by Greg Kincaid
“The Christian mystics, like all mystics, believe that God exists within all things and is part of us, inseparable, and that through meditation or prayer we (the self) need only get out of the way—so to speak—to access God, to become Christ-like or maybe even God-like. The mystics abandon the dualistic way of seeing God as separate and up and out there somewhere.”*2 Chuck pointed to the night sky crammed with stars. Then he pointed to his heart and head and concluded, “Instead, they look in here.”
What Chuck said triggered a palpable sense of relief in Ted. The tension in his shoulders subsided. For the first time, he was not excluded from religion, left on the outside looking in. Instinctively, he had resisted buying into a destructive and misguided message about his own sinful nature. Seeing God as not “out there” but part of him and all things made him worthy and integrated, not unworthy or cast out. It gave him a sense of hope. Maybe Ted and religion were not oil and water.
Ted leaned back and with all the concentration he could muster said, “All right, I get it. Our psyches or our souls are like glass laboratory beakers. If you fill the glass up with water, or self, then there is no space left for air, or God. True spiritual growth is an emptying process.”
“You’ve got it, Ted Day! We must work on fostering and allowing the God within us, our higher self, to expand. Our journey is not to find Jesus’s divinity but our own.”
Ted laid down another card and again declared, “Gin.”
Father Chuck was not used to losing at this rate, but still he deftly shuffled the cards. He was enjoying Angel’s student. Ted was a quick study.
“So how do I shed the self?” Ted asked.
“You get in a boat that’s actually going to leave the shore, cast off, and learn how to row. We call it the Work. Angel and some of our other friends will help you. You and I have a far simpler task.”
Deciding to go a new direction with the cards, Ted rearranged his hand before asking, “What’s that, Chuck?”
“We’re going to sit beneath the stars, play cards by the fire, get a great night’s sleep in the mountain air, get up with the morning sun, and then, my friend, to top it all off, we’re going trout fishing in paradise. You see, Ted, sometimes good rowing is just good living.”
“It’s that easy?” Ted asked.
“Does a rose have to work hard to bloom?”
“Not likely.”
“Should we care if it tilts to the left or tilts to the right?”
“No concern of mine.”
“What do you expect from a rosebud?”
Ted thought about it and answered, “To bloom?”
“To realize its potential. That’s the crux of learning how to row, doing the Work. That’s why Angel wanted you to climb the mountain. From where you and I are sitting, doing life right may start to look different.”
Ted liked the message. “Thanks.”
Father Chuck drew the ace he needed, laid down his cards, and for the first time that night said, “Gin.”
*1 For an excellent and more in-depth discussion of the divergence between Jesus’s message and the current state of Christianity, see Cynthia Bourgeault, The Wisdom Jesus: Transforming Heart and Mind—A New Perspective on Christ and His Message (Boston: Shambhala, 2008).
*2 Father Chuck could hardly put down a book by Richard Rohr, a Franciscan friar and Catholic priest who also lived in New Mexico. Rohr writes brilliantly on this subject: The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See (New York: Crossroad, 2008).
17
Father Chuck gathered about twelve feet of the leader from the reel in his left hand while he raised the rod to a vertical position with his right. When the rod was at the apex of its arc, he brought it forward. He repeated the motion several times, whipping the line back and forth, until he had the entire leader fully engaged in the cast, then took his thumb off the leader and let it whip the nearly invisible microfilament line, carrying the small fly through the air to flutter and land on the surface of Stewart Lake. It took several attempts, but Ted performed a similar motion and to his delight experienced a similar result.
Argo sat and watched patiently. Twenty minutes in, the process took an interesting turn. Ted moved from practicing fly-fishing to fly-fishing. He caught his first fish.
While Father Chuck gave Ted a crash course on fly-fishing and further discussed Christianity, Angel drove down the mountain several miles to a small camp store and purchased a few groceries. She put away her groceries and drove a bit further down the mountain to a secluded place on the river, where she parked Bertha the Bookmobile, washed some of her clothes, and bathed in an icy-cold pool of water from the Pecos River while No Barks stood watch. With her hair shampooed, Angel felt invigorated. She was resting for a moment on a boulder with her feet dangling into the cold water when a slight movement fifty yards upstream caught her eye. She sat perfectly still and watched as two does and a fawn moved into the water. She closed her eyes and imagined herself moving with them. When she opened her eyes, they had disappeared.
Angel dried off and pulled on a warm sweatshirt, found her cell phone, and called her father. He had left two messages and she knew he would worry if she did not call him back.
When Larsen answered, Angel said, “Age, it’s Angel.”
“I was worried. Where are you?”
“I’m on the Pecos. It’s very beautiful and it makes me think of our time together fishing on the Cheyenne. I’ve been out of coverage for a few days or I would have called sooner.” Larson had steeled himself against many losses in his life, but no matter how hard he tried, he worried too much. Angel’s loving presence on the phone, instead of the lingering pain of her absence, brought small tears of joy to the rims of his eyes. He said, “It does me good to hear your voice.”
“Age, I wish you were here with me. I have good news.”
“Tell me.”
“I have my first client. He’s a lawyer from Crossing Trails, Kansas.” She then carefully found a way to suggest to her father that there was not yet any intimacy between them. “He has the white man’s disease, but there is hope for him.”
Larsen preferred to avoid the subject of white men. “How is Bertha the Bookmobile and your Aunt Lilly’s dog, No Barks? Do they like this pilgrimage?”
“They are both fine. Did you know that Bertha only has eighty-five thousand miles on her? She’s practically new.”
“Yes, but I want to talk to you about something else,” Larsen answered. “I went to Pierre to visit your Aunt Lilly at the girl jail.”
“How is she?” Angel asked.
“I think she is good. They take good care of her. She has a doctor. I spoke with him. It may be that your Aunt Lilly is crazy, and maybe not so crazy. She spoke of missing No Barks. She thinks that I need a dog too. She also said something about Bertha that I want to share with you.”
“Yes?” Angel asked.
“On the floor, near the back, there is a bolt that sticks up slightly above the floor.”
“Yes, I’ve sat on it accidentally, and it is not comfortable.”
“Get a wrench and remove the bolt. When you do so, a piece of the floor will lift out. Under the floor, Aunt Lilly told me that she kept things she did not want to share with your uncle Harry. She said that he tried to take things from her. There may be nothing in this space but wolf shit. I do not know for sure, but perhaps you should look into it. If there are weapons in it—unless you need them to protect you from the broken white man you are trying to help—you might want to throw them away.”
It made sense to Angel that her aunt would have had a secure place for important things. She had been reluctant to explore the dark recesses of Bertha and had not been interested in unlocking the small librarian’s desk. Besides, there was no key. Even though her aunt had gifted Bertha to her father, snooping still seemed like an invasion of Aunt Lilly’s privacy. Larsen had generally cleaned up the interior and Angel—not being a picky housekeeper—left the rest alone. “Do you think Aunt Lilly w
ill mind if I open it?”
“I don’t think she would have told me about this space if she did not want you to look into it.”
Larsen did not want to meddle in his daughter’s life, but he felt it prudent to ask one more thing. “Tell me more about this man from Kansas.”
“Age, you need not worry. Ted is a smart and kind man. He has promised to help us look into Aunt Lilly’s case. To help if he can. He has a dog too. No Barks even likes Ted.”
“No Barks does not like men.”
“Well, he likes Ted.”
Larsen thought a moment and decided that this was a good sign, which gave him a sense of relief. “Angel, I’m proud of you. Many men have daughters, but only mine wants to heal men’s souls.” He felt the tears gather again. He wished his daughter would return, but he also knew that she had important work to do. “I will say a prayer for you to Wakan Tanka so that you walk along the right and red road.”
“Age, don’t worry. We may be heading home soon to help Aunt Lilly.”
“Good, I look forward to seeing you and this Ted.” Larsen hung up. To say good-bye would have been to acknowledge the end of a conversation that he prayed would continue for many years to come. He returned his attention to an old rusted Camry with over three hundred thousand miles on it, contemplating whether the transmission could be rebuilt for the $127 that Martha Walks Lightly had offered him from the jar she kept near her refrigerator. It was enough.
Larsen believed that whatever task Wakan Tanka assigned him was a good task. How much he was paid was an entirely separate issue. He raised the car on the lift and began to remove, one at a time, the bolts that secured the transmission to the engine block. Maybe Aunt Lilly was right. Perhaps, with his wife and children all absent, he needed a dog. There was a horrific dog problem on the reservation. Perhaps he could take in one of the hungry strays that wandered about abandoned. One dog, one car transmission, one soul, one planet: Larsen knew that in some ways it was all the same thing.
Even blistered and sore, coming down the mountain was easy for the two hikers. Six hours up was only three hours down. They met Angel in time for a late lunch of trout, two of which Ted could claim as his own. No Barks worked the edges of the Pecos River as it twisted and turned near their campsite. Argo did not join her but instead rested in Bertha, exhausted from the hike.
Angel said very little while the two men ate, talked, and recounted their exploits. After wiping his mouth with a paper towel, Father Chuck said, “If I don’t get going, I’m going to be late for vespers.”
Chuck stood up and pulled his car key from his pocket. Angel leaned over and placed a warm kiss on his cheek. “Thank you, Chuck.”
Ted felt very grateful for Father Chuck’s willingness to share his knowledge of religion and fly-fishing. Suddenly wishing he were one of those men who gave hugs, Ted said, “I’ve never met anyone quite like you, Father Chuck. You’ve inspired me.” He made the sideways peace sign and said, “Metanoia.”
Chuck smiled and realized that, like Angel, he found doing the Work with someone like Ted gratifying; it was what had called him to the priesthood in the first place. He glanced at Angel and said, “May a rich life rest ahead for you both. God bless.”
Ted wondered why he hadn’t met more people like Father Chuck in his life. The priest returned to his rusted car, pulled the creaky door shut, and drove away. As Ted watched the dust settle on the gravel road that led back down the mountain, he concluded that Father Chuck had helped to usher in a miracle of sorts—three excellent vacation days in a row.
18
Sitting cross-legged in the driver’s seat of Bertha, Angel quietly meditated. Ted did his best to get comfortable on the hard, metal floor, nestled between the two dogs. With very limited success, he was trying to read the Koran by flashlight.
The key to Angel’s mediation practice was not to cease all mental activity, a virtual impossibility, but simply to give no energy to the chatter of the critical mind—the knowing, right-and-wrong, labeling, time-bound activity of the left hemisphere—and to unfetter and engage the open light of the right-hemispherical awareness. Tonight this was proving difficult. Her mind wandered and she found herself making plans.
Tomorrow they would get up, drive down the mountain, and continue their discussion of the third realization and the six levels of spiritual growth. They would talk while traveling through Pecos and Santa Fe and then on to Taos to meet Mashid.
Angel felt a little surge of anxiety. Much as she respected her, she was not always comfortable around Mashid. She had been able to do what Angel had not: find a way to wed spiritual teaching with real-world economic survival. Mashid was not a vagabond traversing America in a worn-out bookmobile trusting that she would find clients. Mashid was grounded. She had a following, an audience, and a career—people bought her books and attended her retreats.
The hard critic within leveled accusations of Angel’s unworthiness. She breathed deeply and invited the critic to roost elsewhere. She whispered, Leave. No one asked you for your opinion, and tried to return stillness to her mind.
Ted turned off the flashlight, pulled Argo closer, closed his eyes, and ran his fingers through his dog’s scruffy fur. Argo had a bottomless reservoir of affection for Ted.
As tired as he was, Ted suspected that he would have a difficult time falling asleep on the hard floor of the bookmobile. He again found himself situated on that pesky bolt that protruded from the floor, and he shifted away from it. Ted’s mind was electric and energized. Angel and Chuck had introduced to him more new thoughts and experiences in the last twenty-four hours than he had experienced in the previous thirty years. He felt like a young boy marveling at the number of packages beneath the Christmas tree—each with a carefully written label: To: Ted, From: Angel and Chuck.
Fly-fishing, new friendships, profound teachings, bears, and backpacking: it was all almost overwhelming. Even more remarkable, it had happened while on vacation.
Even hours later, with the lights long off and the night half over, though exhausted, he was simply too stimulated to sleep. Staring at the long, curved shape beneath the covers, Ted wondered what kind of woman dwelled in the marrow of Angel Two Sparrow. She was intriguing, but was she kind, loyal, and supportive? Would she be a good life companion, a nurturing mother? Was she the kind of woman who could survive in Crossing Trails, Kansas? Or, like the last one, would she grow bored and yearn for her own Thor?
It might be unsafe to let Angel into his life, smarter to draw a boundary: student and teacher. Soon enough, like all vacations, this one would end and he would return to Crossing Trails. Infatuation and one-sided admiration were a dangerous foundation for a relationship.
Good partnerships are built with equals. Helping Aunt Lilly was the only thing Angel was asking of him. It was the logical place for him to shine in her eyes and find some balance in their relationship.
Though it was late, Ted could not hear the measured breathing of sleep and wondered if Angel was still awake. Perhaps he should try to mention Lilly now. But listening more intently, he realized that Angel was making little puffing sounds. She was asleep. It could wait.
That wolf, No Barks, was nestled in beside her—a position he would prefer to occupy himself. He wanted to maneuver his way around the wolf and get slightly closer to Angel, hoping that somehow in the night she might accidentally wake up in his arms. He didn’t want to make it obvious, but if fate had that in store for him, he would help it along. With each repositioning, he simply found himself closer to No Barks. He reached out and placed his hand on her paw. The wolf gently turned and licked his hand. Ted took her paw and rubbed it gently. He felt surprisingly content lying on the floor of an old bookmobile with insomnia.
Soon Ted’s breathing synchronized with the wolf’s and he fell into a thick, deep sleep and began to dream. The stark colors were absent, but the shapes and forms were better defined and the perspective seemed more accurate than in his normal dreaming state, as if the lens of hi
s dream had moved from close-up to wide angle. No Barks and Argo were sitting on top of a grave—guardians on a lonely vigil. It was dark. Life and death were coming and going with peaceful indifference, like the movement of clock hands. Then something upsetting happened in the dream and Ted woke in a fright, startling both dogs. Argo scooted closer to Ted so they could comfort each other. Lying there on the floor, Ted felt an extraordinary sadness. He shuddered as a cold chill came over him.
It was not the action of the dream that had frightened him. There was no bogeyman chasing him across a dark cemetery. The terrifying moment had been a sensation, premature but plausible. He had experienced just for an instant the feeling that comes right before death—when there is no turning back, no second chances; when one knows this will be the last breath drawn. It was Ted Day in the deeply dug grave. And the feeling in the dream had been that his life was over.
The wolf had also situated herself closer to Ted. He wanted to thank the two dogs for their graveside vigil. He reached over and draped his arm on No Barks’s shoulder and tried to fall back asleep, wondering what the dream might mean.
For breakfast Angel and Ted ate some of the granola bars and fruit she had purchased the day before. Ted casually mentioned a preference for pancakes, bacon, orange juice, and coffee. “Ted,” Angel responded, “Bertha is no diner, but I know a great place in Santa Fe. Eat the fruit now, clog your arteries later.”
Once they had broken camp and were heading down the mountain toward Pecos, Ted tried to call his office to check for messages—not that he expected any of importance. Each time, the service was poor and he was not able to complete the call.
When they got within a few miles of Pecos, two bars magically appeared on his cell phone and a little bell indicated that messages were waiting to be retrieved. Ted apologetically justified returning the calls. “Even Mr. Digit has to eat and pay his rent.”
