2005-10-25
The Apology
Another kitchen table, another dreary day.
Story of my life, I thought. It's the story of my life.
"Jesus?"
I could hear Him back in His room. When I knocked on the heavy front door, Jesus answered it Himself and let me in the house silently. He was alone, which was rare. He seemed calm, which was also rare.
But oh my God, pun intended.
When Jesus stopped worrying and stopped trying to hide and stopped trying to fit in with everyone else, He was the most beautiful, glowing creature that ever existed. In His calm, you could look into His holy eyes and you could see oceans, mountains, prairies, constellations, and your own pre-conception of swirling, perfect energies.
In His lucidity, Jesus was a teacher, a father, and a shepard's staff that stood taller than any point in the area. You could feel Him for miles and all you felt was heaven.
He was calm and heavenly but He wasn't exactly speaking to me. I knew that being let into the house was as far as I might be able to go that afternoon.
IN Jesus' house, there was no smell of coffee, no dog under the table napping, and no jeans for me to borrow. Jesus' house was absolutely full of crap. His kitchen held farming implements and that Juice Man that I broke. His living room held a putty-colored futon on a metal frame, a green blanket, and a 100 gallon aquarium but no fish. Jesus claimed that when I left Him, all of His fish died. At the time, I was flattered; I mean, the Lord was so broken up over me that he couldn't even pull it together to feed his fish? Awesome.
Literally.
A few years after I left for real, left Illinois, I knew that He meant to say that when I left Him, He got a great excuse to piss away things that He claimed to care about. It had nothing to do with me and everything to do with Him. He got to use me to avoid proper self-care and maintenance�. of course, at the time, which is where I was, I was totally and completely flattered that I had killed Jesus' fucking fish.
And so He opened the door and kind of stood there surprised which� okay. I guess. I think He was faking it. He knew it was going to be me. He's Jesus and we lived in Springfield. Of course He knew I was going to show up sooner or later. He opened the door and He walked off into His room without a word.
I kind of stood there though, after I closed the door as quietly as possible, I just stood there in my purple ski parka and my too-tight jeans, playing with a lock of hair and trying to look comfortable, trying to feel at home in Jesus' house. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do.
Following Him seemed too intimate.
Waiting for Him seemed so subservient.
"What is Jesus up to," I thought, "what am I supposed to do?"
I chose to wait until He told me what to do.
I came in and took a seat on the futon to wait for Him. I thought about turning on the TV but it was from the 1970s and He used it only to watch porn. He had boxes and boxes of unmarked VHS tapes and it was all 1980s porn. He didn't like the new stuff at all but He literally had the biggest porn collection of anyone I ever knew or know.
What, that makes you uneasy?
Think about it for a second - it makes perfect sense. Jesus is God and Man. He's the very essence of both, brought to life. How are people brought to life if they are not Jesus? I mean, maybe your mother is no Jenna Jamison but Jesus was obsessed with pornography, if for no other reason than He was not conceived through the act of sex. And look now - the whole country is a porno. Nobody said, "Who's Jenna Jameson?" when I referenced her. We watch people on Survivor complete athletic challenges in their underwear - lesbians! We watch lesbians in their underwear on Survivor. Jesus would love that. We watch high school kids go to their hotel rooms after prom and we see them kiss each other "good-night".
And believe me, you can thank Jesus for that.
His psychological obsession with sex led the way for people who followed Him to watch more and more porn. Those people made porn more and more accessible and now?
Underwear.
Lesbians.
CBS.
I waited for Jesus.
Finally, after listening to Him grumping in His bedroom for at least 15 very uncomfortable minutes, I rose and removed my parka. I hitched up my too-tight jeans and twisted my hair onto the top of my head so that it would be in my way.
"I'm going in," I thought.
"Jesus?
Honey?" My eyes needed a minute to adjust to the dark bedroom. Crowded in the center of the room was the sleigh bed that He'd made when He was 11, a desk that He's made at 15, a monstrosity of a computer, and you had to kind of swim through the clothes, sketch books, papers, old books, pens, and roach bodies in order to get to the relative safety of either the bed or the desk.
"Jesus?
What are you doing?"
"Baby. Come'mere" He was lying in the middle of the bed, His big frame hidden by the piles of blankets - every color you can think of - that He fell asleep with every night.
I moved toward His outstretched hand.
He rolled onto His side and opened His eyes.
"Please?" He reached a little further toward me.
This wasn't exactly the 'Can we talk' that I had envisioned.
"Sarah�" His voice broke and I took His hand in mine. It was cool and comforting and big enough to fit my other hand too, which I slid to His palm as I perched on the edge of His bed. With both hands of mine held by one of His, I laid down next to Him.
Wordlessly, my tears fell onto the green blanket that was beneath us. His were lodged in His eyes and He took His other hand to let down my hair.
"Sarah, I'm so sorry"
I curled myself into His mighty chest without ever thinking to ask why Jesus would be apologizing to me, thinking only how happy I was to be that close to Him in that moment where He was a real man.
arizonasarah at 11:27 a.m.