Seeing Jesus

by Jeffrey McClain Jones

  Dave nodded. As pastor, recruiting new members might have been near the top of his list of responsibilities, but Dave’s church lacked the desperation that drives many pastors to a sales pitch at this point in the conversation. However, genuine concern, that this novice Christian not get chewed up by the usual harsh religious types, prompted Dave to add a third option.

  “Well, if neither of those work out for you, you could give us a try. I think you’d feel welcomed here. With most people here, your experience with Jesus would be honored and not mocked.”

  The nuances of various Christian enclaves meant less to Philly than the various wines grown in Southern France, or the assorted species of fresh water snails in the world. At least, it had meant less to Philly in the past. Being thrust into such considerations now felt like an intrusion on his amazing revelation of Jesus, the supposed focus of all those Christian clubs. Dave sensed Philly’s discomfort.

  “I’m thinking that you’ll need some help figuring out how to keep the realness of your connection with Jesus going after he goes invisible. Even if you don’t choose to attend this church, my door’s open to you. I may be able to help a bit.”

  Philly appreciated that open door, along with sympathy for what losing his unique contact with Jesus would mean to him. “Thanks, Dave. I think I’ll take you up on that,” Philly said, with Jesus nodding agreement.

  They talked a while longer, each filling in some of his history. As they wound down, and Philly made the first move to leave, Dave offered to pray for Philly. Philly agreed.

  As the pastor spoke frankly and comfortably with his Heavenly Father, Jesus stood up from behind the desk and knelt next to Philly, wrapping his arms around his friend. He seemed to favor that over sitting behind the desk listening to petitions sent to him from a distance.

  To Philly’s surprise, parting from Dave left him with the impression that the pastor had benefited from their meeting more than he had, though that seemed hardly possible. With thanks on both sides, the two shook hands, then hugged and laughed goodbyes at various levels of embarrassment and joy.

  On the way home, Philly knew he had to finally stop and get his hair cut. Before he even said anything, Jesus said, “Why? It doesn’t look so long to me.”

  Philly laughed, but pulled into one of the franchise haircut places in his neighborhood. He poked back at Jesus. “You can stay in the car if this place makes you feel uncomfortable.”

  Jesus laughed heartily all the way to the glass and metal front door of the hair chop shop. Inside, Philly took the last chair in the waiting area, after putting his name in with the receptionist. Jesus stood in the corner, leaning against the wall and looking kindly on all of the patrons waiting, as well as the employees at the cutting stations. He seemed especially interested in a short, young woman working at the far chair. Later, Philly wondered if he could have detected the way Jesus manipulated the timing in order to get him into that girl’s haircut station, had he known what was coming.

  The young woman introduced herself as Rosa, smiling with closed lips at Philly as he approached the chair. Her own hair hung to her collar, perfectly straight, though perhaps artificially so. Large dark eyes and a round face gave her the look of a twelve-year-old street urchin, from a barrio south of the border. Philly liked her right away. Jesus simply mooned over her.

  After exchanging ideas regarding how to cut Philly’s hair, they settled into the usual conversation about weather and work. But Jesus had another topic that he wanted to pursue.

  “Ask her about her family,” he said to Philly.

  When he did so, somewhat awkwardly, Rosa started cutting more slowly and sounding more and more emotional, as she told about her family, in Mexico. They had returned there so that her mother could get medical care for cancer that threatened to end her life. Her father feared being deported once he began winding his way through the medical care system in the U.S. Rosa had stayed behind so she could keep earning money to send home. Separation from her family left a much less painful mark on her, however, than fear for her mother’s life.

  Philly knew why Jesus had chosen this chair, this young woman and her family. But he wondered how they could help her mother in Mexico. All of his healing experience had been with people he and Jesus could touch.

  Jesus answered Philly’s question. “Don’t worry, Philly. I can handle it,” was all he said.

  Rosa sniffled a bit, grabbed a tissue and wiped her nose quickly, trying to maintain her professional comportment. She finished the final snips on Philly’s hair and blow-dried the loose hair off of him. Her sniffles hid beneath the whir of the dryer. When she finished, and removed the smock that had kept all that hair off of Philly, he barely noticed his image in the mirror. He focused instead on how to propose helping Rosa’s mother.

  Jesus answered again. “Just ask if you can pray with her for her mother.”

  Philly fished his wallet out, as he stood up, and said, “Rosa, I’d really like to pray for your mother to be healed of cancer. I’ve seen Jesus do some really amazing healing lately and feel like he wants me to do this for her.”

  The petite girl looked up at Philly, as motionless as a store mannequin. Her lower lip quivered slightly and she whispered, “I would like that. Thank you.”

  Philly stepped close enough to Rosa to pray in a low voice, to protect her privacy and her professional standing. Jesus, on the other hand, moved up next to them and wrapped an arm around Rosa’s shoulders. When he did that she began to sob, struggling to remain composed. To Philly, it felt as if Jesus had released the parking brake and this vehicle was rolling down hill fast, no brakes, no steering. But he only knew to keep doing what Jesus had instructed.

  He started asking God to heal Rosa’s mother, but Jesus intervened. “Philly you have to tell the cancer to leave her mother, just like you told the spirits to leave Allen.”

  With half a dozen people straining to see what was happening at the far haircutting station, Philly kept his voice down, but began commanding sickness and cancer to leave Rosa’s mother. When he finished, she squeaked and exclaimed something in Spanish.

  “O, Dios mio,” she said, panting. Then she dropped to the floor in the midst of all the little blades of damp hair.

  A collective gasp chorused through the salon. Philly looked around apologetically, kneeling next to Rosa, much the way Jesus had knelt next to him the day before.

  Rosa said over and over, “I see her, I see her being healed. I know it’s true, I see my mother. I see her being healed.” She wept cathartically.

  The manager of the store, a very spiritually sensitive woman, though not a faithful church member, felt the miraculous connection between Philly and Rosa. She ran interference for them, telling the concerned customers and staff that Rosa’s mother was terminally ill and that this was a great burden on Rosa. The explanation, incomplete as it was, seemed to assuage the worried onlookers.

  After a minute, Philly helped Rosa to stand. She brushed the hair off of herself and glanced around, embarrassed, but also visibly giddy. She looked up at Philly, with the most sincere mortal face he had ever seen, and said, “It is true. She is healed. I just know it.”

  This sent chills up Philly’s back and into his newly cropped hair. He felt like hugging the small, young woman but restrained himself, sympathetic to concern for appearances at work. Instead, he smiled at her, glanced at Jesus and said, “Jesus says it is true. So I believe it too.”

  Leaving her a sizable tip, Philly headed for the door, but Rosa stopped him.

  “Are you a pastor?” she said. “I might want to come to your church.”

  Philly smiled, shaking his head. “No, I’m not a pastor,” he said. “But I do know of a church that you might like.” He gave her the name and location of Dave Michaels’ church.

  Rosa thanked him for that and thanked him again for healing her mother, impressing Philly with her great faith.

  When he sat down in his car, Philly realized that his hands and knees quivered
with adrenalin overdose, much as they had the previous night with Allen. Though he felt palpably the weight of these healings resting on Jesus and not on himself, Philly still vibrated with the rush of stepping out, speaking up and following the instructions Jesus gave. Doing this had never failed and he was getting used to that downhill, out of control, feeling.

  Early that evening, sitting in a little, neighborhood Mexican restaurant that Theresa had recommended, Philly recounted all of this, beginning with playing chess with Jesus. The momentum of the emotions bursting through all of those events rolled Philly through the telling, even though he sensed a bit of discomfort from Theresa, as the narrative tumbled out.

  When he had finished with Rosa’s story, and the main course had arrived, Theresa opened her simmering pot of reactions. Stabbing ineffectively at her enchiladas, Theresa said, “Philly, I have to tell you something. I want there to be no secrets between us.”

  Philly stopped cutting into his combination platter and looked nervously at her. With his new haircut, that look reminded Theresa of a little boy and she felt an urge to wrap her arms around him to assure him. She, of course, resisted that urge, but she did hasten to relieve some of his fear.

  “I feel overwhelmed at the beauty of what you’ve told me about seeing Jesus. And I’m so glad you’re telling me so openly and honestly,” she said. “But I also want you to know what I heard from one of my friends from church, when I told her about your experience. It sounds like this pastor Dave sort of knew what others might say, but I was pretty stunned, myself.” Theresa drank some water and then urged Philly to go ahead and eat. She took a mouthful of enchilada to encourage him.

  As he ate, Philly listened cautiously to Theresa, glancing at Jesus sitting next to her, an arrangement that Jesus had requested. It worked for Philly, because he could monitor Jesus’s reactions to what he or Theresa said. As Theresa told Philly about her conversation with a woman she trusted, Philly could see a sort of cloud arising on Jesus countenance, a look that reminded him of the meeting with Father Tim. Theresa’s counselor and friend, on hearing that Philly claimed to see Jesus visibly, said, “I would stop seeing this man, if I were you. He clearly has some serious issues and you shouldn’t have anything more to do with him.” Theresa finished with a hollow tone as if she could barely manage to repeat what she heard.

  The personal insult of that religiously motivated advice bit into Philly. The embedded feeling of being misunderstood by his parents, and most of the rest of the world, flared like live coals fanned in a rising wind. But, just as those feelings threatened to overwhelm Philly, he saw Jesus begin to shake his head. He said simply, “Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they’re talking about.”

  The echo from Jesus’s words on the cross missed Philly, but Theresa, seeing Philly’s glance to her side—where she had already guessed Jesus was sitting—wanted to know what he said. When Philly repeated it, Theresa nodded. She took a long breath and said, “I’m glad you told me that. It helps me. I guess that’s pretty much what I was feeling too.”

  Philly smiled, relieved to have Jesus and Theresa on the same side. If he had to choose between them, it would have torn him in half. Theresa had already become that precious to him and he had already given at least half of his heart to Jesus.

  Jesus asked Philly to deliver a message to Theresa. “Tell her that when her friend Debbie made that little noise, before saying those things, you could hear the sound of the fear that grips her heart. That fear is really about herself and she projects it on you because you’re alone, as she fears being alone.”

  Theresa had not provided Philly the name of her confidant, nor given so much detail about how she responded. When he relayed what Jesus said, using the correct name and referring to the odd sound Debbie had made, Theresa smiled with relief. The stalking doubts that she had been holding at bay all day seemed to vanish in the face of more validation of Philly’s unique experience with Jesus. She knew that Jesus provided this proof for her benefit and gratefully welcomed the help.

  Impulsively, Theresa reached across the table and grabbed Philly’s left hand, tears welling up in her eyes. Philly missed some of the significance of Jesus’s words to her about being alone, and worried that Theresa was feeling the loss of her ex-husband, until she combined those tear-filled eyes with a firm hold on his hand. He breathed easier, sensing that his connection with Theresa had only grown stronger.

  Rather than solve the problem of antagonism for Philly’s revelation, they agreed to avoid the issue, by mentioning it to only select people, especially at Theresa’s church. They also agreed that Philly would attend church with Theresa in the morning, at least to let him get introduced. Theresa assumed that Philly would attend Dave Michaels’ church long-term, based on the story he told. But Philly assumed nothing, still stumbling his way into the world of Jesus and churches.

  For Philly and Theresa, the night ended with a long conversation over a glass of wine in her living room, Jesus content to listen quietly. He knew that Philly had spent most of his emotional and spiritual energy over the previous twenty-four hours and didn’t push him to accomplish more. Jesus, it seemed, was invested in the relationship between Theresa and Philly.

  Knowing that he would see her in the morning released Philly from anxiety about leaving Theresa that night. They kissed goodnight, with Jesus pretending to look the other way, for Philly’s sake. And Philly and Jesus drove home on a windy April night, with just one day of their miraculous encounter remaining.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Jesus spared the weary man from a late night of conversation, but attended many of Philly’s dreams. The one Philly remembered most clearly involved Jesus taking Philly’s cell phone with him when he disappeared and Philly struggling desperately to find that phone, or to get Jesus to come back and bring it with him.

  When his alarm sounded on Sunday morning, Philly turned it off and then checked that his cell phone was still on the night stand. Jesus laughed at this move, knowing the details of Philly’s nighttime struggles. Philly looked at Jesus through a tattered web of sleep. “Hmph, you can laugh, you’re the one that took it from me,” he said playfully. Jesus laughed louder.

  After his usual wake up trip to the bathroom, and then to the kitchen to feed Irving, Philly paused to check for a rising dread he had noticed last night, when he contemplated going to church for the first time in over a decade.

  “This church is different than the one you attended last,” Jesus said to assure him. “For one thing, there won’t be any corpse at this church.”

  Philly grinned and shook his head. He wondered why no one ever told him that Jesus was such a comedian.

  “Different?” Philly said.

  “Not so solemn and dressed up,” Jesus said.

  That helped with his wardrobe choices, but only dulled his aching dread. During his usual breakfast and dressing routine, Philly kept up a running conversation with Jesus, about what to expect and what would be expected of him. To the latter, Jesus said, “Very little is expected of you in this kind of church. Just be polite and follow the crowd.”

  “Follow the crowd?” Philly said, as he tied his shoes.

  “You know, stand when they stand, sit when they sit. But there’s less of that here than in the Catholic churches you’ve visited.”

  Philly remembered attending church with his other grandmother. His ma had cajoled him and Eileen into joining her and her mother at the local Catholic Mass, when that grandma came to visit a couple of times. These occasions had taught Philly that complaining didn’t help, but that compliance, which sheltered unspoken discontent, worked best. Jesus knew these ghost feelings arose for Philly with church attendance looming.

  On the way down the back stairs, Philly spotted Mrs. Kelly in her kitchen, dressed and waiting for a friend to pick her up for church. Generally, Philly lay in bed when that transaction occurred each week. The homey voices of the two nearly-deaf women politely addressing each other, in the manner of women o
f their generation, penetrated into Philly’s peaceful Sunday laziness. Counting himself at one now with those two grand, old women—on his feet and out the door so early on a Sunday—heartened Philly, distracting him from his anxiety.

  The sight of Theresa at her front door captivated Philly. His object of infatuation looked even better in good daylight than in the low lights of restaurants and evening living rooms. She smiled at Philly who couldn’t stop grinning at his good luck.

  “Good luck?” Jesus said, not only looking over Philly’s shoulder, but peering right through his head.

  Theresa watched with interest as Philly scolded the distraction from his playful companion. She fought a feeling of jealousy over Philly’s unique initiation into life with Jesus. Going to church, seemed so much less fascinating. For Philly, however, the day promised the wonder of walking into a church with Jesus by his side.

  A short drive on that warming Sunday morning brought Philly and Theresa to the tan, brick building in a near suburb, where Theresa had been attending church for several years. When they climbed out of the car, along with Jesus, it was Philly that felt like the odd man out. Theresa and Jesus both acted like they knew where they were going and expected to be welcomed. Philly’s guilty absence from church had recently been compounded by rejection from Theresa’s friend, skeptical of Philly’s miraculous experiences. He struggled to avoid slipping from feeling like a stranger to feeling like an intruder.

  Philly scooped at his hair against the steady morning breeze, out of habit more than necessity, now that Rosa had tamed it. Theresa sensed his nervousness and sought to calm him by taking hold of his near arm with both of her hands and walking close. Philly caught a smile from Jesus when she did this. Jesus knew that the soul connection with Theresa would give Philly a needed distraction from his fear of her church. From the perspective of Theresa’s friends, her open display of affection for Philly would dampened their resistance.