by J. R. Mabry
“Anarchy,” Larch said calmly, “which is just another way of saying the end of tyranny.”
“There’s one problem with that,” Purderabo pointed a chubby finger at Larch.
“And what might that be?” Larch asked, no longer trying to hide his irritation.
“There are certain friars that, should they catch wind of what is going on—”
“And how could they not, if the sephirot start rocking wildly out of balance?” Turpelo interjected.
“—they will surely try to stop us.”
“Do you think I didn’t consider that?” Larch leaned back, a self-satisfied look spreading across his wolfish face. “You see, this is the beauty of this plan. It is truly a group effort. Because while I am ascending the Tree of Life, dismantling the spheres, you all are going to be hard at work here on earth.”
“Doing what?” Khams asked.
“A little bit of what our stage-magician brethren call ‘misdirection.’”
6
Richard sat on a short, discarded pew in the basement hall of All Saints Episcopal Church and tried to relax. His brain seemed like popcorn ever since the call from CNN. He jumped up and started pacing the linoleum. It occurred to him that he did not have any clean cassocks in reserve. After only seven traverses of the hallway, Mother Maggie slipped her head through the door to her office. “Just give us a second, dear,” she said. She closed it again. In a few seconds, it opened wide and a woman about ten years older than Richard emerged, blowing her nose and avoiding his eyes. He recognized her from around town—perhaps he had seen her sitting at one of the tables at the Gallic Hotel, sipping a cappuccino?
She walked briskly to the women’s restroom and disappeared inside. Mother Maggie’s door gaped, but he waited to hear her call before he entered the sacred space. “I’ve made tea,” she called. He entered and she gestured toward the cups on the table. “Just the way you poor, unrefined Americans like it. No milk.” She made a face. “Have a seat, dear.”
He did and adjusted his cassock so that it fell properly over his knees and did not reveal the blue jeans underneath. Mother Maggie closed her eyes, and began to sink into contemplation. Richard allowed himself to do the same, noticing the jangliness of his nerves and his industrial-strength monkey mind. He did his best, but to no avail. His mind kept jumping to CNN, to the tremendous opportunity it presented for the Order—the money, the recognition, the glory.
The rustle of Maggie’s clothes interrupted his fantasies and he opened his eyes to see her leaning across the little table between them, a lit match held aloft in her twisted, arthritic hands. “We light this candle to remind us of all the shit we don’t know,” Maggie said, lighting a tall candle on the table.
Richard smiled. Maggie was one of a kind. He had been fortunate to have her as his spiritual director for years now, and it was one of the relationships that brought him the most joy. Maggie had been present at every significant event of his life—or for that matter, the life of the friary. He realized how lost he would feel without her, and he squelched the urge to rush over and catch her up in a bear hug.
“Tell me how God is fucking with you,” she invited him.
“Uh…huh,” Richard passed his hand over his thinning hair and thought. “How do you know God is fucking with me?”
“God is always fucking with all of us,” she smiled sweetly at him. “It’s what God does.”
“What does that mean?” Richard asked.
“Don’t play coy, you know exactly what I mean,” Maggie waved a hand at him. “I want to know how God is punching you in the kidneys, challenging your paradigm, shaking your tree. If you feel safe or secure or satisfied, you can be sure that tree will start shaking before too long. Love doesn’t settle for lies, and it isn’t interested in appearances or excuses or business-as-usual. Love is always on the move, always poking at us, always threatening us to become more than we are…or else. So. How is God fucking with you?”
Richard took a sip of tea.
“Take your time,” Maggie said. “I’ve got plenty.”
“We’ve only got an hour,” Richard countered.
“This month, yes,” she said, resting her gnarled hands in her lap, waiting.
The implication was that she would sit in silence until he answered her and would continue that silence into future sessions unless he relented and answered her question. Richard noted the wide clerical collar that went all the way around her neck, like a halo that had slipped and become a dog collar. How does she fasten that thing with her hands the way they are? He wondered. He knew her husband had died years ago. So how…? But as intriguing as it was, that was not the question at hand. Internally he slapped himself for dodging. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “Can I just talk about what’s going on, and maybe you’ll notice how God is fucking with me?”
“Excellent plan!” she announced, pointing at him crookedly. “Tell me a story of Richard.”
“Well, our friend Marco came for a visit. He’s at the friary now.”
“Marco, Marco…” she pursed her lips and looked at the ceiling, obviously trying to retrieve a memory. She found it and looked down again. “He’s the inventor chap, yes?”
“Yep, that’s the one. He’s working on a Christometer, a device to measure the relative amount of christons present in an object or a room or a rite. We hope to compare Eucharists of different denominations to gauge their relative efficacies.”
“Do you now?” Maggie’s eyes narrowed to tiny slits that Richard did not like one little bit.
“Uh…it’s just an experiment,” Richard said.
“I’m guessing he has not yet perfected this device?”
“No.”
“I’m guessing he’s having difficulty calibrating it?” Maggie’s mouth stretched into a kind grin. Richard noticed that her lipstick was unevenly applied.
“How in the world could you possibly know that?”
“An educated guess. When he figures it out, I’ll tell you.”
“Okay, that’s a deal.”
“What else is happening?”
“There’s something up with Terry.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s sullen. Maybe depressed. He goes off by himself a lot lately.”
“Have you invited him to confide in you?”
“Yeah, but so far he’s playing it all pretty close to the vest.”
“So what does Jesus say about it?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, when you talk to Jesus about Terry, what does Jesus say?”
Richard squirmed in his seat. “Uh…I haven’t really talked to Jesus about it.”
“Are you nuts?” Maggie snapped.
“Huh?” Richard asked. Even after all this time, Maggie could still unsettle him.
“How dare you bring something to me that you haven’t brought to Jesus first? I mean, what do you expect me to do about it?”
“Uh…listen?”
“Doesn’t it make sense to talk it over with someone who can actually have an impact on the situation?”
“In my experience, God doesn’t really work that way.”
“Then you, my dear little man, have not been paying attention.”
Little man? Richard was nearly twice her height. Perhaps she meant “little in faith” or “little in spirit.” The thought caused him to deflate a little.
“From now on, let’s make a deal. You bring everything to Jesus before you bring it here.”
“What if I forget?”
“Then it’s not forgetting. It’s resistance.” She smiled sweetly at him. “In which case I may have to beat you about the head and shoulders.”
“I’m not sure that counts as one of those spiritual direction best practices,” Richard said.
“Fuck them, the North American Spiritual Directors Coalition and their fucking rules and regulations,” Maggie said, still smiling at him beatifically. “Is it a deal?”
“Okay, I ca
n do that. I’ll bring everything to Jesus first.” He squirmed. “At least, I’ll try to remember to do that.”
“And when you don’t, then we’ll really have something to talk about.”
“This is the accountability thing, isn’t it?”
“It is,” she agreed. “The very thing.”
“And you’re not going to give me a pass on it, are you?”
“I’m going to drill you like a sailor on shore leave.”
Richard thought for several moments. “What do you expect Jesus to say about it?”
Maggie’s face fell. “Richard! How many years have we been working together? You pray, I know you pray!”
“Yes, I say the hours. But it seems like you’re talking about talking to Jesus…like you and I are talking.”
“Exactly. Ask him to make you some tea. His tea puts the Queen’s to shame.” She scrunched her nose. “I love it.”
“Would you…would you tell me how you pray?” Richard asked.
“Of course, dear!” she said, apparently excited to be asked. “First we walk through the Berkeley Rose Garden together. We hold hands. He’s very sweet. I tell him everything I’m thinking about, everything I’m afraid of or worried over. Sometimes I ask for help with something. But mostly I just share my feelings.” She leaned forward and shook a crooked finger at Richard. “He’s a good fucking listener, he is.”
Richard just nodded.
“And then we find a quiet place to sit, and he holds me close while we say the Liturgy of the Hours together. I usually lead, but he reads the responses. I sometimes think he’d be a trifle uncomfortable reading the bits about himself, but it doesn’t seem to faze him at all. Then sometimes we make love.”
“You make…love?”
“Yes.” She bunched her face up looking like one of those wizened apple-core dolls. “He touches me in my giggly place. He’s wonderful.”
“Maggie, it sounds like you pray the way Dylan does shamanic journeys,” Richard noted.
“Oh, yes. Same thing. Just with Jesus,” she agreed. “It goes back to St. Ignatius, you know.”
“St. Ignatius prayed like this?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Did he make love with Jesus, too?”
She reached across the table and poked the tip of his nose. “That would be telling!”
Richard started to laugh. “So are you saying that I need to…you know, make love?”
“Dicky, why are you uncomfortable? What we’re talking about here is intimacy.”
“Intimacy with Jesus.”
“Yes. That’s what it’s all about.”
“What what’s all about?”
“All of it! The Church, Christian life, prayer, living.”
Richard thought about that for a moment.
“It scares the willies out of you, doesn’t it?” She looked elated at the thought.
“Why are you so pleased?”
“Because God is fucking with you! And that means that good, uncomfortable, transformative things are happening in you. Just under the cassock.”
“Oh! I forgot the big thing,” Richard said.
“Ooo, tell me the big thing!” Maggie whispered, conspiratorially.
“CNN called us. They want to follow us for a couple days. Maybe film an exorcism.”
He was pleased to see her eyebrows shoot up. “Well, that’s flattering.”
“It is!” The nervous energy returned, and he got up and paced in the space just behind his chair. “You know, we’ve toiled just on the edge of poverty for so long. The idea that we might be seeing some light, some recognition, maybe some regular work once people know about us…it gives me hope.”
Maggie cocked her head and considered him.
“What?” he asked.
“Chocolate?” she held up a bowl of bonbons.
Richard took one, and then almost immediately choked, as it seemed to be filled with a cayenne cream that made Richard’s eyes water.
“Things are not always what they seem,” she said.
“Thanks for the object lesson, but—” he choked and slurped at his tea.
“You’ve ‘toiled just on the edge of poverty for so long.’” Maggie quoted him. “Who supported you during that time?”
“Uh—”
“God did,” she answered for him. “And when you had success, who got the glory for it?”
“Uh—”
“God did. And when you didn’t know where your next gig was coming from, who kept you going?”
“Uh—”
“God did. And here you are on the brink of the undoing of all that support and trust, and now you have hope?”
“I…just…” Richard could think of no answer to this.
Maggie looked stern. She leaned forward in her seat and looked him in the eyes. “You listen to me, Richard Kinney. You be careful. Don’t you lose sight for a moment whose power casts those demons out. Don’t you forget for a second whose work you are doing, or whose name you wear. Glory is a poison if it is placed in the wrong cup.”
She reached for a pad of paper and tore off a strip from the bottom of the first page. Then, with a tiny golf pencil, she wrote something on it. “That’s our time, Dicky.” She put the strip of paper into his hand. “You need to start taking things to Jesus. The big stuff, the little stuff, the stuff that bugs you, and the stuff you think you’ve got covered. Promise me.”
“Okay. I’ll give that kind of prayer a try.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise.”
“Good. You’re going to fucking need it.”
He rose and crossed to the door. “Oh, and Dicky,” he paused. “I’ll be retiring soon. Probably just at the start of Advent.”
“What?” he asked. He opened his mouth to say more, but his tongue was a tangle of protest.
“I’ll be praying for you.” She smiled sweetly at him. Then she shut the door.
“Holy cow,” he said. He felt like someone had just beaned him with a brick. What would he do without Maggie? Intellectually he knew she was advanced in years, that she wouldn’t be working forever. But…the idea of continuing his ministry without her constant support, her advice, her transgressive advocacy…he couldn’t see it.
He glanced at the scrap of paper in his hand. “Luke 8:17.” He didn’t need to look it up. He knew what it said, and he muttered it aloud as he set off toward the stairs. “For nothing is hidden that will not be disclosed, nor is anything secret that will not become known and come to light.”
7
Susan was breathing heavily as she power-walked beside Kat.
“C’mon, just a little further. We’re almost home,” Kat said.
“I swear to God, if I had an ounce more energy, I’d beat the spandex off your lean, muscular body.”
“That’s good. Let the lust for violence fuel your last few blocks.”
Susan almost tripped over an uneven sidewalk. Kat caught her elbow. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Just…yeah.”
“You don’t have to come with me on these every day you know,” Kat said. She was striding along without any apparent strain, pumping barbells, while Susan was empty-handed and simply struggling to keep up.
“If I don’t, how will we ever share our wardrobes?”
Kat burst out with a laugh but caught herself. She looked sideways at Susan to make sure it was okay. Susan was smiling. Sweating, but smiling. Kat relaxed. The late morning sun was beginning to feel warm on her face, and the wind smelled sweet and vaguely of the bay. “Let’s take your mind off it,” Kat suggested. “Let’s talk about something.”
“Okay,” Susan agreed. “How do you feel about being ordained?”
“Hm…” Kat looked over and saw someone playing Frisbee on the east lawn of the UC Berkeley campus. “I don’t really understand the whole two-step ordination process.”
“You and half the Christian world. We did away with it a long time ago.”
“We?”
&nbs
p; “Lutherans,” Susan clarified.
“Right.”
“And most Protestants. The transitional diaconate is kind of like a Catholic vestigial organ. Among Protestants, only the Episcopal Church still does it.”
“I think being a deacon is a cool thing. I like the whole idea of committing your life to service—to the poor, to the oppressed—that’s great. But I don’t want to be a deacon. I feel called to be a priest.”
“Right. I think that’s a good discernment. It’s you.”
“So why do I have to spend six months as a deacon?”
“Have you asked Richard about it?”
“Uh, yeah, and he gave me a forty-minute lecture on Neo-Platonism, and gradiated spheres of glory and power. I didn’t understand a word of it.”
“You know, the boys are all theology geeks.” Susan took a few deep breaths before continuing. “Mikael is the least bad, so you can thank your lucky stars there. But you can tell Richard when he’s not making sense. We don’t all have PhD’s in philosophy, and sometimes he needs to be reminded of that. He’s not trying to annoy you.”
“I know. I think he was genuinely trying to answer my question. I just didn’t understand his answer.”
“And it’s not because you’re stupid. It’s because, in some ways, he is—he doesn’t always have the emotional intelligence to know when he’s not coming across.”
“I didn’t want to go there—”
“Go there. He’s your bishop. You need to hold him accountable.”
“It’s not like he did anything wrong.”
“No, but he didn’t do it right. If you tell him that—kindly—you will help him be a better leader.”
“He won’t take it wrong?”
“I doubt it. And if he does, he’ll get over it. Especially if I punch him. He’s not my fucking bishop.”
“Okay, that’s scary, but I think I can handle that. But I’m interested in what you think is behind this whole deacon thing.”
Susan held up a hand. “Can we just…stop a minute?”
“Nope. Three blocks. This is the burn, baby.”
“Oh, holy shit. You’re just cruel. Okay. I think the whole ministry ladder is about gradiated levels of responsibility. A deacon has a little bit of responsibility, a priest has more responsibility. And a bishop has the most.”
