Six John Jordan Mysteries

by Michael Lister

  When we finished talking, Jamie Sandford e-mailed some additional information on the shroud to me, and although I printed it, I read the entire article on my monitor, eyes transfixed to the screen.

  Though the most venerated relic of Christianity was declared a fake in 1988 by three independent scientific institutions, new science suggested the shroud deserved another look.

  Willis Gray, a retired physical chemist, proposed that the samples used to date the shroud in 1988 were flawed and the experiment should be repeated. His assertion was based on a recent chemical analysis of the shroud and previous observations made during the 1978 STURP examination, of which he was a part.

  In 1988, the Vatican allowed small stamp-size pieces to be cut from one corner of the shroud and distributed to three laboratories—at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Oxford University in England, and the Swiss Federal Institute in Zurich—for carbon dating. The results, published in 1989 in the journal Nature, revealed that the fabric was produced between 1260 and 1390.

  Recently, Gray received a sample of the shroud from a colleague who had collaborated on STURP. The sample was taken from the same strip of cloth distributed for carbon dating in 1988. Through chemical and microscopic analysis, he discovered a madder dye, mordant, and gum mixture—evidence the cloth had been repaired at some point. Even more interesting is the fact that these ruby-colored madder dye–mordant mixtures did not even reach France or England until the sixteenth century.

  Gray also uncovered evidence that the patch he was examining had not only been dyed but also been repaired and rewoven. He posits that the dye and repair job were probably done in the Near East during the Middle Ages, which coincides with the carbon-dating results.

  “The date published in 1989 of 1260 to 1390 was accurate for the sample supplied,” Gray said. “However, there is no question that the radiocarbon sampling area has a completely different chemical composition than the main part of the shroud. The published date for the sample was not the time at which the cloth was produced, but the time it was repaired.”

  This corroborates earlier findings of STURP scientists who, using ultraviolet fluorescence, also revealed that the sampled corner was unlike any other region of the shroud and had been excessively handled over the years.

  “You reached a conclusion yet?” Milton Warner asked.

  I shook my head. “I’ve barely begun,” I said, “and there’s so much evidence on both sides.”

  The clear blue of his eyes was penetrative as he held my gaze.

  “Aren’t you almost out of time?”

  I nodded.

  “What’re you going to tell your mother?”

  “I really don’t know,” I said.

  He nodded slowly, his lined face softening some.

  “How’re you feeling?”

  “Better, actually,” I said. “And I think it has something to do with the shroud.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m not sure exactly,” I said. “It’s not that I’m convinced that it’s authentic—hell, I’m not even sure what I believe about the resurrection, let alone that this could be a snapshot of it—but it’s such a haunting image, such a profound mystery ... I just find it ... inspiriting somehow.”

  He nodded. He rarely showed a reaction to anything I said, but he seemed pleased.

  “Most people I deal with are frightened by the unknown or inexplicable,” he said. “They want answers—”

  “There aren’t any.”

  “But you ... You seem to be inspired by the mystery of it all.”

  I nodded, and thought about what he had said.

  We were quiet a moment.

  “Do you think the shroud has the power to heal?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “It’s having an effect on me,” I said. “I guess I think anything can become an agent of healing. Probably has far more to do with the person being healed than the object.”

  “Do you think if you tell your mom you’re convinced that the shroud is genuine and take her to see it, she’ll be healed?”

  “I just don’t know,” I said. “I can’t say for sure that she wouldn’t.”

  “Then why not lie to her?”

  I thought about it. “I’m not sure,” I said. “I’ve certainly lied for less noble causes, but I just don’t think I can.”

  He nodded, but there was nothing in it except acknowledgment.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I said.

  “Then it’s a good thing you’re comfortable with ambiguity.”

  The next afternoon, in the warmth of the sun, Mom and I sat in rocking chairs on her front porch. Mom was feeling better, and the pleasant afternoon seemed to help her as much as anything had recently.

  I still didn’t know what I would say to her exactly. She was dying. I wanted to give her hope, to do all I could to give her every chance of prolonging her life or at least having the best life possible in whatever time she had left, but I wasn’t sure how.

  The afternoon was the warmest in the past few weeks, and sitting in its soft glow with Mom as an occasional pine needle floated down from the trees to the earth below, was a moving experience.

  “Well?” she said.

  “What?” I asked, stalling.

  “Is the shroud real?”

  My pulse quickened as my stomach dropped.

  I wanted to be able to tell Mom that I had solved the mystery of the Shroud of Turin, that it was the actual burial cloth of Christ, and that if anything could be used by God to heal her, this holy relic could, but I couldn’t.

  “I still don’t know,” I said. “There’s an amazing amount of evidence on both sides. I think it’s a mystery that can’t be solved. And I don’t think it should be.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think it should remain an enigmatic symbol of faith,” I said. “Then the question becomes not whether or not science can prove that it’s real, but whether or not we believe, whether or not we allow mystery to work its magic on us.”

  “Do you believe?” she asked.

  “I don’t have an easy answer for that one either,” I said. “I do believe that it’s something special, utterly unique in the world. And I think it can be a sign from God if we allow it to be. Isn’t that really all that matters? Not whether or not it actually covered the body of Jesus, but if it speaks to us of him. If it reminds us of his suffering, of a God who suffers with us, whose heart breaks for what you’re going through just like mine does.”

  Tears began to trickle down her cheeks, and she reached over and took my hand.

  “I’m haunted by the image on the shroud,” I said. “And like all matters of faith, or art, it doesn’t matter how it came to be or if it can be authenticated or scientifically validated. Its only validity is what it does for me. In that sense, I can say it’s real.”

  “So do you think we should go and view it?” she asked.

  “Do you?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I really don’t.”

  I thought about it for a long time, trying my best to weigh everything and determine what was in her best interest, saying a short prayer for guidance.

  “Yes,” I said. “I think we should.”

  “Do you think it’s possible I’ll be healed?” she asked hopefully, her tears changing as her face lit up.

  I nodded. “I honestly believe anything’s possible.”

  The most venerable and venerated relic of all time had been slipped out of the silver casket that had protected it for centuries, through fire and water, doubt and blind belief, and gingerly unspooled under the supervision of Giovanni Cardinal Saldarini and a German textile conservation expert. After the top cloth, a red taffeta sewn by Princess Clotilde of Savoy in 1886, had been pulled back, the fragile, scarred length of ancient linen had been smoothed into place in a metal and glass display case built precisely to its dimensions.

  We were gazing up at it.

  Mom and I had flown to Turin, Italy, two days ago to
be a part of the estimated three million people who would line up over the next eight weeks to view this most sacred of cloths.

  The cathedral was as ornate as any building I had ever been in, the sweet scent of incense lingering thickly, an olfactory match for its opulence.

  The air in the case that held the shroud had been drawn out and replaced with argon, an inert gas. It hung horizontally at the intersection of the Turin Cathedral’s nave and transept, near the center of the cathedral’s magnificent built-in cross.

  Beside me, Mom gazed up at the image burned into the shroud like a woman seeing a vision, herself a vision, mouth open, head back, eyes wrinkled at the corners as she squinted to see, her face made fresh by awe and wonderment.

  What she was seeing I could only guess, but I felt that what she beheld was far more than an ancient cloth bearing an enigmatic image. Perhaps she was seeing nothing less than the visible image of the invisible God.

  I was.

  Not that I was suddenly convinced that the shroud was a silent witness to the resurrection, but that even if I were staring at the image produced by an artist in the Middle-Ages, it, like all art, was evidence of the divine. And like all art, what we see in it tells us as much about ourselves as the object we’re beholding in hushed reverence.

  What does what I saw say about me?

  That I’m a believer. I believe in mystery and possibility, that nothing is impossible. Not the existence of God. Not a virgin birth. Not a God-come-flesh. Not a resurrection from the dead. Nothing. Not even a love that is stronger than death—a love that is itself an evidence of the existence of God, of the justification of the hope I felt. Hope for Mom, for me, for the world.

  Mom let out a small but audible gasp.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I know.”

  I could tell she wanted to say more, but couldn’t.

  Only time would tell if this had cured her disease, but I had no doubt that our holy pilgrimage had healed her. Her humanity was healed. She finally and fully accepted the fathomless forgiveness she had been offered.

  And she forgave herself.

  Standing there beside her, gazing up at the ghostly image, I felt newly baptized, fully submerged in the healing presence of Christ.

  Our awe and reverence for the sacredness of life, of individual moments like this one, which hinted at eternity, was restored to us like when we were children.

  Both of us were in some sense healed, wounded mother and son, as if in some sense reflecting the wounded son and mother of the nearby Pietà—united with them in humanity, in pain, in love, in faith, in mystery, and in hope for divinity.

  The Body and the Blood

  a John Jordan Mystery Book 4

  Michael Lister

  1

  “How much does prison change a man?”

  That one stopped me—I had just been thinking about how much PCI was changing me—and if the question hadn’t, the woman asking it would have.

  Unlike so many of the unsophisticated and impoverished family members who braved a visit to the big house, the attractive young woman exiting Potter Correctional Institution wore designer clothes, moved with the lissomeness of a runway model, and spoke like an anchor person.

  I had stopped at the gate before reentering the institution to stand in awe of the setting sun—a feeble attempt at stress relief and mindfulness—and had only glanced at her before turning my attention back to the western horizon.

  It was nearly dusk in mid-October, and the sinking sun backlighting the tall slash pines and cypress trees to the west resembled a child’s Halloween drawing—black craggy crayon trees on bright orange construction paper.

  “Immeasurably,” I said almost to myself.

  I was tired and wanted to be somewhere else—anywhere enjoying the spectacular sundown in silence, my only companion an ice-cold Cherry Coke or Dr. Pepper. It had been a long hard day already and I wouldn’t still be here if not for the possibility of preventing a murder.

  Potter Correctional Institution had the reputation for being one of Florida’s most brutal prisons. Officers at the north Florida Reception Center tell stories of inmates crying when they discover this particular hell is their destination.

  “Are you the chaplain?” she asked.

  The chaplain of hell, I thought, and it amused me in a slightly perverse way. Talk about downward mobility, the parish no one wants.

  The truth was, I had never felt more fulfilled, never been happier—though what that says about my life before I came to hell I’m not sure. The happiness came from getting to spend so much time with my best friends, Anna and Merrill, and the sense of fulfillment I felt at finally finding a job that gave me opportunities to minister and investigate, disparate vocations not normally brought together in a single position.

  “Yes. John Jordan,” I said, extending my hand.

  “Jordan. You related to the sheriff?”

  I nodded.

  Growing up in a law enforcement family, I worked as deputy in my dad’s department, and had nearly completed a degree in criminology before everything changed and I dropped out mid-semester and entered seminary. I put myself through school working as a cop with the Stone Mountain Police Department. When I graduated, I traded my gun and badge in for a Bible and a clerical collar. Periods of my life were spent as an investigator, others as a minister, but returning to the Panhandle and becoming a prison chaplain was the first time I had made an attempt at doing both simultaneously. Of course, attempt was the operative word. The two vocations were difficult to reconcile and I rarely got it just right—or even close to right.

  I really looked at the young woman for the first time.

  Though not short, she wasn’t as tall as her heels made her seem. She looked to be in her early to mid-thirties, her sun-streaked blond hair contrasting nicely the tops of her darkly tanned shoulders. Her head was tilted back and she was looking up at me with green cat-like eyes.

  “I’m Paula Menge,” she said with an impatient edge in her voice, and I could tell she was accustomed to the full attention of whoever was fortunate enough to be in her presence.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I was distracted by the sunset.”

  She slunk toward me with feline fluidity, and I realized that her eyes weren’t all that was cat-like about her. Her sleek, sinewy body looked to have the athleticism and agility required for pouncing. Feeling uncomfortable so close, and fearing she might curl her tail around my leg, I leaned back slightly and looked at the sunset again.

  She let her gaze follow mine and we both stood there in silence and watched as construction paper orange turned to flamingo pink before becoming pastel peach in the sunset-softened sky.

  “It is overwhelming,” she said, and something about the way she said it made me think her next line had she not left it unspoken would have been, But so am I—a sentiment with which most men and many women would agree.

  “You don’t really look like a chaplain,” she said. It sounded like a compliment.

  “Well, I don’t really try very hard,” I said.

  Her immediate frown was quickly replaced by a knowing smile and her eyes lit up intelligently.

  I took a deep breath and waited.

  Fall, what little there is in north Florida, comes late and leaves early, but over the past few days it had begun to arrive, and what I breathed in was far more than cool, crisp air. It was football games and pep rallies, a new school year and season premieres; burning leaves and bonfires, first love, freshman dances, and long kisses in heated cars on cold nights.

  “I just finished visiting my brother,” she said.

  My mind finally finished connecting the dots, and I realized who she was.

  “Justin Menge’s your brother?” I asked.

  She nodded. “You know him?”

  I nodded. “I’m surprised I haven’t seen the two of you together before,” I said. “I can really see the resemblance.”

  “He’s in protective management,” she said, “so I have
to visit him alone at night, but to tell you the truth this is my first visit.”

  “Really?” I said. “He’s been here quite a while, hasn’t he?”

  She pursed and twisted her lips, then frowned. “It’s a long story.”

  “I’ll be seeing him in just a few minutes,” I said. “I was just headed down to the PM unit.”

  “You are?” she asked, her voice filling with hesitant hope. “Could you check on him for me?”

  “Didn’t you just see him?”

  “I know it’s the first time I’ve seen him in four years, but he’s so different, and I wondered if it’s just because of prison or if it’s something else. How much does it change them?”

  “It doesn’t just change them,” I said, “it changes us all. How much depends on the person. But no one is ever quite the same.”

  I thought about how hardened I’d become, how I had allowed the daily assault of this place on my senses to pull me back toward the darkness, toward the man I didn’t want to be again. At various times in my life, rage had taken the place of alcohol as my primary addiction, and if there were a better place than PCI to bring that about again, I wasn’t aware of it.

  “That’s a truly disturbing thought.”

  “I guess it is,” I said, “but more than change us, it brings out what’s inside us already.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve given this a lot of thought. It’s as if prison’s a cauldron that brings the impurities of our souls to the surface.”

  She smiled. “You may not look like a chaplain, but you sure sound like one.”

  Regardless of what I sounded like, or the title on my business card, I was just a man trying to be a better man, and though at some point I thought it would get easier, so far it hadn’t.

  Beyond the chain-link fence and razor wire, the institution was unusually still and quiet. The compound had the eerie feel of a small town whose inhabitants had all suddenly and mysteriously vanished. The evening meal completed, the inmates were in the dorms sitting on their bunks for the evening master roster count.