by Randy Alcorn
“I can appreciate the reservations,” Jake said. “I just hope more and more black brothers keep putting their feet in the water.”
“So do I. But a lot are going to stand out on the riverbank until they’re sure the gators aren’t biting. See, some of us have trusted white Christians before and ended up getting burned; we’ve told ourselves we’ll never do it again.”
“For example?”
“Okay,” Clarence looked as if he were mentally sorting through dozens of dominoes and deciding which one to draw. “When I was at OSU I got linked up with a campus Christian group, all whites but me. I had some great times with them. But then one day I was walking across campus with a group of black friends. I see these four Christian white guys coming and I know they see me and I’m going to introduce them to my friends, maybe make a link to invite my black friends to the group. But all of a sudden these guys are headed across the lawn so they don’t have to walk by me. I start to go after them, but then I realize what it’s all about. I can be their friend on their turf, in their white world, but they won’t cross over to my black world. I talked to them about it later. They apologized, but it was never the same after that. The friendship faded. I stopped going to the meetings. Too bad, because I needed them.”
Jake looked at Clarence like a student listening to a professor, in over his head, but struggling to understand.
“Have you ever figured out,” Clarence asked, “why I dress up when we go to a store?”
“Beats me. Just thought you like dressing up. It’s always struck me as weird, I admit.”
“I love to go casual. Jeans and a sweatshirt, that’s what I really like,” Clarence said. “But I also want to shop in peace. I get tired of the salesclerks saying, ‘Can I help you?’ every five minutes.”
“What?”
“I don’t like being watched.”
“Clabern, what are you saying?”
“That I’m a black man,” Clarence’s voice thundered, “and black men are expected to be shoplifters! There. Can you understand that?”
“Sorry, man. Didn’t mean to upset you.”
“It wasn’t you. Sorry.” Clarence raised his hands and waited to regain his composure. “If you’re a white man wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, you’re just another customer. If you’re a black man wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, you’re just another suspect. Dressing up makes me look successful. So it helps compensate for my skin color. Sometimes it’s enough to keep store security from breathing down my neck all the time.”
“I had no idea,” Jake said. “Are you sure—”
“That I’m not overreacting? Hey, I’ve got friends who are doctors and attorneys, and they do the same thing. If they dress comfortable, they’re a suspect. It gets really old.”
Clarence and Jake talked for another hour.
“Got to get home, bro,” Clarence said. He hesitated, then added, “Hey, thanks for asking me about this stuff. And thanks for listening to me. I feel better just talking about it.”
Jake put his arm around him. “Thanks for talking to me, brother. It gives me a lot to think about. And it helps me know how to pray for you.” The two friends walked to the door.
Friday morning Ollie spent two hours driving up and down streets within a mile radius of Dani’s house. He drove north on MLK, looking at every street sign. Switzer, Doolittle, Mormance, Moffat, Brumbelow, Jackson, Arnold, Skeets, Dennis, Jack. At Jack he turned right, driving out to tenth. He was about to turn right again when he looked up and suddenly threw on the brakes. He gazed hard at the street sign, which had been graffitied. He stared at it, wheels turning.
“Of course,” Ollie whispered. “That’s it.” He picked up his cell phone. “Yeah, hey Margaret, how you doin’, beautiful? Ollie here. Listen, find me a name and phone number, will you? City of Portland. I want the head of whatever department’s in charge of fixing and replacing street signs. Call me on my cell phone as soon as you’ve got it.” He flipped the phone shut.
Eyes still on the street sign, Ollie crossed his fingers.
Clarence returned to his desk at 10:00 A.M. He reviewed his three new phone messages. The last one was a thin raspy voice that made him want to clear his throat.
“Clarence? Ollie here. Found something that’ll interest you. I’m tied up all day—you won’t be able to reach me—but I’ll be leaving the office about 5:00. How about I meet you at 5:15 at the Taco Bell on MLK, near your place? You buy me a Burrito Supreme and I’ll show you something big. I think it’s the break we’ve been looking for.”
And I have to wait seven hours to find out what it is?
Clarence tried to stay focused on his column. At least he was off to a strong start.
What causes crime? For years Americans have bought into the liberal notion that poverty is the root of crime. There’s only one problem with this idea—it is demonstrably false.
If poverty were the cause of crime, there would have been more crime in the past, when people were poorer. But there wasn’t more crime then, there was less. When the Great Depression set in, incomes dropped dramatically, poverty was widespread and guess what? The statistics show the crime rate not only failed to go up, it actually went down. The moral, spiritual, and familial foundations of this country were intact in those days, and held us up through an economic crisis.
Over 70 percent of all juveniles committing crimes come from female-headed single-parent homes or from foster or group homes. USA Today surveyed 250 juvenile judges, who cited the breakdown of the family as the number one reason for youth delinquency. Study after study shows that children born into single-parent families are much more likely to pursue a life of crime than children born into intact families. The root cause of crime is not poverty but illegitimacy, the defining aspect of which is the absence of a nurturing father.
All the money we’ve poured into the ‘poverty problem’ has not only created a permanent underclass; it has also helped spawn the breakdown of the family, the true cause of crime.
The casually dressed man stood on the manicured eighteenth green of the PGA Senior Professional Championships at West Palm Beach. He stood fifty feet from the pin, determined to get to the hole in two strokes, tie for the lead, and force sudden death. He walked toward the hole, picked up a pine needle off the green, talked with his caddie, and positioned himself for the putt. The crowd watched in breathless silence. He let loose with a strong steady stroke. By the time the ball went thirty feet, it appeared it would make a serious run for the hole. The crowd readied itself for a moan at the near miss and polite applause for the valiant attempt. But the ball headed straight for the hole and wavered on the lip like a basketball on the rim. Suddenly it fell into the cup.
The champion dropped to his knees, looked upward, and extended both hands in exultation. The roar from the crowd ripped like thunder. People applauded at the wonder of the achievement, at the excellence of the man, at the magic of the moment. They would tell this story for years to come. They were there, in the presence of the master.
Most of them never considered that they were being observed from another place, and their experience served as an object lesson sketched on the blackboard of heaven.
“Do you see it? They are experiencing just a taste, just a faint shadow of something for which they were made. They stand on the periphery of boundless praise and energy.”
“Yes, I see,” Dani said to Torel. “It’s like a glowing sunset that seems a doorway into another world. You want to hang on to it before it disappears, but then it’s gone, replaced by drab gray twilight. The thrill of earth’s greatest sporting victories is just a faint echo of the Joy for which we were made—a consuming participation in the worship of Almighty God, a celebration that never fades or disappoints.”
The heavenly temple stood before them, the temple for which that built on earth was a small-scale model, suggestive of the real thing as miniature cars from a cereal box are suggestive of real ones. The courtyard of this temple seemed countless mil
lions of acres, and the numbers of the throngs far exceeded even Dani’s heightened capacity to estimate.
Here were teeming millions gathered to worship the One who has dominion over all.
Everything good on earth was seed to which this was the flower and fruit. The shadow was substance here. Dani realized in a way she never had that those on earth who did not believe in the substance could never appreciate the shadow. To them the shadow was all there was, something to be grasped and captured and fashioned into their own liking, rather than something which testified to that which was greater. Only those touched by the world of substance could truly find joy in the world of shadows.
Voices everywhere merged into a single hum of excitement. A sense of intimacy pervaded this huge group, a closeness Dani had never experienced among large numbers, though she’d caught occasional glimpses of it in church worship services.
She heard all the voices in different languages and enjoyed the distinctive tone of each. She was particularly drawn to Swahili but also loved Norwegian, Aborigine, Hmong, Assyrian, Tagalog, Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic. People from every nation, tribe, people, and language stood before the throne, in front of the Lamb. She’d read about it, and now she was living it. She chided herself that when she’d read the words in the dark world she’d never even tried to envision them, thinking of them as myth or metaphor.
Elyon’s diverse creation reflected his internal diversity, the paradoxical interplay of his seemingly contradictory but always complementary attributes. He had built the unity of the universe, Dani saw now, not on the unwilling conformity of identical components but on the voluntary yielding to one another of diverse components. On earth this meant not only two different genders, but many different races and cultures and languages. She realized that despite what happened at Babel, from the very beginning Elyon’s genetic blueprint had contained all that allowed this diversity to finally blossom.
She looked at Torel. “I once thought that in heaven every race would somehow be the same, every language the same, every outward appearance the same. Now it seems such a ridiculous notion. To strip people of their uniqueness would be like taking all the varied colorful vegetables and cramming them into a grinder, then churning them into a pasty gray puree. The beauty would be gone, the taste gone, the color gone, the vegetables themselves gone. In hell, perhaps such bland sameness exists. But certainly not in heaven!”
“You see it clearly now,” Torel said. “There are different races, but all with one unifying center of gravity, the glory of God. In the Shadowlands the dark lord tries to commandeer for himself a perverted notion of diversity, just as he tried to ruin the beauty of sex by legitimizing sexual perversion. Of course, the beauty of diversity is in its perfect harmony with God’s created order, not in a cacophony of violations of that order. Heaven’s diversity has placed itself under Elyon’s lordship, creating a unity that transcends the diversity. The Creator gives symmetry, order, and magnificence to the diversity of his creation. This diversity, not the diversity of sin, is what should be celebrated.”
Dani watched as a short and unimposing man with dark face slowly ascended a huge platform beneath the throne on which the Carpenter sat. An angel, tall and straight, reverently handed the man a Bible. The two seemed intimately familiar with one another, as if they had fought side by side in a great war. The Bible’s pages began to turn, apparently by sheer force of the little man’s thoughts, until his eyes fixed on the passage he wanted to read, very near the end of the Book.
“Hear the eternal words of Elyon that tell us what is to come. This is what Elyon showed me on Patmos, that all men might know what awaits them.”
John. The apostle John!
“Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. Earth and sky fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”
A shudder rose from the crowd. When it subsided, John continued. “Elyon is the gracious rewarder of those who seek and obey him. We whose names are written in the book look forward to the day of rewards. Listen now to his promises. Rejoice at what awaits you.”
The pages turned again, and John spoke slowly and emphatically the words of Elyon’s Son: “I tell you the truth, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to Christ will certainly not lose his reward.” Wondrous rumblings of assent filled the air.
John launched into prayer, gazing at the glowing throne and him who sat upon it. Dani and the rest of the crowd followed John’s gaze, turning in unison toward the object of his devotion. Their new eyes were able to tolerate a brightness that would have blinded mortal eyes.
“Elyon, God of Abraham, God of our fathers, we thank you that you are the judge of all men and your judgments are always just. We thank you that you keep careful track of all things, that you ignore no deed, whether righteous or evil. We tremble yet rejoice that nothing escapes your notice.”
Countless praises rose from the crowd. Dani heard many languages but readily understood them all. In the distinctive rhythms and accents of every language she felt the very textures of the different cultures from which these people came.
“We pray for those in the dark world,” John continued, “who live day after day with no sense of what is to come. We intercede for those who try in vain to fill the emptiness of their souls with violence, immorality, greed, self-importance, and every other form of rebellion and self-destruction. Show them, Elyon, that the holes in their hearts can be filled only by you; that they have no hope except in you; that apart from your redemption they cannot and will not stand on the terrible day of judgment. As the dark world races headlong toward that final judgment, may your Spirit enlighten many, teaching them to see with the eyes of eternity.”
The intensity of his voice suddenly increased. “Embolden Michael’s warriors who fight valiantly for the souls of men. Defeat your enemies who followed Morningstar in his rebellion.”
What seemed like an electric current—Dani could hear arcs of energy surging and crackling—moved like lightning between the tallest beings in the crowd. The longing of humans for Elyon’s final victory, great as it was, seemed eclipsed now by the more ancient yearning of Michael’s hosts.
“We grow impatient, all-wise Elyon, for the kingdom of our Christ to be established on earth. We long for all things wrong to be made right. Yet you are patient, enduring every indignity and accusation cast upon you by rebellious men. You wait for one and then another to come to faith in you.”
Expressions of agreement rose from every corner of the great assembly. As John concluded, a loud chorus of voices, perfectly timed, cried “Amen.” Dani’s voice was among them. On the platform a man began singing with a lighter-than-air voice that became steadily stronger and more focused with every verse. The voice was as clear and audible to those in the back of the crowd, hundreds of miles away, as to those only feet from the front.
At first she thought it was a new song, so original and penetrating. Then she realized she knew the song. “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.” The singer—of course, he was the writer of the song. The old slave-trader, repentant of racism and oppression and injustice, eternally cleansed. “I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see.”
He continued to sing, many in the crowd joining him, others just listening to his voice, contemplating the drama of redemption embodied in the man. All heaven joined together as he sang, “When we’ve been here ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun, we’ve
no less days to sing God’s praise, than when we’d first begun.”
Many of Michael’s legions seemed to appear from nowhere—some striding forward, some coming down from above, some appearing to come from beyond the far side of the throne. There were untold thousands of them, ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled Elyon’s throne and sang in a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!”
Suddenly an explosion of sound pierced the air from behind and around Dani. Everyone sang now with an impetus that pushed her forward toward the throne. Surrounded in sound, resonating as if she were a tuning fork, she both absorbed the sound and produced it. She felt like a leaf swept along in a raging river, a river that both came from and led to Elyon Most High.
The worshippers sang many songs. Now a little girl walked across the platform and began to sing. She looked so beautiful, she reminded Dani of…Felicia! She had written her song for Elyon’s Son, and he wished all heaven to hear it. The song was so beautiful, Felicia’s voice so wondrous. Dani swelled with the right kind of pride, realizing this was her girl, yet even on earth she had never owned her. People could own things, but only Elyon could own people. Felicia was and would always be Dani’s treasure, for she had invested so much in her. But the girl was Elyon’s treasure first and last and above all. Dani looked to the throne so far away and yet so very close and met the eyes of the Carpenter. For an instant, they shared an intimate joy over this little girl.