Seeing Jesus

by Jeffrey McClain Jones

  Philly thought about it. Jesus patted him gently on the right shoulder and said, “That should be no problem.”

  Repeating Jesus’s phrase verbatim, Philly was still calculating vacation time and wondering what he would do with the day off.

  “Great,” Mr. Hazelton said. “I think that will help.”

  “Make sure you let Craig know,” Dennis said.

  Philly nodded in reply. They all stood up and completed the handshaking ritual, which declared peace between their tribes. Then Philly left the bosses together, no doubt to debrief.

  As he headed for the elevator with Jesus, Philly realized that letting Craig know would cover his work responsibilities, but would also send the message through the grapevine that Philly had not been fired and was just casually taking a day off. He decided to be frank with Craig and to ask him to help restrain the groundswell of healing petitions. Philly hoped Craig could do this diplomatically and guessed that he could.

  Philly wrapped up his work for the day, with the Friday off in mind. That unplanned break felt something like finding a shiny new penny on the ground, completely unexpected, untarnished and attractive to the eye, yet he couldn’t think of anything useful he could accomplish with the new treasure.

  Jesus interrupted this thinking. “You will find something very pleasant and important to do tomorrow. Your grandma has a phone number for you, remember?”

  With the queue of people seeking healing, and then the prospect of losing his job, on top of Grandma’s rise from her coma, Philly couldn’t have been expected to keep Theresa in focus. But Jesus’s reminder intrigued the lonely, single man, who longed for comfort and hope, in place of the anxiety and fear in which he had stewed that afternoon.

  Philly arrived at Grandma’s red brick, ranch home on the northwest side of Chicago that night, carrying a bottle of white wine, along with a lingering fear that he might learn to know unemployment as a clinging reality and not just a statistic on the news. He folded those thoughts down tightly and determined to enjoy the return of his grandma to his hectic and emotionally impoverished life.

  “Philly!” Grandma greeted him, taking his face in her hands and kissing her grandson.

  Philly hugged Grandma gently and then noticed Jesus standing in the kitchen behind her. He turned to look for the Jesus that had been following him to the house and found no one there. Grandma’s Jesus smiled and waved when Philly looked back at him. Of course, it was the same Jesus, but Philly had to adjust, yet again, to the rules of the game.

  “How ya feelin’ Grandma?” Philly said, out of habit.

  Grandma took the cold bottle of wine from Philly and answered, “Oh, I’m just great. I feel wonderful and with hardly any sleep. I stayed up late talking to Jesus and totally lost track of the time. It’s so wonderful to have him where I can see and hear him.”

  Philly nodded. He knew exactly what she meant. “So how was your lady’s prayer group? I bet they were surprised to see you,” he said, as he removed his jacket and headed for the coat closet.

  Grandma put the wine in the fridge and started to laugh. “Oh, that was a doozy. What a meeting!” As she continued to chuckle, Jesus seemed to catch the infectious laugh.

  Philly looked at the two of them standing in the kitchen laughing. “What’s so funny about a lady’s prayer meeting?”

  Grandma said, “Oh well, you know that Jesus went to the meeting with me. I mean, so that I could see and hear him real clearly. I know he’s always been at our prayer meetings, but sometimes it’s easier to believe that than others. This morning was the best ever,” she said, still edging her words with laughter.

  “What happened?” Philly pulled up a stool at the kitchen breakfast counter and turned toward Grandma, who stood leaning back against the kitchen sink.

  “Well, the girls were just floored when they saw me walk in and they talked all at once and hugged me and all,” Grandma said. “It was just about to turn into a real party, when I started to tell them about how I woke up from the coma.” Here Grandma started laughing again. “And then they really were floored, literally.” She cackled.

  Philly shook his head, still missing the funny part. “What do you mean?”

  Grandma wiped a tear from the corner of each eye and wound her laughter down. “Oh, well, when I told them about seeing and hearing Jesus, and getting healed when you and Jesus touched me, they all started praising Jesus. Then he got all full of joy and started going around touching the ladies. I didn’t do a thing, except watch him and praise him as he went around touching those ladies, and them falling down crying and laughing on the carpet. It was just wonderful to see.” Here tears began to flow more freely, with the joy of it all.

  Something in that story caught Philly’s attention. “Wait,” he said, turning to Jesus. “I thought you could only touch someone through other people, not directly by yourself.” He was remembering the unusual way little Kyle was healed at the park.

  Jesus nodded. “Generally, that’s how it works. But today, with all of the ladies glad to be touched by me, and your grandma wanting me to do it, I had permission to touch them directly.”

  “Permission?” Philly said, seeing that word as out of place for the Son of God.

  “Oh yes,” Jesus said. “I need your permission to do anything in your life. When it comes to your own life, you rule. You govern yourself and you get to choose whether you receive anything I have to offer.”

  Explained that way, Philly could connect the notion of giving Jesus permission with the experiences he had been accumulating over the last ten days. Then he turned back to the story of the prayer meeting.

  “So what happened to the ladies?”

  Grandma stepped back in. “Oh, they had the most wonderful experiences. And I don’t know what all. I got some of their testimonies before we had to break it up, but not all of them.” She looked into the corner of her eyes, recalling. “Maude Barr was healed of her bursitis right there on the floor. No more pain in her joints at all. And Gladys Raider was rolling around full of joy, completely done with years and years of depression and anxiety. She was a sight to see. And I could just tell that she was really changed. What a blessing!”

  For Philly, this account by Grandma constituted the most extensive use of religious language he had ever heard from her. She had always kept in mind that Philly and his family didn’t go to church, knowing that the ways and means of her Pentecostal prayer meeting would strain their communication, like listening to someone raised on the other side of the world. But her sensate experience of Jesus, and recognition of this same experience working in Philly, loosened her restraint. She didn’t worry that she had overshot Philly’s comprehension level, because she hadn’t overshot his experience level. He had tasted the intoxicating power of a present God and could, on a soul level, comprehend her narrative more deeply than many old Pentecostals, for whom it had all grown static and rote.

  Philly translated this holy rolling account through the grid of what he had witnessed in Father Tim’s office, what he had felt flowing through him in Washington Square Park, as well as the Jesus who had maintained a warm and engaging presence in his life since they first met. This included that first day, when Philly spent considerable time face down on the floor.

  Smiling uncertainly, Philly said, “That sounds great.”

  Jesus and Grandma both laughed at Philly’s sincere effort to lean across the cultural and religious gap.

  “Oh, let’s get that dinner on the table,” Grandma said. “You okay with eating here at the counter?”

  “Sure, Grandma, this is fine.” Philly swung his stool around ninety degrees and patted the counter top. Then he noticed the small slip of paper with a name and phone number, printed in careful and artistic handwriting. The name was Theresa Bailey.

  As Grandma pulled the roast chicken out of the oven, which had been turned off when Philly walked in the house, Philly said, “Is this the phone number you were supposed to give me?” He held up the little slip
of paper.

  Grandma glanced at Philly and then reached for a step stool. “Yes, that’s Theresa, the nurse from the hospital. Such a lovely girl.” She spoke while focusing on some dish she wanted on the top cupboard shelf.

  Philly rose quickly from his stool and stepped up next to Grandma. “Why don’t you let me get that for you,” he said, stopping her before she scaled the little step stool.

  Grandma looked at her grandson looming over her, a full ten inches taller than her aged height. “Oh, of course. I was just doing what I always do when I’m here alone. But sure, you go ahead and reach that white bowl there for me, if you would.”

  Philly pulled the bowl down from its perch, seven feet from the floor. As he handed it to Grandma, he looked at Jesus. “You don’t let her climb around lifting things off of top shelves, do you?”

  Jesus smiled. “Don’t worry, Philly. I’ve been taking care of your grandma for longer than you’ve been alive. You also need to adjust your expectations a bit, to account for the healing you gave her. She’s quite well and she’s always careful about climbing.”

  Feeling slightly rebuked by Jesus, Philly nodded sheepishly. “She’s my only grandma,” Philly said, in his defense.

  Grandma patted Philly on the shoulder and made appreciative cooing noises. “You two both take very good care of me,” she said in conciliator tones.

  Philly and Grandma enjoyed a savory, hot meal together. It reminded Philly of how poor his frozen dinners tasted. The two of them slipped into their old patterns of conversation; Grandma asking about every part of Philly’s life and Philly checking for anything Grandma might need done around the house. Beyond Irving, Grandma was the only one Philly had ever taken care of, in any significant way. Her interaction with his daily experience, along with opportunities to meet some of her needs, supplied his life with more meaning and purpose than simply working and paying bills and trying to find a steady girlfriend.

  When they finished eating, and began clearing away dishes, Grandma introduced a tenuous and solemn tone. “Philly, there’s something Jesus and I want to talk to you about,” she said, clearly apprehensive about his reaction to what lay ahead.

  Philly drank the last ounce of wine from his glass and set it next to the sink. Free as always to speak openly with Grandma, he said, “Wow, Grandma, that sounds sort of scary. What is it?”

  Grandma pursed her thin lips and looked sympathetically at Philly. “Let’s sit down in the living room. Should I make us some coffee first?”

  Philly nodded, not so anxious to hear the bad news and glad for some of Grandma’s home-brewed coffee. It brought back memories of the first time he was allowed to drink a cup of cream-and-sugar-fortified coffee, spoiled by his grandmother at eleven years old. As Grandma prepared the coffee, Jesus led Philly into the living room. Philly had grown used to Jesus attached to him, seldom more than a few feet away.

  As Philly sat down, Grandma scooted into the room after him and set down a plate of store-bought cookies, Philly’s favorite. He was glad to that see she hadn’t baked him cookies on top of making supper. Within a few minutes, Grandma sat in her favorite chair, next to the window, with a cup of coffee held in her lap and a tentative smile on her face. Philly dove into the cookies, which he especially loved with coffee. Grandma remembered that sort of thing.

  Jesus began. “Philly, we talked before about there being an end to this opportunity to see and hear me.”

  Taking a deep breath, Philly released his anxiety about the unnamed topic of discussion, relieved that it didn’t involve any surprises. He knew Jesus would leave him and expected it to be soon, with Grandma’s recovery. He hadn’t yet captured his own feelings on that pending departure, torn between the attraction of life back to normal and the loss of his most caring and enjoyable companion.

  Jesus continued. “I told your Grandma today that I plan to change the way I’m with you at the end of this weekend. I wanted to let you know in advance, so you can make the most of the time remaining.”

  Philly looked at Grandma, a sort of sad satisfaction coloring her visage. Turning back to Jesus, Philly thought about how best to use their remaining time, but only spun toward unseen options and then back to his only hope for useful direction. “Well, I have tomorrow off, of course, so I’m really free to do whatever you want me to,” Philly said to Jesus. “Maybe I should follow you around, for a change.”

  Jesus beamed at this resolution and Grandma put a voice to his smile.

  “That’s the best idea I’ve ever heard,” she said. “But why do you have the day off tomorrow?”

  Philly told her the story of his day at work, including flashbacks to previous healings and his ongoing tensions with his boss.

  “Oh my,” Grandma said, setting her coffee on a coaster that Philly had made at camp when he was thirteen, the wood and cork craft still sitting in a place of honor. “I guess you’re feeling lucky they just asked you to take the one day off.”

  Philly nodded. He didn’t want to worry Grandma about his circumstances, so he kept his anxiety about the future of his job silent. He looked at Jesus, who redirected the conversation.

  “If you’re serious about following my lead these next few days, I would suggest that you give Theresa a call.”

  Philly abruptly stopped chewing swallowed, and then said, “Really? You want that to be part of what we do during your last three days here?”

  With a patient look on his face, Jesus corrected Philly. “I’m not leaving you after three days,” he said, “just going into stealth mode.”

  Smiling at the techy reference, Philly restated his inquiry. “You want me to get together with Theresa? Is this you setting me up with a woman?”

  Grandma laughed and Jesus smiled broadly.

  “Don’t assume what my agenda is for your meeting with Theresa,” Jesus said.

  But Philly thought he detected a slight ironic tone that tempered the correction. As he weighed the possibility that Jesus was being coy, Philly knew that Jesus was tracking his line of thinking, so he tried to stop thinking about it, to try to hide it from Jesus. This little game ended with Jesus revealing more.

  “I will never tell you directly to marry a particular woman, for example,” he said. “But, if you’re asking me what to do, I say calling Theresa is a good idea. And I would like to be visible to you when you get together with her.”

  That was all straight forward, yet still left room for mystery, which Philly privately cherished. Against appearances, Philly genuinely craved romance. Jesus, of course, knew this and didn’t blockade his friend’s escape in that direction.

  Grandma interjected here. “So, my dear, I think you had better go and make a phone call.”

  Philly studied his darling, old Grandma for a second. “Are you telling me to go home?”

  Grandma grinned. “Just this once.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Philly called Theresa as soon as he and Jesus reached his apartment. He worried that nine o’clock on a Thursday night might be too late, or that Theresa might be working. But then he remembered that Jesus had suggested he call her that evening and he didn’t expect Jesus to lead him into a dead end.

  When she answered the phone, Theresa sounded guarded, the way one is when expecting a telemarketing spiel. She didn’t recognize Philly’s number, of course.

  “Hello, this is Theresa,” she said.

  “Ah, Theresa, this is Phil Thompson,” Philly said. After a second of silence, he added, “I met you in my grandma’s hospital room the other day.”

  “Oh, Phil!” Theresa said, sounding revived. “Your grandma kept calling you, ‘Philly’, I think. That threw me off for a second. Oh, I’m so glad you called me.”

  The melody of that last phrase injected unexpected hope into a place in Philly’s heart that echoed with emptiness. Then, as fast as that note hit a crescendo, his cautious soul countered with disclaimers and the lowering of expectations. Unfortunately, all of this slowed Philly’s reaction, so that There
sa’s enthusiasm met silence.

  “Phil?” she said.

  “Ah, you can call me Philly, if you like.”

  “Okay.” She sounded relieved.

  “Well, I was wondering if you’d like to get together sometime,” Philly said, his voice accelerating from a slow start, as if attempting to get those words out before his courage evaporated.

  “I would like that,” Theresa said.

  Jesus mouthed the word “tomorrow” and Philly stuck with his plan to follow Jesus’s lead.

  “What are you doing tomorrow? I have the day off,” said Philly.

  “Oh, I do too. Hey that’s a nice coincidence,” Theresa said.

  “Yeah,” Philly said, not sounding as surprised as Theresa. He looked at Jesus and then said, “You wanna meet for lunch?”

  “Sure, that would be fine.” Theresa responded, leaving room after each reply for Philly to maintain the initiative, conscious that she had started all of this by giving her phone number to Philly’s grandma.

  “You want me to pick you up, or should we meet somewhere?” Philly said.

  “I live in Lincolnwood,” Theresa said, another minimalist response.

  “Okay,” said Philly, familiar with that small suburb just north of the city. “Give me your address and I’ll come pick you up,” he said. “What kind of food do you like?”

  “Oh, just about anything,” she said and then told him her address.

  Philly wrote down the address and then saw Jesus mouthing the word, “time.” A neutral observer might have assumed that Philly was getting to that detail. But he and Jesus both knew that he had forgotten and was liable to be reminded by Theresa before he hung up.

  “So, is Noon good for you?” Philly asked this smoothly. Jesus smiled, like a proud father, at his boy’s subtle recovery.