of discipline?”

“Of course not! I do love you. I was just saying that I was mature enough to know that you were a good man and that you would make a good husband and father and that’s why I married you.”

Mike sat in a cold, dark silence as he pondered where to take the conversation. He was totally infatuated with Beth when they married. He assumed that she was about him.

Beth hit the remote hoping to distract the conversation. She had always avoided speaking her heart to anyone, especially Mike. But now they were in her inner world and she wanted them to exit, so she could close that door, which she had inadvertently opened.

Finally Mike spoke again, “Beth, you weren’t in love with me were you?  I always had that sense, but for now the pieces seem to fit.”

“Mike, I love you and that is what counts.  Who even knows what being in love really is. It is a word children use.”

“Beth, I have no doubts I was deeply in love with you.”

But Mike started putting pieces together.  When he met Beth, she was a new convert coming to their campus ministry. She was dating a tall, handsome guy, Lew, who played tennis for the state college and was a fraternity president.  Mike remembered how hard it was for Beth to break up with him, but she knew that she had to leave that partying lifestyle. 

Mike barely knew her at the time.  But looking back, he knew that Beth had been in love with Lew. Now, he realized that she had never been in love with him in the same way. He was the safe, quiet man. Right now, that is not what he wanted to be. Strangely, he would rather have been Beth's Rude.

In a span of a week, he realized that he was a failure as a father, a pastor and the knight he always wanted to be, winning the love and admiration for the woman he loved. He was terrified that his sweet, little princess daughter was being sexually active and doing so with a man . . . a boy . . . who didn't love her the way that he did.  His heart was breaking.

The avalanche of insecurities where overwhelming for Michael Monroe. On the surface, for the sake of the Gospel, for the sake of his church, he had to pretend that all was well. However, he felt like a Russian Matryoshka doll, where layer by layer he was being consumed from the inside out by wood-eating piranha. Layer by layer his inner man was dying, and he felt as just a shell . . . a smiling and shellacked  pastor Mike. He could let no one know . . . for the sake of the Gospel, he had to man up.

GERMFASK CHAPTER XI

Debra pulled out of Munising in her little, black Jetta, going up the steep hill to the top of the Peninsula plateau.  She turned out and left onto M28 for her drive to GERMFASK.  It was a lovely early autumn day. The sky was a deep, sapphiric blue. Far below the Pictured Rocks Cliffs she saw glimpses of Lake Superior in all her glory, a paler blue than the sky but stretching out to meet it at the northern horizon with a feathered edge. Debra noticed for the first time that the golden Autumn-fairy had lightly touched her magic wand to the tips of the maples, aspens and birches on the higher hills.  Soon, from these points of origins, gold would melt down across the hillcrests and then the valleys with such intensity that a prolonged look could make you go blind.  Even Vermont’s  mountains of October revert to greenness  in envy of this remote and obscure Autumn delight.

Debra was feeling stable on her feet once again after a scare just a week earlier. She was huddled in the ICU of the Flagstaff Medical Center, praying for her dear friend Father Randy.  The two of them had a wonderful, and long-planned, mule ride to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. However, in the middle of the night, in the bottom of the abyss, Father Randy awakened with crushing chest pains. It seemed like hours before the rescue helicopter could make its landing at clearing to pick him up.  Since there was only room for the patient and the medics, Debra had the torturous task of waiting until daybreak, without any cell tower coverage, to make her way back up the canyon wall to civilization. By the time she reached the hospital, Randy had already been evaluated, diagnosed and treated . . . with a stent to keep his circumflex artery open. 

But now they were both back in the Upper Peninsula.  This morning’s breakfast would be the first time she had seen or talked to Randy since they left each other at the Marquette airport four days earlier. He did ask her not to share his story with anyone. It was his sense that a priest has the calling to be the caregiver . . .  and not the cared-for.

Pulling into the graveled parking lot outside the inn with the sound of cracking limestone under her rubber tires, Debra noticed that all the cars of her fellow breakfasteers were there, including the mysterious stranger.  During her hour drive, she had meditated on how to pigeon-hole her views on the Gospel. She felt torn between what she questioned in her heart and what her church expected.

 She also felt this great uneasiness about the fact that she wasn’t prepared to answer the stranger.  Even after a BA degree from a Christian college and a Masters in theology and ministry. Even after having prepared for and delivered a thousand sermons in her career; too many Bible studies, funerals, weddings and other extraneous Christian ceremonies to count, she still wasn’t sure what the Gospel really was.

She would soon find out that it didn’t really matter.  Debra said her hellos around the table and took her usual spot between Father Randy and Greg Landis.  Everyone else were in their traditional seats, with Tom Hans just to the right of Greg, going counter-clockwise was followed by David Smith, then Mike Monroe and back to Father Randy to complete the circle.

As Debra slipped off her jacket and reached to her left and gave Randy a little hug, Sharon appeared and took her order . . . “I’ll try your mushroom and spinach omelet. That’s new isn’t it?” asked Debra.  Sharon smiled and nodded.

Debra looked around the table and saw the faces of each of the men for the first time with consideration.  Mr. Han’s cheeks were quite red, like sunburned, if not that, then wind burned.  The stranger then spoke while she was still studying his form . . . as if to help her made a judgment if he really could be extra-terrestrial.

“Friends, I hope you had a wonderful summer vacation.  I’ve spent the time in study and contemplation. I know on our last meeting I was trying to get you to define the Gospel. This is very important to my people and a clear definition is imperative. However, and I shouldn’t have been surprised, that we got nowhere fast.  There was a spectrum around the table as what constitutes a ‘true believer.’”

Tom continued, “I think, that despite my years of study from a distance, I under-estimated to what extend that you earth-dwellers reason from emotion than logic.That emotion, of course, is deeply fused with your sense of value. As I told you before, and I don’t want to offend you in any way (reaching out and touching David on his left arm and smiling at him) but our people discovered a long time ago to separate those two parts of our brain’s processing. We reason and make decisions from logic. We save the emotions simply for personal enjoyment.”

David looked almost angry, “I have to disagree with you.  I think we are very logical.”

Tom smiled with a kind smile, “Hmm . . . I know that you think that, but it isn’t true.  Here is my point. We couldn’t have a logical discussion around this table about what is the Gospel, because each person’s position on the topic has been set in concrete . . . or at least a thick mud. That setting has to do with your personal up-bringing and your social context and not about logic.  You can't speak against what your group thinks, or it would take away your sense of value . . . and emotional issue.

Tom paused for a minute and then continued, "You would like to think it was through a logical process, but it wasn’t. Therefore, when it is set in hardened emotional-congregate all you have left to do is to defend that position to the bitter end.  So, to save a lot of time, I simply searched the electronosphere . . . woops . . . I mean what you call the Internet, and read what your churches teach.  I read both your denominational views and in some cases, such as Debra’s here, I read you actual church’s web site for that information. So, now it is a moot point because I know that none of you will sway from those positions.”

David spoke again, “I still disagree with you and am a bit offended that you think that we reason from emotions. If I didn’t believe exactly what the Church of God, Cleveland, Tennessee to be exact, believed, I would be out the door tomorrow. But it is my personal study of scriptures that has led me to my position, using logic and inspiration from the Holy Spirit.”

Tom smiled again, “Nope, it isn’t true. You wouldn’t change your position no matter what someone else said or what you read in scripture because to do so would have tremendous emotional consequences to you. You would have to leave your church. You would be unemployed. You would lose your insurance. You would have to find a job or new denomination that would accept you as a pastor and lastly, and where most of the rigidity comes from in your concrete, you would lose your friends. They would think less of you if you didn’t believe like they do. So the consequences are just too great for you to change your mind.”

Sharon showed up with three plates, two of omelets and one of an assortment of tomatoes, fresh ones, fried ones and even a special tomato pudding that she made just for Tom. He smiled and thanked her.

Then he continued, “This is very different among my people. We figured this out a long time ago. We reach our positions of thought, our decisions of life, based on the logic God has given us . . . then we enjoy the emotions that come later. We never put emotional pressure on others to think like we do. It is not political or emotional.  We do not feel threatened when someone doesn’t think like we do. We enjoy logical dialog and that dialog has real consequences. If there is enough logic presented, we do change our minds.  This is why we have never had a Dark Age. This is why we stopped the very illogical thing called war a long time ago.  But don’t be offended, all your society thinks from emotions. Your atheists are just as bad or worse about it. They conform to those they study and work with on an emotional level, not on a logical level. You could not thrive very well emotionally if you had a deep conviction about Christianity being true and getting a higher degree in a program where atheism is highly esteemed.”

Tom slipped two freshly cut tomatoes into his mouth and smiled.

“So, back to what I was saying, Uh . . .”

A voice came from Tom’s left, “I think this is one area that I might side with David on,” said Greg.  "I started out a long time ago as a Baptist, then I became a Methodist minister and now I’m attending a Unitarian congregation as a retired Methodist minister. So, we can change our minds.”

Tom answered, “Oh, I never said that you don’t change your minds, but you earth dwellers convince yourselves that you reach certain positions because of logic, or as David was saying, that God speaks directly to you with certain facts, which are not evident through the senses.  But that isn’t true most of the time. Greg, I challenge you to go back and review your changes in course. I suspect that those changes happened on emotional factors. You met people who you liked and who thought differently. You wanted to be their friend, so you started to think more like them. I suspect you left the Baptist church when you figured out you were gay and that might be why you like the Unitarians so much. Once you people make a decision on an emotional level, you go back and support that decision with some logic to continue the illusion.”

Father Randy spoke, “I’m not sure that is so bad. God works though society and teaches us from one another and sometimes that teaching comes through conformity to those whom we love.”

Tom seemed to me more confrontation than before their August break as he looked intensely at Father Randy, “Father all due respect, but as a man of the Catholic cloth, you are closely bound by your church’s teaching. You could not publically say that the Protestants are right in their view of the Gospel because to do so, you would have to step down from your position, maybe be excommunicated and it would have a profound change in your life. Your views on the Gospel are strictly limited by the concrete restraints of your church. So, I don’t need to put you in the position of trying to explain to me what you think the Gospel really is, I just will take one of your church’s manuals on the Gospel.”

There was an uneasy silence around the table.  No one noticed that Mike had left to take a phone call on his cell and had returned.

Tom spoke once more after downing a teaspoon of his pink pudding.  “So I will end this topic by summarizing that there are two views of the Gospel. One is that God gave it as a gift to completely cleanse us from our guilt and allow us to stand boldly in His presence. However some of you, such as you Father and you, David, believe that the Gospel is not enough in itself but must be combined with other rituals.”

“I do not believe such things!” said David in almost a shout.

“David,” said Tom, “Did you not define the true believer by many terms of rituals?  They are the ones who watch certain TV, read certain books, aren’t gay, aren’t Democrats and etc.?”

David just stared in silence.

Tom continued, “So here is the question I really want you to think about for next week. This is very, very important to my people. What is the Church?  What is required of us for being a Church?  I would love to hear your honest opinions and base it as much as possible on logic and what you read in scripture.  I give you permission to say things that your church or your Christian friends don’t believe. “

Tom cleared his throat and continued, “You see, our people don’t have any type of meeting that you would call church. We are in some sense a theocracy because we don’t separate our government from our belief in God. So when we meet to do the business of our society, well, that is as close as we come to what might look like a church. But now that I will be taking the scriptures back with us, we want to know what they really say about church.”

It is New Year's Eve and I had to type in a rush without proofing. I hope to come back and fix the errors, bare with me please.

GERMFASK PART II, A REINTRODUCTION

I will begin with a quick review. You may also do a site search on this blog for "GERMFASK" and all previous chapters will appear.

Synopsis: GERMFASK, is the name of a tiny, isolated village in the eastern end of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The major town business is the Jolly Inn, which is a restaurant and inn with two rooms for let. The proprietors are Arnie and his wife Sharon, transplants from Chicago.

 In this restaurant an impromptu ecumenical discussion group formed when the local Catholic priest, Father Randy, and Mike Monroe, the pastor of Manistique Community Church, bonded over a dying perisher. Later two additional pastors had joined the group including David Smith, a Church of God minister and Gregory Landis, a retired Methodist minster from Grand Rapids. The men met each Wednesday morning over cups of coffee and Sharon's famous omelets. They didn't meet to discuss theological issues. To do so, they knew would quickly drive them apart. Instead they met just to be friends, friends who share a common experience of leading (or had led in the case of Rev. Landis) congregations.

One Monday morning a new, odd stranger (who went by the name Tom Hans) came into the restaurant. Not only was his face new, but he seemed strange in many other ways . . . in both behavior and looks. He was tall and very thin.  Sharon was totally engulfed in curiosity about the man. When he started asking theological questions, Sharon invited him to be part of the Wednesday morning discussion group.

The traditional members were somewhat hesitant to allow the stranger to join them . . . at least they didn't share Sharon's enthusiasm. The main reason that the breakfast was at time of peace for the me and trying to answer someone's theological questions they knew would dig up some controversy.

Mr. Hans did join the group. While the usual members expressed great curiosity about him, Mr. Hans tired to redirect the attention to his own questions. Finally, at an impasse, Mr. Hans revealed that he was from another planet. He was a descendant of a lost tribe from Babel.  His tribe was made up of the engineers of the tower, so when God dispersed them, as Tom's story goes, he sent the actual tower designers to a different planet, Teyvat (meaning ark in old Hebrew). Tom's people are called Hanserians, meaning the engineer tribe.

While the Hanserians had their traditional history, and knew their origins well, they didn't have scriptures to teach them specifics of human history and God's interactions with people. They were a far more advanced civilization than earthlings. They based their great advancement on the fact that they had learned to rightly divide reason and emotions to their proper places . . . decisions come from reason, emotions are for personal enjoyment.  Humans, on the other, make most of their decisions from emotions.  In their advancement, Hanserians figured out how to travel long distances and including visiting earth.

Their tribal history told them that they were from earth and that is where they would find the answers to their destiny.  For this reason, they had studied earth, from afar, for decades.  Tom Hans was one of the "spies" sent to study humans on a more personal level and to learn what they know of God and His Gospel.

Debra, a good friend of Father Randy and a Presbyterian pastor from the town of Munising.  Because she too became intriged with the stranger, she, by Father Randy's invitation, drove the 100 mile round trip to join the Wednesday morning round table discussions.

By the time Part I ended, most of the people were still skeptical of Tom Hans.  Some thought he was crazy, a con man or someone with a wild imagination.  However, because of Tom's uncanny ability to read people, Greg was starting to believe him.

It was the beginning of August and several of the group's members were taking trips so they adjourned until after Labor Day.  It is now September 7th and the group is being reunited.

Scriptures Revisited

One of you said the other day that they don't even read the Bible anymore . . . nor do I.  I do read our passages in church, but that is about it.

For the twenty years I sought to be a disciple, I read scriptures daily, usually for at least an hour. I believed . . . and was led to believe . . . that if I missed one day of reading, then God would be mad at me plus I would probably be in the ditch with a bottle of Jack Daniels and a hooker by the next day.  We were taught that the Bible is the bread of life, so miss it one day and you starve to death spiritually.

But I disagree with that. Sometimes I think it is even healthy to get away from scriptures, for a while.  The reason is, we can become so indoctrinated into what scriptures mean that what we are really doing is looking at words on a page and our minds are "reading" what we  have been told it means . . . if that makes sense.

I remember years ago when I was in the thick of Arabic school in Cairo.  It was the hardest think I had ever done. It was called "Intensive Arabic Studies" and it was.  My mind was so overloaded that I couldn't even remember English grammar anymore. So, the first year ended.  We ( my wife and our three small sons, ages 1-5) flew to Switzerland and lived in a pup tent for a month . . . because my wife and I were both near an emotional breakdown (things you can't say in a missionary news letter).  It was soooooooooo refreshing.  Backpacking down to the village below us once a week to buy groceries, then back up on the mountain.  I never gave Arabic one thought during that month.

It was the most amazing thing that when we landed back in Cairo, I came out of the airport, into the busy streets . . . and I could speak Arabic . . . for the first time. I wasn't fluent, but I could speak, put together sentences with proper syntax and conjugated verbs.

So, I actually think it is a good thing to get away from scriptures for awhile. But I feel poised to go back.  Our pastor asked for volunteers to read through the Bible in 90 days. I was tempted to sign up.  But, like Johan said, I am so busy right now. I'm still trying to get a business off the ground and keep itt afloat.  I did make a financial pledge to my new church and am failing that badly so I don't want to make a pledge to read the Bible in 90 days.

The thing is, I'm looking forward, now that my mind has been emptied from all the Evangelical socialization, to try and see what it really says.

I'm also poised to get back to my GERMFASK story, which I promised to finish. 

Lackadaisical Spirituality

Okay, this thought will be a little hard to follow . . . yet I will try.

A long time ago in a university far away, I had a roommate that had a brief obsession with miniature furniture.  I never figured it out. But he sanded, glued, even nailed with nails smaller than a stick pin, for hours.  Maybe, years later, when I was trying to restore a real piece of antique furniture did I get it. At least the miniature version would have taken a lot less time and money to complete.

But I was thinking today how we come up with hobbies, interests and obsessions and sometimes loose them.  Maybe I've lost a few. I used to be an avid backpacker. But I haven't been since . . . oh, that's right I went last summer. Hmmm . . . and the year before that I backpacked in Nepal for three weeks. But it doesn't obsess me like before.  I think part of the reason is that I now live in the woods.

So this is the season of Christmas . . . and the Republican primary.  Because of the two aforementioned things, one theme keep showing up on the news . . . the life of Christians and Evangelicals in particular. So it is really strange, hard to put into words, but I have virtually no interest in the things I once thought were the essence of being spiritual.

Sometimes I find it scary.  Am I spiritually dead? That would have been my conclusion if me from 15 years ago was to judge me from today.

But, one way to look at it, is that evangelicalism use to be my hobby and obsession.  Now, I have zero (with a big Z) interest in going to a Bible conference, a Christian concert ("contemporary Christian music"), or anything that smelled of religion.  I don't even feel motivated to visit Imonk any more. I do rush over now and then to check out the topics. Some of the more philosophical or cultural issues interest me. But I have no interest in the more "religious" conversations, even Advent. I think Mike Spencer use to deal with more of the non-religious issues of Christianity. But I still like that community.

So, I'm not sure what's wrong with me.  But, I have a sense that it is not spiritual dead-ness, but the typical loss of interest in the hobby of churchianity or whatever you want to call it. What gives me this assurance (that I'm not spiritually dead) is my great interest still in topics of real philosophy (what I mean by "real" is not just the history of philosophy, who said what, but the real questions of life).  While I would not want to go to a Christian concert, I would love deeply to go to Handel's Messiah, with a full orchestra and wonderful choir and we swept away by its (actually pointing to God's) grandeur.

I have also never been more sure of God, the Christian God that is, being there . . . but, like I said a few post ago, I still don't have certainty. But fifteen years ago, when I did have surface certainty, I had deep and dark doubts in my private world.

So, just like when you were in a miniature furniture making club and then loose interest, it is hard to strike up a conversation with those who were once part of that club.  I feel out of place when I run into my Evangelical friends. The things they want to talk about, "God blessing the Denver Broncos with wins because of Tim Tebow's faithfulness to the Lord." doesn't interest me. However, I could sit, spell bound, for hours discussing a good book, a great film or piece of art  . . .  and how it relates to us being human, and God being God.

I have the feeling that others are in my shoes. Loss of the hobby of Christianity, but wrapped up in the essence of it.

In conclusion, I wanted to watch a very interesting film on PBS last night . . . Lord Save Us From Ourselves, by Don Merchant.  I wanted so much to follow it, but I kept falling asleep.  But it seemed to me that Mr. Merchant also had this strange outsider view of people of his faith.

Okay, I'll shut up for now.