Hello World

Dear World,

I’m back! It seems like I’ve only been gone for fifteen minutes, but that’s silly because where I went there was no time at all. It was wonderful! Leaving this time zone really helps put a perspective on current events. If I allowed myself to watch TV at all it was only movies that took place in the nineteen-thirties or forties or nature documentaries. So one day, when they talked about Leviathan at a church service I had just watched a program about schools of fish and the whole underwater world. It was a terrific coincidence.  I finished reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin which plopped me into the 1850s and Twain’s Joan of Arc which plopped me into the fifteenth century. From those books, I learned that as bad as the news is today and as excited and hysterical as people get about it, outrages are simply quid pro quo!

World, sorry about this, but you always have been a mess and I suppose you always will be. When one thing gets better, something else falls apart. Too bad! So, if you don’t mind, I will stay in you as I must because I have a mission to accomplish, but now I can see more clearly just what Jesus meant when He cautioned us not to be of you.

My new year’s resolution is that I will not let your news people and other semi-ignorant and deceived audiences pull me into their wars, fears, and hatreds. I think you all did fine without me and I think that if this is the way you want to run your life, well… I feel sorry for you.

Fortunately for me and my other aspiring immortal friends, we live in two countries at the same time. In my homeland, every last person has the best healthcare, is wealthy, can receive an excellent education, and is 100% protected from enemies! What more could a soul ask for?  Our King (no elections to fret about) is honest, dependable, and very intelligent. To know Him is to love Him. You are so different from each other, but I know that you get glimpses of my homeland and don’t seem to be too impressed. Too bad.

World, don’t worry about losing me entirely just yet, because I love my family and my friends so much, and they live in your countries. Even if I didn’t have a mission at all, I’d want to stay here for as long as I can, to be with them. I want to teach them about my homeland and hope that they can come live with me there forever.

Just writing to let you know that I am back. Keep in touch, but don’t get too close, you’re infectious and I don’t want to get sick.

Love,

Evangeline

Week Three

I survived my week in hell, but not before making an utter fool of myself before God and a couple of brothers. Of the thousands of movies I’ve seen, and the tens of thousands of quotable lines in them, the one that struck a lasting chord of perfect pitch in me came out of Steve Martin’s mouth in Father of the Bride. He said, “I come from a long line of over reactors.” When I heard that for the first time I underwent a catharsis of hysterics. Suddenly I was no longer totally responsible for my emotional tantrums; my ancestors helped me to carry the blame. I laughed out loud in the heartiest most joyful expression of relief, and since then from time to time I remember the line with no diminution of joy.

It is when I need forgiveness the most, that of course I deserve it the least. Being haunted by my own weakness, as I approached the cleansing purifying Chalice on Sunday, I wondered if I could forgive myself. Weakness is the wrong word. It tries to erase blame. There was no weakness, it was a voluntary and intentional performance staged to express the tumult I felt, like a pinball being jettisoned not just by flippers but in a sea of currents screaming to bust through the wall of conflict, when I should have been a meek and faithful lamb. It doesn’t help at all that I am reading Mark Twain’s Recollections of Joan of Arc. Worse yet, I am at the part in the book that describes her at her trial. Here stands young Joan firm and strong before the most evil opposition. The contrast is humiliating. Please reader of mine, read Twain’s book for the most inspiring tale of a true immortal.

I look ahead at this week with renewed commitment to find my way into the very heart of Christ so I can consciously join Him at the moment when He reunites humanity to God to make the new Eden possible, even here and now. To listen to the echoes of my failure is to deny the power of the Blood. This is a new day in a new week and I have only to experience what is true and real and before me now. I mustn’t look back, but rather set my hand to the plow.

During this Lent in my writing, I am intentionally not on another journey likes the ones you have joined me on so many times before, such as when we walked the Exodus together, or rode in the bubble during Creation (that was fun!). Nope, no journey this time. I know that most aspiring immortals call Lent a journey, but not me, not this year. I don’t want to go from here to there; instead in stillness I want to become aware of being in Christ and He in me. Awareness is no journey, it is an awakening. It is truth revealed in the midst of powerful lies, distortions are like wavy mirrors at the carnival that tickle us with our false reflections. Awareness of truth is the first speck of sunrise over the ocean illuminating what had sat in darkness.

Of course I need help to become aware of being in Christ, the help one can only get from a friendly immortal or an aspiring immortal. I started Lent with one such man, Nicholas Cabasilas, but then needed to put him down for book club assignments and the occasional treat, Joan of Arc. I am almost finished with my book club assignment, Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a beautiful book about how the true Christianity of both Negroes and Caucasians helped to overcome and ultimately to extinguish evil slavery. After the meeting tomorrow, I hope to shed the scales from my eyes and tell you what I see. Till then, adieu.