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Chapter 12: Trees Like Baptists

  “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in his law he doth meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.” Psalm 1:1-3

  Several hours before daybreak, several days later and farther west, Luke woke with a chill. He was startled and scared, to behold some sort of spirit or wraith floating in the air, wailing sadly: it certainly wasn’t an angel, and not quite a demon. More like a ghost, but a crazy Irish ghost. He recognized it, from the stories he had read at his leisure in the library in Iowa, as a Banshee! “A Banshee named Sheenagh,” she introduced herself self-confidently.

  “Far out,” Luke decided, recovering his composure. “Say, I would be interested to hear your perspective on life,” Luke told her eagerly, having never talked with a Banshee before.

  “I don’t have one,” she replied.

  “A perspective?”

  “A life,” she corrected him. But then she searched her memory to see if she had any knowledge from beyond the grave which might be useful to him, and decided to warn him with:

  The Ballad of the Late, Great Juan Carlos

  There once was a ghost named Juan Carlos,

  Who played net for the Toronto Marlboros,

  He took a puck in the head

  and he ended up dead,

  The ghost of a ghost named Juan Carlos.

  Luke wondered aloud what he was supposed to learn from that. (Inside, he wondered why a ghost would be playing hockey, and whether the whole story might not be apocryphal, but he didn’t wish to offend.) “Always wear protective equipment when playing sports?” she attempted. Luke looked unconvinced so the Banshee tried a more personal elucidation instead, saying sadly “You never know when you’re going to go, so you better make your peace with God today.” That was of more value to Luke, who wrote ‘Today’ into his notes, while she went off into a brief howling jag, the self-pity of the lost soul.

  “Anything else?” Luke asked hopefully, after Sheenagh had pulled herself together.

  She thought again, and pointed out that her favorite quote, quite a useful policy in the haunting biz too, was from Machiavelli, “‘It’s better to be feared than to be loved.’”

  “How do you know? Have you ever tried being loved?” Luke wanted to know.

  She admitted that she hadn’t, whereupon Luke motioned for her to approach, as though he might whisper something secretly to her. But instead, when she drew near, he stood on his tiptoes and gave her a quick kiss. It was kind of creepy and felt kind of wet (for both of them.) But afterwards, she felt kind of happy and loved, and thought that perhaps she was that much closer to just giving up wailing and haunting people, and being able to Rest In Peace now instead. “But I’ll have to sleep on it,” she said cautiously.

  “K, U do that,” Luke allowed, thinking at the very least this would allow him to get a little more sleep himself.

  But before going she turned the tables on him, thinking if he had helped her that much, what else might Luke know? “Say, you seem a knowing lad. Maybe you have some helpful thoughts for me!”

  What to tell a troubled spirit? Luke wasn’t presumptuous enough to create a remedy of his own, so instead he merely offered, a little uncertainly: “Um, well, I’ve been reading some comforting stories about Jesus, who died for our sins and was raised for our justification... Does that help?” (thinking: if nothing else, at least this heavy theological stuff would keep her mind occupied and keep her quiet till morning.)

  The Banshee was suddenly ecstatic. “Ah, Jesus! That’s the name I was forgetting all these years! Why didn’t I think of that? Too busy wailing no doubt! OK, toodle-oo. I’m off,” she proclaimed confidently, and faded off into the night.46

  Luke shrugged and took his nap. After he reawakened, she was nowhere about. Luke took this a good sign, but he wondered, Can it really be that simple?

  In the blue early morning, Luke met up with a team of English teachers. “Great,” he sarcastasized. (They all stopped in their tracks at that last word, wincing.)

  On the pretty planet of Timnalauren, English teachers habitually travelled in fours. Not only was it good company for euchre at lunch and golf games after work or on the weekends, but it allowed them to share the workload as well: there was one to give the assignments, a second to mark the assignments, and a third one to hold you down while the fourth one laughed at you for goofing up the assignments.

  Knowing it was a bad idea, Luke asked anyway, since it was what he had come to do: “Hey there, any good advice for me?” They pushed that door open and barged right through...

  Mr. Schultz started the ball rolling, with the short, sweet summation, “Respect is owed to everyone who doesn’t reject it.” Even had a little bit of offbeat rhyme, but Luke liked it best because it reinforced the words one Mr. Carson had taught him during a summer job in Iowa--construction workers can be teachers too. Not his own words, but they were good words, a direct quote from Muhammad Ali, he claimed. (“You knew the Champ?” “Oh yeah son, I was a boxer then, we did charity work together. He was a friend. He was everyone’s friend.” “Far out.”) “Kindness is the rent we pay for our time on earth.” (“So pay it only about once a month then?” Luke had joked. “More than we can ever manage to pay!” Mr. Carson had corrected him. That sank in, and sometimes afterwards, Luke had remembered to do the right thing, to do good things for others, thinking to himself dutifully, ‘Time to pay the rent’.)

  Upon further reflection, Luke wondered if there were more than that to Mr. Schultz’s remark: judging from some of what he had read, maybe it kinda summed up God’s attitude too? Grace is given to all who accept it. So don’t reject it. Simple enough. Luke hastily scribbled the words into his Bible: ‘Respect’, ‘Kindness’, ‘Grace’, ‘Accept’.

  He then turned his attention quickly to Mr. Sutton, who was expanding the theme:

  “Our goal is to do good. Our goal is to make the world a better place. One mind, one heart, one life at a time.” Mr. Sutton said that’s what he thought being a teacher was really about. What being a human being was about, even. “One at a time. Begin where you are. Do what you can. Every little bit helps. But if everyone follows the rule, Voila! this’ll be a rockin’ place soon!” ‘One’, Luke wrote.

  The third teacher, the beautiful, charming, enchanting Ms. McRitchie, hadn’t had her morning coffee yet, so she got a little flustered and couldn’t think of anything impressive to say just then. She was mainly just there as the one who held you down...

  (Oops, what were we talking about? I got a little flustered myself just then.... Oh yeah, fourth teacher…)

  Finally, an ornery tough named Mr. Young added his experience. “When someone wants to get somewhere, it’s best to set out all the obstacles, all the problems right at the start. I like to be brutally honest with them. Whether they’re looking to be a good student, or to be a good teacher. But not just because I’m a mean cuss. No,” he laughed. “It’s to help them! Because the sooner they realize what changes need to be made, what tasks need to be performed, the sooner they can get to it! Not only that, but they can better see their progress. As they make each improvement, they can measure how much closer they are to becoming what they want to be. With that comes hope-- whereas if you keep moving the bar and adding new burdens, people tend to give up.”

  “Don’t they give up anyway, if you pile it on too thick at the beginning? Wouldn’t that make something seem like a massive, daunting task?”

  “Sometimes. But then, maybe those people aren’t cut out for that line of work anyway. If you’re going to decide that ‘it’s not worth it’, then perhaps you’d best use your time finding a goal that does seem worth it, coz you’re not going to be any good at the first thing anyway, with t
hat kind of attitude! Does this apply to your situation at all?” Mr. Young wondered, thinking maybe he had departed from the question a little.

  “I was looking for God,” Luke stated seriously.

  Mr. Young wasn’t even knocked off stride. “See, it does apply. I won’t dare tell you to ‘find something else that is worth it’ then. That part of the advice has to go! But the part about getting the right attitude, to give your all and do whatever it takes to get there is on the money! If you’re not willing to do that, what kind of believer would you be? Read Luke 14:27,” the English teacher instructed, giving a homework assignment. “Jesus says just what I told ya: ‘And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.’”

  Luke thanked the four for their help, as he noticed they had begun checking their watches more frequently. They hurried away to get to school in time for first period.

  In mid-morning sunshine, after journeying on, Luke took a break, sat down among flowers, and thought about what Mr. Young had said. ‘Lay it all out at once, so you can see what needs to be done.’ So Luke began to make a list of what he needed to do to ‘make his peace with God’, as Sheenagh had called it. His knowledge of the Bible was still being pieced together, and he feared he was taking too much liberty in condensing it, but still, he tried to make a start (you always have to start somewhere, as Mr. Sutton had said), and to list the things he needed to do to get on God’s side.

  Luke’s List

  1) Repent: Confess sins and turn from them.

  2) Believe on the name of Jesus Christ, and be saved.

  Luke looked over his list. “Is that it?” he said aloud. Now he was sure he must have left something out. Not knowing where exactly to look, Luke remembered to look up the reference Mr. Young had given him. Seemed as good a place to turn as any. Reading the rest of the passage, he realized that it did seem to support the idea of taking stock before proceeding, just as he was doing, so that seemed to encourage Luke that he was looking in the right place. But when he got down to Luke 14:33, he was pleasantly surprised nevertheless, to discover a third item for his list! He read, “So likewise, he that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.” Luke was quite pleased to find this passage, and after some thought about how best to summarize it, added to his list:

  3) Give your whole life to God.

  Luke became somewhat less pleased when he looked over his list. Not because it was still short, no. “I don’t think I have enough to answer an essay question” Luke conceded, but there was a completeness to it nonetheless. What disappointed Luke, however, was to realize what hard things those three items could be!

  He could kinda cross off #1, coz he had repented somewhat, though maybe he had other sins he didn’t know about yet, so perhaps this was an ongoing process. But certainly it was one he was willing to work at, anyhow.

  He wasn’t all the way to fulfilling #2 either, though perhaps... he wondered... maybe he was part way there? Like his friend Electric Man? He hoped so.

  But #3 was the deal-breaker. Luke was not ready to give his life to God or anyone just yet. “I only got but one life,” Luke observed. “And I’m busy a-usin’ it my own self.”

  Then he pondered. “Who is to say? Perhaps I could at least consider it if I was more sure. If I saw a miraculous sign or something.” But he recalled reading some words which definitely applied to him! ‘An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.’

  “So no more signs for the likes of miserable me. And I already missed out on seeing that good one,” Luke thought, lamenting his poor timing. Resigning himself, he said to his friends the wildflowers, “Oh well, at least I still have you guys.”

  Then, he didn’t know what prompted him, but he got the urge to pick a flower, and then to pick on that flower. He tugged off the petals, one by one, like he had seen the young maidens do. And as he pulled each one, he said his own variant of their chant: “God loves me...God loves me not...God loves me...God loves me not...” He was happy when it ended on ‘God loves me’! (He would have been happier still if he had had the first clue what this actually meant.)

  It didn’t take but a minute for the satisfaction to fade, however. Doubt, or what-have-you, forced Luke to try it again. This time, when it ended on ‘God loves me’, Luke was not pleased, but curious. The third and fourth time it happened, he was not so much curious, as unsettled: “Hey, what’s this all about?” The fifth and sixth time, he was more careful to pick flowers without first looking, just in case he had somehow influenced the outcome by unconsciously counting the petals before starting. So when these flowers also told him, “God loves you!”47 Luke was even a little frustrated. Finally, after six straight God-loves-me’s, Luke took a few steps to pluck a small, pretty flower, off on its own, as the one he chose “to break the tie.” Like the others, she gladly gave her life to try to assist Luke’s salvation. (And like the others, she wished the boy had been a little quicker on the uptake.) When her last petal fell, and Luke ended once again with the simple statement hanging in the quiet air, “God loves me,” Luke was impressed.

  “Hmm,” he said thoughtfully; and then, while still not ruling out other possibilities, added grudgingly, by way of allowance, “So maybe God really does love me.”48

  It was mid-afternoon. The sky was a very lit-up shade of gray, the kind where the sun is just waiting somewhere behind it, teasing through, recharging its batteries and biding its time. The kind of gray that sort of makes you feel excited, because you know it’s not gonna last, and something new and amazing is about to happen. Luke could hardly wait.

  Sure enough, something good did happen right about then: as Luke was walking between the moist and breezy pumpkin fields, he saw a house and a barn, and he heard a joyful sound--the sound of someone bouncing a basketball! Luke continued around the corner of the barn, where he found a tall guy “with very long arms but relatively short hands” wearing warm-ups and taking shots on a rim that was mounted on the broad side of the barn.

  Luke laughed. “Right on!” he exclaimed. “Fella: some one-on-one or what?”

  The tall guy said Yeah. He introduced himself as Rasheed, and Luke introduced himself as Luke, and they shook hands and got down to business.

  Luke took a few shots to warm up, and then they started playing. They played six games up to 15, and Rasheed won all but one. He was virtually unstoppable in the paint and on the boards, even though Luke was a pretty strong monster-athlete from Hun-Country. Rasheed also had an infuriating hook shot. But his forte was defense: as he swatted away shots, all gleaming teeth and laughter, he would taunt Luke with queries like, “If Rasheed blocks a shot in the forest, does it make a sound?” Then, as he promptly blocked another, , he would answer his own question: “It sounds like… Victory.”

  Luke finally got his outside jumper working to beat Rasheed in the sixth game, since by that time Rasheed was also getting a little tired and a little too cocky.

  After that they took a break to get a glass of water and to catch their breath.

  They were sitting there on the back steps of the farmhouse, drinking cool, tasty well-water on a cloudy day, when Rasheed suddenly proclaimed, “Basketball cleanses the soul!”

  Luke looked at him. “Does it? Wow. I did not know that.”

  “Sure,” Rasheed insisted. “It’s a scientifically proven fact.”

  “You must play a lot of basketball,” Luke said, in a subtle-compliment style.

  Rasheed nodded. “Of course. It’s more fun than pumpkin farming.”

  Luke agreed, but pointed out a practical aspect: “Yeah, but playing ball can’t put food on your table like farming does.”

  Rasheed grinned. “Haha! Little do you know. I just signed a pro contract with the Kingston Kings. An eight-year d
eal worth forty-four million dollars.”

  Luke was quite impressed. “Wow-wee! Gee, no wonder you kept beating me!” Then he thought about all that money and tucked an idea away for later.

  “You are what you eat...and I been eatin’ my Flintstones vitamins!” Rasheed boasted in a sing-song voice, in what Luke took to be some type of slang. Then Rasheed looked at his watch. “Hey, it is about time for me to head for Kingston. Rookie camp starts in a couple days.” Then he went inside the farmhouse and asked his Dad, “Hey Dad, can I borrow the wagon to go to Kingston?”

  His Dad said, Sure-as-long-as-you-have-someone-bring-it-back-hotshot-I’ll-need- it-to-truck-my-pumpkins-to-town-before-too-long. (He kind of ran his words together because he was real tired from farming nineteen hours a day. Farmers are hard-workin’ guys. They say that the love of money is the root of all evil; well, might not farmers be the root of all good? Because they plant plants, and plants are good, and plants have roots. Follow? ...Ah, but what if God plants the plants?) Anyway, Rasheed told his Dad thanks, and he went out to the barn and hitched the horses up to the wagon, and away they went.

  Luke rode along for a little while, until the road forked, and here he hopped off, waved goodbye, and took the road less traveled, as was his custom.

  In the quiet early evening, Luke sat down under a single tall shade tree, by a still blue lake, and read his Bible in the pale, peaceful light. Then, there was just such a gentle breeze, that Luke leaned back against the tree and closed his eyes: not sure himself whether he planned to take a nap, or just to relax and enjoy the evening. ‘Maybe just let sleep make that decision for me, as always,’ he thought, smiling.

  But after a few minutes, he opened his eyes suddenly, as though he had heard something! A far-off voice, perhaps?

  Looking all around, and out to the horizon on the open prairie, Luke saw nothing. So he closed his eyes peacefully again. And heard the sound again!

  After standing up, holding his hand above his eyes like a visor, and scanning slowly and carefully in a full circle, Luke sat down again, and kept his eyes open, as he tried to quiet his heartbeat so he could listen carefully again.

  This time, when he heard the voice, Luke could see that there was no danger, nobody near, so he was able to take the time to listen to what the soft voice was saying.

  Once he heard the words, it didn’t take long to figure out that it was actually the tree talking! or chanting, or singing, or praying...