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Chapter 17: Tricky Shaky

  “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord;” Acts 3:19

  It was later that day. Bert and Luke walked west under partly cloudy skies, tight-lipped: Luke in thoughtful and sad silence, Bert in the careful quiet you put on when you know someone is mad at ya and anything you say will just fall flat or start a fight anyway.

  Finally, Luke broke down first, and had to let out his feelings. “Goof!” he blurted.

  Bert feigned surprise and offense. “What?! What are you talkin’ about? I was helping ya.”

  “My one chance to do the right thing in life, and now it’s gone,” Luke lamented, accusing himself as much as his friend.

  “Gone? Whatever. So go back. First of all, I didn’t stop you, I cautioned you. And if you’re so sure about it, there’s no reason you can’t go back anytime. Repent, sing your songs, give your life to Jesus, the whole works. Any: Time.” Bert reminded him.

  Luke thought about it. “True. But I won’t--because I’m not sure now. Not sure they are right, not sure it was real.” Then Luke gritted his teeth and explained with some bitterness and regret, “But I was sure then. For one brief moment, it all seemed clear! Now how am I going to get back to that? It was tough enough the first time. Between my hard heart, and my foolish mind, and my bad attitude.61 Prob’ly be harder now, coz I’ll always be trying to remember and recreate how I did it the first time, instead of just letting it happen.”

  That was an interesting point, which Bert stored away in his own complicated thoughts, before he defended his actions: “So is that what you want then? The kind of certainty that lasts for a moment? Or the kind that lasts for a lifetime? Coz if all you lost was the first kind, then I didn’t really set you back much, did I? Remember the story I referred to earlier? The one about ‘good ground’? It’s a good idea to get ‘conversion’ right the first time, so no thorns can choke ya, and no birds can come along and eat ya,” Bert said, making the parable more personal.

  True, Luke didn’t want that, but wondered, “Wouldn’t God make the ground good? Pour some ‘living water’ on it to soften it perhaps?”

  Bert was impressed that Luke had obviously been doing his reading, and was certainly making progress to show that kind of trust in God’s providence and to leap to God’s defense like that. He praised Luke for it, conditionally: “Good, but...Further still to go,” Bert pointed out: “There will come a time when you won’t say, ‘Wouldn’t God?’, but ‘God will!’ So maybe this is His way of making the ground good: take you through some more places, some more days, some more lessons.”

  “Maybe,” Luke agreed, and then asked suspiciously, “Hey, when you talk like that, it almost makes you sound like you are a believer too! But you were calling it a cult a while ago...” Luke remembered, not understanding the dichotomy. (He wouldn’t have understood the word ‘dichotomy’ either.)

  Bert clarified: “Always listen carefully, Luke. I didn’t say Christianity was a cult. I implied their particular brand might be. Not everything that is taught or done in Christ’s name is true. Everywhere are charlatans and thieves, robbers and frauds and miscellaneous culprits, The government, the corporate world, the singles scene… Ha. Why should the church be immune?” He considered a solution. “Always one needs to use good judgment and question everything. Compare it with Scripture is how those in the know do it. Coz if it doesn’t square with that, they’re prob’ly just making up their own stuff. Comparin’ it to experience and common sense also works kinda well for the rest of us in the meantime,” Bert recommended. “And when the two standards start to give you the same answer, then you know you’re ready to be a believer, I guess.”

  It was a helpful answer, but a little indirect: The question Luke had meant to ask him, and he went ahead and asked it more precisely now, was, “So are you, or aren’t you? A believer.”

  Bert still found some wiggle room somehow. “Who me? I’m the Bad Guy, remember.”

  Taking this prematurely as a No, Luke still wanted to know, “But were you once? Your knowledge of the Bible tells me you used to read it anyway. And that part about the good ground and the wayside and the thorns, that sounded like there was some personal experience with it. Did something happen?”

  Bert smiled slyly. “Ah, he asks about my past...” Still smiling, he changed the subject: “You said you wanted God to water that ground? Well I got good news for you, brotha: we getting close to the coast! All the water you could ask for...”

  Luke’s next question was going to be how did Bert know his way around this region so well, but they never got to carry on that discussion, for at that point there was a sudden movement just ahead of them. As they approached, a thin man in a dusty, worn tuxedo with a light blue scarf, rapidly bolted from a spot behind some berry bushes and fled from their presence with scared-man speed.

  Bert and Luke exchanged a look, and then automatically sprang after the runner. One always wants to know ‘what’s up’, after all. (Don’t rabbit unless you want to be chased, the police officers keep telling me.)

  It was not an easy chase. The scared man led them in a long circle through brush and brambles, bristles and thistles, canyons, minefields and ravines. (He always seemed to slip through easily, being thin, and his muscular pursuers always got snagged. ‘Or maybe we’re just careless’ Luke reflected later, as they licked their wounds.) He forded a raging river, climbed a high cliff, traversed a highland, and ducked behind hedges and trees for hiding purposes, but always his pursuers managed to stay in close contact. Luke’s Battle Days had provided lots of practice in overtaking those who ‘retreated’, and Bert too had a little practice in tracking down evasive opponents, even if it was only by cutting off the ring during his Boxing Days at the Kronk Gym--a skill that strangely somehow stood him in good stead here as well.

  So they were not far behind, when the thin man came to a barbed wire fence, and hastily opened his combination lock, and breathlessly slammed the gate shut behind him, just as Bert and Luke crashed against the fence.

  Huns and Canadians only count the cost later: so they went fearlessly over the top of the fence, getting gashed a little for their troubles. They lost some ground, but they sprinted quickly enough to catch up in time to see him just ahead, as he shinnied up a wide tree and clambered into a waiting tree-fort at the very top. There were no steps cut into the tree, so Luke and Bert had a devil of a time scaling it with elbows and knees, but finally they got to the top, to find the trapdoor locked from the inside.

  “This guy and his locks,” Bert muttered crossly, then hung down from his branch so that he could swing up a foot and crumple the cheap door with a superhuman kick. Bert and Luke climbed in. They had no right, but after all the hardships he had brought them through, they felt like they did.

  They looked around in the tiny tree-fort, wondering where the man had gone. There was an old humble-bed with a green blanket, and a cheap home-made table, and a cupboard with a single plate, a single bowl, and a single tin cup, a dull steak knife, a bent fork, and Lo, two spoons (ah, from the days when he had been respectable!) But no tuxedo guy.

  “He had plenty of time to get out a window (nice climbing, hotshot), but we would have seen him leave wouldn’t we?” Bert contemplated.

  Luke looked under the bed. Then looked there again, since it was the only hiding spot. “We are perplexed,” he admitted, speaking for both of them.

  Finally, just kidding around, Bert joked, “When I used to clean my room at college, I just swept all the dirt under the rug.” Just to check, Bert tried to lift the bad rug in the center of the room. It wouldn’t move.

  Further inspection soon revealed that the rug was affixed to another trapdoor, which they wrested open furiously. They realized that this second trapdoor clearly led them back down into the inside of the actual tree trunk, which they could now see had been half hollowed out. “Well I’ll be,” Luke exclaimed, exaspe
rated. “This guy sure is good at running and hiding,” he reported, in a not-a-compliment observation. Though he had discarded the Huns’ penchant for violence, the disdain for cowardice was still ingrained. At least there were some bark chips nailed as steps, so they could climb down through the inside of the tree a little easier than they had gone up the outside. Tight fit though, coz they were not as thin as the thin man.

  So by the time they finally got to the bottom and emerged into a small, underground bunker, they were a little peeved. The thin man was there, cringing on a hard, wooden chair, with his eyes screwed shut, and his hands covering his face: hoping they would go away no doubt. “Guy, what’s up?” Bert asked crossly. “Why did you run from us like that? Got us all curioused up, scratched up, worn down and weary.”

  The thin man moaned, and rocked helplessly in his distress, hands over eyes, pleading, “Oh, I am sorry, I am so sorry!”--though not necessarily in response to Bert’s list of grievances, for Bert eventually had to grab him by the shirt front and repeat the question to even make him respond: “Why did you run from us?”

  The scared man took his hands away from his face and peeked at them, and looked a little surprised at what he saw. “You don’t look like much,” he decided. “I heard you mention the name of God. I thought you must be His messengers, sent to slay me.”

  The absurdity of it all--the barbed wire, the locks, and the trick rug, to hide from God--struck Bert as funny and he laughed roughly. Luke was curious about the poor man’s plight, however, and asked earnestly, “Why would God slay you?”

  The thin man started to answer, and couldn’t stop his confession from tumbling forth. “Because I have sinned! Transgressed against God! Betrayed His Spirit! Violated His Covenant! Robbed His Temple! Insulted His Grace! Offended His Righteousness! Scorned His Gifts! Departed from His Guidance! The only thing left for me is at least to humbly accept His Wrath and Sacred Vengeance.” He put his hands back over his eyes, as though expecting it at any moment.

  “Wow, you had a busy morning. So what did ya do?” Bert asked, amused by the thin man’s seeming exaggeration.

  “I took something that didn’t belong to me,” the scared man said softly, with two shivers and a quake, three trembles and a shake.

  “Pack o’ gum?” Bert joked, still flippant.

  “No, this.” The man opened a small chest and pointed to a huge shining ruby, afraid even to touch it. Dazzled, his visitors stepped back. “It is one of the Pope Jewels. The treasure of the Church. They were all stolen from the Pope Building itself, several years ago. And I took part. I, Shadrach the Peasant, who was then a servant, even a priest of God. Can there be a more grievous sin than that, do you think? A worse betrayal?”

  Bert was still staring at the gem. A look of horror and recognition passed briefly over his face, and he gulped, but he recovered himself quickly to jest, “Neato. Hey, it almost matches the one I’ve got at home,” and gave Luke a wink.

  Luke was confused, however, by the man’s misdeeds seeming so out of step with his evident sincerity and piety. “So why did you take it then?” Luke wondered. Not that the taking of treasure often confused a Hun, but if this guy was so sure it was wrong...

  Wailing and tears. “I don’t know! Haven’t I asked myself that every day? Haven’t I repented every moment since? Haven’t I been weary of my very life, carrying this burden, this grief?” Then he struggled to yield some kind of answer: “The former Pope was... troubled. He was not as godly as I expected him to be, I think. Or as sane.” Then hastened to add, lest he add sacrilege to his sins, “The new Pope is much better, I hear. (From the fishes, from the trees.) And the old Pope is getting help, they say. I guess I thought I could help him? Save him from greed, by showing greed of my own? Not quite what the Bible means when it says to ‘bear one another’s burdens’! I know that now. But I was consumed. Confused. By jealousy. Anger. Self-righteousness. I questioned God’s servant, and by implication, questioned God who sent him. And thus fell to worse sins myself. Is that irony? Or justice...?”

  At this point, Bert suddenly began to make a speech, in a vastly different tone than he had used up until now. Luke was appalled by the transformation. Unsure whether it was a practical joke, audacity, or actually God speaking through Bert, he kept silence and did not interrupt. And Shadrach heard what he had been expecting to hear all this time, so the change in Bert’s tone went unnoticed. Possibly he hadn’t even realized Bert was the one who had jested earlier, since he had been so distracted by his own woe, (not to mention havin’ his hands over his eyes and whatnot.)

  Bert began: “Will a man hide from God? God, who knows all things, and sees all things? Will a man run from God? God, who made all things and fills all things? If your sin at first was grievous, your sin in this defiance is tenfold! Kneel now before your God, and repent of this evil. Come forth from this exile and hide no more. Seek His mercy and be saved.

  “Have ye not read, ‘Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear; But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear’? Indeed, your sins have separated you. But God Himself will take away your sins, that you may draw near once again. Your sins are great, but God is greater than all.

  “Is it not written also, that ‘neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ Shadrach also is a creature of God, and unable to separate himself from the love of God, though he burrow into the earth, though he hides his eyes, though he hides his heart. Shall not the LORD break through with love? Behold, even here in the depths, has he not sent you His witnesses? For God himself has called you to be a servant, a child of God. Though you have made yourself a useless servant, can not God make you useful once again, for that to which He sends you?

  “This you must do, however: Repent of your sins. Not only the theft of light things such as stones, but the theft of a good servant, the theft of precious years, and the theft of withholding God’s blessings from all those who might otherwise have heard and learned from you, had you not hidden your body under the earth, and hidden your heart behind the curtains of your own grief and shame.

  “This you must do: Come forth. ‘Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works.’ Will not God be with you once again, to lead you in just paths? For His mercy triumphs over your wickedness, His holiness outweighs your wretchedness, His grace saves you out of your weakness: that you may be a witness of His glory, to a people who have not heard…”

  Bert ran out of stuff to say. He shrugged, and seemed himself once more. Apparently it was enough, coz Shadrach was down on his knees, praying and repenting, for many minutes. There was silence, and Luke bowed his head and kinda tried to pray himself, but wasn’t very sure about it yet, though he did manage to offer his spirit in agreement with Shadrach’s contrition, a “Lord, hear his prayers,”-type request for the poor man.

  When Shadrach finally stood up, he wore a look of cautious joy. He had recovered his firm faith that he was forgiven, but still held the consciousness of sin, and had added to it the sad realization that after years of hiding, he was out of practice talking with God--and that even though that relationship might be mended, the years lost would never be replaced. But at least they were talking again. “It’s strange,” Shadrach said to Bert, “But another verse of Scripture came into my thoughts while I was praying. Only, I don’t know whether it is meant for me, or for you? “‘But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.’ Does that mean anything to you? I guess it’ll help remind me to make my words always prayers to God, or testimonies to his mercy. That’ll be a hard habi
t to get back into.”

  Bert softened a little, but he saw this as an opportunity to share a little more advice. “They say that God is everywhere, but still, sometimes there’s a place where you might feel more in touch with Him? Go there, and pray, and learn and recover and reconnect. Prob’ly get you back to where you want to be a little quicker is all; slide right back into those old habits that much easier. Right? For me, my spiritual place is Kansas...” Then he told the story, and Luke was startled, to see Bert looking fuller, of peace and power, than even when he was making his previous speech!

 

  Memories of Kansas sing through my blood

  like the haunting cry of her sweeping wind:

  the bright gale that sweeps the white sky blue,

  the warm breeze that drives the good gray dust,

  the swirling storm that shattered me with rain,

  the airy grace that blew me back to youth.

  Memories of Kansas preserve my youth

  in amber: as vital as my pulsing blood,

  as sanctified as Holy Water rain,

  as powerful as the soul-propelling wind,

  as true and bright as her March morning blue,

  as lasting as the windshield-coating dust.

  Memories of Kansas raise me from the dust,

  restoring me to when I was all youth:

  when gray skies loved me just as much as blue,

  when grace infused my breath, my sweat, my blood,

  when I skipped, laughing, down the wind,

  and God baptized me secretly with rain.

  Memories of Kansas refresh me, like rain

  revives dying flowers in the dust:

  giving me strength to stand against the wind,

  giving back the blossom of my youth,

  giving cool moist kisses to dry blood,

  imparting joy on days when I am blue.

  Memories of Kansas are filled with rich sky-blue:

  the newborn hue that follows after rain,

  that sends a sense of wonder through my blood,

  that courts the spring-green trees and sun-white dust,

  then brings back childhood summers from my youth,

  to scatter cares and fears along the wind.

  Memories of Kansas carry me like wind:

  like the lifting hand which swept out of the blue

  to save me from the folly of my youth,

  by the cleansing, soothing touch of healing rain,

  by the cry of faith that rose up from the dust,

  by the holy fire awakened in my blood.

  In Kansas I shed blood, work in the dust,

  cast my past to the wind, drown in green rain,

  and in dawn-blue memories, am born into youth.

  Shadrach thought about it. “Hmm, must be quite a place. Well... maybe I’ll find a different place for myself later, but back in the old days I always used to use an actual prayer closet! Just shut out the world and pray one-to-One.” He looked over at the closet, and laughed. “For such a humble abode, this little place actually has quite a bit of closet space! One of the big selling points, actually. That and the barbed wire.”

  “Oh yes, loooove the barbwire,” Luke flattered. Then observed, “A back door would probably help add property value too. Or a secret passage if it’s the most you can bear. But you could have had plenty of time to slip out, while we were fumbling around upstairs. Just for future reference. If you decide to do any more hiding out.”

  “My hiding days are done,” Shadrach affirmed, with restored reverence.

  “Attaboy,” Bert commended, giving him a proudofya-pat on the back.

  Then they went out the way they had come, though this time Shadrach climbed out with them and unlocked the gate at least. They waved goodbye with Thanks and Bless-you’s all around. As long as they were talking to a religious feller, Bert figured he might as well take his old salutation out of the mothballs: “May God bless you with ‘mighty blessings and groovy blessings’, and any other kind ya like,” he said playfully, to Shadrach’s sage nod.

  As they journeyed on, two questions occurred to Luke. “Where’s Kansas?” he wondered, having never heard of some of those swell Earth place names that Bert kept dropping.62

  “Kansas? Somewhere south of the Emwyobi River,” Bert said secretively.

  Thinking that was the answer, Luke played along like he knew his way around. “K, Thanks. I think I know where that is.” Bert got a kick out of that. Then Luke asked the second question, somewhat dryly, paraphrasing the one that had been asked about Saul: “Is Bert also among the prophets?”

  Bert had to laugh a little, “Oh, that? No, I was just preachin’. As long as you say what’s already in the book, anybody can do that.”

  “I was surprised to hear you do it though,” Luke admitted. Bert raised his eyebrows, How-So? “ You being ‘the Bad Guy’ and all,” Luke added.

  Bert considered for a second, and said, “Well, it’s stuff he needed to hear. You could tell the guy was still a believer. He just got too wrapped up in his regrets to remember to have faith. ’Member how Lawrence warned us about that? So it was a simple salvage job, I didn’t have to tell him anything he didn’t already know. Just put the guy back on his right path, and let him live happily ever after. No biggie. I was just acting as a conduit for somebody else’s message anyway: kinda the same way as I channel Bruce Lee and Joe Louis63 when I fight.”

  “Both of them?”

  “To devastating effect,” Bert bragged, with a wry right-side grin..

  Returning to topic, Luke queried, “But was it from God? Or were you just talkin’?”

  That put Bert on the spot, but he slipped out of that one too. “Oho, you askin’ the wrong guy, now. If you want to know if that was from God, you’d have to ask God. I think it served His purposes, didn’t it? Probably called back a better servant than you or I would ever be. I remember something about ‘by their fruit ye shall know them’. So maybe bringing some good fruit here makes my tree a little healthier? I could use it!” he laughed. Then, a little more seriously, he reconsidered, and added self-deprecatingly, “But then again, the LORD spoke to Balaam from the mouth of an ass! That story is a lot more likely to pertain to this encounter!” Then Bert humbly assessed what he had done, and summarized: “Maybe I’ll even have to repent later for going beyond what I had the right to speak. Wouldn’t be the only thing I’ll have to repent of! Just put it on my tab…”

  This line of thinking reminded Luke of his friend Garabandal the Vandal, from the football team at Iowa State: a rumbling, stumbling, endzone-tumbling, never-fumbling, opposing-coaches-grumbling-as-their-Defense-is-crumbling, 250-pound rock-hard trainwreck of a fullback64. He had come to Iowa State in the same class as Luke. The coach had added quite a few JUCO transfers that year to try to add some toughness to the team: Luke from Hun State at QB; Garabandal, from Vandalburg College; a Viking named Thor at offensive tackle; both kinds of Spartans--Haggerty the Hoplite from Sparta U. at safety, plus a pretty cute cornerback named Mimi from the Spartan Athletic Club in St. Kit’s65; also a big rough Russian linebacker from Cossack Community College; and one really crazy Mexican dude. And let’s not forget everybody’s old friend Flagrant the Vagrant--who wasn’t really from a junior college at all, though he claimed he had attended the School of Hard Knocks.66 Actually they just picked him up as a bum off the street, wandering around lost--“He’ll fit right in with the rest of our offense,” the frustrated head coach had bitterly observed. Yet he became a surprisingly good running back. (Who’d want to tackle him?)

  Anyway, Garabandal’s big hobby during the offseason when he got bored was to go around and sucker punch people in the head, Kronk! (he was still surprised how often it sounded like wood), and to warn them to ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near!’ The great part was, as their heads swam and they saw stars, many of his victims did start praying67, and some of them actually traded their near-death experiences for eternal-life conversion experiences.
That justified it, in Garabandal’s mind: it was like a license to goon (renewable each year for only $15.) Though it had begun as a belligerent prank, he had quickly come to believe that he was doing legitimate missionary work. “I’m having fun and racking up big points with God all at the same time,” he had explained to Luke once. Luke was never entirely convinced...

  Luke shook off his memories, for Bert was continuing: “But, although it’s true that I am probably unworthy to even talk about God, Shadrach was worthy enough to hear about God. That’s what matters.”

  “Even after what he had done?” Luke wanted to know, questioning how Shadrach could be worthy.

  Bert had a ready answer: “None of us can be worthy because of anything we have done. We are worthy of hearing about God because God decides we are. It’s worth it to Him. Because He loves us. That makes Him consider us worthy of love, of lessons, of salvation, even when we aren’t. Although, once God gives us His word, His hope, His instruction, we become worthy for real--again, not through anything we do, but because we are ‘found in Christ’. We cling to the one guy who was worthy, I guess. You take some of the Lord’s Spirit upon you--then you’ve got something in you worth saving.” Bert’s explanation came awkwardly, as he was always struggling to understand it himself, and by this point he was struggling to remember it, and to remember whether he even believed it.

  It made an impression on Luke however, who insisted: “You talk like a believer. Whatever happened before, you haven’t completely fallen.” Luke said it more like a pronouncement, but Bert wasn’t quite ready to admit the certainty of that or any proposition, so he took it as another question, and deflected it once again,

  With a laugh, “Ah, he asks about my present...”