Speaking of Jesus’ Son
Jack, the Son of the Son of God, was going down a path I would not follow.
That path lead to a classic car show on the other side of the tropical island where we were vacationing. My husband Bob and the redeemed angel Lucifer were going with him. But cars bored me to tears—and I was a guy who liked watching flowers grow, so that’s saying a lot. My presence at a car show would’ve just irritated everyone around me. That’s how I ended up lounging on a deck chair and enjoying the sun, sand and sea while sipping daiquiris with St. Paul the Apostle.
“Thanks again for helping us better understand Jack’s transfiguration power,” I said. “We’ve got so few contacts among high-ranking Christians. I’m not sure who else we could’ve turned to.”
“Always happy to help out my friends,” Paul said. “You ever need anything, you just ask.”
I smiled.
“I never would’ve expected in even a thousand years that I’d end up friends with a saint,” I said. “I know technically I’m a saint, but you know what I mean. A proper Christian saint.”
“Now, why would you think that?” Paul asked with a knowing smirk. “You got something against Christians?”
“No, of course not!” I said. “But, y’know, big old unrepentant homosexual right here. I always thought you guys didn’t much like us.”
“Enh, there are always going to be people getting super judgmental about sex,” Paul said. “Puritans are as inevitable as the poor. It’s just the way of the world.”
“Yeah, but didn’t you write something about gay sex being immoral?” I asked. “Like, you know, in the Bible?”
“Those were supposed to be memos, not scripture!” Paul protested, but then he sighed and tried to explain. “You’ve got to understand, back when I wrote that, sex was rarely consensual. ‘Sexual morality’ basically meant you shouldn’t force yourself on anyone except your wife. Contraception wasn’t great, either, and disease was a much bigger risk. Circumstances have changed, to say the least. These days, so long as everyone’s playing safe and willingly, and not betraying any vows, I’m pretty sure Jesus doesn’t rate a wayward orgasm as any more sinful than video games.”
“Wait, Jesus doesn’t like video games?” I asked. “What’s so sinful about video games?”
“It’s not about what Jesus likes,” Paul explained. “Jesus loves everybody. And when you love everybody, there’s always someone you love in life-threatening distress. Would you be playing video games if Bob was starving? Would you be getting laid if Jack was in the hospital?”
“No,” I admitted.
“Welcome to Jesus’ every day,” Paul said. “When he tells us to love one another, that’s what he means. It’s not an easy way to live, but it’s not like he pretends it is. ‘Take up your cross’ and all that.”
“Damn, dude,” I said. “Forget the gay sex, I never dreamed someone could make me feel bad about playing video games. But I can’t argue with that.”
“Don’t feel too bad about it,” Paul said. “Just love as fully and sincerely as you can. Taking up your cross will spring naturally from that; you’ll know why you’re doing it when the time comes. But if you don’t have love, even this is hell.”
He raised his glass to the shining sun and the gently lapping waves.
“Yeah,” I said. “Jesus kinda told me something similar, I think.”
I reflected on everything Paul had just said. Before we got to Slack Heaven, Bob and I lived a comfortable but undeniably mortal life together, filled with our share of tough times and tragedies. It’s not like we sought out difficulty, but we endured together when difficulty was thrust upon us. And we did it without a second thought, because we loved each other. If Jesus expected me to charge gladly into suffering, I doubted I would. But if what he wanted me to do was love more? I figured I could at least give it a shot.
“Thank you, dude,” I said. “I’d never really looked at it like that before. I think you might’ve made me a bit more Christian!”
Paul laughed heartily.
“That’s literally my job!” he said. “Glad to hear I still got the touch!”
We clinked daiquiri glasses, and I finished mine off with a slurp.
“Shall I make another round?” he asked.
“Nah, I’m a lightweight,” I said. “Let’s smoke a joint instead.”
I rolled one up, and soon we had a nice high going on top of the daiquiri buzz.
“I did go to Sunday school, you know,” I said. “Aced all the quizzes. So I’m not totally ignorant about these things. But you’d think I’d know more, what with Jesus being my best friend’s Dad and all. Jack never wants to talk about him though. He doesn’t even visit Jesus on Christmas anymore. Do you know what’s going on between them?”
“I can only guess,” Paul sighed. “It’s not like I talk to Jesus all that often. I mean, the Holy Spirit keeps us in touch, but that’s more like talking to your conscience than talking to the Man Himself. And when I do catch Jesus in person, he can be as evasive as Jack. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree in that regard.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” I said.
“I know this much,” Paul continued. “Jack sincerely loves his Dad, and obviously Jesus loves his only Son. But Jack still spent most of his first few lives as an orphan, passed back and forth between John, Peter, Magdalene and myself. It couldn’t have been easy on him.”
“Dang, I didn’t know Peter helped raise Jack,” I said. “That certainly explains a lot about their relationship!”
“Yeah, there’s definitely an element of you’re-not-my-real-daddy going on there,” Paul chuckled. “But I wouldn’t say we raised him. We didn’t have a concept of teenagers back then, so Jack was already considered a fully grown adult by the time Jesus ascended. We just kept an eye on him, made sure he was taken care of and that he wasn’t causing too much trouble.
“Keep in mind that none of us really knew what was going on outside the globe. We were promised resurrection, but everyone had their own idea of what that would entail. Peter had his eternal church. Matthew had his ancient prophecies. John had his frickin’ lamps and seals...”
Hm.
Paul continued, “The one thing we all agreed on was that the world was going to end at any moment—and of course, that turned out to be the biggest misconception of them all. We definitely didn’t expect we’d still be sitting around two and a half millennia later, in a world more complicated than anything we ever could have imagined. Nobody really got a glimpse of the bigger picture until after they resurrected the first time. And trust me, when you get to heaven, heading back to the globe to tell everyone what’s out there is the last thing on your mind.
“Jack was actually one of the first of us to die. He got drunk and fell out a third-story window. And you know, he’s like his Dad, he can just resurrect wherever he wants. When he woke up in his bed the next morning, he didn’t even realize what had happened—he thought he just blacked out. That wasn’t the last time it happened, either. He’s always been a klutzy drunk. It became a running joke among those of us who knew him, whenever our faith in the promise of resurrection wavered. ‘Easy as falling out a window!’ I probably shouldn’t be telling you this. I don’t think Jack knows about that one. We meant well!”
“I won’t blab,” I promised. “But why didn’t any of this make it into the Bible?”
“Jack asked us to keep him out of it,” Paul explained. “Think about it from his perspective, living in the shadow of a Father who is literally God incarnate. Jack wanted to be his own man. Everyone knew something was up with him, of course. He wasn’t aging like the rest of us—if anything, he was getting younger with each resurrection. Occasionally, someone outside the core group would see him die, and we’d have to spin it as another generic miracle resurrection when he showed up for breakfast the next day. Those of us who knew the truth kept it to ourselves.
“John was the last of us to kick the bucket, and after that, we all just sort of lost track of Jack for awhile. I didn’t run into him again until sometime in the fifth century, chilling in Britain after the Romans cleared out. He said he’d been in heaven for awhile, but he didn’t much care for it. I could certainly sympathize with that. Turns out lots of us prefer the wider world over heaven.
“And that’s about all I remember, honestly. There aren’t many of us from the original crew, and the world is infinite. We don’t exactly hold reunions to compare notes.”
“That’s a lot to take in,” I said. “It’s just so weird to realize all the apostles...y’all were just normal people.”
Paul laughed.
“You know what I mean!” I said, smiling. “You each got your own faults and your own limited perspectives. It’s not like I ever thought the Bible was infallible, but here I am talking to one of the original authors, and it sounds like you guys barely knew what was going on to begin with! Even if we gathered you all up and locked you in a room until you got your stories straight, I don’t suppose it’d do any good. I’m lucky I can remember the names of my parents, and it’s only been a few centuries, never mind a couple millennia.”
“It’s true,” Paul sighed in agreement. “There’s no real record of the past, only the specters in our memories.”
“Well, I’m not sure I’m any closer to knowing what’s going on between Jack and Jesus,” I said, “but I at least understand Jack a little bit better now. Thanks for sharing all that with me.”
“Anytime,” Paul said. “You’re a good influence on him, John.”
“Leif,” I reminded him.
“Ah, yeah, sorry. Leif.”
Not long after that, I spotted Jack, Bob and Lucy walking along the beach on their way back from the car show.
“Watch out for that one,” Paul said, indicating Lucifer. “He seems legitimately transfigured, but he never needed to be a good guy to look pretty if he wanted to.”
“Trust me, I’m keeping my eye on him,” I said.
Bob was excited to show off the Mold-A-Rama wax sculpture of a red sport car he picked up. I might not have been much for cars, but Bob had a fucking sweet Mold-A-Rama collection.
We stayed at the beach house a few more days, swimming and tanning and eating lots of raw fish. We all really needed the vacation. Sure, we lived in Slack Heaven, but heaven is a little different when you’re in charge of the place. And though there wasn’t a formal hierarchy there, we were all kind of in charge of the place.
We parted ways on great terms with Paul, our goodbyes filled with assorted take-care-of-yourselves and don’t-be-a-strangers, and we had a pleasant enough trip home on our flying monstrance.
“Did you have a good chat with Paul the other day?” Jack asked on the flight back.
“Yeah,” I smiled. “I finally got the scoop on your early years.”
“Did he tell you about the window thing?” Jack asked.
I laughed.
“Like I didn’t know,” Jack grinned.
As we were landing, I said, “Hey, I want to slip out a side exit before the crowd catches me and check in on Hippie John. Can you guys cover for me?”
“Who?” Jack asked, which was unusual. It’s not like we’d actually met everyone who lived in Slack Heaven—it’d been a long time since that was a real possibility—but the Holy Spirit software in our brains usually conjured a face to go with every resident’s name, so we weren’t exactly strangers.
“I swear I told you about him,” I said. “Scruffy guy, big into shrooms.”
“Oh! Yeah, him!” Jack said. “Didn’t know you guys were friends. Sure, go for it!”
As I expected, I found Hippie John right where I left him, perched on a rooftop, counting lamps.
“Three million, nine hundred and sixty-five thousand, four hundred and eight,” he said. “Three million, nine hundred and sixty-five thousand, four hundred and nine...”
“Hey dude,” I said. “Thought I’d find—”
He held up a finger to shush me.
“Three million, nine hundred and sixty-five thousand, four hundred and ten. Three million, nine hundred and sixty-five thousand, four hundred and...eleven!” he declared, beaming with pride.
“That’s...all of them?” I asked.
“Yeah, man,” John said. “Great timing!”
“Did you count the individual LEDs on the rollercoaster wheels?” I asked. He got a sudden look of panic and squinted.
“Three million, nine hundred and—”
“Whoa, dude, joking!” I said. “I promise you, those don’t count as lamps!”
“You sure?” he asked.
“Positive,” I said, sitting down on the roof next to him. “I got a weed inhaler. Want a puff?”
“Yeah, totally man,” John said. “I think those shrooms wore off awhile ago.”
“Yeah, probably,” I said.
I set the inhaler on “ripped” and we each took a puff, then we sat back and enjoyed the view of Slack Heaven, the sky glowing in perpetual twilight.
“So, what you been up to, man?” John asked.
“Quite a bit, actually,” I said. “We went to see a dolphin about Jack’s zappy power.”
“Oh yeah? Dolphins are pretty smart, man. What did he say?”
“He said it’s something called transfiguration,” I said. “Ever heard of it?”
“Yeah, man,” John said knowingly. “That’s a Jesus power right there. Bet Jack got it from his Dad.”
“Almost certainly,” I said. “I wish I knew how to get ahold of his Dad. I bet he could answer a question or two about it.”
“Aw, man, Jesus don’t answer shit,” John said, picking at a shingle. “I wouldn’t expect any answers from Him...”
“I don’t know, he said a few smart things when I met him,” I said.
“Oh yeah? Like what?”
“Like, to love even one person is a blessing on the world,” I said. “That one stuck with me.”
“Yeah, that’s a good one,” John said quietly, looking away.
“Hey, can I ask you a question?”
He perked up, a big smile across his face.
“You just did!” he grinned, snorting at his own joke.
“Are you John the Apostle?”
For a moment, he looked scared. Then he rolled his eyes, shook his head, scrunched his face up in denial, took a deep breath and said, “Nnnnnn-yeah.”
“I thought so,” I said.
“How did you know?”
“Paul said John had a thing for lamps.”
“It’s OCD!” John said defensively. “ADHD! LSD! Doctors always called it something with letters. I call it attention to detail. Doctors don’t know shit, man. Paul don’t know shit. Why were you talking to him, anyway?”
“He was there with the dolphin,” I said, “evaluating Jack’s powers.”
“Of course he was,” John said. “Bet he said it was all some sciency shit, am I right?”
“Pretty much,” I said.
“Don’t listen to him, man,” John said. “That light is Love. God’s Love. Raw. Unadulterated. Straight from the Source. That ain’t science. Not everything is science!”
He jumped to his feet, agitated.
“What is it then?” I asked.
“A miracle maybe? Don’t try to understand it, man. That’s everyone’s problem. Everyone’s trying to understand all the time, nobody just does anymore. Can’t pick up a damned pebble without knowing how your hand works. You don’t have to know how Love works! You just have to Love!”
“This all seems a lot more dangerous than love,” I said.
“Of course it’s dangerous!” John shouted. “Love is dangerous! But what is life without it?”
He looked down at me like the question wasn’t rhetorical, but I didn’t know what to say.
“I know what I’m talking about, man,” John said, suddenly clear-eyed. “I was there. I saw His light. I felt Him shine. Perfect, pure, radiant, joyful and complete!”
A tear ran down his cheek, but he smiled, lost in a memory.
“Pete wanted to build a tent. For the prophets. Dumbass. But then there was a voice. God’s voice. And it said, ‘This is my Son. My Beloved. Listen to Him!’ So we did. And He told us not to tell anyone. So I didn’t...”“
John stared silently into the distance, millions of miles away and thousands of years into the past. I didn’t know what else to do. I stood up carefully, walked over to him and put my hand on his shoulder.
“It’s ok, dude,” I whispered. “It’s ok. I think...I know what it’s like to love a Christ. It isn’t always easy.”
Slowly, he returned to the present.
“Thanks, man,” he said, sniffling. “It’s been a long time since I had a real friend. Could you...could you not tell anyone about this, please? Those other guys are assholes. I don’t want them to know I’m here.”
His sincerity was killing me.
“Dude, I can’t lie to you,” I said. “I can’t lie to Jack. Or Bob. I’m just not a very good liar in general. I won’t go out of my way to mention it, but if anyone asks...”
Stupid fucking sins of omission.
John nodded.
“It’s ok,” he said. “That’s a good thing. You shouldn’t lie. I should go. Watch out for idols, man.”
I was frozen in place as he walked to the door. Then I realized if I let him go, I might not be able to find him again.
“Dude, wait!”
But I opened the door to an empty stairwell. John was gone.
Next: To Hell with Jesus’ Son
Doing Drugs with Jesus’ Son is always free.