On his way home, Philly had set his cell phone on the center console and connected it to his recharger. When it rang, he saw Brenda’s picture appear on the display. The mixed multitude of feelings that followed, resembled a tangled web of Chicago highways, with traffic zipping in all directions. As agreed, Philly had spoken to Brenda when Jesus stopped his sight and sound tour of Philly’s life. Philly had hinted to Brenda then, not very bravely, that he might be interested in another woman, and the silence between them had resumed.
Now, nearly three months later, here came a call from Brenda at the end of the work day. Philly tapped the phone screen, checked traffic around him, slowed down and flipped the phone to speaker mode.
“Hi, Brenda,” he said tentatively.
“Hi, Philly.” She responded, at least as tentatively. “You driving home from work?” Brenda said. “You sound like you’re in the car.”
“Yeah,” Philly said. “It sounds like you know about my new job.”
“Oh, word gets around,” she said. After a moment, she decided to confess. “Actually, I was at your church last night.”
After another shocked pause, Philly said, “Really? You were at the evening service?”
“Yeah, I saw you there, but it was pretty crowded and I slipped out early, when you were just starting to do that healing thing at the end.”
“Well, I’m glad you checked it out,” Philly said, still wondering what all this meant.
“Actually, that wasn’t my first time there,” Brenda said, reaching a little deeper. “I’ve been visiting once in a while, at your church and at that other church over on Devon.”
“That’s good. I’m glad to hear it.”
“I guess it took me a while to recover from that feeling that Jesus was poking into my life and that he could just pull up anything from the past that he wanted any old time. But then I got to thinking that he must be real and if he’s real then I better get sort of more acquainted with him.”
“I know what you mean,” Philly said. “How’s that going?”
“Good, I guess. I’m feeling like I should probably commit one way or the other.”
Philly stayed silent for a few seconds, not comfortable to say what he was thinking, let alone able to sort through all that he was feeling. Then Brenda filled in.
“I’m not doing this to get you back,” she said flatly. “I saw you with your new girlfriend and you look really good together. I mean you really look like you’re in love, so I’m not doing all this for those reasons. I just need to get my life together, for me.”
Philly breathed easier. Then he realized he owed Brenda something. “I’m sorry I didn’t do a better job of telling you what was going on with me and Theresa. I owed you more than the wimpy sorta way I told you.”
“No, it was okay. It was pretty awkward, I know. All of this stuff just happened. You weren’t in control of it any more than me.”
Philly said, “You sound like you’re doing really well, Brenda. I’m glad to hear it.” Though encouraged, he still held back, tempered by years of experience with Brenda in volatile emotional situations. She did seem to have found a good footing, at least a better one than when they last had a serious conversation.
“Thanks. Well, I’m gettin’ on the train now,” Brenda said. “I should hang up.”
“Yeah. Well, thanks for calling. I’ll remember to pray for you,” Philly said.
“Thanks, Philly. That would be great.”
“G’bye,” said Philly.
“Goodbye,” said Brenda.
That Monday night, after his first day on the new job, Philly stopped at home to bring in his mail, to have a snack, to feed Irving and to check his email, before he headed over to Theresa’s. While there, he stepped out on the back porch, intending to check on Mrs. Kelly, but heard her talking to someone in her kitchen. He reversed course and stepped back inside, glad to escape the July heat a bit longer. He decided to call his grandma, but got no answer at her house, so he just sat down in the living room for a few minutes, to pet Irving and read ads from his mailbox. As he sat on his couch, he stopped reading when the voice downstairs with Mrs. Kelly hit a familiar note. Holding his breath for a moment, Philly listened more carefully to the two elderly women speaking loudly to each other.
The other voice downstairs was Grandma. Philly smiled at the irony of finding both women unavailable, only to discover that they were together. Given the hour, and the direction of their voices, he guessed that they were having supper together. They had done this at least once before, that Philly knew of, since he invited Grandma over several weeks ago to meet Mrs. Kelly. As he discovered, they got along like old sisters that simply hadn’t seen each other for years.
A bit later than he intended, Philly gathered his keys and stepped absent-mindedly through the kitchen and out the back door, to pick up Theresa for supper. Cicadas buzzed raucously in the old trees around the neighborhood, one even crying out from some attack by a bird or wasp, as the summer creatures feasted on the noisy food source. For Philly, the sound of the cicadas was the sound of heat, as if the sultry summer air not only laid its hot hand on his skin, but buzzed against his brain as well.
Gingerly sitting on the hot leather in his car, Philly spoke to an invisible companion. “I see why you came to ride in my car in April and not July,” he said. And he remembered the sound of that contagious laughter.
Chapter Twenty
When Philly started attending the church, Dave Michaels shepherded him in, aware of the unconventional manner of Philly’s conversion and the rare gifts he had received. Only members of the church leadership heard the details of Philly’s story, at first, allowing him some anonymity during his first weeks. Philly had blown his own cover one Sunday, however, prompted by an internal voice.
During an evening worship service, Philly’s attention drifted from the music, generally his favorite part of the service, to a young man with an orange cast on his left leg. The cast allowed the man to stand, for a while, but his frequent need to sit during the extended set of worship songs, gained Philly’s attention. Then Philly became aware of a stream of thoughts that ran something like this: “You know I can heal that. And you know I can use you to do it. You also know that the people here are glad to see me heal. So why don’t you go ahead and do it?”
More prolific at internal dialog than most people, Philly still recognized Jesus speaking to him. Though he had not attempted to heal anyone for over a week, since he tried to heal an old woman in a wheel chair in mid May, he felt strongly that he was supposed to make another attempt.
As the music rolled on, and the young man sat down again, Philly slid out of his row of seats and crossed the aisle to where the injured man sat next to his friends. The young man, in his late twenties, with short-cropped, red hair, looked up at Philly and smiled uncertainly.
Philly addressed him plainly, “I think Jesus is telling me to heal your leg,” he said into the young man’s ear.
The man with the cast looked over at his friend standing to his right, who was looking down, wondering what was happening. The seated man motioned for his friend to bend down and he repeated what Philly had said to him. The second stranger seemed more excited at the prospect than the injured man had, but Philly lost some of the nuances of his response in the air saturated with sound and motion. Finally, the red-haired man nodded his head, to tell Philly to go ahead, as his friend sat down next to him to get closer to the action.
Philly knelt in the aisle and reached one hand to touch the brightly colored cast. For ten seconds, Philly knelt this way until he felt his hand getting hot. With the music still rolling over them, he felt free to speak quietly to Jesus and even to talk to the leg, telling it to be well. The man with the broken leg started shifting uncomfortably in his seat and then he suddenly stood up and started pounding his cast on the floor. When he realized that the hard, plastic covering could pound a hole in the wooden floor, he lifted his foot instead. Philly leaned back as the young man
waved his foot back and forth, as if trying to put out a fire. Philly stood up, understanding now what was happening.
He leaned in to tell the young man, “That hot feeling is the healing power.” Just then, the song ended and the crowd grew quiet, except the man with the orange cast.
“It’s really hot!” he said, deepening the silence of the people around him. All eyes turned toward Philly and the man hopping around on one foot.
About the time the young man became self-conscious about drawing so much attention, he also seemed to relax. He set his foot back down on the ground and turned to his friend with an amused smile. Then he looked at Philly and said, “It feels great now, no pain at all. It feels great.”
While people standing nearby realized what was happening, the man with the cast was less familiar with the proceedings than everyone around him. He was attending the church for the first time. This explained why his friend latched on more readily to the prospect of the broken leg being healed.
The young man turned to Philly and extended his hand, “I’m Don,” he said.
Philly introduced himself, shaking the hand of the friend next to Don, as well, a tall, bespectacled, young man, named Jim.
The young woman leading the worship session stood at the microphone looking at the disturbance. She knew Jim and received a meaningful wave and a nod from him in response to her querying look.
The following trip to the microphone up front, the scramble for something with which to cut off the cast, Philly’s stage struck responses to questions, and the electric escalation of the tone of the worship service, served as the public introduction of Philly to his new church. Dave Michaels, who had not been attending the service, arrived toward the end, responding to a text from one of the leaders of the meeting. He smiled ecstatically when he realized that Philly stood at the epicenter of the divine intervention that he had been called to witness.
During the weeks that followed, that church crackled with excitement, as more people received miraculous healings and more church members began healing others, including people outside of the church.
Though Philly lost his anonymity, he remained the introverted computer guy, at first an unemployed computer guy. Dave tugged Philly into healing ministry opportunities, always careful not to put Philly on the spot, but rather to use him as a sort of secret weapon.
Theresa enjoyed Philly’s nascent healing ministry more than he did; but, for Philly, the satisfaction of knowing that he was still hearing Jesus gave him peace and purpose, even as he struggled for both of these, in light of his unemployment.
Dave Michael’s church saw new members drawn in, including Craig and Allyson, from Philly’s old office. Their feeling of solidarity and loyalty for Philly only got them in the door, but the friendly and vibrant church captivated them.
In contrast, neither Philly’s ma, nor his dad attended, maintaining their status as non-church people. Philly did little to attempt to persuade them, of course. He looked curiously, however, at his dad, who clearly felt the impact of Jesus in his life. A brand new Bible lay next to his dad’s favorite chair now and Philly knew that it was more than living room decoration. But Ma remained true to herself, and her husband of over forty years chose not to break out of his old restrictions, which kept him out of church.
Eileen, for her part, continued to struggle with relationships, repelled by the austere expectations of church people, regarding sex before marriage. This single issue kept her on the periphery of the dynamic church she attended with her friend, in New York City.
Philly also felt the challenging constrictions of his new found religion, but Theresa’s steadfast determination to conform to expectations at church, overpowered her desire for physical intimacy with her boyfriend of three months. On the back shelf of their relationship remained negotiations regarding engagement. Once Philly found his new job, that question moved to the front of his mind. But Jesus had another agenda first.
One night, Philly had a dream set in the new network room at the community center. Hunkered in the little closet that would serve as the nerve center of the computer network, he became aware of Jesus standing in there with him, separate but close. Then the scene of the network closet became something else, instead of grownup Philly and Jesus alone in the small space, there were four or five other little kids and all of them looked like Philly.
Then, as if he were sitting in that chair in the corner of Philly’s bedroom again, Jesus spoke to him. “Philly, I’m right here, so close; but you keep as far away from me as you can, even in this small space inside of you.”
In the morning, Philly remembered this mental picture and the nearly audible voice of Jesus commenting on what he saw in that picture. It was Saturday and Philly lay awake at eight a.m., ignoring Irving’s persistent mewing. Then, just as on that Saturday three months before, Philly heard Jesus telling him to go to Dave Michaels’ office to see him. This time, Philly texted Dave, to see if they could meet.
Dave texted back, “Already got the call, will meet you there.”
“Who needs a cell phone?” Philly thought, glad Jesus had reserved some of Dave’s time for him.
Leaning back in one of the comfy chairs in his office, Dave nodded at Philly’s account of his dream. After a moment of listening to the silence at the end of Philly’s story, Dave responded.
“I’m remembering a guy who used to attend the first church we started,” Dave began. “He was there with us through all the early stages of building that church, was ready to help with anything we said. I think he had the most consistent attendance record of anyone in that church. But, one Sunday, he shocked me by coming to the front, at the end of the morning worship service, ready to commit himself to Jesus.” Dave laughed ironically, “We all assumed he was a committed Christian because he was so faithful at worshipping with us and working with us.”
Looking at Philly, to see if he knew where he was going with this story, Dave finished, “It’s possible to just show up where Jesus is, and not get right in close where he wants to touch us and heal us. Sorta like going to the emergency room but refusing to go in any further than the waiting area. I think Jesus is calling you further in.”
Something in what Dave said, even the way he said it, reminded Philly of someone else. Sitting in Dave’s office, looking at the middle-aged, slightly overweight pastor—with what looked like egg on the collar of his sweatshirt—Philly felt like he was still seeing Jesus.
After giving him the contact information for one of the church counselors, Dave led Philly outside, where the gray day hung cool and damp, for late July. On the landing at the top of the steps, where Philly first met him—almost as an afterthought—Dave said, “You know, a woman wants to be pursued. If you really want Theresa, it might be time to commit to getting closer to her, as well.”
Throughout his life, Philly had struggled with being wanted, accepted and understood. That struggle usually left him too knotted up to really know his own desires. But, just then, the wisdom of Dave’s words found an easy landing place in Philly’s soul. He said, “Thanks. I know you’re right.”
With that, Dave headed back home and Philly started to plan what he would say to Theresa, when he would get the ring and when to ask the question.
In the mean time, he decided to get a haircut. Though it had not been so long since his last trim, it just seemed the thing to do on a Saturday morning with no plans.
When he entered the franchise haircut place, he spotted Rosa collecting a tip from a customer, near the register. For a moment, she didn’t see Philly among the moms and kids coming and going, but when she recognized him she shrieked. This disturbed everyone in the store, including her fellow employees, who had never heard her let loose like that. It rocked Philly too, who subconsciously aspired to never being shrieked at in public. After the momentary pause, during which everyone had to process whether the shriek was negative or positive, Rosa broke into tears and laughter.
“It’s you, it’s you. Oh, I’m so g
lad to see you,” she said, pushing past a stunned little girl and grabbing Philly in a breathlessly tight hug.
Philly reciprocated, at least a little, and collected his wits to start the question, “Your mother?”
Rosa recovered enough to cooperate with moving aside, to let customers move in and out of the busy shop, and to let go of Philly. Then she said, “She’s well, she’s totally healed, just like you said. Her cancer is all gone. O’ praise Jesus!” she declared.
Though he politely congratulated and rejoiced with Rosa, this public display of emotion and faith worked as a sort of anesthetic to Philly, who tucked into an emotional cocoon, to shelter against the vulnerable surroundings. In spite of that, or perhaps out of the automatic responses that came from him in that mode, he agreed when a woman waiting for her daughter to get a haircut sidled up to him and asked if he would pray for her.
The woman, in her early forties, with short salt and pepper hair, held out her arm and said simply, “Bone cancer.”
Philly moved even further from the little reception area, as if trying to hide himself in the little artificial tree that marked the waiting area from the service area of the store. He held out his hand and the woman rested her arm in his hand. Philly had done very little healing outside of the church building since Jesus had gone invisible, but today he genuinely felt accompanied by his dear friend and he imagined Jesus reaching up and holding that arm along with him. As he formed this mental picture, he simply said, “Cancer, be gone.”
The woman, who reminded Philly of a frightened animal, started to quiver and then to cry. Then she said, “I can feel it. The pain is getting less and less and it feels like someone is working inside my arm.” She took a shaky breath and said again, “I can feel it.”
Seeing Jesus Page 28