Before the Money

 

    The other day I wrote a surreal sort of crime story: Money Makes Demands. I thought it was going to be just a one-off bit of writing, but today I've written a sort of backstory for that story. 

Before the Money

    How did it begin? First point – and on this he was very clear. Certain: I would give him an alibi for the time of the murder. And just like that, I was in for better, for worse. For risk and reward. For crime and punishment.

    I’d been a man without a safety-net for too long. Not destitute, not yet. But these were desperate times. The obvious shocks and lesions of international discomfort and internal abuse. Living in danger both foreign and domestic. And here he was offering me money for a job – a job that would cost me. Laurence had the notes, the books, the one remaining letter, and – importantly – the motive. I was to be a blind. A shield.

    I was to be the protection and security of division. What he hadn’t inherited, he’d taken. What he hadn’t taken, he’d destroyed. A known offender. There were stories of contacts in Italy and Spain. Trade in Eastern Europe. All the illusions of a criminal imperium of a mid-level boss. And me – just another day player. An unnamed extra in the night.

It wasn’t always like this. Golden nostalgia tells me things were in the long distant past. But too much time passed now. An ex-wife or two. A foundered business. My daughter – was she angry with me? The two of us alone for so many years and separated now.

    Thirty years ago, thirty-five, there had been adventure. Promise and challenge. There had been love – or the expectation of love. All of it unfulfilled. No champagne. No lunch at L’Adagio. I had the early trauma and long path of failure same as anyone. What secrets did I have? Laurence knew he could offer and knew I would have to accept. ­The bright light of youth had gone out years ago.

    Laurence gave me the list:

    -Theft from property
    -Homeless
   -Disappeared and unidentified
    -Apparent suicide
    and
    -No record of employment

    “What does any of this mean?” I asked but Laurence only raised an eyebrow. He wasn’t one to answer questions.

    “You want the money? You’ll follow instructions. Details will follow.”

    Money was transferred with a pen and a click. Payment message received. Now I was obliged to follow through. There was always a choice. Choices and options. There were choices that had to be made. But was I prepared to kill for them?

    The law firm downtown where Laurence held office was a false front. That was obvious. No investigation was necessary. I took the money along with the list. He motioned toward the door. But I hesitated to leave. Not that it was warm and dry inside – though it was. Not that it was pouring outside – though it was. But a reluctance. A reticence. I knew what I was getting into.

    Or thought I did.

    The night that followed, behind the Leslie Houses in the dark, working over the earth. Digging in the uneven ground. Soft earth and wet leaves. Dark but not silent. I could hear the murmur of voices, muttered prayers and intimate whispers. Screaming fathers. Laughing children. Televisions and barking dogs. I worked quiet, looking for the older graves. “This is the first test,” I told myself. “This is the first of what will come.”

    I crouched in the dark. He hadn’t said grave robbery. But would I have refused? Could I have refused? The world fell silent. And now it was raining again. Drenched and slipping in mud, I was nearly done when my phone rang.

    “Get the item and get out of there. Now.”

    Head beating. Surprised by tears. Somewhere between scream and sob. I couldn’t help myself It felt like a dream. Rush run faster. A kind of clarity in movement. Thrust. Double back dark but not empty. Across the field. A glance back and no one. The car was waiting. Drawn up and ready and away. I’d become another crime story. I would make the delivery and wait for the next assignment.

***

    The fact remains that I’d tried to call my daughter earlier that day. Truth, whole truth and whatever. She was always the one to charge in and change until things worked again. She was the one who looked after people She looked after me after her mom left us. And again, after her stepmom left. And then, somewhere along the way she’d left me to. Or I’d left her. Or both.

    She didn’t answer, of course. Maybe her phone was turned off. Maybe she still didn’t want to talk to me. There wasn’t enough evidence to convince her of the better life. I already tried.

    Our last conversation was a shortness of breath. “I’m not really interested,” she said at the end. “You don’t have interruptions. You have objectionable characterization. You have the resistance of a moment.”

    “We need to talk,” I said to her voice mail and put my phone back into my pocket. I told myself that I would try to call her again later. But I knew it was unlikely.

    Meanwhile – Laurence…

    Someone was in charge, but I didn’t really think it was him. Strangers not friends, someone else was in charge. It could have been any number of blood sucking ticks from any one of the families that had moved into controlled territory. A pattern of abuse that led to the death of his victims. Hurt and humiliation. Hurt and burns. There were people chattering on the courthouse steps and women in the bathroom – but no one was talking about him. Whoever he was.

    The trial was over before it had begun. Betrayal was there. Say what you want. What now? More questions?

    I checked my phone for any sort of response and went outside for a cigarette. If anyone was going to find me, it wouldn’t be there. Walking away, unstuck and open. Skulking around outside. Chain smoking on the stairs. Worrying about everything. I was still trying to make sense of it all. Life in the past few days or months or years… I couldn’t make sense of any of it.

    What was I doing in this hotel room? This hotel room? I didn’t understand but maybe that was the advantage of disappearing problems. I was scared – an odd inglorious feeling. I was frightened. There was real trouble – of falling – of running from police. Released from the rails and real trouble. There were gunshots and breaking glass outside and the crash of falling bodies. I hooked the chain on the door and turned off the lights. I lay on the bed and starred at the ceiling.

    Spiders and sex workers running through the night. The mercurial mercy of doctors, cops, ministers. It was all betrayal. Betrayal and murder. And I still had to set up that alibi.

    Kicking myself now.

    What could I say? I knew the despondent feeling of wanting the consolation of a woman. The remembered past was locked away. All you could do was deal with the pressure brought to you. I might have made mistakes. You make a lot of mistakes along the way – but there had to have been a few good decisions too, right?

    More gunshots and the sky broke.

Crickets, Fireworks, and Christian Perfection - An Ascension Day Sermon

    Tiff and I weren’t here last week – some of you noticed. Joyce sent us a copy of the bulletin to make sure that we knew we were missed. Thank you, Joyce. I was doing what I’m doing today, filling in for an absent pastor, across town. But here I am today and here you are. So as we celebrate Mother’s Day

    Well, you didn’t hear it last week. I thought I could get away with reusing the same sermon.

    Actually, today is Ascension Sunday. One of my favorites in the church calendar – though it doesn’t get the pomp and splendor of Easter, or the emotional saturation of Christmas. It doesn’t get page after page of psalms and hymns and spiritual songs like the other High Holy Days. In fact, if you check the index in the back of The United Methodist Hymnal, under the Christian Year heading, there are only six listings – and two of those are All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name, under two different melodies.

    In some denominations the clergy may switch to white or gold vestments. Whoa… way to really party it up… I recently learned that in Florence, Italy they celebrate the Festa del Grillo - the Cricket Festival - on Ascension Day. Crickets are sold in tiny little cages and then the children release them into the streets. Loki – who wants to be an entomologist – will appreciate that one. And in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, people often hike up into the mountains on Ascension Day – like the disciples following Jesus up the Mount of Olives to witness his ascension.

    But I think we need something like fireworks for Ascension Day. Shooting up into the sky in a blaze of brilliant glory, cascading colors, the sky ablaze with sparkles and spangles. It’s a joyful, brilliant day to be celebrated with song and explosion. Loud songs and small explosions…

    For forty days he continued to show himself alive to his disciples after his Passion – that is to say, after his pain. For passion is pain. And pain is death. He showed himself to them after his death. For forty days he showed signs, and wonders, he showed them many demonstrations, evidences, and proofs. He spoke to them of many things: of shoes, and ships, and sealing-wax, of cabbages, and of carpenter kings. He spoke to them of the coming the Kingdom and of God¹.

    “And don’t leave Jerusalem,” he told them while he was sitting down to eat with them, “until you receive what was promised.” They were sitting around eating and drinking, sharing a communion of fellowship with the risen Lord. I like to think that his favorite post resurrection meal was broiled fish and honeycomb.²Those privileged to share that meal with him would remember it always. “John baptized with water,” he reminded them. But not too many days from now you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit – and this is a baptism by fire - and this is where the sprinkling versus full immersion debate gets interesting…

    And the disciples asked him, “Lord, has the time come for you to restore the Kingdom to Israel?” They were thinking perhaps of the Maccabean glories, and Solomonic marvels, and Davidic victories of the past. “Are you going to, in this hour, make Israel great again?”

    But Jesus said “No,” or rather, “It’s not really for you to know.” He commissioned them instead to be his witnesses in ever-expanding circles – in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria – and to the remotest parts of the earth. And the commission is given with another promise of the Holy Spirit.

    Meanwhile the disciples were still trying to figure out when the Kingdom would be restored even as Jesus was lifted up from the ground. A glorious sight - he rises up and up and up through endless ranks of invisible angels, until he is disappeared in a cloud. Up through obscuring clouds. Gone. Vanished. Disappeared from their eyes. Two men in white step into view and announce that this same Jesus will come back in the same way he went.

    And here we are - celebrating the ascension of the risen Lord. Let’s sing another hymn and where are the fireworks and the crickets? Today is a day to celebrate.

    The risen and ascended Christ is the promise of something extraordinary and it rarely gets discussed – at least on this side of the Eastern Orthodox / Roman Catholic / Protestant divide. It is the promise of theosis or divinization or even deification– to use some of those heavyweight theological words.

    And this might sound a bit alarming – as if the substitute pastor were saying that we all get to be God, or little g gods. But he’s not. You don’t have to send Pastor Mark a concerned email.

    The word Theosis is a two-part Greek word: theo being God and the suffix -osis which means a process. Think of a white cloth being saturated with red dye by the process of osmosis. In the same way we are filled and saturated with the presence of God by theosis.³ Theosis is the end goal of our salvation. It is what we were created for. It is what we are redeemed for.

    We were created in the image and likeness of God – and this isn’t just our physical, fleshy bodies. We were created to be good, as all of creation was called good. Very good.

    Since we’re good Methodists here, lets quote John Wesley:

“In the image of God was man made, holy as he that created him is holy, merciful as the author of all is merciful, perfect as his Father in heaven is perfect. As God is love, so man dwelling in love dwelt in God, and God in him. God made him to be ‘an image of his own eternity’ an incorruptible picture of the God of glory. He was accordingly pure, as God is pure. … He ‘loved the Lord his God with all his heart, and with all his mind, and soul, and strength.’ … Such then was the state of man in paradise. By the free, unmerited love of God he was holy and happy, he knew, loved, enjoyed God, which is (in substance) life everlasting. And in this life of love he was to continue forever if he continued to obey God in all things.”⁴

    But sin broke that goodness and death destroyed that life. We were enslaved by fear and lust and shame and wrath and hate. Christ came to restore what had been destroyed, to return what we’d traded away, to revive what was dead.

    The second century Bishop, Irenaeus of Lyons wrote, “The only true and steadfast Teacher, the Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, through his transcendent love, became what we are, that he might bring us to be what he is himself”⁵

    Saint Augustine of Hippo said: “We carry mortality about with us, we endure infirmity, we look forward to divinity. For God wishes not only to vivify, but also to deify us.”⁶

    In the second letter of Peter we read: By his divine power he has lavished on us all the things we need for life and true devotion, through the knowledge of him who has called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these, the greatest and priceless promises have been lavished on us, that through them we should share the divine nature and escape the corruption rife in the world through disordered passion.”⁷

    Paul said it over and over again in his letters: If anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation… For me to live is Christ… It is no longer I that lives, but Christ that lives in me… Christ in you, the hope of glory… And we all, with unveiled faces like mirrors reflecting the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the image that we reflect in brighter and brighter glory.⁸

    Ascension Sunday is not some weird appendix to Easter. Ascension Day is not an afterthought. The Ascension is not just Jesus going away with a promise to return. It is Jesus enthroning a redeemed and restored humanity in the presence of God the Father through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit.

    This is the entire sanctification, the Christian perfection that John Wesley described. That we are so filled with the love of God and a love for God that “no wrong temper, none contrary to love, remains in the soul; and that all the thoughts, words, and actions are governed by pure love.”⁹

    The disciples, having watched the risen Lord, rising into the sky, went back to Jerusalem worshiping and full of joy, continually praising God.¹⁰ When we leave from this chapel, we should go out into the world like bottle rockets, shooting up into the sky in a blaze of brilliant glory, cascading colors, the sky ablaze with sparkles and spangles of holy joy. We go out, transformed in brighter and brighter glory. We should explode in love for each other, for our neighbors, for our enemies, for the world. We should be brilliant bursting bodies of love for God.

1Lewis Carrol - The Walrus and the Carpenter

2Luke 24: 42 (not all of the early manuscripts include the honeycomb. It’s probably rightfully omitted from our translations, but I still like it.)

3Frederica Mathews-Green, Welcome to the Orthodox Church, Paraclete Press, pg. 68

4John Wesley - Sermon 5, “Justification by Faith,” I.1.4, Works, 1:184-85.

5Against Heresies, Book 5,

6Sermo 23B

72 Peter 1:4

82 Corinthians 5:17, Philippians 1:21, Galatians 2:20, Colossians 1:27, 2 Corinthians 3:18

9Thoughts on Christian Perfection (1760), Q. 1, Works, 13:57.

10Luke 24: 52-53

Prophecy Club Minutes - 05.16.26

Prophecy Club
05.16.26
7:34 pm
First Bethel Baptist Church Basement

ATTENDANCE
Present Members: Brothers Haggai, Joel, Daniel, Jonah, Ezekiel, and Agabus
Absent Members: Brother Micah
There were no guests
There was a quorum present

ORDERS OF BUSINESS

The meeting opened with our standard invocation: “Open our eyes that we may see wonderful things in your law.” Open our eyes now, Lord. Amen.

Brother Joel read the minutes of the previous meeting. Brother Agabus pointed out that in the discussion of Secrets of the Freemason, “Ordo ab Chao” had been misspelled as “Ordo ab Kayo.” Much laughter ensued.

Unfinished Business

Brother Agabus reported on his investigation into the socialist roots of the Pledge of Allegiance. He reported – it IS true that a socialist wrote the pledge and that the original version did NOT include the phrase “one nation under God.” Brother Agabus reported that he continues to investigate whether or not we should continue to recite the pledge in light of these discoveries.

New Business

Brother Haggai presented part 15 of his series on the satanic connections between the Pope and the coming of the Mahdi. Spirited discussion followed.

Brother Ezekiel of the Man of Perdition Committee reported that they had no new Antichrist Candidates to consider this month.

A question was raised about whether angels and demons are bodies with DNA of some sort. Brother Daniel said no. They are spiritual beings, not physical. Brother Ezekiel insisted that “there are celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies” and that bodies have DNA. Discussion was tabled after several minutes.

Brother Joel presented a report from the UFO Committee. There have been (at least) three sighting of possible UFOs circling the Saint Louis Arch this month. Brother Joel requested funds for overnight watch groups. Motion was made by Brother Daniel. Seconded by Brother Jonah. The motion was passed with five Ayes and one Abstention (Brother Agabus)

Brother Joel also discussed the change in nomenclature. UFO is less standard. UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) has replaced it. Brother Joel requested money to change the Committee’s letterhead and business cards. Motion was made by Brother Daniel. Seconded by Brother Jonah. The motion was passed with five Ayes and one Abstention (Brother Agabus)

Brother Agabus was questioned about his abstentions. He said: “I refuse to recognize the authority of this group until it distinguishes between the Zionist state and the Israel of God.”

CLOSING

Brother Joel led us in the closing prayer: Lord, You are our refuge and fortress. Guard our hearts and minds. Protect us from demonic attack, physical harm, and emotional wounds. Keep us safe in the shadow of Your wings. Amen.

We will hold the next board meeting on 06.16.26 at 7:34pm. The meeting will be a top-secret Strategy Briefing. The password will be: hoy al-ha N’viyiym ha N’yaliym. Do not share with nonmembers.

The meeting ended at 10:16pm

[Signatures of minute taker and board president]

Doesn’t Doctrine Mean Anything to You? – Another Troll Conversation

    “What are you doing, Carter?”

    It was late in the afternoon; the sun was setting and long shadows stretched across the lawn. I was sitting on the porch looking across the street. “I’m waiting for Sorrow to return.”

    Gunner raised an eyebrow above his slightly hyperthyroid eyes - a particularly strange look considering the way the left eye drooped. “You are a weirdo, aren’t you?” he said, but I didn’t bother to explain that Sorrow is one of the stray cats we’ve been feeding on our porch. He used to come around and mew at us with his tired, smoky cat voice, but we haven’t seen him for several days. And when last we saw him, he was looking pretty weak. I’m afraid he went off somewhere to die.

    “Why are you here, Gunner?” I asked.

    “First we need to talk about your hair.” He flicked the ends of my hair.

    “What about my hair, Gunner?” I said, flinching slightly.

    “You know you need a haircut. Up in a femboy, manbun like that… ‘Doesn’t the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair it is a disgrace to him?’”

    I laughed a little and then said, “Yeah. My dad used to quote Paul at me too. But that verse doesn’t really cut the way you think it does.”

    He didn’t seem to notice the pun. But that was okay.

    “The Nazarites were actually required to have long hair, remember?”

    Gunner scoffed. “Are you saying you’ve taken that vow, Carter? Can’t drink any more of that IPA beer you like. Can’t make any more of your homemade wine...”

    “No. I’m just saying that Paul’s argument isn’t universal there. It’s cultural. ‘Contrary to nature’ doesn’t automatically mean ‘morally deviant.’ Miracles are, by definition, ‘contrary to nature’…”

    He glared at me for a second and then waved me off. “Fine. You’re wrong. But whatever. That’s not really why I came here. It just bugs me, your womanly locks. Man up and get a haircut, Carter.”

    I sighed and asked again. “Why are you here, Gunner?”

    “I want to return to something you said in one of our previous conversations. You said that in the context of salvation, ‘All means all.’ Did I get that right?”

    I affirmed it.

    “So, tell me, Carter, who's a Christian? A true Christian? Roman Catholics?

    “Yes,” I affirmed again.

    “Jehovah's Witnesses?”

    “Yes.”

    “Mormons?”

    “Yes again.”

    So doctrine means nothing to you? You don’t discriminate at all, you’ll just let anyone and everyone in?”

    “Well it’s not up to me to let anyone in, as you said. Or to keep anyone out, either. But no, I don’t think that doctrine is meaningless, irrelevant, or pointless. Some doctrines are healthier and better realized than others. I think the Word of Faith folks are unhealthy and unhelpful with their brand of prosperity gospel. And I think the Latter-day Saints have a particularly weird theology. Some churches have doctrines that I think are clearly mistaken. Seriously so. But if they call Jesus Lord and trust him for their salvation, that’s enough for me. Yours for example. I know your Christian Reformed Church wouldn’t welcome me. That’s your theology and you believe it. I still count you as a brother. Estranged, maybe, but a brother in Christ.”

    “But…” Gunner began to object.

    “No buts. But one caveat. Not everyone who calls out ‘Lord, Lord’ is recognized by the Lord. The true disciple is the one who does the will of the Father – feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, welcoming strangers, clothing the naked, visiting the imprisoned, healing the sick.”

    “But…”

    “It’s not a matter of orthodoxy versus orthopraxy. But the true test of orthodoxy is orthopraxy.” I said over his objection.

    “Don’t give me your liberal college words,” Gunner said. “Answer the question plainly.”

    “Maybe the question isn’t who is a true Christian but rather, what is pure religion, undefiled and unspoiled in the eyes of God – and that question is already answered for us. We don’t have to wrestle it. Pure religion is coming to the aid of orphans and widows in their hardships – the poor and defenseless, the outcast and the outsider.”

    “And keeping oneself uncontaminated by the world!” Gunner insisted.

    “Yes. And keeping oneself uncontaminated by the world,” I assured him.

    “You’re still a Universalist. You’re still a heretic. You’re still a deviant.”

    “Maybe,” I said still looking up and down the street for Sorrow. “But you keep coming back, don’t you?”

An Imaginary Conversation with a Real Troll (the first of the series) 
I Will Not Fight the Argument (the second)
Supermarket Wrestling (third conversation)
Do You Even Pray (the troll returns)
All Means All (A fifth conversation)
The Doctrine that Cannot Be Challenged (sixth conversation)
Toward Sodom - (a halfhearted seventh conversation)
Millions of Years of Death (the eighth conversation)
Truth with Untruth (the ninth conversation)
Bulls, Dogs, and Villains (the tenth conversation)
The Righteous Forsaken (the eleventh conversation)
A Sabbath Garden (conversation number twelve)

Money Makes Demands

    It was both later and earlier than I realized. It must have been some time after midnight. I was in a thin corridor, crowded and cluttered with posters framed photographs – all the artifacts of a rich man’s gilded and spoiled history, that led away to the left. I considered the hallway a potentially useful exit, especially as they approached. Laurence would be here soon with a list and inventory of demands He was expecting another fourteen grand from me, but I didn’t have the money. I never had it, any of it. The whole deal was skunked from the beginning. Confound him and his perpetually raised eyebrows.

    Yet, let it be said, the old man did, in some ways, remind me of the moon.

    Looking around, I saw little in the way of any other help or aid at the far end of the room. One victim was still there on the wall. Flashed and slashed. Beside the body was an old television on a stand, pointed at the corpse. Some silent film noir played upon the screen. A man in a fedora, a woman with a gun… Beyond the archway was an open-plan ceiling. Moonlight but no escape.

    And at the far end of the hall, yet unnoticed by everyone, a room without a view. I stared into the blackness and felt the faintest rush of morning air. Something breathing. A way out? Or was it just another way further into the dark? There was no time for this or any of the other old debts.

    “Why am I here?”

    I stepped and staggered over the unmade bed, ignoring the blood on the bed sheets, withdrew the key from my pocket and told myself to breathe. And breathe again. When I arrived, I had expected something to happen, but not like this. And now it was too late. Treacherous panic reared up within me. I narrowed my eyes and, despite the stench, breathed in through my nose.

    The old man’s lower body was gone but not through the open door. Exposed from the waist up. Arms pinwheeled, hands pinned. A body posed in perpetual tumble. Mickles and muckles on my mind, I must have missed much. Like the fact that one of his eyes was smaller than the other. The other had been gouged out. He was old and severed by a vicious knife wound. The cause of death couldn’t be clearer.

    Two years ago there had been another the same. Slashed and flashed. Left in the basement surrounded by pornography and filth. Laurence had come back sober. His share of horrors was particularly dark. After the fire, no one attributed it to coincidence. Burning old news and secrets. So many secrets.

    “Why am I here?” Drop everything. Go. Follow. Flee. Get out.

    There were additional stab wounds, but I didn’t have time to count them. White, now desaturated. I’d taken too much time getting here. Clearly too weak, too feeble. Too late to form an opinion. Trying to think. Trying the door handle.

    One last time, “Why am I here?”

    I thought once more of my family, my daughter and all the notes and maps in her room. She knew about this. Probably. All that research in the libraries of Europe, she had to have known. Right? Either it hadn’t registered or she didn’t want to risk telling. Was it all my fault? I wouldn’t doubt it. I had failed her too often. The last time I’d seen her was at the carpet shop, abandoned there. I couldn’t expect her to wait anymore.

    I paused. Was that the elevator? Someone upstairs? Down? I opened the window and peered out. Moonlight was spread across the lawn like silver milk. There was nothing in the unsupported air. Had someone called the police? Where were the lights and sirens? Why the delay?

    I buried the key beneath the books and journals and newspaper cuttings inside my backpack. Laurence would demand it. Money makes demands. Always. Eternally insistent. Another pause and I shoved my backpack behind the bed. Further behind.

    “I heard that you’d called,” Laurence said from the door, annoyance in his mouth and that superior arched eyebrow. The man standing there in that silver three piece suit and silver revolver in hand. “And now you are going to...”

    “I’m sorry,” I blurted out, spinning round. “I have to you,” I stuttered, words spilling out of my thoughtless mouth. “I mean, I have to tell you. There can be no excuse. A full report, properly. In person.”

    “Why are you here?” Laurence asked. “It can’t be because of Franklin, can it?”

    Silence.

    “Was it something to do with Franklin? It’s very important that you tell the truth. Don’t lie to me, my boy. My good boy.”

    Silence. And then “I can’t tell you that right now, but if you’ll give me, if you’ll let me…”

    Sudden gunshots and armed intruders, masked, crashed through the door. The military police had finally arrived. Splintered boards clattered across the room. From where I lay, prone upon the floor, I watched as Laurence turned his gun upon the police. He fired once, twice before a salvo of automatic gunfire ripped him to shreds.

    I screamed my way into the darkest levels of hell.