You are about to read the first sentence of a book titled ‘American'. I won’t flood your inbox with every single chapter, but the whole book will be posted, piece by piece, within the next two months. So, if you enjoy this, keep an eye out for the many chapters to come.
Click here for the Intro
Prophet
His heels are plopping on the ground, in and out of ill-fitting shoes, and his shorts are torn at the hem. It’s 42 degrees out. “Let me tell you about church.”
He strolls between the outstretched feet of commuters, back and forth, his voice like an Alabama breeze in Selma, 1965. I watch as the distance between us expands, waiting for him to turn around and save my soul, my soul. His head turns away from me, southward, like the train we’re on, and that voice is lost in the sound of metal on metal, the trudging of wheels over filthy tracks.
Turn around. He doesn’t. He’s at the front of the car now, in a mass of people ignoring him by any means possible. I look at him and see my dad, the disillusioned evangelist. The light of 125th Street Station begins spilling into the train. Don’t go. He goes. The doors close. I watch him trod across the platform with his socks scraping the grimy ground, and I watch his mouth form prayers through the windows of the B train.
At 59th Street, I wait for a D train that never arrives. Hearing the exasperated squeal of brakes, I turn around to the local track as the incoming train settles in and opens its doors. He walks out. I stare at him unabashedly, only a foot away, my breath circling his in the space between. “I was just writing about you!” He points at me and does a little jig. We switch places, I step on, he steps off.
“You’re an air sign, aren’t you?”
The doors close and I wave goodbye as I shake my head, the illusion shattered.
Love that he understands the planets, starts, moon, sun, and how they play apart in God's divine map of life for us as humans. I think of it like our bodies, and what we need to be balanced and healthy. Perhaps that is the overall design of the world and, whether we realize it or not, without the balance of water, wind, earth, fire, we cold be far more flipped upside down than we already are. Nej talks about how the bible often refers to the skies as a map of seasons, places, and things to come. We underestimate the "machine" that this whole creation really is.
Close enough-- welcome back, Flannery O'Connor.