The bar Priest chose couldn’t have been more perfectly placed if he had built it there himself. He could wait there until he got the call from Gomez. The morning had turned dark and foggy on his drive over, and the thought of a warm bar sounded all the more inviting. It was a small, arcane building, sitting alone on the highway, with a cozy atmosphere and not too many customers. Simply called, The Bar, the exterior wooden walls, surrounded by a growing fog, paired with the single lamp that hovered above the front door, made the whole scene look ethereal and yet welcoming. It was like a modern nativity scene, claptrap wooden boards that held the promise of some highly esteemed treasure concealed within, and Priest was the one lone “wiseman” to have found it.

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Out of habit Priest walked right in and plopped himself at the far left of the bar, one seat from the end. On their after-shift outings Gomez and Priest had always taken the far left. Gomez liked to joke that it was the only time Priest would ever choose to associate himself with the “Far Left” of anything. Gomez liked jokes like that. Priest hated them. Once seated, Priest noticed that he was only one of two guests seated at the bar. The other was a fat, dark-skinned man who had just returned from the washroom to his bowl of half-eaten pretzels. He was wearing a denim button-up shirt with matching jeans and dirt-covered boots. His face was like burnt cinnamon topped with wisps of cream cheese icing white hair. Crunching on his pretzels, Mr Cinnamon Roll glanced Priest’s way but didn’t say anything. He just continued to eat and returned his gaze to the baseball game on the screen behind the bar.

Indian male. Or maybe somewhere in the near East? Noticeable limp. Likely in his 50s or 60s. No distinct markings or signs of gang relations. Not a threat.

With his profile complete, Priest dropped his shoulders and ordered up the bartender for a double bourbon which he quickly drained. It had been too long, and he found that the pounding in his head seemed to slow from the moment the glass reached his mouth. He hadn’t even noticed that he had a headache until then. The drink went down like a small flame, leaving a comforting warmth in its path. One or two drinks would be enough to subdue the beast long enough for him to think. Two or three drinks would force it into an almost comatose state. A fourth, or fifth, would be enough for him to regret later.

He ordered another.

He had told himself that he would use this time alone to think over his next steps, but sitting at the bar now, the comfort of the drink called to him, and he just wanted to forget. He had been carrying such a mental and emotional load for weeks, months. If he couldn’t let his troubles go in a bar in the middle of the day, then where could he? The bartender arrived with his second drink and Priest stared at it for a moment before picking it up. Gomez wouldn’t have anything for him for another couple hours at least.

He slammed the glass down on the clear bar, splashing its untouched contents onto the bar-top, and punched himself in the left leg, almost bruising himself. The force of the punch caused his recovering shoulder to flare up in pain again. As much as he wanted to let himself succumb to the fog that the drink offered, he couldn’t close his eyes without seeing the despair in Priscilla’s eyes. He checked his phone to see if there was anything from Gomez yet.

12:13 PM

He leaned his head forward on the bar and was comforted by the cold, hard, surface of the stained cedar counter.

“Tough week there, mate? You look bloody knackered.”

Priest exhaled slowly. He wished that the British-sounding voice to his right was for somebody else. He glanced over and saw Mr Cinnamon Roll was still watching the game on the TV. He remained face-forward but gave Priest a sideways glance alerting him that he was, in fact, the source.

Needless to say, a fat, British-Indian man in a bar in Nowhere, Maryland wasn’t on Priest’s bingo card for the day. Peeling his forehead off the bar, Priest looked at this riddle of a man beside him. It shouldn’t have surprised him as much as it did; immigration was one of the three things that the talking heads never shut up about these days. But his mind had been so shaped by his previous training that his first instinct was to quickly generalize a profile and assess the threat level. Now, since it seemed that he was going to have to talk with this man, he paused to take in his fullness, and there was a lot of it to take in. Mr Cinnamon Roll had hands as big as his head, and a belly that was bigger than the rest of him combined. But what really caught Priest’s attention was his large face. He had a wide, toothy smile that was framed by the large balloons of his cheeks and massive jowls. His watery, dark eyes seemed to fixate on everything that they saw as if it was the most important thing in the world. There was a warm kindness in his every expression.

Priest was not looking forward to talking to this man.

“Yeah,” Priest said. “Tough week. Tough few months really.”

“I can tell,” Mr. Cinnamon Roll said. “There aren’t many good reasons to come into a dodgy bar like this in the afternoon.”

“So what are you doing here then? The pretzels can’t be that good.”

“Nah. They’re a bit stale. And I just lost about fifty quid on this here match.”

Mr Cinnamon Roll motioned toward the screen. The Orioles were down by five. It was not a good season for them.

Priest looked back at Mr. Cinnamon Roll. “Uh huh. So you come in here just to eat bad pretzels and gamble on baseball.”

“Any sport’ll do. Of course, I prefer cricket or football. Oh, I’m sorry, SACKER,” the Brit emphasized the word in a mock American accent. “But I have grown to love your American baseball. She don’t come anywhere near our beloved cricket, but she’ll do in a pinch.”

Priest nodded and looked down at his bourbon once more. He thought about drinking it again. Maybe then he could escape this useless conversation with a stranger.

“The name’s Micheal, but you can call me Mike, if ya like.” Micheall reached across his bowl of pretzels and offered his hand. Priest took it.

“Tomas.” It looked like “Mike” was determined to have a conversation.

“So who’s the bird?”

“The bird?”

“The girl. The little lady that has you in here staring at your bourbon like you’ve been lost in the desert all your life.”

Priest didn’t even bother to correct or clarify his situation to the man. The less Mr. Cinnamon Roll, Mike, knew about him, the better. He could play along for now.

Lord knows I’ve been carrying this on my own long enough.

“She’s a friend,” Priest said. “We went to college together.”

“Ah… the budding romance of youth.”

“It’s not like that.” He wasn’t sure why he felt the need to explain. “I never even told her how I felt. We were just friends and she was going through family stuff back then. It wasn’t the time.”

“So you seriously never told her?”

“She couldn’t handle a relationship. I didn’t think so anyways.”

Mike took a swig of club soda, but listened intently. If he could tell that Priest was lying, he didn’t show it. Priest had thought several times about asking Priscilla out, but he never felt right about it. He didn’t think she would bother with him.

“We were good friends. That’s it. After she met her husband we sort of lost track. They got married and had a kid, and I went my own way. I’m only here now to help her out after husband passed.”

“Ah. God bless her heart, that’s a tough one. You never get over a thing like that.”

“No. I supposed you don’t.” He felt a little stupid for sharing so much. He regretted coming into this bar.

“But now that you are here, you must’ve started wonderin’.”

“Wondering?”

“Wonderin’,” Mike repeated. “Being with her again, it’s gotta make you wonder. Like that saying goes, ‘old feelings die hard’. And now that you’re here, and her husband, God rest him, is gone, and you’re wonderin’ what could have been between. What would have happened if you two hadn’t gone your separate ways.”

“It’s a bit more complicated than that. It’s not like I’ve been sitting around all these years pining over her.” Have I? “I built my own life, just like she did.” Why am I getting so defensive?

“Of course. I get it. But that was all a lot easier when you were gone. Now, you’re back with her and your brain is playin’ tricks on you. Bein’ in her company again, bein’ in her house, seein’ her family photo albums. That kind of thing will do somethin’ to even the hardest of men. And I can tell by those callouses on your hands, and the wound you just flared up in your left arm there, that you’ve seen your fair share of violence. It’s gotta be difficult for you to feel this weak again. After all these years.”

Mike’s keen observational skills didn’t phase Priest. But it cut to Priest’s core to hear his experience of the past week in Priscilla’s home described back to him. Maybe he didn’t know all the details, but Mike could clearly read most of Priest’s story. It made him feel exposed, like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Talking about this hurt more than he wanted.

“What’s that tattoo you got on your arm?”

“Huh?” Priest was brought back to himself. Apparently Mike had gotten bored with dissecting his internal features, so now he had moved on to his external ones. He looked down at the tattoo that he had accidentally exposed by his rolled up sleeve. It was an intricate design made up of several creatures: a lion, a bull, an eagle, and the skull of a man. They all morphed into one image that was enclosed under a black shroud of six angelic wings. Priest rubbed the tattoo with his large hand and looked back up at the TV.

“It’s from back overseas. Military.” It wasn’t totally a lie. He fought to keep his mind in the present and avoid the past. That part of his life had fed this beast in him, built it up. Maybe it had always been there, but those days with his “unit” had given it true strength and power. He left the comment hanging between them for a few silent moments, hoping that his mention of the military would discourage Mike from prying.

“How many have you killed?” Mike sipped on his club soda.

Priest didn’t react. It wasn’t the response he had been expecting.

“I don’t know,” said Priest. I don’t want to know.

The Brit nodded. “I figured.”

With those few words, there was an unspoken understanding between the two of them, a sort of spiritual handshake over an acknowledged history. Across cultures, across race, across the wooden bar, there was something that the two of them knew that they shared. It was something in the tone in Mike’s voice, something about the way that he adjusted himself in his stool after he said it. They shared something that most people could never understand.

“Have you told her?” he asked.

“No. She’s probably picked up on pieces, gotten a general idea. She’s not an idiot, but as far as she knows I was just a military man overseas that returned home and joined the force. That’s close enough to the truth.”

“I see. So you ain’t got the bottle to tell her.”

“What?”

“You ain’t got it. The courage to tell her. You’ve known her for how long and you’re scared witless. You’re hidin’!”

“I’m not hiding,” Priest said, annoyed at this implication. “Until a couple weeks ago I didn’t think I would ever see her again. She was in the past. So it wouldn’t have done any good to tell her. And even now… it would just scare her. I don’t want to hurt her any more than she’s already hurting. After I finish up here I am getting out of here, and out of her life, forever. She doesn’t need all of my baggage. Not now. She wouldn’t be able to handle it.”

The explanation took a lot out of Priest. Maybe that drink wasn’t such a bad idea after all; end this conversation now. But Mike seemed determined to keep pushing.

“How do you know? How do you know she wouldn’t be able to handle it?”

Priest fiddled with his glass. “I know.”

“Really? You know this for a fact, huh? Did she tell you this? Did she ask you to keep your past a secret?”

“No. Of course not.”

“I thought not. Well, that seems to be your problem right there.”

Priest grimaced. “My problem? I didn’t think I had a problem.”

“Look, mate. I don’t know you from a stick in the mud, but I’ve seen a lot of men, at a lot of bars, making a lot of the same arguments as you. And it seems to me that you all are trudgin’ along in the world determined to carry a load that you were never meant to carry.”

“What do you mean?”

“By your own admission, you decided she couldn’t handle a relationship back in college, so you kept your emotions all bottled up. And now you’re back with her and you’ve decided she can’t handle the truth of your past, so you’re keeping all of that bottled up too. When was the last time you told anyone about any of this that wasn’t just some bloke in a bar?”

“I’m not just gonna dump all of my past on her! Her husband just died.” And her son is missing.

“Of course not. But have you considered opening up a little? You might try givin’ the poor girl some credit and trustin’ her a little. I’m guessin’ she can handle a lot more than you’re expectin’ she can. Most people are like that. And it ain’t good for us earthly folk to be walkin’ around carryin’ all of that junk alone. I mean seriously, have you told anyone about this?”

He thought of Gomez. “I have one friend. He was overseas with me.”

“Well, that’s something. I’ll grant you that much. But pardon my sayin’ so, that ain’t gonna cut it. I’m sure this friend is a perfectly fine bloke, but if he was over there with you then he’s too close to this. For your own sake, you need to let someone in from the outside! Someone with no connection to your past life.”

“Why?” The question sounded pitiful and stupid in his throat.

Mike swallowed a mouthful of pretzels. “Because you’re worth it, son.”

Priest’s head jolted up to look Mike in the face. What was this? Some sort of strange self-help guru who sat around in bars poking his nose into strangers’ lives? Priest wanted to take that bowl of pretzels and shove it somewhere Mike, and the entire British Navy, wouldn’t be able to find. But Mike didn’t even seem to notice, or care. He just kept munching away. Priest’s angry stare came to rest on the small token that he was fiddling with in his right hand as he grabbed handfuls of stale pretzels with his left.

It was a small, bronze token, the same size and shape as a poker chip. Emblazoned on the side was an inscription that sounded like something Gomez would say,

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

the courage to change the things I can,

and the wisdom to know the difference.

Priest’s eyes went from the chip to the glass of club soda sitting in front of the man. He looked down at the glass of bourbon in front of himself and sighed.

After that, the two men didn’t seem to have anything more to say to each other. Other than the periodic shout at the players, they sat silently watching the game until Gomez finally called. He may not know this strange fat British-Indian man, sitting in a bar in the middle of Nowhere, Maryland, but he understood him.

Mike shouted at the TV, “Another fifty quid!”

The small car bumped and stuttered its way over the uneven gravel road on the way back from the cabin. With each new divot, stone, and branch the car threatened to bottom out from under him. Priest was driving on mental autopilot at this point, so that the better part of his brain could be devoted to what he had just discovered. The small plastic piece of Jamie’s toy weighed heavy in his jacket pocket.

Jamie had been there.

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But where was he now? There were so many pieces to this case, and they all seemed to come from different puzzles. Jamie Edwards kidnapped. The stolen school bus. The police chief’s dead son. Tomas’s old friend and secret, unrequited, love. The recently abandoned cabin. No dust. None of it seemed to fit together. But it must. It had to.

But what was the next step? Yes, Priest knew that Jamie had been held at the cabin. But, even though that confirmed he might still be alive, there was still a wide range of places that he could be. Maybe Gomez had found something else by now, but Priest couldn’t rely on that. He had wasted enough time as it was healing from the wound inflicted by his only, now dead, suspect. He had to keep looking for-

Priest swerved to the right suddenly and slammed on the brakes. He had caught something out of the corner of his eye. He lowered the passenger side window and slowly reversed the car. There to his right was a second road, the entrance of which was covered by a tangled mess of tree branches and forest debris. It was barely discernible as a road at all. On the way to the cabin it had been completely invisible, as if it hadn’t existed until this very moment.

Parking the car, Priest stepped slowly through the oak and maple camouflage to get a better look. Beyond the brush he entered into what appeared to be an entirely different world. The light from the sun couldn’t reach through the brush. Even the rusting of the trees, and the bustling chats of wildlife, seemed to go instantly silent. Moving forward, carefully, along the edge of the road, Priest found that the ground here was softer, filled with more loose gravel and sand than the dirt road behind him. Crouching down to look closer, he confirmed what he already knew he would find. Fresh tire tracks. The fingerprints of the driving world. Following them with his gaze he could see a faint pinpoint of light glistening through the forest. He walked towards it, careful to avoid the tracks in the road. After a few minutes of walking he discovered the source: this secret road opened up onto a secluded highway. This was not the highway that he had used to come here. The trees, rocks, and undulating curves of the road were completely foreign to his memory and by all accounts, confirmed after a quick glance at the maps app on his phone, shouldn’t even exist. This must be the way that they had taken Jamie.

Priest took out his cell and snapped a few pictures of the road, and then took some straight-on closeups of the tire tracks he had followed. Pulling up Gomez’s contact he hit send on the selected photos, along with the message, “911 - NEED ANYTHING YOU CAN FIND ON THIS HIGHWAY AND WHERE IT LEADS. TRACK MY LOCATION. ALSO ANYTHING ON THE VEHICLE THAT MADE THESE TRACKS. ”

The caterpillar loop of dots below his message inched away, indicating Gomez’s incoming response. Priest held his breath.

“On it. Will need to get to a secure line. Should have something in a few hours.”

More looping dots.

“Chief is jumpy. Still no mention of his son’s body being found.”

Priest pocketed his cell again and allowed himself to breathe in the fresh air. He felt a new sense of calm come upon him now, and his mind became clear. Finally he was back in his element. The tracks themselves could end up leading nowhere. Should it turn out to be a brand new Ford F150 then that would expand the suspect list to about half the country, but this hidden path and secret highway was something different. Something like that didn’t happen by accident, and it gave Priest the first new puzzle piece that actually seemed to fit. This mysterious cabin off grid, connected to a highway that appeared on no current maps, pointed towards a much larger conspiracy. According to Gomez, Chief Walters had still made no mention of his son’s unexplained absence from work. For whatever reason Walters had decided to keep the disappearance of his own son, who was also a recently promoted officer, a secret. This meant two things. One, Chief Walters, or someone else higher up, didn’t want the public knowing about this yet. And two, it wouldn’t be long before whoever was behind this started getting desperate. Whatever had led Raymond Walters to kidnap Jamie went a lot deeper than your average, “run-of-the-mill” kidnapping, and his father was committed to keeping it quiet as long as possible. Once the body was found, they wouldn’t be able to keep the unexplained death of a police officer hidden for long, and they clearly were willing to take extreme measures to reach their goals. Who knew what they would do once they were backed into a corner? All of this should have made Priest more nervous, but it didn’t. It excited him.

In the months after being removed from police work, he had found himself wandering around between bars and back alleys in an aimless fog. Then, Priscilla’s call had gifted him with new purpose. But the injury had left him trapped in Priscilla’s home for days as he healed. All that time he had felt the beast within him growing restless. With each new day it had quaked and convulsed in anticipation; it had needed prey. It needed fresh meat. On his darkest nights it had started to worry him a little. He thought that if he didn’t feed it soon then he might not be able to hold it back much longer. It was growing impatient, and he was terrified of what could happen if he didn’t find something to satiate its hunger soon.

But now he had a new lead. His prey was back in his sights, and soon he could let the beast run free.

Priest checked the time on his phone display. It was almost noon. Gomez wouldn’t have something for him until at least 2. Locating secret highways connected to unexplained kidnappings went beyond the resources of the Baltimore police force. Gomez would have to use their other contacts, which would take more time. He knew it was a lot to ask of Gomez, and if he wanted results he would need the proper time. Priest decided that he couldn’t go back to Priscilla’s yet. He needed somewhere neutral to collect his thoughts and plan his next move. He remembered the bar he had passed this morning on his way in.

I need a drink.

Priscilla stood over the water cooler in the hospital break room, pouring herself a paper cone’s worth of water. Some of the water spilled as she tried to keep her shaky hand steady to catch the water. She wasn’t sure why she was so tense. She did her best to hide it. Even from herself.

After Tomas’s abrupt departure this morning, and the announcement of Jamie’s possible whereabouts, she felt like she couldn’t stay still. If she took the time to sit with this new hope, it might cease to exist, like trying to gather up a bucketful of fog over the ocean. So she had very driven herself into the hospital to work. But she was always aware of her phone in her pocket, ready to pick up the moment she got a call or text from Priest. Maybe he had found Jamie? She checked her phone for the thousandth time. Nothing.

Back to work.

What I Liked

Overall this book was a fairly compelling thriller. I have some problems with it, but I enjoyed myself for the most part listening to this story. The language used was direct and engaging, and the plot was interesting as it unraveled. The way that Carr chooses to show and hide information from the reader created a great sense of excitement that I liked. There were a couple moments where I experienced the childlike wonder of "Man! That was cool!".

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What I Did Not Like

One of my biggest problems with the story was that it tended to get hyper focused on the specifics of warfare and equipment that would mean nothing to the average reader. If this was done with some more restraint it would have added some nice "colour" to the story, but as it was it bored me. I am sure that these details would mean a lot to somebody who has military experience, but to me they went on far too long and were too technical. As a civilian I can only take so many lists of letters and numbers before my brain turns off and translates it to "Reece has a big gun" or "Reece drove this big truck".

Most importantly, I wish that Jack Carr had done more for me to connect with his main hero so I could feel his pain. I think for this kind of story to work it is essential that the reader truly feels the anger and hurt with the hero. If that was done then some of my other outstanding problems may have not been as pronounced. Since those emotional connections aren't properly made, it really stretched believability for me that James Reece regularly had contacts that not only had the skills and resources he needed, but were also completely at peace with the brutal violence he was enacting on his enemies. There could have been more dramatic tension if Reece had had to overcome some of the moral ramifications of what he was doing. Maybe he could have faced someone from his past who took him to task a little. I thought that the book might have wrapped up focusing on some of these moral questions since there were innocents throughout the book who were impacted by the collateral damage of his mission, but once highlighted they are never mentioned again.

Overall there should have been more obstacles to Reece's goals in this story. Apart from the inciting incident(s), I never really felt like Reece struggled in attaining his goals. He never had to try that hard to get what he wanted. He had the skills to do exactly what he planned, and if he didn't then he knew someone else who did. I kept expecting something to get in his way, or throw his plans off course, but nothing ever did.

James Reece and Tomas Priest

If you’ve been following this Substack for a while then you know that I am currently in the process of writing my own crime thriller novel (you can check out Chapter 1 below). Even though I clearly took issue with several things in this James Reece’s adventure, it was definitely inspiring for my own forays into writing.

This book highlighted for me what I want to lean more into in my own story, and what I definitely want to pull away from. It was also interesting for me to learn from what Carr was able to “get away with” in this published work. I don’t say that to imply that I am in any way a better writer than Carr, but I found it helpful to compared and contrasted our different writing choices. I’ve obviously inspired by many other books and movies in my writing, but to have such clear examples of “I don’t want to do that” was very helpful. Also, not to spoil where my novel is going, but I did get the spark of an idea for Tomas Priest’s adventures while reading this book. Stay tuned my loyal readers!

Conclusion

As I write this I am seeing more of the flaws as far as story and characters go, but I really did enjoy this experience. This isn't Shakespeare, but it was still serviceable entertainment. I just think this could have been so much better. I never finished the show that was based on this first entry in the Reece saga, but to my memory that show did some of the things I wish that this book did. I'm compelled to watch the show and compare it with this to see if it ends in a more satisfying way.

Since I already had this book on Audible it was an easy way to pass the time, but going forward I am not sure if I will seek out the sequels. I may give the second book a chance, but if the next adventure doesn't grab me emotionally any more than this did then I will likely drop James Reece for good.

I feel bad giving this many books such high reviews in such a short period of time. Surely every book I choose to pick up can’t be THAT good!

But genuinely, this book was incredible. It was humorous, beautifully written, emotionally raw, and spiritually life-giving. The way Donald “Don” Miller writes this book is instantly magnetic and engaging. This story of his life (which is really a collection of short personal thoughts, essays, and doodles) drew me in and gave words to thoughts and feelings that I have been wrestling with for a long time. What I particularly love about Don’s reflections on Jesus, God, the church, and all of it, is that he doesn’t shy away from the dirty, messiness of human experience. And I don’t mean that in the traditional, sanitized way that I often hear that phrase used in church circles. This book talks about cussing, sex, pot, depression, pride, selfishness, judgement, and more. In short, Don talks about what it means to be human, brings it all before Jesus, and welcomes us to listen to his tale.

The way that Don talks about his, and his friends’, experiences gave me a window into his soul that was so refreshing. The way that he chooses to write is deceptively simple and familiar. From my own experiences with writing I feel like I have some authority to say that writing this book required a mastery of craft that isn’t immediately apparent. I hope to be able to bring this into my own writing some day. There are passages in this book that I felt compelled to read and reread just to be able to get my head around the emotional depth and wisdom buried between the letters. Beyond that, I feel like after finishing this book that I know Don personally. More impressively, I also feel like I know myself a bit more. This is a book so packed with good stuff that I will definitely be returning to it at a later date.

I will recommend this book to any Christian, or non Christian, who will read it. Don is kind, honest, and quite funny. He offers a look at faith, church, and truly knowing Jesus, that I think you will like. If that’s not enough for you, then maybe the cartoon rabbit and astronaut will sweeten the deal.

Maybe this should actually be rated lower. Maybe over time this book will sit with me and I’ll realize it actually deserves a 4.5 of a 4. Maybe I’m just inherently biased in favour of any work that discusses life, love, God, art, and murder in an extremely accessible way.

It’s no secret that I love Andrew Klavan. As I slowly work through his catalogue of fiction work I am regularly gripped by his tense plots and insightful wrestling with the human experience. But, in his later years as he steps out of the world of crime fiction and into non-fiction analysis, I am more and more impressed with how he creates a book that is just as gripping, if not more-so, than his tales of car chases, murder, and intrigue.

I started this book last year, before putting it down for a while. I regret that. Since this book partially functions as an analysis of some key works of art, namely Crime & Punishment, Psycho, and the story of Cain and Abel, I got stuck at the chapter on Psycho. I have already read Crime & Punishment and I intended to watch Psycho before proceeding with Klavan’s analysis, but instead I ended up waiting far too long before proceeding with this excellent book. I can always watch Psycho later.

This book stands independent of the art that it comments on, though I am sure past experience with the books, shows, movies, and classical art that Klavan references would add more depth. But to avoid reading this book before you have completed that, rather extensive, list would be to do yourself a great disservice. I wish I had finished this book long before this, and I look forward to one day reading it again.

There is so much in this book that I feel like I have missed or glossed over. Each sentence Klavan writes is a packed to the brim with meaning, and it will take several readings before I feel like I have fully digested it all. The literary examination that Klavan provides here is top-notch. He seamlessly explains, interprets, and guides you through the works of art he has chosen to make his point clear. But what makes this book even more than that, is how the final chapters come together. Klavan beautifully transitions from artistic discussion, intellectual musings, and theological ideas into a deeply personal, and deeply moving, look at his own life. It is through all of these that he brings this story to its final conclusion. I found the final chapter a little disorientating, since it stood out among the rest of the book. But it is through this new style that Klavan uses the work of story to accomplish his goal and immerse his reader into his argument. This method attempts to speak to the heart, rather than the head, and I think it was successful in that goal.

A fair warning to more sensitive reader some sequences that Klavan describes can range from unnerving to deeply disturbing. He handles this essential points of discussion with tact and good humour, but I would recommend any who goes into this book be aware of that. This is not something you read to your child at night before bed.

The Kingdom of Cain, will sit with me for a while I am sure. And I look forward to returning to it later in life. It is a book that challenges and encourages any who choose to read it. And as the title suggests, I found that through looking intently at the darkest moments imaginable that Klavan brings his reader to an offering of hope. An invitation to the throne room of God.

I have other books on the go, but I decided I needed something that wasn’t mired in the darkness and intrigue of a crime story, so I picked up this book that I had read the first half of and put aside. I ended up spending hours by the fire, and then finished it late last night (early this morning). I am so glad I did. The healing power of fiction, connecting with another human soul, could not be overstated for me in reading this.

I could point to some points where the story dragged a little for me, or where I caught some edits missed by the editor, but in the end this book made me cry. It made me cry with sadness mixed with joy. It made me cry with joy mixed with hope. That alone raises this from a 4-4.5 star to a 5 for me. I wouldn’t have thought that I would love a modern retelling of Charles Dickens’ classic so much. I would have sneered at the thought, anticipating cheap modern substitutions for the classic elements of the original book. But this story is more than that. Very quickly into reading it you learn to forget about the Dickens characters at all, and simply fall in love with these new characters that Moore introduces you to.

The way that Moore crafts her story perfectly combines the family drama, personal trauma, and numbed grief of her characters. I also found the ghostly aspects of the story to be suitably unnerving, and sometimes downright terrifying.

Most of all, this book carried me off to another world, and made me feel like I was sitting in the warm living room of my parents by the Christmas tree, instead of lying alone in my bed with a book at 1AM in the morning.

After this first foray into fiction I will read anything that Faith Moore writes. I hope that her next book is not far off.

Priscilla slammed her locker shut and pressed her hot forehead against the cool metal. It was small comfort after her long shift at the hospital. She wouldn’t admit it, but she knew she was running herself ragged, and it was taking its toll on her. It had been a big year of changes. Early in the year, Tomas had surprised her with the news that he was dropping out of school to join the army. She had done her best to hide her disappointment since he had seemed excited and inspired in a way that Priscilla had rarely seen. Maybe this would be good for him. But it also meant that Priscilla had lost the one person who could pull her out of her studies. She had lost her friend.

With Tomas gone she had less distractions but also less joy in her life. So she had committed herself all the more to her schooling and her work. She was determined to prove herself to the spectre of her overbearing mother that she carried around in her imagination. Her work became her primary focus. She didn’t need her mom, or Tomas, or anyone else, to take care of her. If she wasn’t at the hospital, she was studying. If she wasn’t studying, she was at the hospital. It wasn’t a sustainable routine, but somehow she made it work. Or at least, she thought she did. Often she wouldn’t leave the hospital until late into the night, after a lot of the other staff had already left.

That was how she had met George.

It had been a very long shift and she was in a particularly bad mood. Her patients had been difficult and her supervisors had taken it out on her. To make matters worse, as she had stepped out the staff door she had walked into a torrential downpour. It seemed as if the space ahead of her was producing water from both sky and ground. She kicked herself in frustration.

The perfect ending to the perfect day.

Priscilla paused for a moment before stepping out into the rain, trying to decide if she would get wetter by walking through the rain or by running through it. As it turned out, it really didn’t matter. Almost immediately after stepping away from the door she found her clothes clinging wet to her body and her shoes soaking up the water like twin sponges. As she raced from the door to the bus stop on the curb, a passing minivan sprayed her in the front of her baby blue sweater with the muddy soup that had started to gather along the side of the road.

She was just about to burst into tears when she discovered she wasn’t alone. Sitting alone beneath the leaking bus stop awning was a tall man with glasses clutching tightly to his leather shoulder bag. He was so completely soaked that his overcoat, glasses, hair, and bag all seemed to be made of the same sopping, brown substance. She stepped into the shelter and said nothing. All she wanted to do was get back to her dorm and have a nice warm bath. Luckily for her, George was in almost as bad a mood as she was. He looked up as she approached and did his best to appear friendly and polite, despite his obvious discomfort. Peering out at her from behind his foggy glasses Priscilla found herself unexpectedly laughing. Something about the burden of this day, with all its troubles, suddenly culminated with the ludicrous image of George in front of her, and it caused the internal pressure in her to burst. He looked more like a drowned Labrador Retriever than the well-kept professional that he actually was. The laugh just escaped out of Priscilla’s lungs unbidden. She caught herself before completely giving in and turned a deep shade of purple in shame at laughing at a total stranger. Now it was George’s turn to laugh. The sight of this poor, downtrodden, nurse uncontrollably laughing at his misfortune was simply too darkly ironic and funny for him to stop himself.

With that the ice was broken, and they began to commiserate over what had brought them both here. They discovered that they attended the same college, and they had even been in some of the same classes in their freshman year. It wasn’t long before they forgot about the rain, and how late the bus was. They sat together waiting for the bus, getting increasingly wetter and happier. When the bus finally arrived they naturally found an empty pair of seats beside each other and continued their conversation. The whole trip felt like a dream to Priscilla, getting completely lost in the company of this surprisingly good-humoured, intelligent stranger.

Before they parted ways, George had asked Priscilla for her number. After scratching it into the driest scrap of paper she could find, her rain-soaked fingers touched his, ever so slightly, as she handed him the paper. She looked up at him and smiled. His glistening eyes smiled back, staring at her from behind his wireframes and dripping hair.

Maybe today really wasn’t so bad after all.

Priscilla woke up with a start. She was catapulted from her dream and into her darkened waking life. Lately, her dreams had become almost picture perfect re-creations of memories she tried to avoid during the day. It almost felt like she was reliving those moments again for the first time. It all felt so real thinking about it now, as if she had just gotten off that bus, waving goodbye to George, only a moment ago. The sweat and tears beading across her face felt like the rain from that day at the bus stop. But the empty spot next to her in the bed reminded her of the truth.

The display from her clock sliced through her tears and forced her to squint in the dark to read the numbers.

2:00AM.

She had only been able to fall asleep a little after 1AM. She knew that it would be at least a couple hours before she would be able to fall asleep again. She decided to get herself a drink of water. Maybe that would help her get the sleep she needed. Without dreams.

Tomas Priest never dreamed. He welcomed the nights as a true break from the oppressive streets he walked during the day. But now, consigned to his bed for rest, he was constantly haunted by them; dreams formed out of a deadly concoction of memories and deep wishes. All having to do with Priscilla. As they were happening, they were pleasant, but each morning when he woke up he was overcome with a melancholic loneliness that had started since first seeing her again. Upon waking, it would take him an hour or so to push down the old feelings so he could start his day. Seeing Priscilla every day, sharing meals with her, sharing her home, being in her presence; it was a beautiful collision of blissful joy and agonizing torture. It was too easy to pretend that this life was his and to imagine how things could have been different.

Physically he wasn’t able to do much, so once his strength started to grow he would wander the house aimlessly, trying to keep himself from going crazy. He needed to focus on what was real. He needed to find Jamie. His mind would frantically dissect and reassess everything that had happened. Even when he was eating the eggs that Priscilla brought him, making a coffee, or brushing his teeth, finding Jamie had to be his focus.

A week after Priest first arrived, after he had shaken the dreams from his mind yet again, he knew that the time had come for him to leave. His arm was still stiff, but his head had stopped spinning and much of his strength had returned. It was time for him to get out of here and hold up his end of the bargain. This wasn’t his life to keep living, and pretending only made the pain worse. Stepping out of bed he pulled on the grey sweatpants and black T-shirt that Priscilla had given him. They were George’s old clothes. George had been a taller, lankier man than Priest, so the T-shirt formed tight around Priest’s muscular chest and wide shoulders, and came up a little short at his midsection. But the pants pooled around his ankles like he was a kid in his new Christmas pajamas. With a deep sigh, he pulled the drawstring tight around his waist and began the descent downstairs.

But while Priest was beginning to feel like a burden on Priscilla, she appreciated the distraction and routine of making sure he returned to health. It gave her purpose. Ironically, it was much easier to take care of herself when she was charged with the care of somebody else. Not only that, but it was a comfort just to be in the presence of another person again. To be able to share the oxygen made each breath taste a little sweeter. She was still frantic about her son, but to no longer be alone gave her a renewed hope.

As Priest walked down the stairs, he passed Priscilla on the couch drinking her coffee. She had a Book of Common Prayer open on her lap. She had never counted her family’s faith as worth much, but somehow it brought her comfort to read some of the ancient cries and petitions from men and women of the past. She looked up from her reading as she saw Priest.

“Good morning Tomas,” she said. “How are you feeling this morning?”

“Better every day, thanks to you,” as he walked into the kitchen.

“I just put a fresh pot on,” she called after him.

Priest found the steaming carafe of coffee on the small end table beside the fridge. The warmth of the steam billowed up before his eyes as he poured himself a fresh mug. There was even a fresh container of honey left out for him. Priscilla knew exactly how he liked his coffee; black, with an obscene amount of honey. Standing alone in the kitchen, looking out the window and through the tree branches to the November sky, he took his first sip and sighed deeply. He looked back at Priscilla, who had returned to her reading. The dim light from outside was caught in the yellow curtains and it created a faint hallowed effect around her face. It was like watching a play from a seat in the audience and desperately wanting to join the players on the stage.

I need to get out of here.

Priest buttered himself a biscuit from the breadbox and choked it down in two bites. It felt heavy in his stomach almost immediately. He turned to go back up to his room, refraining from speaking to Priscilla as he passed her. It would be easier to explain himself once he was already packed.

As he walked toward his room, however, something caught his eye. To his right was the open door to Jamie’s bedroom. He had passed the room many times over the last several days and had even gone in and looked around. But now something about it called to him. He stepped in and stood awkwardly in the centre of the room, waiting to see what it was that had caught his attention. But it was just the still, quiet room of an absent 5-year-old. There were picture books bunched up in a pile in the corner. There was a ticking clock in the shape of a cat with bright LED eyes. There was a family photo on the wall, next to a wrinkled poster with some kid’s show that Priest didn’t recognize.

As Priest started to turn away, he paused to look at the family photo on the wall. In the picture, frozen in time, sat a happy family. Father, mother, and son, together like they should be. Priest’s gaze first went to Priscilla. It was pleasant to see the light in her eyes again through the time portal encased in that frame. But he was distracted from her beauty by the watchful eyes of her husband behind her. At least, Priest felt like they were watching him. He had never really known George in life. He seemed pleasant enough from Priscilla’s descriptions. He had chestnut brown hair, wireframe glasses, and the kind of goatee that only men who can’t grow a full beard get. An odd feeling came over him, standing in that cold room, fighting jealousy of a dead man. Jealousy over the life that he had had.

Priest shuddered and shook his head to remove the thoughts. He really had to get out of here. Turning to leave, he took one final look at the room, and his eyes were attracted to something red on the floor of the open closet. Bending down, he found a small action figure. It looked like it was supposed to be a Spider-Man toy, but it was missing its head. Granted, he was a 5-year-old boy, but it seemed out of place given the tender care that the rest of the toys in the room seemed to receive.

VVRRRRRRR VVRRRRRRRR

The sound of Priest’s burner phone vibrating on the table in the next room startled him. Without thinking, he stashed the action figure in his pocket and rushed over to it.

“Gomez?”

“Tom. How are you feeling?”

“Much better. Arm is still stiff, but other than that I feel practically normal.”

“Good. I need you to look into something for me.”

Downstairs Priscilla had finished with the prayer book and was allowing herself the luxury of rest. It felt like so long since she had been able to let her guard down and breathe deep, full breaths. With her old friend in the house, someone to talk to and share the space with, she was starting to feel a bit like the old Priscilla she had been, even if her dreams betrayed her. Still, she was the one who had had enough faith to break out on her own away from her mom, and the one who had fallen in love and built a new life for herself with her husband. If only that life still existed. Her eyes began to well up with sorrow.

Priest came down the stairs again. He had changed into his black jeans and a grey wool sweater that Priscilla had given him. His Glock was still visible in his shoulder strap as he slid his arms into the thick navy-blue police jacket Gomez had left for him.

“Where are you going?” Priscilla was surprised to hear her voice catch in her throat.

“Marc just called with a lead that could help us find Jamie. I’m going over to check it out now. And listen - I’ll be back to gather up my stuff tonight. It’s time for me to get back out there.”

Priscilla’s breath quickened again and her mind started racing. She felt the blood vessels pulsing against her skull and the sweat begin to pool in her palms. She watched in slow motion as Priest walked towards the door and laced up his boots.

“What?! You mean…I could get my boy back?”

Priest stood back up and gave her a firm, but tender, look.

“We can’t get ahead of ourselves yet. This could take us nowhere,” Priest allowed himself a small smile as he lightly touched Priscilla’s shoulder. “But this is good.”

Priscilla could feel her hope rise in her again. She jumped toward Priest and gave him a tight, quick hug before pulling back and running her fingers through her hair. She felt a smile brim on her face and big salty tears welling up on her cheeks. She rushed back in for a longer hug.

Priest accepted her hug and held her head to his chest. He could feel her tears soak through the front of his sweater.

Priscilla composed herself again and stepped away. “What did Marc find?”

“There’s a place not far from here. It’s listed under the name of the guy who drove Jamie’s bus that day.”

“So, maybe Jamie is actually there? This could be where he’s keeping him!”

“That’s one possibility, yes.”

Priscilla took a deep breath and tugged at her hair as she paced in a circle. She stopped suddenly and looked at Priest. “I’m coming with you.”

Priest didn’t respond, but his face contorted as if he smelled something rotten.

“Think about it!” Priscilla said. “If it’s nearby then it’s the perfect place to keep him without being found. And he’ll be lonely and scared and he doesn’t know who you are! You’ll need me there to help. He’ll need me there.”

“He does need you, Priscilla,” Priest said. “which is why you need to stay here.”

Priscilla was snapped out of the daydreams of seeing Jamie again with bewilderment and slight annoyance. “What do you mean? He needs me there.”

“It could be dangerous, Priscilla. You can’t come with me.”

Priscilla’s voice cracked, “Tomas. Please. I need to see my boy.”

“Priscilla. We aren’t even sure that he is there. I’m just checking out a lead.”

“Then it shouldn’t be a problem. And maybe you’ll find something that you need my help with. You’ve never met Jamie. You don’t know what he’s like. Let me come with you.”

“Out of the question.”

“Tomas. Please. I need this.”

Priscilla looked deeply into his blue-grey eyes. She noticed that the drab grey seemed to swallow up the ocean blue. He looked different. Before, he had been her friend, the guy who had stayed up late studying and chatting and watching movies with her in college. In a moment he had changed. Materially he was still the same man she had always known, but immaterially he had been replaced. He gave Priscilla a look that she had seen only once before, and it suddenly felt like a cloud had covered the sun outside. The first time Priest had looked at her like that was after he had dropped out of college when he had left to join the army. Then, as now, she realized she would not be able to change his mind. It was a hardening of his soul personified on his face, as if the Tomas Priest she knew had died long ago and been replaced with a stranger.

Seeing that cold, dead resolve return to him, here in her home, Priscilla remembered why it had been so long since she had had any contact with Priest, and why she had called him when Jamie was taken. The very thing that terrified her now, could be the thing that saved her son. She shuddered with the frosty terror of it. The fear added to the mixture of anticipation and grief in her heart, and she wanted to reach out for comfort. But there was no one here to comfort her anymore.

“Priscilla. These are dangerous people we are dealing with. I can’t, and I won’t, put you in any unnecessary danger.”

Everything in her told Priscilla to leave it alone, but she ignored the instinct. “I don’t care about the danger. This is my son. And if there’s even the slightest chance that he’s there, then I need to go with you.”

“Priscilla,” Priest’s voice raised ever so slightly. A sampling of what could come if she pushed things any further. It was all he needed. “I killed a man last week. He kidnapped your son and I tried to learn what I could and I killed him. His corpse is currently decomposing in a ditch behind a gas station.”

He reached past her and grabbed the set of keys behind her head, “This is too dangerous. The best thing you can do for him is stay here. And stay safe.”

“Tomas,” she whispered. “Tomas, please!”

Priest’s dark, hulking shape seemed to float towards the front door. Even as Priscilla cried out to him she felt like she was speaking into the void. Her pleading cries were swallowed up by his darkened presence and did not return to her. He was the cop again. A beast stalking his prey. An angel of death.

Priscilla might have said something after him, but she couldn’t be sure. The only thing she knew was that Priest was leaving, and she was alone again. She stared into the chipped wood of her front door as Priest shut it behind him.

“I’ll be back tonight to grab the rest of my stuff.”

About an hour later Priest pulled up to the front porch of a dingy cottage on a back road. The old Toyota Corolla crunched over the gravel covered by a thin layer of November frost. The car had been fit for George’s taller body, and Priest had to adjust the seat and mirrors to get comfortable. Even still, he felt uneasy the whole drive over. He felt horrible leaving the way that he had. But there was no way of knowing what he would find here and he wouldn’t put Priscilla in any danger. She would be more of a hindrance to him anyways. That was what he had told her. It wasn’t totally a lie, but mostly he just needed to get some space between them. A few miles down the road, away from her presence, he could already feel himself thinking clearer. He had zeroed in on his goal and remembered his purpose. Realistically, Priest partially expected this lead to be a dead end. This could just be Gomez’s way of getting him on his feet again so he wouldn’t feel as bad for being in bed the past week. That was the sort of thing that Gomez would do. But he had to be sure.

The cottage was listed under the name of the man that Priest had killed in his car; Raymond Walters. According to Gomez, the Chief, Gregory Walters, hadn’t shown any visible sign that he knew about his son’s death. Word around the station was that Raymond was off sick. And since no one had reported the body yet, they figured they still had some time to check things out before they were noticed. Gomez had found out that Raymond owned a small cottage near Priscilla’s house for years, and supposedly hadn’t done much with it. It was somewhere to start, and Gomez had promised that he would keep looking.

Standing in front of the cottage now, it wasn’t much to look at. Priest couldn’t imagine a better suited location for a hideout, located as it was, off some random sideroad this far from the city. It was an ugly, grey, off-putting place. The porch was built of splintery wood that creaked when Priest stepped onto it and the front door was painted with chipped blue paint that matched the frames of the two windows on either side of it. It looked like the thatched roof encasing the small building was the only thing holding the structure together. The door was locked and the front windows had the curtains drawn. If Priest hadn’t gotten exact directions from Gomez, he would have never found it. That thought made him nervous. He slowly removed his Glock from its holster.

Around back there was a disappointing, man-made pond that was covered in frozen algae and dead mayflies. There were a couple beat-up lawn chairs sitting on the tiny back deck that was covered in fallen leaves and cigarette burns. Wiping the ice off the back window, Priest could see an old couch and a coffee table with a stack of newspapers on it. The room looked run-down, but orderly. There was no dust.

Trying the backdoor he found that it was also locked, but this door had more give than the front as he slowly jostled the handle. Priest clutched the Glock tighter in both hands and grabbed a silent breath from the thin air.

He raised his right foot and brought it down on the door just at the base of the handle. The door swung open immediately, sending a few frayed splinters past Priest’s head. He leapt through the doorframe, gun first, and quickly checked both corners. There was no movement, and the only sound Priest heard was the wood splinters shifting beneath his boots. The couch he had seen sat in front of an old tube TV and there was a small kitchenette to the right of the door with a few mugs and a couple dirty plates sitting in the sink. Priest put on a pair of medical gloves he had borrowed from Priscilla’s house and checked the fridge. Inside he found a 6-pack of beer with two cans missing and a half-finished pizza sitting in the box. Priest carefully shut the fridge and surveyed the rest of the cottage. Walking into the TV room, he lifted the newspapers to check the dates. They went back a couple months and stopped a week ago.

He was here recently. Probably just before I found him with the bus.

Putting down the newspapers, Priest checked the two other rooms off of the TV room. One was a grime-filled bathroom with a small shower, and the other was a bedroom. The bed was neatly made up with fresh sheets and an old, scratchy quilt folded up at the foot. But that was it. There was nowhere else in the cottage to check, and there was nothing here that connected to Jamie. Priest cursed himself and slammed his Glock back into its holster. He balled his hands into fists and kicked the bedframe in frustration. The mattress jostled and the scratchy quilt fell to the floor in a pile.

Now what?

Then, as Priest turned to leave, something caught his eye. Underneath the bed there was something small. Small and red. He bent down to pick it up in his gloved hand. It was the tiny head of a Spider-Man action figure. With a flash of recognition, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the figure he had found in Jamie’s room. The head fit into place.

Jamie had been here.

About half a mile away the Misfit Man stood watching the cottage. He had gone by a lot of names in his career; some he had given to himself, some others had given him, and some he had stolen. If not for the list he kept in his notepad he might have lost count, and yet none of them had felt quite right to him. Like trying to screw a round peg into a square hole, they wouldn’t fit. He had come across this name, the Misfit, in a book that a librarian friend of his had been reading. He remembered how her blood had drained from the hole in her skull and stained the pages of the small paperback. The name seemed to speak to him as the blood blossomed on the white page around it. He had gone by The Misfit Man ever since. He really should read that book someday. He still kept the librarian’s copy on his nightstand.

The Misfit Man always wore black. Today he had chosen his favourite long, dark overcoat to shield himself from the wind. He also wore a black balaclava pulled up over his nose, a black thermal sweater, black pants and black army boots laced tightly on his feet. He was covered nearly head to toe in black, except for the perfectly fitted, colourful bucket hat on his head. It had an expensive pattern that he particularly liked. It had cost more than any reasonable person would ever consider spending on a hat. He adjusted it to fit snugly against his skull; just the way he liked it. His pale, smooth skin and narrow black eyes peaked out from under it.

From his coat to his boots to his hat, there was not a speck of dirt or dust on him. The nature surrounding him seemed to be repelled like identical poles of a magnet brought close together. He fiddled with the two knives that rested, strapped to his chest, as he watched Priest exit the cottage. He held his breath in anticipation as Priest backed away from the porch and continued down the road in the white car. He only allowed himself to exhale when the car had disappeared around the corner past the dying trees. Beneath his mask he licked his wet lips.

He stood there for a few more moments, fiddling with his two knives, adjusting his hat, and thinking about the man Tomas Priest.

Fuel More Tomas Priest ☕

“Loneliness is like ice. After you’ve been lonely long enough you don’t realize you’re cold, but you are... I don’t know, maybe at the center of me there’s some ice that never will melt, maybe it’s just been there too long. But you mustn’t worry. You didn’t put it there.”

― Larry McMurtry, The Last Picture Show

It was late on a Friday night. The college campus was all but empty, deserted by student and faculty alike, and Priscilla Edwards was studying in the library. The snow had only just started, and she could hear the windows rattle in the old building with each gust of wind. Just the thought of walking back to her dorm made her skin crawl with goosebumps.

Her practicum assignment wasn’t until next week, but she was studying as though at any moment her professor might break through the door and quiz her. How do you deal with a patient with a bomb lodged in their chest who has lost 99% of their blood? Oh no - what if that was a legitimate question? She better study more. Priscilla knew her stuff, and she knew it well, but sitting there by the single lamplight in the expansive college library, she had completely lost track of time. The librarian had left her with a key so she could lock up when she was done 5 minutes ago? 10 minutes ago? It was actually closer to 45 minutes. After all the work she had done to get into this college she was determined to make the most of it.). Looking up from her textbook and checking the clock she realized how late it had truly gotten. She should really head back to her dorm…5 more minutes.

“There you are!”

Startled out of her concentration, Priscilla looked up in the direction of the voice as her dear friend Tomas Priest appeared.

“Jeez, you scared me Tomas.”

“Ha, sorry about that,” Tomas smiled as he sidled up to her. “When I couldn’t find you back at your dorm I figured you’d be here studying again.”

“Yeah, I was just thinking I should probably finish up. I didn’t realize how late it was.”

“Perfect! Then you can join me.”

“Where?”

Tomas reached into his jacket pocket and revealed a set of keys hung on a leather lanyard.

“I got my hands on Professor Saunders’ keys. And I know how to work the projector in his lecture hall.”

“Tomas!” Priscilla said with mock annoyance. “He’s going to kill you when he finds out.”

“Maybe. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun until then. Which do you prefer? Heat? Or Home Alone?” He pulled out the two VHS tapes from his backpack.

Priscilla sighed with a smile, “Home Alone. With the snow just starting it feels like the right time for a Christmas movie.”

“All right. Let’s go!”

“Just let me finish this chapter.”

“Ugggh.” Tomas swung the chair around nearest Priscilla and sat in it backwards, leaning forward on the back two legs.

“Calm down. It’ll only take-”

“Another hour. Come on! I’ve been wandering around this campus bored out of my mind. Everyone has gone home for Thanksgiving already.”

“Ah, so I’m only your second choice.”

Tomas smiled, “Third actually. The guys all went home last night so you got bumped up the ladder.”

“How generous of you.”

“Come on,” Tomas started gathering up her books for her. “Time to go.”

Priscilla relented and pretty soon they were tiptoeing down the halls of the campus looking for Saunders’ lecture hall. Their footsteps echoed through the dark empty halls and reverberated in their ears.

“You know I hate crime thrillers. Why did you even bother with Heat?”

“You never know…maybe one day you’ll finally say yes and get to enjoy one of the best movies of the decade!”

“Doubtful,” Priscilla shook her head.

Saunders’s hall was in the next building over so they had to brave the cold. Even though neither of them were dressed well for the winter air, they couldn’t help but pause for a second to appreciate the peace of the falling snow showcased in the lamplit path to the lecture hall. Priscilla said it looked like snowy little ballet dancers descending on the ground. Tomas said that it reminded him of Professor Glenn’s dandruff that would float around the dead spaces in his classroom. Priscilla pushed him into the snow and they both laughed.

Once they had found the right lecture hall, Tomas unlocked the door and they rushed in, quickly shutting the door behind them. Priscilla grabbed some loose paper to cover the window (just in case) and flipped the lights on. Tomas ran up the steps to the projector.

“You find a seat while I get the movie started.”

Priscilla looked around for the best spot for optimal viewing. But this was no movie theatre. The seats here were designed specifically to torture poor students while professors, such as Saunders, droned on and on. Luckily, Saunders was also rather old and kept a couple pillows behind his desk to help his ailing back. Priscilla swiped these and decided the floor directly in front of the large screen would be best. Why have your legs cramped behind a desk more than necessary? The movie began to flicker to life on the screen as Tomas leapt over the steps towards her.

“Eggnog?” Tomas produced a white carton and a couple red solo cups from his backpack.

“Yes please.”

Tomas poured them each a cup and sat down next to Priscilla. As the adorable face of young Kevin McCallister flickered above them they settled in, each sipping on their eggnog.

“Thank you Tomas.”

“Hey no problem. I mean, I would be here with or without you. I should be the one thanking you (even if this means I don’t get to watch Heat).”

“I mean, I really didn’t want to head back home for Thanksgiving. My mother…” Priscilla paused. “…anyways, I was expecting a pretty lonely weekend. So this is nice.”

“Ya, I figured,” Tomas said. “Don’t mention it. It’s nice for me too.”

Priscilla leaned her head on Tomas’s shoulder, and they were both perfectly content. They sipped their eggnog and laughed in tandem at the Christmas misadventures happening on the screen above them. As cold as it was outside, it was warm in Professor Saunders’ lecture hall that night.

Priest woke up to the sound of someone moving something above his head. He slowly pried his eyes open through the crust of sleep in his lashes. Reaching up to wipe away the last of the haunting dreams from his face he discovered that moving his left arm was harder, and much more painful.

“Sonnuva-”

“Oh good. You’re awake.”

Priest looked up to see the source of the voice. Priscilla. It was like she had stepped out of his memories and into the real world. She stood with her head turned back in his direction as she adjusted the IV suspended above the bedframe. Her silky straight raven hair encircled her pale face and fell into place just below her shoulders. She wore a white T-shirt and navy blue scrub pants. Looking at her, taking her in, Priest was filled with an immense sense of joy and deep melancholy all at once. It all came back. He thought of their college days together. He thought of her desperate cries over the phone. He thought of her lost son. He tried to think through what to say to her, but he had nothing. Luckily the pain in his shoulder distracted him.

“Ag! This hurts even more than when he fired the bullet!”

“Your body has been through some serious trauma. Now that the adrenaline and shock has subsided you’re going to feel the pain a lot more.”

She knelt down beside him as she checked the stitches in his arm. “You’re lucky that the bullet was still in or you would’ve lost a lot more blood than you did. I’ve removed it now and patched you up so you should heal without any serious long-lasting effects. But that arm is going to be pretty stiff for a little while.”

Priest groaned, “Thank you.”

He watched her closely as her brow furrowed in focus on his shoulder. Her lips pursed together as she worked. In Priest’s estimation, she was as beautiful and lovely as when he had last seen her. But he couldn’t help but notice how tight her skin looked against her bones, and the darkened circles under her eyes. He said the only thing that made any sense to him at that moment.

“I’m so sorry Priscilla.”

She didn’t look at him. “Don’t say that. You did everything you could. It’s me who should be saying sorry. I had no idea the danger I was putting you in.”

Priest reached for her forearm and lightly touched his cracked skin to hers. “I just wish I could have found him, or at least found something to help.”

She looked at him with a faint smile as her eyes began to water. She looked down and shook her head before looking back up at him through her hair.

“You can’t blame yourself for any of this. I knew it was a longshot.”

It hurt more than if she had poured lemon juice into his wounded shoulder and stomped it repeatedly. She would never say it, she would never even think it, but Priest was a detective at heart, and he knew a lie when he heard one, even if she didn’t realize that was what it was. As long as Priest was on the hunt, there was still the hope that Jamie would be found. But what hope was there for Priscilla now? He felt helpless, and even humiliated, that he was now relegated to the sidelines while Jamie was still out there. Her kindness and comfort now were a balm for his pain, yet they were also a dreadful reminder that he hadn’t been able to do anything. He thought back to the gas station, and the bloody bathroom stall.

“It’s good to see you Tomas,” Priscilla had choked back her tears with great effort. “I’ve missed you.”

“It’s good to see you too.”

There was a dead silence between them. What was there to talk about given everything that had happened? Priscilla did them both the favour of finding something.

“Marc seems like a good guy. And a good partner?”

“The best. There aren’t many men out there willing to drop everything when their disgraced partner calls them with a bullet in their shoulder.”

“He’s been a big help tending you since he brought you here. Even made me breakfast before I woke up.”

Priest smiled, “He’s just doing his ‘penance’. The Catholic guilt in him is sorry for inconveniencing you in your home with a gunshot victim.”

If anything it’s nice having other people in the house again. We hadn’t been here long enough to really connect with the community before…”

Priscilla’s voice trailed off. The thought of her husband had robbed her of her words. She had thought she was done crying, but grief was determined to have its way with her whether she was ready for it or not. Priest swallowed hard. This poor woman had barely finished burying her husband before she had her only son stolen from her, and here Priest was still pining after her like a stupid schoolboy. He pushed that part of him down as far as he could. Priscilla needed him, but not the way he had wanted all these years. He needed to focus.

They sat still for a minute or two. There was nothing more that either could say. Priest could tell that she still held out hope that Jamie would be found. He wished to God that it was true that Jamie was still alive, but his years on this earth told him a different story. Looking at her now, he wished a lot of things could be different.

“Knock knock,” it was Gomez in the doorway.

Priest looked up to him with a weak smile, “Hey, buddy.”

“Glad to see you’re up. About time too. You already slept through all of yesterday.”

“I’ll make up for it today.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” Priscilla interjected. “You are going to stay in this bed until I say so. You’re on the mend, but you’ve lost a lot of blood and need time to recover.”

Priest started to protest, before the stiff pain in his arm suggested to him that too much movement might not be a good idea. Pain is a persuasive beast, capable of winning any debate, court case, or election.

“Yes ma’am.”

“You’ll need at least a couple more days in bed to rest. The IV will replace the fluids in your system and hopefully keep your blood pressure up, but without a proper blood transfusion you need to wait on your body to do its thing. Which requires rest. I’m heading into the hospital for a couple hours, but I will be back to check on you. I expect you to be here.”

“I won’t be going anywhere. Not until my head stops spinning at least.”

Priscilla softened her tone, “That will pass eventually. Like I said, you lost a lot of blood. You were pretty lucky, all things considered.”

Priest sighed, “Don’t I know it.”

It warmed Priest to see the fire of her stubborn, caring nature. She was a good nurse.

Gomez stepped forward, “I have to leave soon too, but I need to talk with you first. Can we have a moment, Priscilla?”

Priscilla started to turn away, “Of course. I’ll be back soon Tomas. Rest!”

He gave her a weak thumbs up and, as she stepped out, held her gaze as long as he could. He tried to take in the image of her in its totality, but even when she stood there in front of him he felt like her figure was impossible to define, or even see clearly. Gomez’s large form stepped into his view.

“I’m heading back to the city,” said Gomez. “I’m going to see what more I can dig up on the Chief and his son. Plus, I want to see what he does when his son doesn’t show up.”

Priest nodded, “And what do you need me to do?”

“Nothing. Nothing Priest.”

Priest groaned.

“I mean it, man. You heard Priscilla. You need to rest.”

“What I need to do is find her son. Jamie could still be out there.”

“You’ve done all you can for now. You were shot! You can’t just walk that off. You need to rest. I’ll let you know what I find out, but for now you need to take a backseat. Let’s not forget that if they find that body, you’re technically a fugitive. And if what the Chief’s son said is true, and if his father really is involved, then this is seriously dangerous for all of us. I don’t want anyone finding you like this. They won’t take kindly to you killing their man.”

Priest cursed under his breath, being sure to use the words that he knew Gomez especially disliked. Gomez shook his head and ignored him.

“Your stuff is folded up on the dresser beside you there, along with a burner phone I got you. I’ll contact you if I find out anything,” Gomez softened a little. “I know you want to help her Priest. But we don’t even know if her son is still alive. So right now the best way you can help her is to make sure you get better.”

Priest reached with his right arm for the dufflebag that held his clothes and few belongings. His left arm throbbed as his weight shifted.

Gomez tried to catch his gaze, “Listen to me. She’s lost her husband, and now her son, I don’t think she could lose you too.”

This caught Priest’s attention. He paused and looked at Gomez with an ice-cold look mixed with weary determination. “I will do anything to help her, Gomez.”

Gomez nodded his head silently. Priest returned to the dufflebag and continued rifling through it. Gomez patted Priest’s bed covers and started towards the door. Without looking back at him as he left the room, Gomez called back.

“Right side pocket. Locked and loaded already.”

Priest pulled out his gun holstered in its shoulder strap and checked the magazine. He grinned. It was just as Gomez said. He returned the gun and strap to the bag and placed it within easy reach below the bed.

Gomez was almost out the door when he paused to look back at Priest.

“Be kind to yourself man. This isn’t on your shoulders.”

The duo, police detective and gunshot victim, shared a look and a nod as he left. With Gomez finally gone, the room felt cold and empty. Priest slumped back on his pillow.

Be kind to yourself. How was he supposed to do that?

Outside, the masked man watching the house from behind the wheel of his black Subaru Forester was getting antsy. He watched as Priscilla exited the garage in her blue minivan and turned left. A few moments later, Gomez exited the house by the front door and got into his car. He pulled out of the driveway and turned right.

The masked man looked in both directions. He waited for a few moments, counting under his breath. Without signalling, he turned left.

Buy Me An Americano

The key to hiding a body is the same as telling a good joke. It’s all about timing. Not only do you need to hide the body as quickly as possible to avoid getting caught, you also have to outpace the ticking clock of rigor mortis; a few hours. And then there is the odour to consider, which will follow the stiffening effect. The study of this subject could fill the pages of a national bestselling book. Maybe I could sell the rights before they catch me and put me in jail for this.

These were the kinds of thoughts running through Priest’s head as he and Gomez worked together to hide the body. Gomez did most of the work, obviously, since Priest’s left arm was experiencing its own form of rigor mortis. He could still move it, but it felt like every tendon was being pulled tight, like the string on a violin playing Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons,”. Priest hated Vivaldi. Really he hated all classical music. Too “highbrow” for his tastes. The thought of any music right now made Priest’s head hurt. If not for whatever meds Gomez had given him he doubted he would be able to even stand. Thank God for Gomez’s army med training.

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Gomez pulled up to the gas station where he had originally found Priest and pulled around the back so his car wouldn’t be connected with what they were about to do. As they stepped out into the brisk night air Gomez paused and stiffened at attention, like he was back in the army. Priest told himself it was just because of the cold, but deep down he knew better. Gomez was a good cop, a good man who walked the straight and narrow, and Priest had dragged him down a path of deceit and lies. He wouldn’t say so, but Priest knew that it would take a toll on him. Like a knife buried in his liver. Priest added it to the laundry list of past sins and misdemeanors he kept in his head. Guilt and shame. One more bullet in the chamber that would fire off in his head later. He thought of his spot in the gas station bathroom and shuddered. The wind was picking up.

Upon surveying the scene, they decided that their best course of action would be to stash the body, and Priest’s wrecked Landcruiser, at the bottom of the ravine behind the gas station. They would wipe down any fingerprints and remove the license plates to help their chances even more. If anyone saw it they would assume it was just some wayward traveller who had lost control on the road. It wasn’t perfect, but it would give them the time they needed to find Jamie. Hopefully.

When they first approached the body, Priest thought he caught a flash of something in Gomez’s eyes. Was it recognition? Given how Priest’s head feeling he was starting to doubt his own senses. If he could have seen himself he would have been shocked. His earlier allusion to a ghost was not far off. Still, he suspected that he had recognized something behind Gomez’s eyes. He tried to read his partner’s mind through his face, but then he caught Gomez’s stern eyebrows glaring at him. Priest turned away. His head pulse with pain.

“So how did this happen?” Gomez said, hunched over the wreck of the car. He was trying to remove any remaining fingerprints off the steering wheel.

Priest leaned against the roof of the car to keep himself steady. “He’s the bus driver. The one that kidnapped the boy,” he said.

“How did you find him?”

Priest struggled to clear his throat to speak. “I went to the company that the school hired out and did some digging. Nobody on their staff matched the description that the teachers had given. Plus, the bus was never returned to the lot. There are only so many places you could hide a bright yellow bus without being noticed. I started there.”

“Knowing your luck you probably found it on the first try,” Gomez snorted.

“Third actually,” Priest smiled faintly. “Found both bus and driver. He was hiding out with it, and he wasn’t too happy with being discovered. Refused to give me any information. So we took a drive so he could cool off.”

“Cool off.”

“It took some convincing. But he told me someone hired him to grab the kid, and they sounded pretty connected.”

Priest paused to cough into his shoulder. He noticed the red residue he left behind on the windbreaker Gomez had lent him. He took an unsteady step away from the car to avoid leaving any more of his DNA on the car for Gomez to clean up. He hoped Gomez didn’t notice how weak he was truly feeling.

“How connected are you talkin’? How high up does this go Priest?”

“That’s what I had hoped to learn. But as I was rounding the corner he managed to find a way to bash out of the box in my trunk. He got my gun away from me…and you know the rest.”

Gomez went quiet after this and became very focussed on the front plate of the car that he had started to remove. Priest glanced up at the bright stars poking through the night sky as they were slowly covered by wispy fall clouds. He breathed in deep through his nose and sighed. The fresh air was helping clear his head some. His detective instincts were restarting and the gears were pushing through the rust and cobwebs that were filling his mind. Something wasn’t adding up.

“Why didn’t you call the cops?”

Gomez remained fixed on the plate, “Because you asked me not to.”

“No. Before that. When you first showed up here. Why didn’t you call the cops? You always follow procedure. So why didn’t you call this in the minute you arrived?”

Gomez stopped. He stood up from the front of the car and brushed past Priest on his way to the back bumper.

“Come on man,” Priest followed him. “You know something.”

“I didn’t want to say anything until I was sure.”

“Sure of what?”

“I know him.”

“Who?”

“The dead guy. The bus driver. I know him.”

“How?”

“We only met once before so I wasn’t sure at first. But I checked his wallet. It’s him.”

“Who is he?”

Gomez sighed, “He’s a cop. Just promoted to sergeant in another precinct. It happened after you left. I remember it was odd since he hadn’t been an officer that long, but given his connections I didn’t say anything.”

“Connections?”

“He’s the Chief’s son, Priest,” Gomez said. “And based on what he told you? I’m worried about just how far up this really goes.”

They shared a look and then turned their attention back to the car in silence. Both of them liked the Chief. Even when he had fired Priest, he hadn’t held it against him. He had known it had to be that way. He had made his own bed, and now he had to lie in it. One more bullet in that chamber of shame. But what was he supposed to think about this? In his days on the force he would have never accused a fellow cop of going dirty unless he was sure. They were a brotherhood, and they stuck together. But this? This was bigger than he had realized.

They remained silent like that as Gomez finished removing the car of any external evidence. With the body in the driver’s seat he would fall out the front windshield once the car hit the ditch. Standing outside the car, Priest turned the wheel towards the ravine while Gomez pushed it from behind. As if God was on their side, or maybe the devil, the car drifted down the wet grass with little noise. It landed against a large gangly tree as if it had been lifted and lightly placed there. They heard the thump of the dead man’s head on the metal of the hood. Standing shoulder to shoulder they both felt a sense of impending doom. What now?

Priest felt something else too. A deep, sick feeling in the pit of his stomach and a surprising lightness in his head. His main task completed, his body was starting to shutdown again. Luckily Gomez caught him.

“Gosh man, you’re white!”

Priest struggled to focus on Gomez and shook his head trying to speak clearly. Normally he might have made some comment about how he was always white, and Gomez was always brown. They were the perfect public television, committee approved, pairing. Tune in Saturdays at 11. Priest thought it was funny at least. But the thought of laughing made his head hurt even more.

Gomez was ignoring him anyway. “That’s it. I’m taking you to a hospital…”

“...no hospital..”

Priest let out a saliva filled cough that stained the back of his hand red.

“…get help” said Priest. “But no hospital.”

“You’re delirious Priest. I don’t care what you say, you need a doctor.”

“No doctors. No hospital,” Priest breathed heavily. “I can…I can get us help.”

“Yah?! Where?”

Priest fumbled with his inside jacket pocket for his phone. Pulling it out he looked back at the glaringly bright name in his favourited contacts. It hurt him to have to call her now. But he had no choice.

“Here,” he shoved the phone into Gomez’s chest.

Gomez shuffled him over to the car and got him secured and reclined in the passenger seat. Shutting the door behind him he walked around to the left of the car. He pressed the white “call” button as he shimmied behind the wheel.

VVRRRRRR VVRRRRRR

“Tomas? What’s happening?!”

“Sorry Priscilla, this is Detective Marc Gomez. Tomas is here with me,” he looked over at Priest to see him grimacing in pain. Gomez knew that it was more than the bullet in his arm.

“He needs your help.”

Jamie Edwards needed help too. But he had no way of calling anyone. Everywhere he looked it was dark. And he was all alone. He sat in the back of the cargo van with his arms and legs wrapped around his blue Spider-Man backpack. He shivered with a desperate mixture of cold and fear. The bad man had left him there 15 minutes ago, but his dark presence still haunted him. The constant bumps and jolts told him that the van was moving again. Jamie didn’t understand what the bad man wanted, but he had kept asking him about his daddy. George Edwards. Jamie remembered how his daddy had used to instruct him.

“Now if ever ever get lost you go right to a policeman and tell him your dad is named George Edwards, and your mom is named Priscilla. Can you do that for me?”

“Uh huh. Can we go see the policeman now Daddy?!”

“Not now buddy.”

He thought about that day they had driven to get his momma from her shift at the hospital. Momma had stepped into the car looking very tired. She had held Daddy’s hand tightly and then had looked back at him with a bright smile. And then they had all gone out for some surprise ice cream! Jamie usually got bubble gum but that day he had chosen chocolate fudge to match Daddy. He had wanted to show him that he could be grown up too. He missed his Daddy. As he lay alone in the dark, he imagined him breaking into the van and beating up the bad man and bringing him back home to his momma. He was the biggest and strongest man Jamie had ever seen. He suspected he could even beat up Batman. Not Spider-Man of course. Spider-Man had powers. But Batman just had a cape and a cool car.

Of course, Jamie knew Daddy had gone to be with Jesus. He remembered how his momma had told him as much. She had held him as they had both cried in their living room. He had fallen asleep in her arms as she had prayed his bedtime prayer and rocked him on the couch. Jamie thought of this prayer now. He thought of his momma’s soothing words whispering over him. They had never been to church much as a family, but Momma had insisted on having this nighttime ritual with him. Jamie mostly liked the extra snuggle time before bed. And he especially liked it when she would tell him a story, like the one about David and the giant!

Jamie fished into the front pocket of his backpack, the one that zipped out of Spider-Man’s head, and found the little plastic rosary Momma had given him after Daddy went to be with Jesus. She had told him that it would help him not feel alone or scared since Daddy was with Jesus now and Jesus was watching over him. Jamie liked how the light blue plastic matched the light blue of his backpack. And he liked to run his little fingers over the little Christ figure on the cross. He held tightly onto that cross now and whispered his nighttime prayer as he lay down.

“Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep…”

Jamie said this on repeat for the next few minutes and he felt a little better. He was just starting to drift off into the comfort of sleep when the sudden bang of metal on metal and a glaring light startled him awake. He peered through the yellow/orange light from the flickering streetlamp outside the sliding door. Beyond that he saw the sparkling stars. They reminded him of the Christmas lights Daddy used to put up at their old house. But his view was soon blocked. In the open doorway stood a tall man in a long dark coat and a funny plaid bucket hat. The bad man was back. Jamie tried to push himself away but was stopped by the cold metal of the van’s interior. His breathing quickened. He wished Momma was here.

“Angels watch me through the night, and wake me with the morning light.”

The bad man stepped towards him.

“Alright Jamie…let’s try this one. More. time…”

Fuel More Tomas Priest with Coffee

Priscilla sat hunched over on her couch, clutching her cell phone like it was her life preserver, her knuckles bone white and her eyes blood red.

She had cried more this past week than she had in her entire life.

Ever since Jamie hadn’t stepped off his school bus and into her waiting arms. Ever since she had called his kindergarten teacher. Ever since the police had knocked on her door. She had felt like she was sitting shotgun in a car going 250 miles per hour down the highway. It was hard for her to focus on any one thing. She was exhausted. Most of all, she was terrified. It’s no easy thing, playing backseat driver on the ride of your own life.

After all of her searching, doing, praying, questioning, weeping, and screaming, she had finally come to the end of herself. She was a shell. Having spent herself almost to the point of breakdown, she had finally collapsed like a dying star.

Jamie was all she had left. With her husband George’s death several months ago, their whole world had already been shaken. Jamie was without the father who had been his world, and she was without the man who had been the love of her life. But amidst their tragedy her boy, her little blonde ball of life, had been her lifeline, and she had been his. Mother and son, as they should be. And now she didn’t have him. Most nights she lay awake, soaking her pillow with tears imagining what hell Jamie could be living in at that exact moment. And then she would turn over to George’s side of the bed, out of habit, expecting his embrace. Finding only the cold sheets she would weep again.

The human body can only take so much grief before it starts to seek out ways of escape, purely out of self preservation. At some point you have to cut yourself off from grief, operating purely on instinct, in the hopes of survival. So Priscilla had done just that. She had replaced her emotions with a neutral numbness for the time being. It had given her the ability to get dressed in the morning and pick up the groceries down the street. Her former vitality and warmth, imagination and good humour were put to sleep. They were like a drop of arsenic in a cup of her favourite tea anyway. She had decided she would switch to coffee for now.

But somewhere, she was the same Priscilla she had always been. She was the same woman who had studied away her college years alone in the library, the same woman who had become a nurse out of her deep love for other people, and she was the same woman who had first bumped into George at a rainy bus stop after a long shift. Most of all, she was the same Priscilla who had held on to hope when George had received the terrible diagnosis from his doctor.

Hope.

Hope was who Priscilla was. It was who she had always been; almost a pure embodiment of hope. There were many desperate cases at the hospital that demanded she use this shining quality of hers. If anyone asked her how she could handle her work she would say with a steadfast resolve, “I don’t know if there’s any other way to do it.” This philosophy was put to the test after George’s diagnosis. How many nights had she sat at his hospital bed telling him, “it’s going to be okay.”? He would squeeze her hand and smile a weak smile.

It’s going to be okay.

But was it? It was all Priscilla could do to believe that phrase for herself now. She didn’t think she could hold on anymore.. And that was why she was sitting the way she was. Hunched over on the couch, gripping her phone like it owed her money. Time had lost all meaning for her at this point. She could have been sitting there for hours, even days. If not for the flash of the digital clock she would have no idea how long she had been there. It had been about 4:15AM when she had given up her struggle to sleep and had moved herself downstairs. Her phone told her it was almost 8 o’clock now. Priscilla knew that she should probably make herself some breakfast, maybe pour herself a cup of coffee and power her through the day. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She didn’t want to risk turning away from her phone for a moment.

She was waiting for a call.

A tapping from the kitchen startled Priscilla out of her dazed depression. Could that be Jamie?! No. It was only the branches of the tree in their backyard tapping against the window as it blew in the brisk, autumn breeze. Another bitter memory. George had promised to get the tree trimmed when they had first moved here. She was haunted by memories of her lost family. Priscilla looked back at her phone. She knew she needed to make herself breakfast. She had made herself eggs yesterday morning. Or was it two days ago? Maybe she should just go out and buy some breakfast. She didn’t think she could handle being in the kitchen today.

She was waiting for a call.

She had been waiting for this call for what seemed like months. She was praying this call would answer her last, single hope and tell her everything really would be okay. She was waiting for a call from an old friend.

Buy Me An Americano

Tomas Priest awoke to the sound of Bob Dylan soulfully strumming his guitar over the car speaker. He blinked the sleep from his eyes and looked up at the fading yellow streetlights as they raced past the window at his right shoulder. He shifted his weight and felt the tingling electricity of atrophy in his right arm. He must have been sleeping pressed up against the car door for a while. He brought his left arm back to push himself upright, only to rediscover the sharp ache in his shoulder. He let out a slow groan of discomfort as the memories of the past couple days came back to him. What was that about?!

“Oh good. You’re awake.”

Looking to his left, Priest saw the large figure of a man. The glimmering streetlight illuminated his intense dark eyes beneath the thick black eyebrows protruding from his forehead. The streetlight refracted through the droplets of rain on the windowpane behind him, creating an almost saintly, haloed effect before he disappeared again into the dark.

“….Gomez?”

“You bet buddy,” said his former partner. “And not a moment too soon from the looks of things. Retirement treating you alright?”

Priest started to laugh at this before the pain spiked again in his arm, “Sunnuva-”

“Hey! Watch that language. You know I drive my kids in this car.”

Priest clutched his shoulder and looked around him in mock curiosity, “What, did you bring them along? Give them a chance to see Uncle Tomas at a new kind of low?”

“You know the rules. Foul language is for foul places,” Gomez smirked. “And I just got this car cleaned.”

Gomez had always been like this. Things had their proper time and place. Police work was for the station. Drinks were for the bar. And any cursing or profanity was for somewhere far away from him, or at least from his kids. It was probably how he helped maintain some structure to the chaos of police life. Priest respected him for it. Everybody did. Gomez was a good cop. He was trustworthy, hardworking, but had enough of a sense of humour to keep things light when a case turned sour. So when Gomez put his foot down on something, you let it stand that way. But that didn’t stop Priest from giving him a hard time. Between Priest and Gomez’s wife, there weren’t many other people who could get away with that.

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Priest shook his head with a wry smile and reached across his chest to touch his left shoulder. He felt that there was something there.

“I patched up your arm once I found you.” Gomez kept looking straight ahead. “That should be good until we get you to the hospital. Woulda been nice of you to mention that bullet in your arm on the phone though. I could have come more prepared.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

Gomez shook his head. “You’re right. Nothing more fun than firing solid lead into your arm. You’re lucky that it didn’t hit the artery or you’d be dead right now.”

“Then you would get to have this conversation with my ghost. Now that would be fun!”

Priest leaned back and relaxed with a slight smile. He could always count on Gomez in a jam. His world-weary sense of humour was exactly what you needed when you were in a tough spot. His military training wasn’t bad to have either.

“Do me a favour man. Let’s both agree to lay off the fun for a few days. I’d like to make it to Cara’s dance recital next Saturday.”

At the mention of Gomez’s daughter the two of them were silent for a second.

“Care to tell me why you find yourself bleeding out in a gas station at this ungodly hour?!”

“Would you believe me if I said this was all a test I arranged with the chief?” said Priest. “He was worried you were starting to go soft since I left you alone on the hellsquad.”

“Uh huh. And you dozing off and making me carry you to the car was all a part of that test too, eh?”

“You did wonderfully with that by the way. My right arm is just now starting to wake up.”

“You’re lucky I didn’t decide to amputate the left one. Even just for all the trouble it gave me.”

“Yah yah. Wake me up when we get there, okay dad?”

Gomez shook his head again and directed his attention back to the road. He wasn’t going to get a straight answer out of Priest yet. For a guy who talked so much he was very good at avoiding the main point. But he was glad to see him again. Glancing over he saw Priest slump his head on his shoulder trying to get more comfortable.

“Sounds good Priest. We should be at the hospital soon.”

Priest eyes snapped open and his body shot up like he had been hit with a jolt of caffeinated lightning.

“We can’t go to the hospital.”

“What are you talking about?!” Gomez glanced over. “I think you left almost half of your blood back in that gas station!”

“We can’t go to the hospital,” Priest repeated. “A bullet lodged in my arm gets the police involved. I can’t talk to them yet.”

“Are you serious?! If someone is shooting at you then they’re exactly who you should call. You know that! What are you involved in?! I found a dead guy over the hood of your car. You care to explain that before I let you run off into the night?!” Gomez was a patient man. But only to a point.

“I have a good explanation for the bullet, the body, all of it. But I need a few days. The police cannot get involved.”

“The police are involved, man. Just because you handed in your badge doesn’t mean that I don’t still have responsibilities. Technically you’re in my custody right now.”

Priest sat back in silence and thought through what he was going to say next. He didn’t want to get Gomez any more involved in this than was necessary. It wasn’t safe. But he was the only chance he had right now.

“Marc,” Priest took a deep breath. “It’s Priscilla.”

“Priscilla Edwards? What’s she got to do with this?”

“Her son. They took him.”

“Who’s ‘they’?! I’m going to need some more syllables from you.”

“I will tell you everything I can. But I need you to promise me no hospital and no cops. Not yet. By the time they finish with me, I might have lost that boy forever.”

Now it was Gomez’s turn to take a deep breath.

“You know you’re asking a lot, Priest,” Gomez was in cop mode now. He had pushed himself to the physical and mental limit to protect the rule of law, and Priest was asking him to go against just about every rule in the book. Not harbouring potential criminals was a little above “no profanities in the car”.

“I know. Just give me a couple days,” Priest said. “Right now, I’m the only hope he’s got.”

They sat in silence for a couple miles while Gomez thought over what Priest was telling him. This was not the way that he had imagined his Saturday morning starting. He had expected to wake up to Cara giggling in his face as she waited for him to wake up. Then he would enjoy the fresh bacon and waffles his wife always made on weekends. Instead he had woken up to a monosyllabic phone call from his bleeding partner. And now there was a missing kid involved?! Gomez sighed deeply and glanced in Priest’s direction. He knew what he had to do. Even though he’d been fired, Priest was still his partner. There was really only one possible answer in this situation. But he did like to see Priest stew a little. Serves him right for waking me up so early. Gomez smiled.

“You know I’ve got your back man. Always.”

Priest let out a long exhale. “Thanks Gomez. Really.”

“Yah…,” Gomez shook his head. “You owe me.”

“You know it.”

It felt good to be side by side in Gomez’s Dodge Charger Pursuit. It was just like it had been when they had started together almost 20 years ago. Back when they were both much younger, and much stupider. Gomez had known Priest longer than he’d know his own wife. Which brought Priest a bit of shame. By bringing Gomez into this he was risking not only his life, but Cara and Marcie, and little Benjamin too. That was not something that Priest took lightly.

“Oh,” more of Priest’s memory was coming back to him. “We should probably get rid of that body.”

Gomez sighed and signalled a U-turn with a grim smile.

“You owe me big.”

“Beauty will save the world.”

―Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot

Recently I have been trying to be more intentional with my relationship with art. Not only in how I engage with it, but also in my own creative process. I have always been excited by art and labeled myself as “creative” for all my life. As a kid I would spend hours drawing comic books that I would bring to school and share with my classmates. I remember co-creating a fantasy world with my childhood best friend that we dreamed of turning into a series of novels (which never got off the ground). And most recently I have been reinvigorated through the writing of my own crime/thriller story. I plan to write the story chapter by chapter on this Substack.

Needless to say, I have had a longstanding relationship with art in a lot of different ways, and as the months turn cold and gloomy, I have considered how my own artistic endeavors have been changing me, and how I believe they could change others.

I remember last year during some personal struggle, I started work on an art project and my mom commented, “I can tell you’re doing better because you’re creating”. In some sense I agree with this sentiment. If I am too mired in my own negative thoughts and emotions, then I will have no energy to create art. But at the same time, I have found that sitting down to create art actually lifts me up out of that same mental muck. This has been most profoundly true as I have begun chronically the adventures of my crime story hero.

Buy Me an Americano

What Tomas Priest is Teaching Me

While I would be the first to admit that I am not exactly the same as the characters that I write, I also can’t deny that my personal experiences filters through their lives.

I may not have despaired while I bled out on a bathroom floor, but I have been lonely. I may not have fallen in love with somebody else’s wife, but I have been heartbroken. I may not have been shot in the shoulder, but I have….okay the comparison may fall of a bit here, but you get the idea.

Through the process of creating new characters, and getting to “meet” them, I have been surprised to discover new insights into myself. By peering into the hyper-real world of my fiction, I can better understand my own internal world. Sometimes this has been intentional, but I think more often this has been much more instinctual and subconscious. It has been a wildly inspiring and invigorating experience that I can’t wait to continue. Hopefully the story I produce is artistically worthwhile, but if not, at least it will be a good personal exercise for myself.

Even the editing process has been helpful since I have enlisted my mom and some friends for their feedback. Through my work of fiction, I have been able to share my inner thoughts and feelings with those closest to me in a way that I may not have done before. For that reason alone, this project as been worth it.

“What Are You Reading Today?”

It hasn’t just been in the creation of art, but also in my consumption of art. A while back my old Sunday School teacher recommended Flannery O'Connor to me. I mostly pushed this off since my reading list is already so long, but I intended to get to it eventually. At a family reunion I was reminded of O’Connor and started to dive in. Having only read a couple of her stories, I have found her writing to be confusing, odd, and somewhat disorientating. I want to read more of her work before I draw any other conclusions, but I have already seen the ways her work has begun to inspire me as the gears in my imagination start turning. Maybe I’ll name a villain after one of her characters to give myself more “literary cred”.

I’ve also become more interested in poetry. I’ve never been that interesting in poetry (I think English class might have killed it for me) but that has slowly begun to change. Inspired by a dear friend of mine, and a conversation with my cousin’s girlfriend, I have been building up a new relationship with poetry. I have found great beauty in slowing down and choosing to engage with a good poet’s crafted words. I experienced it in the words of my friend’s first “published” poem (you can access that below), and in a couple poems from Gerard Manley Hopkins. Making the time to read poetry is a discipline, but it is one that I want to continue in.

Alejandro Ramirez

If I were Icarus

This summer I wrote a poem, and I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. I enjoyed it enough that I plan on continuing to write poems. So here's the first one. I also intend to put some other kinds of writing on here as well…

Read more

6 months ago · 2 comments · Alejandro Ramirez

All of this, I like to think, has been slowly giving me more appreciation for the world around me.

The fiery autumn skies as I leave the office.

Hauntingly beautiful clouds above me on a run.

The collective voices of my church merging into one song.

There is a phenomenon among those who produce television where they write for “second screen viewing”. Since the higher ups at streaming services like Netflix know most people watch their programs while “doomscrolling” on their phones they have begun to cater to that audience in how they write and film their shows. Sitting and engaging with art takes “work” that many of us don’t want to put in anymore. I find myself leaving my phone in another room so I can more fully appreciate a movie I’m watching. I want to put the phone down and enter the world that the artist welcomes me into.

This is the entire point of art. Art is about connections. It draws you out of your own experiences and into the experiences of others. The best art leaves you truly transformed for having engaged with it.

Outside Yourself

How do you stop being anxious and depressed? I think this is a question that many of us grapple with these days (myself included). While it is obviously a very complex and nuanced topic, I think that one of the best ways that I’ve found is to think outside myself. If I am concerned with someone else’s problems, it is much harder to get worried about my own.

This is where the true beauty of art as “connection” comes into play. Great art gives you a fascinating window into someone else’s life. This can be artist’s life yes, but also the characters that they’ve created. You get to think, feel, and experience things that you would have otherwise never thought, felt, or experienced. I think that if you learn to do this well, it trains you to better understanding and care for the people around you.

The biggest obstacle to this, that I’ve already touched on, is our phones. We all know this fact far too well. Human connection is impossible when I keep pulling out the death-screen in my pocket. There’s a reason why so many of us are trying to escape its digital grasp these days. We weren’t made for our screens. We were made for each other. When you truly appreciate a work of art you begin to understand someone else’s inner world. You gain a window into the human experience.

Even in forms of “lower art” like comic strips, there can be something essential about humanity that is communicated. I remember once hearing this quote from Charles Schulz, the creator of the popular strip Peanuts, where he outlined the unexpected meaning behind his work.

“If someone says to you, ‘Boy, I feel just like Charlie Brown today,’ you know how he feels. And all the sudden it occurred to me after all of these years, this could be the reason for Charlie Brown’s existence.”

—Charles Schulz

Even Charlie Brown can be a small window into the lives of others, and to greater understanding of yourself. It may seem like a lot to ascribe to a bald cartoon kid, but it inspired me at least. If nothing else, Charlie Brown’s adventures can make you laugh. My own comic strips have at least brought myself and a few friends moments of happiness. That must count for something.

Just this past weekend I bumped into an old friend who I don’t see often. He greeted me with a smile and as we walked past each other he yelled back at me, “Keep doing those comics! I love them.” Not to pump up my pride (much) but this moment struck me. I yelled back at him, “I will!” and I hope to keep that promise. I was instantly inspired to get back to the drawing board. In a way I hadn’t expected something I had created had led to a connection with another human being.

The Christian Argument for Art

A few weeks ago, I found myself in a debate with a friend about the value of fiction. He didn’t see much value in it since it was just made-up stories about people that never existed. A couple years ago I had a similar argument with another friend who mostly read biographies and other informative books at the time. I think these experiences are not uncommon for those of us who love fiction.

If you’ll allow me to be critical of Christians for a second (which I feel entitled to do since I am one, and I am often exposed to them) I think they are too critical of art. There’s the overt critique, “If it’s not in the Bible than it doesn’t matter” but there is also the more subtle bias against art in my fellow believers. In that first debate I mentioned I was starting to lose ground before I pulled out this argument, “There is art in your Bible too!” Not to brag, but I think I won the debate with that silver bullet.

I jest of course, but I do think that that is a very valid point that too many Christians overlook. Just from personal experience, the poetry in the Psalms has offered me some of my greatest comforts. Their ancient words give voice to my pain and hope for my future. I can read a Psalm of David and think if he felt this way, and it was okay, then maybe I can be okay too. God will guide me forward from this dark place.

Too often I see my fellow Christians rage against a movie or book because it was too violent, or too sexual, or too vulgar. But I think when we do that, we ignore the self-evident truth that our world is violent, sexual, and vulgar. You don’t have to revel in this fact. But I do think you need to acknowledge it. We need to understand the world me live in, and the reality that can oppress us all. Another mistake we make is to dismiss fiction all together because it can’t possibly have as much value as some sturdy work of theological or philosophical discourse. I think we do this out of a fear that leads us to grasp for control. If I can understand something, and explaining, then I can have some control over it. The difference between art and theology or philosophy is that art offers us more than mere “intellectual” understanding. Art welcomes us into the messy world of thoughts and emotions and unanswered questions. I think it would do well for Christians to get more comfortable in this place.

If nothing else, how else do you know Jesus if not through art? The Bible is not just an impersonal account of events. The Bible was written intentionally, artistically, and expertly in such a way that you can come to know your Jesus more deeply than any “perfect” theological system. When you read the Bible like that, I believe it will open up for you in new, unexpected ways.

Love Your Neighbor

Perhaps the most quoted command of the Bible is to love neighbor as yourself. It’s a strong contender at least. In his famous book, The Screwtape Letters C. S. Lewis uses the voice of a demon instructing another in tempting humans to explain how we so often miss this command.

“When he gets to his pew and looks round him he sees just that selection of his neighbours whom he has hitherto avoided. You want to lean pretty heavily on those neighbours. Make his mind flit to and fro between an expression like ‘the body of Christ’ and the actual faces in the next pew.”

Too often we get distracted by deep theological and philosophical questions like “the body of Christ” and forget what the actual purpose of that body is. In the Bible itself Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” If we Christians hope to seek and find Jesus, then we should look no further than the person next to us.

When you are engaging with art created by your neighbor, do you not better understand him better? When you expand your point of view beyond yourself do you not learn how you can better love and serve people different from you? I think if you want to truly love your neighbor then there is great value in reading a good novel or watching a good movie.

In short, art trains you to connect with your outside world. It is our best, and only, window into the soul of our neighbor.

It’s not perfect. You can never know a person fully through art, or by any other means. Even in writing this short piece I have made intentional choices to better convey my points, and I have left things out because I didn’t want to get too personal. But I hope that through my words vigorously typed on this keyboard that you have gotten a small glimpse into my world and the way that art has slowly been changing it.

Engaging with, and creating, art has continued to give me peace and inspiration for my future. It has offered me new life and made me feel more myself. So I’m going to keep pursuing it. I’m going to keep creating it and sharing what I create with others. I hope you appreciate it. And I hope you create something of your own! If you do, send it my way.

I would love to connect with you.

The ceramic tile was cold against his palms. The blood that ran down his arm was warm. The bullet lodged in his shoulder was red hot.

Tomas Priest sat sprawled on the floor of a gas station bathroom. Blood was slowly draining from the wound in his left shoulder and creating crisscrossing rivers in the crevices of the floor. It exited the bathroom stall and made its way out through the convenience store, and onto the pavement outside. Priest breathed short, painful breaths. It had taken all his strength to crawl his way from his wrecked 1998 Toyota Landcruiser. He wondered if the bullet had grazed any vital organs.

The body of the large man responsible for Priest’s predicament lay cold, draped over the hood of the Landcruiser. The moonlight cast a cold glow on the shredded remains of his once, rather ugly face.

Priest struggled to get himself upright, pushing with his right arm so he could lean against the wall of the small bathroom. He couldn’t remember why he had come in here. Had he blacked out a couple times? His best guess was that he had hoped to get help from whoever was working the late shift. But whoever was supposed to be working the counter was nowhere to be seen. He was lucky the front door hadn’t been locked. Or had he broken his way in?

Leaning against that cold wall, Priest struggled to focus. He reached up to touch the tender spot on the side of his face. No blood thankfully, but there was sure to be a nasty bruise. Wisps of his sandy blonde hair fell across his forehead. His blue-grey eyes looked intently at the graffiti scrawled on the opposite wall. A few misspelled slurs and crude drawings jeered back at him. He remembered his early days as a beat cop chasing down kids who painted these kinds of masterful hieroglyphs on the brick of the library or one of the local churches. So long ago.

Tomas Priest was a tall, weary looking man, quickly approaching the later stages of “middle-aged”. He looked like one of the old Hollywood stars in the movies he had watched as a kid. A young Robert Redford - if Robert Redford had been starved on an island for three weeks and then swiftly kicked in the face by a horse. In his better moments you might have called him handsome. But Priest couldn’t remember the last time he had had a “better moment”. His strong jaw and piercing eyes had been enough to attract a few girls in his younger days. But never the right girl.

Priscilla Edwards.

The name rolled around in his head. Priscilla Edwards. She was never far from his imagination. Her pale, pristine face. Her flowing dark hair. Her smile that would ask nothing from you but demand the world. In a strange way, she was the reason he lay here in this scummy bathroom. He remembered her terrified sobs over the phone. He hadn’t seen or spoken with her since she moved away with her husband George. They had moved to Maryland with their 5-year-old son a couple of months ago. They had hoped that the change in scenery would help with George’s failing health. It hadn’t. George had died a few weeks after they had moved in, leaving Priscilla alone with their son. He couldn’t remember what his name was. Johnny? Jamie? The pounding in his skull kept rattling the details around his brain until they fell out of his ears.

Priscilla Edwards.

Her name offered a small comfort as his shoulder continued to burn with the pulsating flame of pure pain. He thought of holding her small, soft hands, his brittle fingers brushing across her cheeks. He thought of the sound of her crying. That was the first thing he had heard when he picked up the phone in his apartment a couple days ago. Her voice had been weak and all he could make out was a whispered plea.

“Tomas….help me…”

Apparently little Jamie (Johnny?) hadn’t made it home from school. His teacher said that she had walked him to the bus, but he had never gotten off at his stop. The police had gone to question the bus driver but he hadn’t been home. That had been almost a week ago and there was still no sign of either of them. When the driver hadn’t appeared at work, the police began to suspect kidnapping. Priscila had exhausted all her options trying to find him. But in a new home, and without George around to help, she quickly ran out of ideas. How does a single mother find her only son in a strange new place? Her resources could only take her so far so she had turned to the one person she hoped could help. Tomas Priest. They had been friends since high school, and gone to college together, but had lost touch after her wedding. They had kept up a little online and she knew he had some connections with the police. Even if he wasn’t on the force anymore she hoped he would be able to do something. Priest hadn’t had much good news to offer her. He knew how cases like this often ended. He had spared Priscilla most of these details. He had hit the road to Maryland that night hoping that, at the very least, his presence might offer some hope. He had no way of knowing what he would find when he got there.

Painfully shifting his body around, Priest reached into his jacket pocket to pull out his cellphone. He thought about calling Priscilla, just so he could hear her voice one last time as he bled out. But what would he say to her? That her only son was truly gone? He had probably been dead for a long time already; dead or worse. She would see his name light up her phone and her heart would dare to hope. For a brief second, she would think that everything would be okay again.

No. He wouldn’t call Priscilla. He couldn’t.

Buy Me an Americano

Just below her name in his contacts was his ex-partner, Gomez. Marc Gomez had been checking in on Priest every couple of weeks since Priest had been fired from the force. He wasn’t sure what Gomez was so worried about. Even without his compatriots from the force, his good friends Jim, Jack, and Jameson were enough to keep him company. Priest wished he had grabbed the flask in his glove compartment that contained one of these friends. It might help dim the fire in his shoulder. Not that it mattered much anyways. What difference would it make if he died in this dingy, piss-stained bathroom hammered or not? In a few hours the last of his blood would have filled the cracks in the floor and no one would be the wiser. What did he have to show for it all? He couldn’t save the boy. He had never gotten the girl. He had failed as a cop. He wasn’t even sure he had remembered to leave food out for his dog back home.

At least that meant someone would miss him.

Priest chuckled a little at this thought, before a searing pain in his chest and shoulder cut his mirth short. He keeled over in agony as he hacked up what little lung he had left. It spewed out in a bloody mess on the ceramic in front of him. As his coughing fit died down, he curled up on the floor. He licked his lips and tasted a mix of iron and salt. Embarrassingly, he heard his own sobs echo up around him.

At least his dog would miss him.

His dog and Gomez. The mustached face of his ex-partner came to mind. Yes. Gomez would miss him. He wondered what he would say at his funeral. Probably something dark and ironic that only their world-weary cop friends would find funny. He wondered if he would regale the crowd with any of their adventures on the beat. He remembered on one patrol they had caught a group of kids trying to break into St. Paul’s and spray-paint the inner sanctuary. Unfortunately for them, the old windows to the church had proved to be a bit too tight for any of them to fit through. Even more unfortunate for them was the fact that Gomez had gotten to them before Priest could. As a devout congregant of St. Paul’s, Gomez hadn’t taken kindly to their plans to defame it. He put the fear of God into those boys. The regulars at the bar later that night could overhear their squeals of boyish laughter as they recounted how the tallest kid had soiled his jeans as he collapsed in terror.

Priest smiled and thought about the last time he had seen Gomez. They had gone out shortly after he had been fired. They had sat at their corner of the bar just as they always did on Saturday night. They didn’t usually stay late since Gomez had Sunday Mass the next morning, but this night Gomez had stuck around with Priest until well after midnight.

“It’s crazy talk man,” Gomez said. “All the guys know it.”

Priest nodded without saying a word. He downed the last of his drink and motioned to the bartender for another.

“Even the captain knows it. You know that.”

Priest nodded again, “A lot of good that does me now.”

Gomez fiddled with his half drunk club soda trying to think about how to console his friend. When it got down to it, they both knew there was nothing more to say. It was the perfect storm of politics and public relations. Every cop’s nightmare. Priest may have been a good cop, but that didn’t mean the captain was going to jeopardize his own career to save him. And even if it was just to keep a good face for the public, Priest knew that it had to be this way. He had made his choices, and he wouldn’t try and escape any of the consequences. He downed another shot of the cheap bourbon. It burned as it went down and quickly disappeared in his numbing center. He could barely feel the cold glass in his hand anymore. All that existed was the wobbly barstool beneath him and the warm, loaming presence of Gomez to his left. Gomez pushed his coarse black hair away from his forehead and took a sip of his club soda before turning back to Priest.

“It’s a shame man. Really. And anybody with any sense can see that.”

“Thanks Gomez,” Priest almost whispered. The words stuck in his throat.

Gomez firmly placed his hand on Priest’s forearm. Priest turned to him slowly.

“I got your back Priest. You know that.”

This memory of Gomez’s dark eyes burned in Priest’s mind. The same dark eyes that had been so focused on that kid as he wept and wet himself, were now locked on him.

“You know that.”

It wasn’t a question. Gomez wasn’t usually this direct when it came to their lives outside the job. He was a man of few words, but the words that he did have were heavier than most. Priest had always been the opposite. Between the two of them he was always the talker. He threw his words like rapid-fire darts at his targets, knowing that eventually something would stick. Gomez saved his words like Scrooge McDuck saved his pennies. Every word was worth something to him.

“You’re going to be okay. We both will.”

Priest looked into the eyes that were almost as dark as his tight, curly hair. They bore intensely into him with a focus that he saved for the interrogation room. He could tell that Gomez really believed what he was telling him. He wasn’t as sure.

The stale smell of the bathroom stalls mixed with fresh blood brought Priest back to the present. He lifted his phone off the ground and squinted at the bright display of Gomez’s name shining back at him. He let his arm fall in his lap and let out a strained breath. His arm continued to throb and the warm blood dripped down his sleeve and into his fingernails. He knew that Gomez would answer him, but he didn’t see much point in making the call. It would be better if he let his life slowly drain out of his arm and onto the bathroom floor. He breathed out again and closed his eyes. He would sleep the big sleep and not care about the nastiness of how he died or where he fell. Like a book he had read in the college library once said, “oil and water were the same as wind and air to you. You just slept the big sleep…”.

The wailing of an ambulance siren cut through his slumber. So much for sleep. His eyes fluttered back open and he looked out the small window near the ceiling. A few lonesome stars stared back at him and the siren filled his ears. He thought about the sound of Priscilla’s cries over the phone. He longed to hold her close to him and breathe her in. He realized now that he loved her. She was probably the only woman he had ever loved, and she had married another man. He was going to bleed out in a bathroom stall while he dreamed of someone else’s wife. He looked down, from outside himself, and was repulsed. He pushed away the image of Priscilla’s vibrant green eyes framed by her shiny black hair. He thought of his hungry dog back home. Dying while dreaming about your dog wasn’t as depressing at least.

The siren screamed again, further in the distance this time. It was a shrill, lonely sound. Like a child who had just woken up from a nightmare. He thought of the boy. Priscilla’s little boy who had never made it home after school. He could be sitting alone making just such a sound right now. Priest had come here in hopes of finding him. Of saving him. He was probably the only one who could save him at this point, assuming he was still alive. But instead Priest was bleeding on the floor, trying not to dream about the boy’s mother. It wasn’t fair. Even if he had never been able to win the heart of Priscilla the way he wanted, that wasn’t the boy’s fault. He was just an innocent child stuck in this mess. Maybe Priest deserved to die alone, but that boy didn’t. He couldn’t give up yet. If there was even the slightest chance that he could find him and bring him home to his mother he had to try. Looking down at the dark screen of his phone he could almost imagine Gomez’s intense eyes staring back at him. He knew that Gomez would answer.

“I got your back Priest. You know that.”

The howl of the siren drifted further into the distance. Priest took a deep breath. He could always take the big sleep later.

VVRRRRRR VVRRRRRR

Marc Gomez swung his large arm at his vibrating phone. His muscular frame was crammed onto the small couch. He slept there whenever he came home late from work and didn’t want to disturb his wife. He peered out from under the large handstitched quilt that struggled to cover him and saw that it was still dark out. Who was calling him at this hour?

Without looking at the display he dragged the phone to his ear.

“Hello?”

“Gomez…”

Gomez sat up. He was awake now.

“Priest?!”

“Help Gomez. I need help….”

What is Community?

What is “community”? What is its purpose? The idea of “community” can be tossed around a lot in Christian circles. So much so that it can begin to lose its meaning. We can “hear” it being said without actually hearing it Part of my purpose in sharing this subject is to help clear away some of that fog and maybe encourage you to think a bit deeper about what it means for us to be in community as Christians. Because as you’ll see, hopefully, being engaged in community is actually an essential part of our walk as Christians, and even what it means to be human.

So what does community mean to you? Is community where you get to meet up with your friends and laugh and play together? Is community something that discourages and frightens you a little because you’d rather be at home on the couch? Don’t worry, there is no “right” answer here. These divergences between us are actually part of the incredibleness of humanity. My mom is often shocked by how I, the extrovert always looking for an event or a gathering to join, somehow came from her, the introvert who would rather never get up and speak in front of a crowd again. But even the most “introverted” among us will always have this need for community. If you think back to lockdowns, you may have had fun for a minute, but I would wager that most of you recognized that being alone in your room, ZOOMing into your math class, was missing something essential. We as humans need other humans. We even see this spoken to in Scripture.

It Is Not Good For Man To Be Alone

If you read through the first couple chapters of Genesis, you’ll come across the same repeated phrase as the author tells you about God speaking creation into existence, “it was good.” From day to day in the story we see God declare that whatever He has just made is good. From the sun, to the land, to the animals, God says that it is all good. Until he comes to one specific thing:

“The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone...’” (Genesis 2:18)

At this point in the narrative God has created Adam, He has created man, in his own image. But there is something missing. Adam is alone, and he needs a suitable partner for him. From there, God goes on to create Adam’s wife, Eve. We all know the story I’m sure.

I think in church we can often use this verse to talk about how man needed woman before creation could be fully good. And don’t get me wrong, that is definitely a truth found within this text. Guys, if you’ve ever been to a guys only event, or girls, if you’ve ever been to a girls only event, have you ever notices that something feels a bit different? Maybe like something is missing? At guys events, things become a little less clean, a little less organized. The food is even a little bit worse! And at girls events… things become a little less fun.

That’s a joke of course. But you get my point I hope. Men need women. And women need men.

But I wouldn’t want to move on without addressing something important about this (especially because it’s Valentine’s Day as I share). You are not incomplete, or “lesser” if you haven’t found your “Adam” or “Eve”. In our specific church culture I think we can run the risk of sending the wrong message when it comes to singleness sometimes, and tell people that unless they’re dating or married, then we don’t have a place for you. If that’s how you feel tonight (do not raise your hand), then I want to encourage you. You are infinitely valuable to the Creator of the universe, with or without a significant other. And if you feel the loneliness that can often come with singleness, I also want you to know that just about everyone around you has felt, or is currently feeling, that same burden. Including your leaders.

Which brings me to what I think is a deeper truth within this verse: people need people. God did not build us to be lone wolves, taking on the world all on our lonesome. God built us to be with other people. And to be with Him. At the centre of the Garden of Eden is a God who loves his people, and a people who love each other and their God.

So from the beginning we were meant to be in community. Unfortunately, we all know that the next part of that story is how humanity broke that perfect community, and ever since then we have been plagued with the insecurity and doubt and damaged relationships that make true community difficult. That’s part of why Jesus came to this earth the way He did. Part of His mission was to fix what we broke and allow us a chance to have that community with Him, and with each other, that we were supposed to have. The gospel message is one of healing, and of reuniting those who were separated from each other.

‘You’ Are The Temple Of The Holy Spirit

A common phrase that you may hear from Christians is, “you are the temple of the Holy Spirit”. This comes from 1 Corinthians 6:19, which in the New King James translation reads, “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?”

But who’s body is the temple? Is it you? Is it me? Is it any believer?

For a while I think Christians have read this verse and come away from it thinking, “Ah yes. I am the temple of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit dwells in me, Nicholas B. Martin.” But is that really what the passage is saying?

Before you get too concerned, do not worry. I am not saying that the Holy Spirit doesn’t come upon the individual believer. He most certainly does. But I do think that this verse is getting at a slightly different point. Part of the problem is that English is a limited language, and we use the word “you” to mean a lot of different things. It can mean “you”, the single person standing across the room from me, or it can mean “you” the group of people sitting in front of me. I did some looking into the Greek, and this verse is using “you” in that second sense. You see some later translations try and capture this meaning in how they give us this verse:

“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own.” (1 Corinthians 6:19)

But I’ve actually heard a different take than that, and I think it gets closer to the truth. What if this “temple of the Holy Spirit” isn’t you, and me, and you, and you, and you? What if this temple is all of us believers together? Maybe a better way of thinking about the temple of the Holy Spirit, is all of us as individual bricks that make up the same building? Each brick is important and unique, but only together does it actually work properly. We can so easily get caught up in our individual, “me and Jesus” mindset, that we could actually be missing out on something greater than any one of us.

If that idea doesn’t quiet sit well with you, that’s okay. I’m no theologian, and I’m not your pastor, but I do think that there is something to be said for this idea of a spiritual community within Christ. We even see a similar concept discussed later on in the same book of the Bible:

“There is one body, but it has many parts. But all its many parts make up one body. It is the same with Christ. We were all baptized by one Holy Spirit. And so we are formed into one body. It didn’t matter whether we were Jews or Gentiles, slaves or free people. We were all given the same Spirit to drink. So the body is not made up of just one part. It has many parts.” (1 Corinthians 12:12-14).

Using the metaphor of a human body, Paul (the author of this passage) tells us something important about how the church of believers is meant to work here on earth. A foot without a leg wouldn’t get very far. A hand without an arm wouldn’t be able to reach very high. And if your body was made completely out of ears, you wouldn't be very successful at explaining to your doctor about the serious predicament you have found yourself in.

We all need Jesus for salvation and His continually sustaining power as we grow with him. But we also all need each other if we are going to function properly within this Christian community of His. We weren’t meant to be Christians alone. We are meant to work, laugh, play, struggle, and grow together.

Which brings me to my final point.

Unto The Ends Of The Earth

I’ve discussed how from the beginning, God meant us to be in community. And I’ve broken down how we as Christians are meant to do this “Christianity” thing together. But what are the outer limits of that? Does this community thing end at the front door of my church? Does it only happen to include people who I already like? That would make things easier for me actually.

But no. Obviously that is not what Jesus came to earth to tell us. That passage in 1 Corinthians speaks to this, “It didn’t matter whether we were Jews or Gentiles, slaves or free people. We were all given the same Spirit to drink” (1 Corinthians 12:13b). If you know anything about Jews and Gentiles in Jesus’ day, they were pretty different, and they didn’t always get along, and yet here we see that those labels don’t actually matter. Not in Christ.

There’s another verse in Acts that talks about what life was like for the early believers after Jesus left.

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” (Acts 2:42-47)

I often read that verse as a good thing. I would read it and think something like, “look at how good they had it! They truly got this Christianity thing right at the beginning.” But as I read through these verses in preparation for teaching from them, I was reminded of something Jesus said just before He returned to heaven. Today we call it the Great Commission.

“Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20)

Did you catch it? Jesus said to go to all nations. That means He wanted His disciples to expand their reach and leave their homes. He wanted them to go to people who were different from them. But what do we read in that passage from Acts? “All the believers were together and had everything in common.” What if part of the reason those early believers were able to live so well together was because they were already so similar. What if God had to shake things up a bit to remind them of His original intent for His gospel message?

As the story of Acts progresses we eventually see exactly that. Things get “shaken up” by the stoning of the believer Stephen, and the church becomes scattered across the land. Whether they liked it or not, those early Christians were going to all the nations.

Jesus didn’t mean for His community, His body, to be made up of only His Jewish brothers and sisters, or only special spiritual people, or only people who I happen to like. Jesus wanted us to always be expanding His kingdom. Jesus loves you (singular) so much that He actually gave up His life for you. And He also gave it up for the person next to you. Part of being in the community of Jesus means exemplifying that kind love to those around us. In one of this final conversations with His disciples before He died and was resurrected, He says this, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34-35).

The rest of the world around us should be able to tell that we are different, that we are set apart and holy before God, because of the love that we have for each other. It’s the very same love that Jesus showed us while He was here, and by how He died.

Concluding Thoughts

So in summary, there are a few things I want to challenge you with regarding community:

1. You were made to be in community with God and with each other

2. Part of being a Christian means being in community

3. We are called to invite other people into this community

Looking over those 3 main points, what stands out to you? Have you neglected your part in the body of Christ and tried to pretend that you can do it all alone? Have you forgotten that true Christian community is meant to include everyone around you? Or maybe you are just feeling alone, and need to be reminded that God loves you and wants to be in community with you always.

All of that is a part of the community of Christ. Like every community that involves people, things will get messy. While we still wrestle with our personal sins and insecurities, people will get hurt. You will get hurt even. But with Jesus you will never do it alone.

Tonight, I played with a yo-yo for the first time in years. It was part of a gift bag haul for a teacher friend of mine from her union. I used to have a yo-yo as a kid, so I had to try it out again. It took me a little bit, but eventually the muscle memory came back to me and I was able to get it to work. And as I watched the yo-yo hypnotically move up and down in the air, other memories come back to me too.

Not to sound like an old fuddy-duddy, but I would think that “kids these days” are too busy with YouTube and gaming and social media to have much time for such a rudimentary toy. I wonder if mine is the last generation who really experienced some of these “old school” distractions. I remember it being a big event when the guy with the yo-yo came to school and we had a big assembly where he showed us all the tricks he could do. The main thing I remember is the aftermath of this event: every kid wanted a yo-yo.

I remember coming home and telling my dad about this. I wanted to get a yo-yo some how so I could do the cool things the guy at the front of the gym could do. So you can imagine my shock and awe when he told me, “I have a yo-yo. Back from when I was a kid". Oh my. This was incredible. Not only had I found this mighty mystical toy that had captured my imagination, but it had been right under my nose the whole time. And it was my dad who had it for me! Mom was usually the one who was able to pull out whatever knickknack or doodad that us kids happened to want. But this time, dad was the keeper of secrets. I was so excited.

It took me a bit to get the hang of it, but I got there. I remember feeling so cool and proud going to school with it the next day. It was this purple piece of plastic, with clear plastic on the side so you could see through to the internal springs that helped the thing work. Before long I was able to bounce that thing back and forth between my hand and the air above the ground. I was on top of the world.

Eventually, other kids showed up with cool yo-yos of their own. The “cool” kids had these metal trick yo-yos in gold or silver or green that they could twist into weird shapes with the string while the yo-yo continued to spin. I remember being slightly envious, but not enough to bother trying to track one down. They would’ve been too expensive. Plus, I didn’t think I could do all the tricks that they could.

I even remember several weeks in a shop class where we got to make our own yo-yos. This must’ve been in an older grade, since I can’t imagine us being allowed access to the tools we needed to make these. We were given blocks of colourful PVC plastic that was then cut and shaped into circles with rounded edges as we saw fit. we screwed these together an attached our string. I remember how big mine was. One half was black and the other was orange (after my favourite animal, the tiger) and I think the string was yellow. It’s funny how all of this comes back to me now so suddenly. It feels so present to me in my mind, and yet so distant. As if I was tell the a story about some other kid in a book about someone else.

But what really strikes me is that moment when my dad revealed his yo-yo to me, and he became the coolest guy in the world. He would’ve showed me how it worked; he would fit the string around his finger and show me the right motion it would take to get the thing to bounce. He may have even struggled a bit at first as he tried to remember the right rhythm, just as I did tonight. He wouldn’t have been much older then than I am right now. And that’s the thing. In that moment my dad was so cool before my child eyes. He knew everything. And it wasn’t just that moment either. Growing up there were always random skills or stories that dad had from his “mysterious past” for us kids to gawk at. He seemed like he’d lived so much, and knew so much. How could I ever get to that point? And yet, here I am.

I don’t have kids of my own at this point, or even a wife to help bring them up, but I’ve lived a lot of the experiences that I will one day pass on to them. I’ve learned a lot of the lessons that I will hopefully teach them. And it all happened so quickly. I didn’t even realize I had lived that much life to pass on yet.

Stuck

In your twenties it’s so easy to feel stuck. You’re on your own. No real responsibilities outside of yourself. The whole world is open to you, and yet all of it seems just out of reach. What will I do? Who will I marry? Am I doing the right thing? What’s even the point?

At least in my experience, it can feel like an uphill battle some days. As I seek to be a good man, a good son, and brother, and friend, it can feel as though I am spinning my wheels and not getting anywhere. I get up and do the same thing every day. I go to work. If I’m luck I have some food prepared. I try to pray and read my Bible. Maybe I make myself exercise a little. I text a friend. I go to pickleball or volleyball. I sketch in my sketchbook or read a chapter from a good book. I prepare lunch for the next day. I do all the routine things that you’re “supposed” to do to make a good life. On my good days I even make sure to talk to God about it. And yet somedays it just feels like there’s no point. What have I really accomplished. Am I really any different, any better, than before?

And then on days like today, I stop and look back. I look at where I actually started.

Rear View Mirror

Amidst the daily pressures of life it’s so easy to either get bogged down in the weight of the present moment, or to stress about the unknown the future will bring. It’s rare to pause for a moment and look back. When you’re learning to drive you’re told to constantly check your mirrors. You can’t get to where you’re going safely if you’re not aware of where you came from and what’s around you.

These past couple weeks I’ve been able to take small glimpses in my rear view mirrors. In individual situations I’ve become more self aware, “I wouldn’t have handled things that way a few years ago.” From the constant stresses of life, to everyday heartbreak, I’ve been able to see that I have grown. Even though it doesn’t feel like it day to day, I am a different person than I used to be. And it’s that much encouraging to stop, look back, and see that for a fact. You can’t move forward in the race when you feel like you’re just spinning your wheels.

I think part of what has helped has been good friends who I have checked in with regularly. I have one friend in particular who has agreed to check in with me, almost every day, and I do the same for him. Having that daily quick reflection of, “how has your day been?” makes you stop and check your mirrors. How has today been? What went well? What could I improve? How am I feeling? And why? These small checkpoints give me little things to come back to mentally. I can track myself in the race a little easier when I have those markers behind me on the road.

None of this is especially profound. I know that this is a mental shift that any adult has to go through. But for me, in this moment, it feels like a breath of fresh air. I am growing and changing, and I will continue to grow and change.

The Lesson of the Yo-Yo

So if I was to wrap this up with the picture that started this train of thought, I would encourage anyone reading this to keep going. Sometimes life feels like a constant struggle of up and down that gets you going nowhere. You get all tied up in knots that feel like they’re impossible to untangle. But keep at it. Take a moment and look how far you’ve come, how far God has brought you. Take comfort in the fact that perfecting life is taking a journey, it’s not a destination that you arrive at one day. And take a few moments today and reflect on how much progress you’ve really made. Even if it’s as simple as, “I didn’t make my bed yesterday and I made my bed today.” That’s progress too. And the more you do little things like that, the better you’ll get at adding more things to that list.

I wasn’t immediately good at “yo-yoing”, and I’m still not very good at it. But I’m better than I was. Hopefully one day I will be able to give my son a yo-yo too.

“You have to give them the bad news before you can give them the good news”

This is a common phase that Christians like to toss around. It’s a nice little phrase that sticks in your mind. A small proverb to keep in your back pocket. The kind that we like to take with us when “dealing with the unbeliever”. But is it true?

The basic idea behind this slogan is that to fully encapsulate the message of the gospel, you need to start with the idea of “Original Sin”. God originally created the world to be good (Gen. 1:31) but humanity decided to disobey God and reject Him (3:6-7), and ever since then we have all been tainted by their sin (Rom. 5:12). This is a burden we are all born with, and must figure out how to carry for the rest of our lives. That’s the bad news. The good news is that God didn’t leave us like that. He entered into our world in as a man, Jesus Christ, so that He could provide a way for us to get back to His original creation. The explanation for starting with the bad news is that people won’t recognize their need for Jesus until they realize how sinful they really are. And of course people don’t know they are sinful! One need only look around and see the proof. Our entire culture is billboard after billboard advertising new ways to reject God, and nobody seems to have any problem with it! Obviously we need to give these people the bad news first. Once they are broken by the weight of their sin then they are ready to be introduced to Jesus. Here’s the problem with that line of thinking: I think most people already know that they are “sinful”.

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The word we translate as sin, comes from the Hebrew word khata’, and the Greek word hamartia. Both words essentially mean “to miss the mark”. You could also describe this as failing to reach a goal. If you reach for something and don’t quite get there you have sinned. To be sinful is to know within yourself that you aren’t what you are supposed to be, or that you could be better. If any of those descriptions are hitting home, good. That means you’re human. No matter what your concept of God is, or what you think about religion and morality in general, it is a quintessential human experience to know that you don’t meet some standard set before you.

Maybe it’s a standard you set for yourself.

Maybe you’re using a standard your parents gave you.

Maybe you’re even using God’s standard.

Whatever standard you are using, you know you don’t quiet measure up. Or to put it another way; nobody is the person they want to be. Nobody is the way they think they should be. This is a burden that we all carry with us. And it is a heavy, painful one.

Intentionally or not, I find that we Christians feel the need to add to this burden. We lead with the message of “you’re a sinner!” And, maybe, fair enough. Our world today doesn’t exactly look like the “good” world of Genesis 1, and part of our call as Christians is to bring light into that darkness right? The problem that I see with this “bad news first” mentality is that is inserts this phantom of shame into the gospel we provide people. It’s this dark voice that sneaks into everything with oppressive whispers:

Don’t enjoy yourself too much. After all, you are the worst person to ever live

Nobody would like you if they saw what you really are

You. Are. A sinner.

The more I’ve studied and the longer I’ve lived, the more I’ve come to believe that this approach we have with the gospel is actually broken. I’m not disregarding the sinfulness of man, or our need for a Savior (those are undeniable Christian truths that also need wrestling with), but I think we have things backwards. People know the bad news. They know that they’re not what they should be. Could you honestly tell me that you know anyone who is completely happy with who they are and how they act? But the good news is that God loves us anyways, and He says we are valuable.

Who am I really?

I think this all boils down to this: what is my fundamental identity? When we Christians read Genesis, what do we learn about our identity?

God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day (Gen. 1:31)

God’s creation is good. Humanity is good. I’m not saying that humans aren’t also sinful, we are. But that sinfulness doesn’t define us the way that the very declaration of God does. If you’re not sure about this, why doesn’t God give up on humanity after the first sin? If Original Sin means that we are, essentially, just a pile of sinful garbage, then why does God give us the time of day? Why does God spend generations of human history on a redemptive plan to bring us back to Him? Yes we are sinful, but that statement of God still stands: “…it was very good.”

Let me put it another way.

2012 Silver Honda CRV

I recently acquired a 2012 silver Honda CRV. It has more miles on it than I would like, but its a nice, spacious, reliable ride. It has a sunroof and a Bluetooth speaker (both of which I am thoroughly enjoying). When I’ve shown it to friends and family the consensus is usually the same: “This is a good car”. Now, lets say I took that CRV and drove it going 250 into a concrete wall. If I was to show it to my friends and family then (assuming I survived) and ask them what it was, what would they say?

They would still say it was a 2012 silver Honda CRV, albeit a very damaged one. I wouldn’t be able to drive it anymore after going through that. I wouldn’t be able to enjoy that sunroof on a summer ride anymore. But it is still a 2012 silver Honda CRV. I believe it is the same with us.

Just because we sin and mess up day after day (often moment after moment) doesn’t change our original identity that God Himself bestowed on us. We are His good creation. Do we need some work done? Undoubtedly. But that doesn’t change who we are. Our core is still the same.

Slavery & Sabbath

The story of Genesis was first told to the Jews in ancient times. More specifically, the story of Genesis was probably told to the Jews as they left their enslavement in Egypt. For generations they toiled under the watchful eye of their Egyptian masters who only saw them as a means to an end. If you were a Jew in those days, your value was based in what you did and, more specifically, what you produced. There was no time for rest. A resting slave, was a useless slave. Imagine yourself growing up in that environment. Imagine yourself as a young Israelite with slave parents, and slave grandparents, and slave great grandparents. Now imagine you have been freed from that slavery. The God your mother and father told you about sends you Moses. He miraculous leads you through the Red Sea, across the desert, until you come to rest at the foot of a mountain. Moses goes up this mountain and comes back down with a guide, a list of commandments, that lay out how God wants you to live with Him. As Moses reads these commands you nod along:

No other gods? Well of course! You’re THE God who freed us!

No idols? Interesting. In Egypt we had idols, but if God doesn’t want them I’m on board.

The Sabbath? NO work?! But God… you don’t understand. Who I AM is my work! If I don’t work then what will happen to me? What will happen to my family?! I need to work God!

God takes a people, formerly defined only by their works, and tells them that one day a week they must resist that urge to work because, “…in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day” (Exodus 20:11a). Let’s go back to Genesis where this statement was originally made. What does it say before God takes this day of rest?

God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. (Genesis 2:31a)

Exodus says we rest on the Sabbath because God rested. And why did God rest? God rested because He was done creating. God saw everything that He had accomplished and it was “very good”.

Start With The Good News

I believe that this way of looking at the Sabbath, and God, is foundational to what I’ve been talking about with the good news. Our primary identity is God’s good creation. We don’t have to do anything to be valuable to God. We are loved by God. God actually delights in us. This message was so important to God, that He instituted an entire day where we are supposed to remember this. This is meant to keep us from getting caught up in finding our identity somewhere else. Every moment you feel that compulsion to work, you can be reminded that God loves you in spite of what you do.

…The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. (Mark 2:27a)

During the week we can so easily forget who we are. We may be tempted to think “Who I am is a productive employee” or “Who I am is a reliable boss” or “Who I am is a good friend”. The problem is that we can, and do, fail at all of these things. That is when we start to sin. When we lose sight of our identity we start to covet things that we think might complete us. Or we start to lust and try to hide from our failure. Our sin is a direct result of our insecurity. God might only love me if I am doing enough.

This is why I think it’s so important that we don’t add to that message with the “you are a sinner” talk. We do sin. I personally find a way to sin every day (sometimes without even trying). The funny thing is, the more I focus on that, the worse it actually gets. When I focus on my sin, it actually gets bigger and bigger. The weight of that guilt and shame threatens to crush me.

I recently had a counsellor tell me that the more you focus on a thought, the bigger it actually gets. My younger brother confirmed this with a lesson he was given by a Bible teacher. Paraphrased, it goes like this: “The more you look at the crap in the toilet, the more worried you will be about it.” If starting with the bad news actually helped people then there wouldn’t be a problem, but I think that approach actually puts the focus in the wrong spot. In the words of someone much wiser than me:

…let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. (Hebrews 12:1-3)

That is where we should start when we tell people about Christ. God loves you. God loves me. On the days I actually believe that, I find it much easier to let go of my sin.

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