And I hear the whisper of the Spirit, again, reminding me that what I want for myself is grace. Abundance. And I’m invited to desire that for others as well. Not fairness. But grace. The “unfairness of grace.”
I read again my pondering about what it would mean to wash Laura’s feet and how that question led us to give up our Holy Land trip—a trip we would have been leaving for in three weeks—because she threw a fit about not being consulted. I read my words about what love looks like, about what dying to self looks like, about what turning the other cheek and offering the cloak and walking the extra mile looks like.
It occurs to me that what each of those things has in common is the going beyond what’s demanded. Take more. Here’s more. You want to slap one cheek? Slap the other one, too. You want my tunic? Take my cloak, too. You demand one mile from me? I’ll walk the extra one.
It’s all about freedom, isn’t it? The first mile is demanded. The extra mile is freely given. Only the extra mile can be given as a gift of love, from a posture of freedom. And so that’s the mile where Jesus’ life shines brightly. That’s the mile that can stun the world with its beauty and grace.
That’s where I want to walk, Lord. In freedom. In the power of your Spirit. In love. But it’s so hard to keep company with you in all the deaths to self. It’s so hard to embrace your call to love, to sacrifice, to trust, to persevere in hope that death is never the end with you. To believe that in all of these dyings there are also risings.
Tonight you invite me to keep company with the disappointed and the hopeful, to remember the ones who kept watch with you as you died, who were crushed and perplexed and heartbroken. And uncomprehending.
Watch and pray, you say. Help me watch and pray.
Mara
The good thing about trying to soothe a crying baby for two hours, Mara thought, was that the little one’s frantic sobs could distract you from indulging your own. When Madeleine finally wore herself out, Mara laid her down in her crib and watched her sleeping baby twitches. Poor little lamb.
The front door opened, and Abby poked her head into the room. “Everything okay?” she whispered.
“Yes, fine. She just conked out.”
“Cried the whole time?” Jeremy asked from the doorway.
“Not the whole time.” Mara bent over to kiss Maddie’s forehead, then stepped aside so Jeremy and Abby could also kiss her goodnight.
“Thanks for taking care of her,” Abby said, closing the door with a gentle thud behind them.
“Any time. You know that. Any time.” Mara retrieved her coat from the couch. “When do your parents get in tomorrow?”
“Late afternoon. If you’d like to join us for dinner, you’re welcome.”
What a kind offer. “Thanks so much. But I’ll let you have that time together. Kevin’s home this weekend, and I’ll be gone most of the day tomorrow for a retreat so . . .” Not that Kevin would want to spend an evening with her, but she wanted to be home. Just in case there was an opportunity for conversation.
“Kevin is welcome to come too,” Abby said. “Just let us know. You think he’ll want to come to lunch with us after the baptism?”
Mara hadn’t even thought that far ahead. What were the chances she could persuade Kevin to come to church with her on Easter? She couldn’t remember the last time one of the boys had come to worship. “I don’t know. I’ll ask him.”
Jeremy was staring at the floor, shuffling one foot back and forth across the carpet. Much as she longed to probe and ask him how he was doing, she kept her mouth shut. Her big fat mouth that had gotten her into trouble again. If Jeremy knew she had told Charissa and John and Hannah about his struggles and Abby’s worries and their financial stress and his previous battles with addictions, what would he say to her? Would he explode like Charissa? Would he feel betrayed? She had only wanted other people praying for him because she loved him so dearly. She had only wanted other people praying for Charissa and John because she loved them dearly too. She hadn’t meant to hurt anyone.
“You okay, Mom?” Abby asked. When Jeremy looked up, the sorrow and despair in those hazel eyes of his shattered her heart again.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks for letting me spend time with Maddie.” There was so much more she wanted to say, but if she didn’t get to her car soon, Jeremy and Abby would have front row seats on an emotional geyser erupting, and it wouldn’t be pretty. After kissing both of them goodbye, Mara hustled to the apartment parking lot, where, behind the protection of her tinted windows, she let it all go.
Kevin was watching a movie in the family room when Mara entered through the garage. “Hey,” she called.
“Hey,” he called back, his eyes fixed on the television.
Bailey trotted into the kitchen to greet her and flopped onto his side. He would need a walk. Without taking off her coat, she grabbed the leash off the hook. “I’ll be right back. Gotta take Bailey out.”
“Already did.”
“You already took him out?”
“Yeah. He had to go, so I took him for a walk.”
Mara stared at the back of his head.
“And yeah, he pooped. So I cleaned it up.”
She looked at Bailey, who was now wagging his tail in anticipation of another outing. She gave him a treat instead. “Thanks, Kev.”
“Yep.”
She hung her coat up in the closet. “What are you watching?”
“Bourne Identity.”
“Want some popcorn or something?”
“Yeah, okay.”
She grabbed a bag from the pantry, tossed it into the microwave, and hit the timer. As the bag inflated and the kernels popped, she practiced her mirror reflection discipline again: I am the one Jesus loves. He has chosen me and will never reject me.
No matter what, she added. She wiped her eyes with the back of her wrist. No matter what.
“Here you go,” she said, making sure she didn’t block the television screen when she handed him the bowl.
“Thanks.” She was just about to retreat to the kitchen when he said, “Have you seen this movie?”
No. She hadn’t. “Is it good?”
He shrugged. “I like it.” Tires screeched and sirens blared in a chase scene. “You might like it.” Without saying another word, he slid over a couple of inches on the couch, eyes glued to the screen. Sitting down next to him, Mara dipped her hand into their communal bowl and ate.
Part Three
Rolling
Away Stones
When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the
mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might
go to anoint Jesus’ body. Very early on the first day of the week,
just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and
they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone
away from the entrance of the tomb?”
But when they looked up, they saw that the stone,
which was very large, had been rolled away.
MARK 16:1-4
nine
Becca
Since Simon insisted on spending the entire weekend working on his manuscript at the flat, Becca decided to spend the entire weekend ticking off more boxes of must-see London treasures, including one of Degas’s famous paintings of ballerinas, a poster of which had hung in Becca’s room since high school. Miss Kennedy, her longtime ballet instructor, had given her the gift after she danced the part of Giselle. “Like a gossamer thread floating across the stage,” Miss Kennedy had raved. “Pure poetry, Rebecca.”
Remember? Becca nearly said aloud as she stood in front of the painting at the Courtauld Gallery. But there was no one to remember the triumph with her. Mom, Gran, Miss Kennedy, they were all gone. Like the dancers who had moved out of view from the painting, they had shared a brief moment on life’s stage, and then they were gone. As she leaned in to examine the brush strokes, lines from a Shakespeare monologue she had memorized years ago came to mind. “All the
world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances.”
C’est la vie, Simon’s voice commented in her head. You live. You die. The end.
Her mother would not agree. Her mother would say, You live. You die. You live again. That’s what her mother did say. On the day they laid daffodils on her father’s grave, as she wept in her mother’s arms, Becca had heard her whisper, “It’s not the end. It doesn’t have to be the end. If you could only believe . . .”
If she had only known at that moment that her mother would be gone the very next day, she never would have spent the rest of that Saturday with Simon. She would have spent that last day looking at more pictures, asking more questions, begging for more stories. She never would have accepted her mother’s invitation for Simon to join them for dinner. She wouldn’t have made that their last meal together. She would have insisted on changing her flight. If she had changed her flight—if she had told Simon to head back to London without her—then her mother wouldn’t have collapsed at the airport. The emotional stress had been too much. The goodbye had been too hard.
Becca bit her lip as she stared at Two Dancers on a Stage.
You enter. You exit.
C’est la vie.
“Simon?” she called when she returned to his flat. No answer. She flipped on the light. No sign of him. On his leather chair was his computer, still open.
She checked her phone. No messages. Odd. He had insisted he wasn’t leaving the flat until he’d written five thousand words, and he’d said it would take him at least eight hours to hit that mark. She had only been gone for about four.
She set her bag of souvenir postcards on the counter and picked up his laptop. She had been dying to read his manuscript. And why shouldn’t she? If she was his muse, then she ought to be able to read what she had inspired. And besides. What he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. She clicked the space bar, the screen flickering to life.
But the screen was not open to the manuscript. The screen was open to Simon’s instant messaging app. What filled the window were not words but a picture, a picture of a woman, scantily clad. Not a random model from a website. That would have been disturbing enough. No. This was a photo of a friend. And beneath her photo were the words, “Harriet just left. Come on over, professor.”
Pippa.
Her body shaking, Becca scrolled upward through their thread, with its multiple provocative photos and text after text arranging hookups, dating back several weeks. Beginning, in fact, the week Becca had buried her mother. On the day she was wearing her mother’s gown and standing in her place as Hannah’s maid of honor, Simon and Pippa had been together. One smiling photo taunted her more than any other: the two of them in front of the Eiffel Tower.
Becca closed the screen, backed away from the chair, and staggered to the bathroom, where she knelt on the cold linoleum, her head suspended above the toilet, and heaved.
She wouldn’t mention Paris, she thought as she rinsed out her mouth. If she mentioned it, Simon and Pippa would know she had invaded their privacy. She wasn’t even sure how she could confess to seeing the first photo, except to say that his computer was open to it. Maybe she had arrived right after he left, and the screensaver hadn’t yet concealed it.
Becca splashed water onto her face and wiped herself dry with her sleeve.
There was a Manet painting at the Courtauld Gallery—a painting they had studied in her art history class—of a forlorn barmaid staring forward, both her back and her view reflected in a mirror behind her. “Stand in front of it,” a docent had said to a small group of visitors, “and see if perhaps you’re in the place of the man whose reflection you see in that corner there. He’s likely asking for more than a drink.” Becca had watched the tourists take turns looking squarely at the woman. “See the bowl of oranges on the counter in front of her?” the guide continued. “Manet routinely associated oranges with prostitution in his paintings. The girl is not only a barmaid but a commodity. Something to be purchased. Used.”
She yanked her clothes off the hangers and thrust them into two grocery bags. With any luck she would be gone before Simon returned from their rendezvous, and he could wonder why half the closet was empty. Or not.
Love? No, he had never claimed to love her. Becca had never asked for such a declaration. Not with words. She thought his body had declared it, thought his passion had spoken it. But the texts and pictures were evidence that he had communicated nothing to her that he hadn’t also communicated to Pippa. And likely to others.
Oranges. She ought to buy some oranges and put them in a bowl.
Hadn’t she felt shamed by the appraising stares and the overt propositions on the dinner cruise? Hadn’t she seen her own reflection in the boat window and heard her mother’s voice pleading? Hadn’t she?
She hadn’t been purchased, no. She had given herself freely, completely, without reserve, with naïve trust.
She set his key on his dresser, picked up her bags, and shut the door behind her.
Poor, stupid, duped girl.
Somewhere between Notting Hill Gate and Holburn station—Becca wasn’t sure exactly where—she stared at her forlorn reflection in the Tube carriage window and felt anger overtake her shock and sorrow. Why should she be made to feel guilty over snooping through Simon’s account? She knew where Simon and Pippa were. Right this very moment. She could end this definitively, not by cowering away in anguish but by confronting.
Once she dropped off her bags at her flat, she marched down the hallway and pounded her fist on Harriet and Pippa’s door. Silence. She pounded again. Silence followed by a thud and shuffling feet. “Just a mo!” Pippa’s voice called. She was probably scrambling to get dressed. As soon as she unlatched the door, Becca pushed past her. “Becks!” The look of astonishment on Pippa’s face morphed into casual surprise as she straightened her sweatshirt. “I thought you were at the museum today.”
Becca hadn’t told her that information. “Finished early.” She scanned the room. Under the bed? In the closet? The bathroom door was closed. She laid her hand on the doorknob, watching the color drain from Pippa’s face.
“Becks—”
“I left something here.” Becca opened the door. Simon was stooped beside the bathtub, wrapped in a towel. “Ahhh,” she said. “Found it.”
Without waiting for explanations or excuses, she turned on her heels and left the two of them to commiserate in their shock, determined not to cry until she was out of the building and wandering the London streets alone.
You enter. You exit.
C’est la vie.
Charissa
If Charissa was forced to be on bed rest, then she might as well take advantage of it and stay in bed all day Saturday and pretend she didn’t notice the disenchanted look on John’s face whenever their eyes met. “She didn’t mean any harm,” John had said after the incident with Mara. “She was just trying to help, trying to show love.”
Okay, fine. But still.
Rain pelted the windowpane, blurring the view outside. Good. The greening of the earth only taunted her. Though Judi had offered through John to plant her garden this year, there was no way she would accept. It could lie fallow. Or bloom with what had already been planted. She didn’t care.
“Can I bring you anything?” John asked, poking his head just far enough into the bedroom to be heard.
“No, thank you.”
The door clicked shut again.
Nathan had called to apologize: He had stepped out of turn by contacting the church without checking directly with her, and he was sorry. He had violated her privacy, and he had been wrong to do so. Please forgive me. She told him she did. If Mara had called to reiterate her regret, Charissa might have listened and offered her forgiveness. She might even have confessed that she had overreacted and was sorry. But for some reason she couldn’t bring herself to make the overture toward mending the friendship. Why?
She stared up at the ceiling.
>
Maybe she wanted to stew in her irritation. Maybe she wanted to wallow in self-pity. Or maybe—she shut her eyes tight at the dawning revelation—maybe she wanted a target for her resentment other than God.
She glanced at the clock. Soon they would be gathering at New Hope for the silence and solitude retreat, a retreat she had planned to attend. Oh, the irony. She would now have days, weeks, months to enter into the wilderness where all her familiar props were stripped away and where she could potentially experience the furnace of transformation. Or—and this was a tempting alternative—she would have days, weeks, months to whine, wallow, and brood over all that was not going according to plan.
Choose, a voice from deep within commanded. Choose well.
SILENCE AND SOLITUDE RETREAT
Waiting for Morning
You are invited on this Holy Saturday to inhabit the threshold space between death and resurrection, to grieve the sorrows, disappointments, and losses while simultaneously rehearsing confidence in God’s steadfast love, power, and faithfulness.
Today we practice waiting. Today we remember the women who waited to anoint Jesus’ body, who expected to find death and who instead encountered the risen Christ. Today we offer our fragility, our confusion, and the ashes of our dreams to Jesus so that we may also discover and embrace new life in him. We wait and watch in hope.
Today we practice silence, not simply as a fast from speech but as an engagement of deep listening to God and to our own souls. We also practice solitude, not simply as a way to be alone but as a way to be fully present to God. In silence and solitude we let go of the things that keep us busy and distracted so that we can enter into a vulnerable place where God can both comfort and confront us.
An Extra Mile Page 20