Chapter 7 Down Deep Where Longings Go

The air is crisp today, and in the not so far off distance, there is a craving from a distant cello that is somehow auspicious.

I feel as if I’m alone, right here on a bench of sorts, with a hastily packed bag next to me.

I’m not sure exactly where the cellist is, but I can feel the majesty of it all in subtle strokes; I know intuitively that it underscores me, as a perpetual rhythm, as if the bow is gliding across strings because of me, and for me, and maybe straight on through the middle of me. So, I close my eyes, and wait, because a companion has promised he’ll join me.

And I'm hoping he will.

Then, I hear it, a soft beat of a big bass drum or maybe that was thunder, and it’s followed by another and another and it echoes as an accompaniment to that soulful cello; they mix and evolve into a cascading texture of timbre and progressing pitches, and in this surging stream of heightening harmonies and congruous chords, I become lost, right here in this moment.

My hands reach out to something, because it’s so close, like a light, and I can almost touch it.

So, I stand to get closer to it. To embrace it.

But when I do, I realize all at once that many people are in fact on benches all around me, and maybe I'm not as alone as I thought I was. The music is certainly for me, but for others too, and they’re standing now, joining me.

A beautiful symphony is right in front of us.

Then, it is quiet, and we sit.

Perhaps I’m daydreaming, but maybe, just maybe, I’m not. I grip my bag with one hand, and use the other to wipe my eyes, for this swirling circumstance causes an unforeseen emotion. I’ve been swept away.

Of course, it’s starting to come together for me now. This bench that I’ve been sitting on, static, waiting for release, well, it's quite a familiar one, as are the benches all around me with collective others seated on them.

My bench is comfortable. It is safe. It has a cushion.

But something about this moment -- it generates an impetus inside of me, down deep where longings go and wait to be let out.

Tears are dried and silence is broken, and so I reach inside of that bag and pull out a Book, and lay it on my lap. A voice drifts in and out and pages are turned, and pretty soon, that hunch I’ve had about a new kind of church, well, it’s true. It says so right here, in thin pages that turn like air, and words start to dance, like a beautiful waltz right in front of me, because they are so alive, literally, with a pulse, even though that doesn’t make sense. They swirl around me and cause me to imagine what it would be like to live them. To really, honestly, live them.

And to not just write about them.

Then, others begin to leave their benches and I realize that I’ve now left mine and I’m walking out into the light of another sort.

And, then, there he is. He's been there all along.

He’s come to me and perhaps to you with an altogether different pew; an empty seat behind him on that old Harley. He looks at us, looks back at the seat, and then with his hand, he beckons us forward. He’s come, just as we asked him, just as he promised.

The leather seat is worn by the weather, by time and perhaps by those who have ridden before us. My car, or your minivan or our collective SUV is waiting, but imagination allows us to go, so we get on and we wrap our arms around the God of the universe, somehow contained in a body.

And now, he’s going to show us where he’s been and what he’s been up to, in my town and yours. We hang on tight, and we trust him, and we rest our head against the back of his shoulder.

Church has in fact begun, just a little bit ago on this very day, and it underscores us now, as a perpetual rhythm, out into the moments that will blend into the rest of the week.

The sound of the craving cello returns -- right there on the back of that ride, down deep where longings go and wait to be let out.