Page 26 - WTP Vol. XI #6

Imago Dei (continued from page 12)
than what will not—namely, she will not have to keep surviving the every day. She feels the panic rise from under her ribs and climb toward her throat. This will be the last time, maybe, but she knows she is a coward. She will continue to suffer. The feeling of waiting, of weeping in the quiet, ends. For the first time in her life, she hears, clearly, the voice of God, echoing in her mind like a
drop of water that falls from the earth into the pool at the bottom of the cave.
Allison. Is this what you want?
It is the voice of one who calls the dead to life. Allison does not know what to answer, and her thoughts are not made of language, now. Instead, she lies still, and waits for what will come next.
For a moment, Allison believes God has come to kill her, and she is relieved that she will not have to do
it herself. She remembers the day she was baptized, excited to run into the water off Canoe Beach, into the waiting arms of her father, and be dipped into the great Pacific, the sea with room enough for all the sins she’d mustered at eight years old. Now, lying under the sheet, she is aware that she might never come up for air again. She will ask God, again, why he made her carry so much grief when she so clearly cannot carry it. She will ask Him to his face this time.
“In the name of the Father, and the Son....” she was plunged, then, and the sand whipped around her arms and lodged itself in her hair in the few seconds she was held under by hands she’d trusted her whole life. She had to fight the pastor, convince him that she was ready to die to herself and be born into the life of Christ. When she walked into the church office to assure the gathered elders that it was what she wanted, she was sure she
was ready. At eight, she’d imagined she’d seen all there was to know of the world, or enough to know that she was ready to commit to a different life. When he dipped her under water, she kicked at him, as though he was holding her deep or long, instead of just long enough to speak the mystery of the Holy Ghost into the memory of the onlookers.
But she knows, now, that she was not ready six years ago, and would not be ready if the question was asked again today. She wonders if there is such a thing as being ready, or if obedience itself is the tempering fire, the steel-forging flames that were supposed to coat her soul in strength. Allison. She hears the voice again, and this time, sees for the briefest moment, a sea of glass
lit only by moonlight, a man standing in it, miles away and yet close enough to touch. He is not here to kill her. She feels her limbs grow heavy, and realizes that she can
feel them again. The voice echoes within her, the deep reverberation of the Ghost that will haunt her all the days of her life.
It is a weight that drags her upward; Allison rolls onto her stomach, pushes herself off the ground, and opens her eyes. She sees only the legs of those around her, dark brown and white and tanned, shaved and hairy, barefoot on the holy ground that has left the imprints of dirty carpet on her back and arms. Her scalp itches. Her tears are dry, but Allison knows that it is not from lack of them. Even now, there is a solid something growing within her, countered by the cold hands that already grip her stomach. She wraps herself in the sheet and walks away, toward the shadowy back of the sanctuary, where no one is weeping, where no one is gnashing their teeth in the Great presence.
~
Even though she would have denied it, she somehow believed that her father was right about Communion: that the body of Christ had a limit. But now, it seemed, God did not consider himself something to be restricted. The thought left Allison breathless, and terrified. She walked out of the building and through the parking lot, toward the highway. The wind was blowing down from Haleakala, leaving her shivering. There was a wetness, a wildness, to the mountain winds, and a freshness to the saltiness of the sea winds, that made her feel alive. She stopped at the edge of the grass dividing the parking lot from the highway, letting herself imagine what might happen if she kept walking. Would Jesus meet her on the yellow line, or would she be left utterly alone if she walked onto the black top?
~
The voice does not speak, but it tells Allison the truth. She was lying, even to herself: she remembered the first
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