Chapter 16 What it Means to Move

Summer is still welcome in October, and right about now she's exhaling a big old breath of warm air, one last time. Perhaps an awkward dance partner to falling leaves and mosaic colors, she still lingers and offers a fleeting presence amidst these very autumnal moments.

Outside, in my mind’s eye, the Jesus of my day is welcome too, and he’s waiting for me. The morning is brand new, but he's already flush with the day and from adventures unknown to me. He's been busy, I can tell, for I suppose he's living out the gospel, as only he can. This incarnation thing has been perfected by him, in the early morning hours, noon and night; but whatever you want to call it, right now I’m just drawn to the mere humanity of him.

I walk briskly to him and embrace him, as I’ve done before, and he holds me close. It's so natural and right and yes, he still has the fragrance of all of my favorite outdoor smells and maybe that's just the scent of heaven. It bears repeating that he’s everything I ever wanted in a brother, a best friend, a companion. Even a father, all wrapped into one.

As usual, he invites me to ride and so I climb on the back of that low Harley, still unable to truly commit to my own bike yet, beyond what I borrow from someone else, but he seems strangely peaceful about that for now. It’s curiously loud today and the echo of the engine and its useless muffler is nearly overwhelming at times.

As we weave in and out of minivans and SUVs and cars of all types, it occurs to me that I've never thought about the strange sight of two men on a motorcycle, not that there’s anything wrong with it, but I’m sure we draw some attention, perhaps some stares, as we ride about 20 minutes or so through my part of town, towards downtown, and beyond, to a place familiar to me, and of course, him.

Eventually we ride down Calhoun, under the old railway overpass, and we look at our reflection in the Saigon Restaurant windows while we're stopped at a light. Up ahead, Alberto's is advertising 99 cent margaritas and of course this draws my attention, even in the morning, but damn it all, we keep on riding. We turn left on Pontiac and into a not so nice section of town, a five iron or so away from the Rialto, but it’s alright because there’s a lot of daylight around us now.

He parks the Harley and we walk around. He says that he wants to talk about this new kind of church that I’ve been so brazenly tossing around. This causes me to gasp and gulp a little, because I’m wondering if I’ve offended him in some form or fashion. I mean, really, I always ask him to help me tell this story, to mold and shape these ramblings, so I’m thinking he’s listening and taking me up on it.

But that’s not it, thankfully. Instead he says it’s time for me to comprehend real change. To envision what it means to move. You know, really physically up and move and experience another side of incarnation.

Of course, there's that incarnation word again and it's clumsy to me and it always confuses me and it’s really just so drastic at times.

And this moving idea is new. Move? As in, move? Where, pray tell?

But then he speaks very clearly about his new kind of church, which really isn't new to him, and how he’s slowly cajoling me and perhaps you and whispering truth to us about what it means to live with others, to celebrate with others, and even to suffer with others. Alongside others.

He asks me to picture a bride who throws off her veil and dances without inhibition at her reception and brings her plate from the head table to eat with the guests and she runs out the door and invites people from the neighborhood to celebrate with her, dirtying the bottom hem of her bridal gown on the street, but she doesn't care.

Indeed, he wants us to see how we can look for real answers to real problems if someone else’s problems become our problems. Then, together, we can solve them.

And that I’ll never truly understand or appreciate this from where I live.

He talks some more, about his example and his own becoming of flesh and about his relocation and his dwelling among someone such as me, how my problems became his own, as if he needed to accentuate his point.

I’m a little deflated right about now because this is just not on my horizon, not now anyway, I assume, and therefore I render my conclusion that he's speaking figuratively and this allows me to breathe easy for a while. To inhale some more of this summer air. I mean, come on, the whole selling of my possessions and giving away of everything to the poor, well, certainly there’s a less than literal application for the here and now and it would seem I’m making some progress. In my defense, I think I’m grooving along pretty well with the sacrificial living thing, buying an old porn theater here, helping refugees adapt to a new life there.

I just need to hold on tightly, for a little while longer, to what I have -- you know, my nice house, on my side of town with no crime, my easy commute, the good school district for my kids. Surely people have problems there. Can’t I help someone with problems in my neighborhood?

He smiles, and of course I can, but I’m not, and I’m not listening to the issue at hand and so basically I'm just missing the whole point, once again catching a big old red herring on the end of my line, which seems a misplaced metaphor right now but this is my imagination.

We ride around the neighborhood some more, taking in the colors, breathing in more gulps of this unseasonably warm breeze which is somehow all the more pleasant on the back of his Harley.

And then it strikes me, all at once, as I lean into turns with him, that I'm just like summer and her gawky presence, an awkward dance partner, who is welcome but doesn't quite belong here. I linger, here and there, but my own presence is fleeting, much like my reflection on a borrowed ride in the storefront windows of this Calhoun corridor.

He changes his course in a southwesterly direction, toward my comfortable, safe side of town. I'm leaning with him, trusting the ride and the Rider, drawing stares, navigating again through this gospel, this clumsy concept of incarnation, as certain adventures remain unknown to me, for now.

The mere echo of this whole thing is nearly overwhelming at times.