Mara stared at the Christ candle, rolled her shoulders, and read the questions again. How did she feel when she heard the disciples criticizing the woman? Mad. That woman had every right to use her gift any way she wanted to. Who were they to tell her what to do with it? They had no right to judge her. What that woman did was between her and Jesus. They should just back off, leave her alone.
Jesus was mad too. Leave her alone, he said.
Yeah. You tell ’em, Jesus.
What a blessed woman to have Jesus defend her. Defend and praise. Wow.
If she put herself in the woman’s place, Mara could imagine Jesus defending her against bullies. That’s something Jesus would do— intervene and tell the bullies to knock it off. But praise? That’s the part that kept her from imagining herself as the woman. For one thing, she didn’t have a costly gift to offer Jesus, nothing that would cause him to praise her. Compared to that woman, Mara was the little kid drawing stick figures and coloring a purple sun or something to present to Jesus. Jesus would take her drawing, of course, and he would smile and tell her it was pretty and hang it up on his fridge for a while to make her feel special. But she had nothing other people would regard as precious and valuable.
Mara scrunched her toes on the floor rug and then brushed the indentations away with the sole of her foot. What “beautiful thing” was she being invited to offer to Jesus? She had no clue. And thinking about all the beautiful things other people had to offer him only made her feel worse about herself.
She stared at her empty hands. How did she feel when she watched that woman pour out her gift upon Jesus? How did she feel when she heard Jesus defend and praise her?
Jealous. That was the honest word to describe how she felt. That was often the word to describe how she felt. Mara shook her head and sighed. How she wished that wasn’t what she felt. But since it’s the only thing she had, she poured it out and tried to imagine that the offering smelled like something other than stinking shame.
Charissa
It was possible, Charissa thought as she read through the prayer exercise again, that she was subconsciously drawn to texts that mentioned “Bethany.” First, the raising of Lazarus story, now the anointing at Bethany. She rested her hand on her abdomen. Bethany was quiet after an active day. Sleep, little girl. Sleep. But if she slept now, would she be kicking all night?
Sleep. It was no alabaster jar filled with expensive perfume, but it was a costly sacrifice nonetheless, one that Charissa ought to accustom herself to making. She had read some new mothers’ testimonies online, about how they had started using colorful words they had never in their lives uttered before, how they would never again take sleep for granted, how they wondered if they would ever sleep soundly again, what with worrying about whether their infants were breathing in their cribs or whether they could choke on a pacifier or whether they were getting enough nutrition or whether they would earn a merit scholarship to a prestigious college.
Charissa stared at the Christ candle and took a slow breath. Even after a few months of practice, it was far easier to analyze the story from a literary or psychological distance than to enter it with her imagination. What had caught her attention during her search for a text, however, was first, the timeliness of the story as they approached Good Friday and second, the opportunity to ponder a text that was similar to one that had impacted her months before, the story of the woman who, with scandalous devotion, crashed Simon the Pharisee’s dinner party and wiped Jesus’ feet with her hair. The same dynamic was at play in Mark’s story: one woman’s extravagant love for Jesus and others’ harsh judgment of that love. With which characters, Charissa wondered, did she identify now? What progress had she made in her own journey toward expressing greater devotion and gratitude? Could she say she had become more loving, more passionate since embarking on the sacred journey at New Hope last fall? She wasn’t sure.
She read the text silently, trying to envision the scene.
“Lavish” was the word that came to mind as she pictured the woman breaking open her jar to anoint Jesus. She saved nothing for herself. She didn’t measure out the perfume by teaspoons, calculating the cost. Instead she poured out every last drop in love, devotion, and gratitude. While the chief priests and scribes sought the opportunity to arrest and kill Jesus, and while Judas sought the opportunity to betray him, this woman sought the opportunity to honor him, to anoint the Anointed One.
What opportunity did Charissa seek? She clicked her pen. The opportunity to follow him, yes. To be faithful, yes. But to give herself over in love with reckless abandon? Not most days, no. She was still cautious, still calculating, still measured.
If she was honest, she understood the criticism. Though she might have refrained from publicly denouncing the woman and her offering (hadn’t she been striving the past few months to crucify her critical spirit?), she would have silently censured. It did seem a waste. Especially if the gift was worth what the disciples appraised it to be. Three hundred denarii could go a long way toward altruistic causes, toward kingdom work.
But Jesus received the gift and commended her for it.
Charissa stroked her abdomen. There were plenty of times over the past several months when she had reprimanded John for his impulse to “waste money.” No, Bethany didn’t need that high-end crib or state-of-the-art stroller. Charissa was constantly reining him in, reminding him of their budget, approaching their purchases from a cost-effectiveness perspective. She had tried to control his generosity and manage his prodigal tendencies.
But she also remembered the joy she had experienced the night she disregarded their budget and charged off to the store to buy groceries for Mara, not merely the necessities but also some treats for the boys. Or the time when she sent in the donation to Crossroads with the instructions to use the money to buy ingredients for Mara’s famous snickerdoodle cookies so that the patrons would have something more than sandwiches or soup that day. Small examples, to be sure, but examples that reminded her that extravagance could have purpose when it was directed in love toward another.
It was the difference, perhaps, between sharing an expensive meal with a loved one to mark a special occasion and taking that same expensive meal and dumping it into the garbage without eating it. One was extravagance, the other waste. And what the woman in Bethany discerned correctly was that this was a moment when extravagant devotion superseded practicality. And so she poured out her precious treasure with abandon. In freedom. In love.
Charissa checked her watch. Twenty more minutes for silent reflection. Though she could spend the remaining time repenting of the ways she had judged others over the years, it might be more profitable to ponder her discomfort over imagining herself as the woman. Learn to linger with what provokes you, Nathan often said.
Okay, she would linger.
What had she ever offered that Jesus would deem “a beautiful thing”? What costly sacrifice had she ever given in love? Recently, she had given up her childhood church for John, but she hadn’t really been thinking about Jesus when she agreed to attend Wayfarer. She had given up some of her time on Fridays to serve at Crossroads, but this practice benefited her as much as anyone. She liked the feeling of making a difference, liked helping Mara. Was she serving for Christ’s sake? She wasn’t sure. Was she serving for the sake of the poor? She wasn’t sure. Was it possible that even her serving could be self-serving?
Weeds, weeds, and more weeds. Was it ever possible to offer anything that was pure and untainted by selfishness, or would her soul always be a mixture of wheat and weeds?
I have no beautiful thing to offer you, she wrote in her journal, then closed the book with a thud that caught Mara’s attention and elicited a sympathetic sigh.
Though Mara was kind to name the ways Charissa had served her and helped Jeremy—“Those are beautiful things to me,” Mara insisted—the encouragement did little to assuage the guilt over all the things that had not been beautiful in her life. Charissa had been trying to go the e
xtra mile, to lay down her life in love for others. But it wasn’t enough. She wasn’t going far enough with sacrifice.
“You’re way too hard on yourself,” John said as they lay in bed later that night. “I don’t think the goal of spiritual formation is beating yourself up over not being perfect, is it?”
No. It wasn’t. It’s a journey, not an exam, Nathan would say. Progress, not perfection. “You know who I kept thinking about tonight?” Charissa said. When John didn’t guess, she answered, “Meg. She had this purity of heart that I don’t think I’ll ever have.” Purity of heart wasn’t something she could achieve by trying harder, either. That’s what was so frustrating—her helplessness in making herself like Jesus.
John rolled toward her and propped himself on his elbow. “Yeah, but we never see other people’s motives, do we? I mean, we can’t know whether someone’s heart is pure or not. If Meg had been here tonight, she probably would have been commiserating with you.”
“I know. But she loved well. I can imagine Jesus greeting her with a big smile and saying, ‘Well done.’” Charissa couldn’t imagine Jesus doing the same for her. And if she focused on serving in order to receive Christ’s commendation, then she was still living selfishly, wasn’t she? She exhaled loudly.
“What?” John asked, his thumb to her cheek.
“I don’t think I’m ever going to be free of my self-centeredness. Ever.” John kissed her, and she turned off the light.
Becca
Another email from Hannah, the second this week. No, Becca hadn’t confirmed her plans for the summer yet. No, she didn’t know when she would be flying to Kingsbury. No, she didn’t need Hannah to make any of the arrangements for her. If Hannah could just put enough money into her account to pay for the airfare, Becca would take care of it herself. She pressed Send and closed her inbox.
“She’s as bad as my mom,” Becca said to Simon, then immediately regretted it. “I mean, she’s acting like a mom, and I don’t need a mom right now.” The words had tumbled out completely wrong. “What I mean is, I don’t need someone else trying to be one.” She was not going to cry. Simon was tired of her tears. He hadn’t said that, not directly. But she could tell that her moods were becoming tedious. The last several nights he had been out late with work colleagues for drinks and hadn’t once invited her to join them. She would need to get a better handle on grief management.
She sidled over toward his chair and squeezed in beside him, her leg draped over his. “How about takeaway curry tonight?”
He reached for a cigarette and lit up. “Quiz night.”
“Another quiz—”
“I told you that already.”
“Sorry. Forgot.” She waved her hand in front of her face to shoo away a puff of smoke. She wished he would quit, especially now that her mom . . . “I can come cheer you on.”
“Nigel wouldn’t like that.”
“Why not?”
He took another long drag on his cigarette. “Nigel’s very intense, very competitive. He doesn’t like spectators.” Becca had never met Nigel. She hadn’t met many of Simon’s friends, in fact, and the few she had met didn’t seem to like her. They’re jealous, Simon said whenever she complained. You should see their wives. Ghastly.
“I won’t cheer, then,” she said. “I’ll just sit and watch. I’ll be so quiet you won’t even know I’m there.”
“Then why bother?”
“You don’t want me there?”
“I said Nigel wouldn’t want you there.”
“Why should this Nigel get to say who’s there and who’s not there?”
“Rebecca, stop.”
“I’m just saying, you should be able to take your girlfriend to quiz night without the others making an issue out of it.”
Simon shifted as though he were rising from the chair. No. Stay. Please. She maneuvered onto his lap. She could make him stay. Nigel could find a different partner. She nuzzled Simon’s ear. Quiz night? What quiz night? When his hands began to grope beneath her skirt, she thought she had won. But twenty minutes later, he was on his way to the pub without her.
She stared at the door after it closed behind him. Fine. He could go have his fun. But there was no point staying at the flat by herself. Maybe Harriet and Pippa were going clubbing. She texted both of them. Dance night with killer band at Cargo, Harriet replied. Good. Maybe she would take Pippa’s advice for grief management and get totally wasted.
She opened Simon’s closet and removed her favorite black leather mini-skirt and a low-cut blouse. A little flirting with strangers wouldn’t hurt, either.
Carpe diem.
Hannah
Even after rehearsing the moment in her imagination during the three-hour drive south to Chicago, Hannah was unprepared for the emotions that overtook her when Heather opened the door to her bungalow and greeted her with outstretched arms and a bubbly, “Wow! You look great!”
Heather looked great too, her twentysomething face bright and fresh and without any visible evidence of ministry strain. The veteran indicators of the furrowed brow, the dark circles under the eyes, the slumped shoulders—those would come later. Just wait, Hannah thought, eyeing the perky potted pansies in unfamiliar matching swan urns on the porch. Heather had evidently made herself at home.
“And you must be Nathan!” Heather exclaimed before Hannah had a chance to introduce him as her husband. She had anticipated that moment on her doorstep, and now she’d even had that snatched away from her. Hannah summoned an appropriate smile. “C’mon in!” Heather said, stepping aside and sweeping her arm toward the living room.
She should have emailed Heather and asked for privacy, for the gift of returning home without being made to feel like a guest. Nathan was right: she didn’t know how to ask for what she wanted, and now she wouldn’t get a second chance to introduce her husband to her old life without someone else watching.
Once across the threshold Nathan stooped to remove his shoes. “Oh, that’s okay, you can keep your shoes on,” Heather said, and then added awkwardly, “unless Hannah, you want—”
“No, shoes are fine,” Hannah mumbled, noting Heather’s stylish flats before casting her eyes around the room.
“I hope you don’t mind that I added some personal touches,” Heather said. Translation: I hammered holes into the walls to hang artwork everywhere.
“You’re a Monet fan, huh?” Hannah commented. The front room now contained several prints of gardens and bridges.
“Love him. The way he captures light—I could sit in front of his paintings for hours. You should take Nathan to the Art Institute while you’re here.”
This isn’t a sightseeing trip, Hannah replied silently. Aloud she said, “Maybe another time. We’ve got our hands full, trying to get everything packed up.”
Heather sat down in Hannah’s prayer chair, the recliner where for years Hannah had engaged in her morning devotions beside the front window, and put her feet up. “I was going to help get your office ready by boxing up your books,” she said, “but then I thought you might be sorting things out while you packed. Anything you don’t want to keep, feel free to leave.”
Nathan squeezed Hannah’s shoulder as they sat down together on the couch.
“I should have asked you before about some of the furniture,” Heather went on. “I’d be happy to buy some of your stuff if you don’t want to move it.”
Though Hannah knew she had no room for any of it in Kingsbury, her first impulse was to put it all in storage rather than leave it for Heather.
“What do you think, Shep?” Nathan asked when she took too long to reply.
“We’ll talk about it.”
They did—after Heather finally excused herself to lead a Bible study at the church. “Keep everything that’s important to you,” Nathan said as they assembled boxes. “We’ll figure out how to consolidate everything once we get home.”
Obviously, he wasn’t entertaining her desire to move. Despite his declaration that they woul
d “talk about it later,” he hadn’t initiated the subject on the drive down. After the first hour of relative silence in the car, Hannah assumed he preferred not to discuss it. In any case, she didn’t intend to bring it up again. Once was too much.
She opened all the cupboards in her kitchen and stared at her old dishes and appliances. What sentimental attachments did she have to any of it? A few souvenir plates and mugs, that was all. She wrapped some pieces in newspaper and filled half a box. Heather could keep the rest or get rid of it. Hannah didn’t care.
Did. Not.
“You okay, Shep?”
“I want my chair.” She didn’t wait for him to help her drag it toward the front door.
It was dark when Hannah and Nathan arrived at Westminster, the U-Haul only partially filled with boxes and a few pieces of furniture: her recliner, a roll-top desk, and an antique barrister bookcase that had been her father’s. The rest Heather purchased with a check that had already been made out to Hannah and signed by Claudia Kirk, presumably her mother. Heather had scribbled in the total for her first month’s rent plus the household items. She’d gotten a bargain, and she knew it.
Hannah unlocked her office door and breathed deeply. This had been the haven where she had spent the majority of her time over the past fifteen years, even sleeping on the couch many nights. She set down a stack of empty boxes and picked up a favorite blanket that was folded on one of the throw pillows. “I want this couch,” she said. “And those lamps.” The antique lamps with urn-shaped bases and scalloped shades had lit the dens in her childhood homes, and her mother had sent them to her when she got the job at Westminster. Nathan unplugged them from the wall and set them on the sofa.
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