*****

Many are aware that St. Francis preached to the birds, and St. Anthony to a congregation of fish. But let’s remember that before these saints ever preached to the animals, the animals first preached to them.

This is a true story of a sermon preached by a herd of elephants. The teller of this tale, Dr. Jim Foulkes, grew up in a small town in the midwest where he might easily have stayed all his life, farming or selling insurance, cannily tightening his grip on the ultimate American prize of an existence of complete complacency. Instead, he followed the call of God to go to Africa as a medical missionary, and in his eyes lives the burning light of a man who found the center of his passion and lived it to the full.

As he talked with me late one evening, I began to feel the civilized crust of my westernness cracking, heaved up by something older and wilder, as the very walls of my living room seemed to melt away into the wide open grassy savannah of the dark continent. I heard the pawing and snuffling of elephants, and saw their trunks moving like supple, intelligent trees, and their great parchmenty ears waving dreamily like leaves of an enormous holy book being turned upon a lectern of wind….

“One morning,” began Dr. Jim, “I awoke after dreaming all night long of elephants. It takes a certain mood, an expansiveness of mind, to be able to dream of elephants. It’s not hard to dream of streets and buildings, rooms and stairways; that happens all the time. But to see elephants in the wild, so close that you feel them looming over you—for this, some secret door must open in the psyche, and a very large secret door at that. Just as a camel cannot pass through the eye of a needle, so it is difficult for the eye of civilized man, whether asleep or awake, to catch a glimpse of elephants as they really are, in their natural glory.

“Well, I’d had other plans for the day, but the elephants would not leave me alone. As a hunter I’ve often noticed that before a man sets out to stalk game, the game seems first to stalk him, as if challenging him to come. I know it may sound crazy, but that’s how I felt. The Elephant was calling me. I could practically smell him. As a doc at a remote hospital, part of my unwritten job description was to provide meat for our 200 inpatients. But it was more than that that drew me. It was the pure hunting instinct.

“So I got together a party of ten fellows, and we set off south on motorcycles in the direction of the Kafue Game Park. Often there are more elephants just outside a park than in it, and sure enough on this day, not far from the park boundary, we spied a large herd of twenty-six. We had plenty of time to observe them as they were right out in the open. It was an area known as Lusanga Swamp, which in the dry season is not a swamp at all but one of those vast open plains that are, to the animals of Africa, what the sky is to stars. To see the great swarming herds in such a setting is to be transported back a million years, or even to the beginning of time. Time doesn’t just stand still there, it’s as if it never existed. Something stirs the soul so deeply you can hardly stand it—the mysterious aching beauty of it all.

“Unfortunately for the hunter, a place like this is entirely devoid of cover. There’s not a tree for miles, not even so much as an anthill. Nothing but bald savannah so flat that it renders the sky dome-like, as on the ocean. So we gazed across at those elephants, knowing there wasn’t any way to get near them. I never tire of looking at animals. If hunting had never been invented, I’d still go out just to see them. What especially held our attention this day was the one bull in the herd, a big jumbo with stunning tusks, his back a full two feet higher than the others. We couldn’t believe how big that ivory was, how long and how beautifully curved. How awesome to watch such a creature move in the sunlight, like a song that goes on and on in your mind and there’s one spot, one haunting chord or turn of notes, that slays you every time.

“I should pause to say that this yarn dates from the 1960’s, by which I mean that it might as well have been a thousand years ago. What change the world has seen, especially Africa, in just a few decades! At the time I speak of, no one I knew would have thought for two seconds about banning the ivory trade. There were still jillions of elephants, jillions of everything. Herds of all kinds drifted free and unchanging as clouds up and down the continent. You’d shoot an elephant the same way you’d pick up a hunk of driftwood at the beach and take it home. Today, of course, that’s all over. Today the clouds themselves are changing, the very atmosphere is wearing out. Overnight, it seems, the earth has grown old and decrepit.

“So as we stood on the Lusanga plain staring at that herd of twenty-six giants, we might as well have been on a different planet. I was younger then, too, and my thinking was young. Maybe that day it was the thinking of a kid. I was with a good friend, an African named Kalima, the pastor of our church. Of the others with us, he and I were especially close, and we kept passing the binoculars back and forth, admiring that song-like ivory on the big bull. How can I express the spell that white stuff cast over us? It’s like white gold—only instead of digging it out of a mine you have to get it from under the nose of the most tremendous animal on earth. The challenge of that, the thrill, is sensational. Before I was conscious of it, that thrill was coursing through my veins. And along with that, of course, was the lure of five tons of meat.

“However, we didn’t begin by plotting how to hunt that bull down, not at all. In that situation, the hunting of elephants could not have been more unthinkable—not only, as I mentioned, because there wasn’t a scrap of cover, but because there were young in the herd. Mama elephants, and the aunties too, are madly protective; the faintest whiff of a human being can provoke a full scale charge. While elephants’ eyesight is poor, their sense of smell, especially when their trunks start waving in the air, is extremely precise. In long grass they can run a man down without even seeing him. I’ve watched it happen.

“So I assure you, it was no small thing to consider hunting elephants under these conditions. We deliberated a long time, as all the while the urge was stirring our blood, until finally Kalima and I, with utmost tentativeness, decided to try our luck. The others would have none of it. I don’t think they would have gotten any closer for a year’s wages. But then, isn’t it true that what costs most in life, we do for free? It wasn’t really the meat or the ivory that drove us. For at the risk of ruining a good story, I’ll tell you right now that I never did bag that elephant. But what I did get that day, I wouldn’t trade for all the ivory in Africa.

“Well, in the final analysis we had one crucial factor in our favor: the wind. The wind was for us. Kalima had a spent cartridge filled with flour, and every time he shook a pinch of it into the air, the grains drifted toward us. Seeing that was like having a beautiful girl smile at you. Some days it’s hard to get a reading on the wind; it can’t seem to make up its mind. But this day the direction was steady, constant, over a good period of time. As long as it stayed that way, we knew we’d be invisible to those elephants.

“And so we set out, Kalima and I, first crawling on our knees, then on our elbows, wiggling through the dust like snakes. We had a good distance to cover, and on the way we had lots more time to reflect on what we were doing. At first, I think, we just meant to test the water, see how things went. Maybe we even kidded ourselves that this wasn’t really happening. But with every endeavor there comes a point of no return. Constantly we were checking the wind; every two minutes Kalima would shake out a few grains of flour, and they always drifted back to us. So with this sign of favor, we kept on going, until before we knew it we were well beyond the comfort zone. If at this point the grains had suddenly turned and drifted away from us—however lazily—we would have been done for. We would have just committed a rather extraordinary form of suicide.

“But the wind held and all looked well. The herd was grazing contentedly, quite unawares, and we were closing on them. One thing about elephants: as you get nearer to them they start looking bigger and bigger—supernaturally huge—until eventually you begin to wonder what on earth you are doing out there on the edge of nowhere with a little popgun in your hand. I’ve heard it said that if you can get within a hundred yards of an elephant herd and still lick a postage stamp, you’re either blind or a fool. But the problem is, a hundred yards isn’t close enough to get a shot off. You have to squeeze in to fifty, and believe me, that last fifty is enough to turn you inside out. A hundred yards, by comparison, is like sitting on the beach in Hawaii. But fifty is the magic number, the distance at which you can be relatively certain of making a precise brain shot. An elephant’s head is so massive that anybody who can find the side of a barn can hit it. But the brain itself is only about twenty inches wide, and if you don’t hit the brain, you might as well just run up and tickle the fellow with a feather. So you have to have a pretty good feel for exactly where that little headquarters is, about a third of the way between the ear hole and the eye.

“Well, we got up to a hundred yards, and Kalima wouldn’t go any further. The last fifty I did on my own, and by that point, I think, with every ten yards an elephant about doubles in size. But I covered the distance, and the wind was still right, and the herd was still feeding, contented and secure. Why shouldn’t they be secure? They had a country mile of open space in all directions. They were perfectly safe. Except for me and my little popgun.

“I took a few moments to catch my breath and compose myself as much as possible. No easy task when you’re sitting practically on top of a live volcano, which at any moment might erupt and squash you into porridge. I think the beauty scares you as much as the size. You just can’t believe you’re really there, really doing this. The glorious, wild purity of it! You’re beyond even courage. No amount of mere courage could have brought you this far, to see what you are seeing, to do what you are about to do. No, it’s nothing to do with you anymore. You’re outside yourself. You’re in the most fantastic place in the universe.

“But the really strange part is that once you’re there, in that tiny holy sanctuary of sheer naked reality, you do something that seems wholly irreverent. You shoulder your 458 magnum that packs a wallop harder than a sledgehammer, and you get the brain of that big gorgeous jumbo in the center of your sights, and letting out all your breath, you squeeze off a shot. Just one little finger movement, like scratching your nose. And then you watch that big bull drop right out of sight, and you feel the earth shake beneath your belly, and your whole being explodes into a shout of primeval triumph.

“That’s exactly how it happened. That elephant was a goner, and I was ecstatic. I was praising the Lord! Sure, you might wonder how a guy can involve God in a thing like killing an innocent beast. What can I say? A moment like this is indescribable. Could it possibly taste so good, be so utterly ravishing, if the Lord of the universe weren’t in it? In any case, if only because of the extreme danger, it really is a matter of prayer. All the way out on my knees and belly I’d been praying. If a man doesn’t encounter his God at such a time, I don’t know when he does.

“So the bull was down and I was rejoicing (silently of course), and meanwhile the rest of the herd looked simply bewildered. They’d seen their big daddy crumple like a house of cards. The noise of the shot had scared them, but they had no idea where it came from. It was like a lightning strike. They were mightily puzzled, stunned, but what could they do? The wind was still in my favor, so I was as safe, I figured, as I would have been in my own bed at home.

“But then something utterly unexpected happened. It was like another lightning bolt, only this time in reverse and directed at me. About three minutes went by, and then there was a stirring, a rustling sound, and suddenly that big jumbo stood straight up on his feet! I think he got up even faster than he fell down. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I doubt if I’ll be any more startled on resurrection day. In one split second all my joy clotted into cold terror. Instantly I knew that my bullet had missed the brain—though it must have come pretty close or it never could have knocked him out.

“So the bull was on his feet and looking even more enormous than before. And was he furious! You don’t know what anger is until you’ve seen an incensed bull elephant. He was hurt, he was mad, he was screaming, and in seconds he had enraged the entire herd. It was quite a performance. All their trunks were up and they were stamping their feet, even the little tots. Dust swirled thirty feet in the air. And the noise! When those critters screech, it’s like the blast of the last trumpet. And all this commotion had but one motive, one great and simple thrust: Find the intruder and trample him. When elephants get mad there’s no chance of them running away. They’re afraid of nothing. Their sole thought is to locate and destroy the enemy.

“Well, Kalima and I were shaking in our boots. It was like being tied to a railroad track when the train comes steaming round the bend. There was nothing we could do. The one thing on our side, all along, was the wind. The good old wind was still away from us, and it was obvious those elephants had no clue which way to turn. They could fume and trumpet all they liked, but it wouldn’t change the wind. So we were still invisible.

“But then, wouldn’t you know it, something happened that made the wind factor irrelevant. Life is full of surprises, isn’t it? You see, if Kalima and I had been alone, we might have been okay. But we had eight others with us, eight guys who liked the idea of an elephant hunt so long as they didn’t have to get too close to any elephants. I don’t mean to slight them—but hunting is a risky business. There are ways of reducing the risk, but never completely. And the more risk you eliminate, the more pleasure you lose. I’m talking of deep pleasure, the kind that doesn’t come cheap. You can say the two of us were nuts for being out there at all, on our bellies in the middle of nothing with no cover. But I’ll tell you something: There came a period later in my life when I stopped taking risks, and I never want to be like that again. A man is built to live on the edge, and when he stops living out there he begins, little by little, to die.

“What happened was this: When our eight friends saw those twenty-six elephants start into their war dance, they did the first thing that came into their heads. If only they’d stood their ground we would all have been safe (if you ask me). But there was a grove of trees within sight, close enough to be tempting, and they made for it like jackrabbits. And the movement of so many bodies, even at that distance, caught the elephants’ eye. It was all the tip-off they needed. Immediately they swung round and gave chase. And all at once we had a full-scale elephant charge on our hands.

“Elephants do not gallop. If an elephant wished to catch an express train, he could not gallop, but he could catch the train. I wish I’d been up in a helicopter to watch that charge. It would have been something to see. As it was, Kalima and I bounced straight up in the air just like that bull had done, and we took off like the blazes. If someone had had a stopwatch on us, I think we would have set a world’s record. Not that there was any point in running. An elephant runs so much faster than a man that there’s no contest. Neither was there any possibility of an end-run around one of the flanks, for by then the elephants were using their eyesight, and they were coming like a solid wall. So our situation was plainly and simply hopeless. Still, rather than get trampled lying down, you might as well hoof it and extend your life a few extra seconds.

“Kalima had a head start, but being ten years younger I soon passed him. The first time I looked over my shoulder the herd had halved the distance between us. The ground rumbled and the screams were deafening. Ever try to run when you’re trembling like a leaf? You sort of bounce along like a bag of rubber bands. But we kept on pumping our little arms and legs, and the next time I glanced behind I hardly had to turn at all. Those mammoths were nearly on top of us, mountainous as a tidal wave. Right then and there I gave up the ghost. With the whole world shaking to bits, and that terrible noise like the din of judgment day, what could I do but look into my heart and cry out, ‘Lord, here I come!’ It was all I could think of to say. My final prayer.

“And just at that moment, just when we were all but feeling hot elephant breath on our necks—just then, what do you think happened? The entire herd, as precisely and gracefully as a school of fish, turned on a dime and veered sharply to the right. Yes! Without slackening their pace one iota, as a single animal they bent into the turn like palm trees in a hurricane and thundered off at a ninety-degree angle. It was totally astounding. One second they were hot on our tails, and the next they were showing us their own tails. As for us, we didn’t stop to wave goodbye. We just kept on pumping like crazy till we made it to the trees. And then we ran some more, until finally we collapsed and lay gasping our guts out in that cool, green, wonderful forest. Our lungs like burst balloons, our brains mush—but alive, and muttering incredulous thanks to our God.

“As soon as I got back a rag of breath, I looked at Kalima, who knew elephants much better than I did, and croaked, “What on earth …? Why did that herd turn like that?” For there was no explaining it. Those elephants had us squarely in their sights and were bent on running us down. What could possibly have changed their course?

“Kalima peered back at me out of the shadowy woods, out of his dark face with its big startled eyes, and he gave me what I still think is a very wise answer. In fact it’s the only conceivable answer. What he said was, ‘Man disobeys God, but animals never do. When God speaks, they listen. The Lord must have told those elephants to turn, and they obeyed.’

“Over the years I’ve thought often of that day, and of Kalima’s explanation. As naive as it sounds, I believe it implicitly. And believing it has given me tremendous comfort, confidence, and even a kind of invulnerability. To me it means that until the Lord Himself says the word, nothing can touch me. Not even a raging herd of elephants. Until my work is done, I’m immortal.”

(Spoiler Alert! for those who have not read The Blue Umbrella)

Chesterton Cholmondeley poked the bridge of his tortoiseshell glasses with one finger, a gesture he performed a few hundred times a day. Having recovered the years that the evil Dada had stolen from him, Ches was now a lithe, darkly handsome boy of twelve. Yet inside, as if shadowed by a double identity, he still felt old beyond his years.

It was a sunny Monday morning in April, a week before Easter, and he sat alone in his room with a heavy bedspread draping the window. A single sunbeam shone through a pinhole in the fabric and hit a glass prism above his desk, splashing a rainbow on the far wall. Interrupting the beam with his hand, Ches admired the array of clear, natural color on his palm. No pigment could give such intense hue; it was pure light.

Leaning forward to write in his notebook, he noticed his reflection in the mirror: the spectrum was now emblazoned across his forehead like warpaint. In the mirror rainbow the violet band of color was for some reason particularly prominent. Was this due to the angle of incidence? he wondered. Or perhaps to some property of the mirror’s silver backing?

Suddenly the rainbow was extinguished, leaving him in darkness. While the cloud passed, he sat listening to the wind outside. All morning it had blown hard and steady, almost as if it was going somewhere. At breakfast his sister Chelsea had remarked, “It’s like the sky is a big balloon with a hole in it and all the air is rushing out.”

“Sis,” Ches had chided, “there’s no hole in the sky.”

“Okay, Mr. Smarty, then what is wind?”

When Ches launched into an explanation of high and low pressure zones, Chelsea interrupted, “You know very well that wind comes from bins in Porter’s Store.”

Ches snorted. “Maybe it’s stored there, but that’s not where it comes from.”

“It comes from Eldy,” replied Chelsea. “He delivers it.”

“Okay—but where does he get it?”

Puzzlement darkened Chelsea’s face. Then she brightened. “I’ll ask him!”

Ches sighed. They’d been having this sort of conversation a lot lately and it drove him crazy. In Chelsea’s world, one mystery led to another and there was never any real answer. That’s what science was for: it gave you answers.

Ches’s rainbow returned, and he was just readjusting his prism when there came a knock at the door. He started but did not respond. Even when the knock sounded again more urgently, he kept silent.

“Chesterton Cholmondeley!” sang the voice.

Ches hated his full name—not just the preposterous alliteration or how long it took to write, but the fact that Cholmondeley was pronounced Chum-ly, sounding like chummy. Which Ches definitely was not.

“I know you’re in there!” insisted the voice.

Heaving a sigh, Ches drawled, “Enter at your own risk.”

The door opened to admit Zac Sparks, his freckled face looking, as usual, astonished. In the months since Christmas his fiery red hair (which Dada had ordered cut) had grown out into its former puffball.

“What are you doing, Ches, sitting here in the dark on such a nice day?”

Zac strode across the room and was about to flick open the blinds when he realized they were covered with something thick and heavy. As he fumbled around, the thing came down on his head.

“Hey, cut that out!” yelled Ches. “I spent a long time pinning that up.”

“What the . . .” Completely enveloped, Zac struggled to get free.

Ches groaned. It looked as if not one small boy but two or three big ones were thrashing around under the bedspread. Zac was a good kid but highly excitable, like a frisky puppy, always jumping up and licking. After five minutes with him, Ches often felt he wanted to go away and think for a long time.

Finally disentangling himself, Zac spluttered, “What are you trying to do—catch a heffalump?”

“A what?”

“A heffalump. Didn’t you ever read Pooh?”

“Pooh who?”

“You sound like you’re crying!” Zac exploded in laughter. “You know, Winnie-the-Pooh. Didn’t your mother ever read it to you?”

“My mother read me books on science like I asked her to. Why did you go and mess up my bedspread?”

“Because this place feels like a tomb. Here lies Chesterton . . .”

“Don’t call me that. Only Rev calls me that. Or did.”

Ches dropped his eyes. For the past four months his father, Reverend Cholmondeley, had lain in the back bedroom in a coma. Ches had not visited him once and rarely referred to him. “So what’s up?” he asked.

“The sky,” said Zac. “And this.” He waved in the air the latest edition of the Big City Times. “Bet you haven’t heard.”

Even from where he stood Ches could read the bold headline:

PLANE CRASH KILLS 109

“So? That stuff happens all the time.”

“Not like this,” said Zac. “Check it out.”

He pointed to a smaller headline at the bottom of the page:

CRASH DUE TO LOST SECOND?

Ches took the paper and read on:

Scientists are puzzled over the apparent disappearance of a second from the world’s most sophisticated clocks.

From around the world came reports of other strange events occurring precisely at midnight, including the crash of United Airlines flight 207 . . .

Ches’s reading was interrupted by another knock. “What is this, Grand Central Station?”

Without invitation the door burst open to reveal the bright eyes and shiny black hair of Chelsea. “Hi, you guys! Umbrella time. We’re painting frost panels today.”

Ches grimaced. It was spring break and Sky Porter had announced a special week-long weather school. But lately Ches’s interest in Sky’s weather classes (normally on Saturdays) had declined. Or rather, increasingly his interests had narrowed to a particular field. Ever since seeing a spectacular glory on top of Wind Mountain at Christmas, Ches had been fascinated by what was known as meteorological optics: the study of celestial light displays including glories, rainbows, auroras, and haloes. If he knew the weather class would address one of these topics, Ches was keen; otherwise he’d sooner stay home and work on his optical experiments.

Besides, he found Sky Porter an unsettling person. Frankly, he found people in general unsettling. But since the storekeeper had entered his life, Ches’s world had been changing so fast that he kept looking for ways to put on the brakes. A born scientist, he couldn’t grasp how all weather—wind, rain, earthquakes, light itself—could be controlled by a man across the street with a blue umbrella.

“Think I’ll sit this one out,” he told Chelsea.

“But even Iris is coming.”

“So?”

“Good for her,” said Zac. “She needs to get out of that room.”

Ever since her release from the World’s Smallest Business Establishment, eleven-year-old Iris (the former Barber) had been living with the Cholmondeleys and helping to care for the Reverend. Tom Pethybridge had lived there, too, until his parents were located and he moved to the Big City. Neither Tom nor Iris had shown any interest in learning the secrets of the blue umbrella. As Iris put it, “I’ve had enough magic to last me a lifetime.”

“C’mon, Ches,” said Zac, “you need out of your room too. You and Iris are both cave dwellers.”

Irked at being linked with someone who spent her days changing his father’s diapers, Ches was about to take Zac’s head off when he remembered he had a question for Sky. So, with a sigh, he grabbed his jacket and the three of them headed out.

In the hallway they met Iris, who flashed Ches a big smile.

“Thought you weren’t interested in this stuff,” he muttered.

“Chelsea keeps pestering me. I’m just going to watch.”

“The umbrella’s too fun just to watch,” said Chelsea. “At least try making thunder or something.”

Outside it was so windy they had to lean forward as though plodding uphill. It was a cold wind for April and Ches clutched at his collar. Crossing the street to Porter’s Store, Zac asked him what he thought of the newspaper article.

“Beats me. Time doesn’t just disappear.”

“It goes somewhere,” said Zac. “I wonder where?”

Zac kept chattering but Ches tuned him out, listening instead to Chelsea. Much as he hated to admit it, after his sister’s five years of total silence he loved the sound of her musical voice.

“Sky told me a story and I painted it,” she was saying. “Wait till you see.”

Ascending to the Weatherworks by the back stairs, the children found Sky surrounded by large, white, crystalline panels mounted on easels. Blue umbrella in hand, he stood before the sparkling canvasses like an artist with a brush.

Ches stared, surprised to find himself genuinely intrigued. Just when he thought he’d seen everything, Sky came up with something new. The panels were a good eight feet high by about four wide.

“Is that what it looks like?” he asked.

“Yes—window frost!” enthused Chelsea. “Isn’t it cool?”

“If you mean the weather’s turned colder . . .”

“I did these other panels this morning,” she continued. Pointing out different features, she bounced on her heels. “Way up there, that’s mountains, snow-covered, with caves and everything. And sailing around the peaks are white eagles. Down here, in the valleys, it’s summer with all kinds of trees and flowers. And this is a castle and over here is a column of knights on horseback with banners fluttering . . .”

“Awesome!” cried Zac.

“Wait a minute,” said Ches, squinting. “I don’t see any of that.”

“Maybe you’re too close.”

“I see it!” exclaimed Iris. “There’s the king out in front, and the princess in her long dress . . .”

“Yes!” Chelsea clapped her hands.

“You guys have some imagination.”

“You’re right, Ches,” laughed Sky. “It takes imagination to see truly.”

Ches stared harder at the frost pictures.

Iris said, “I always thought this was done by Jack Frost.”

Chelsea performed an elaborate bow, including the doffing of an imaginary plumed hat. “Jill Frost, at your service. Do you want to try your hand, Iris?”

“Oh, no!” Iris backed away. “I only came to watch.”

“May I show her, Sky?” Eagerly Chelsea took the umbrella and began to draw on a blank, transparent ice panel. Wherever the umbrella’s tip touched, little puffs of vapor appeared, leaving a frosted impression accompanied by a tintinnabulous sound like snowflakes falling on tinfoil. An image of Eldy’s Balloon and Flower Stand began to emerge, complete with the figure of Eldy, bent double as he arranged a bouquet. At a certain point, before their eyes, the picture seemed to come to life. Even Ches noticed it.

“Wow!” said Zac. “I didn’t know you could draw so well.”

“Sometimes,” observed Sky, “art is a matter of discovering the right medium.”

Unsettled by the vividness of the image, Ches backed away. Glancing at his watch, he saw that it was just coming up to noon.

“Can I try?” asked Zac.

“Let Iris try,” said Chelsea, offering her the umbrella. “Do you want to?”

Iris shook her head briskly.

“Then at least let me show you the inside. May I, Sky?”

“Go ahead.”

Chelsea undid the umbrella’s fastener and slid the golden ring up the shaft. The spreaders opened to the familiar sound of the cloth canopy rustling like wings.

Just then the whole building shook with the pounding of the wind.

“Whoa!” said Ches. “Maybe you shouldn’t . . .”

But Chelsea was already lifting the umbrella aloft like a sail. “Look, Iris, the inside is exactly the same as the sky itself!”

Gingerly Iris crept closer.

“See—the same beautiful blue, the same sailing clouds . . .”

Again the wind thumped the building, so hard that Ches felt it in his chest. Then he heard a loud rip as of canvas tearing. And what happened next tore at his heart.

He was looking right at his sister when she lifted off like a rocket and disappeared into the umbrella’s canopy.

One moment she was there, and the next moment she was not.

The umbrella clattered to the floor.

Not many people are killed by lightning.

Zac’s mother was.

Zachary Sparks, though small for ten years old, had a look of perpetual astonishment that made him seem larger than life. His eyes were nearly the biggest part of him, round and wide, and his eyebrows had a natural arch as if held up with invisible strings. His voice was high and excitable and his whole body seemed full of little springs. Even his hair, fiery red and frizzy, looked as if he was the one hit by lightning. Everything about Zac Sparks was up, up, up.

Until his mother died and everything changed.

Zac lived with his mother beside a golf course. Every day after school he used to pick up balls from his back yard and sell them for fifty cents apiece. He was happy and carefree and his mother was good to him. He had no father. At least, he’d never known his father.

At night, when there were no golfers, Zac’s mother liked to go walking across the wide, rolling lawns of the course. To her it was like a big park. She never met anyone else out there. This was a small town and it was quite safe (except for lightning). She liked being in nature, she liked the solitude of night, and she walked all year round. She loved all kinds of weather, but especially weather that had what she called character, the kind you could feel on your skin: wind, cold, hail, pelting rain, thunder and lightning.

Whenever a good electrical storm happened in the middle of the night, Zac’s mother would wake him and they’d sit on the veranda listening to the long, almost articulate rumbles and watching the lightning illuminate the great treed corridors of grass. The two wouldn’t say much. They didn’t have to. The sky did the talking for them. The rain too made different, distinct sounds as it fell on leaves, on bushes, on the shake roof, on the gravel drive, on the bare earth of the gardens. Some of Zac’s happiest memories were of sitting up with his mother late at night to revel silently in storms.

The irony was, Zac’s mother was killed by something she loved. It happened one night when she went walking on the golf course in the pouring rain, carrying, as usual, her umbrella. Of course she wouldn’t have gone walking on an open golf course in a thunderstorm, especially with an umbrella––she knew better than that. But this was not a thunderstorm. On this night there just happened to be one stray bolt of lightning.

One was all it took. Her crumpled body was found the next morning in the center of a fairway. The canopy of her umbrella had been completely consumed, leaving nothing but the skeletal metal frame.

It was the first day of December, just weeks before Christmas, and Zac Sparks was an orphan.

*          *          *

A few days later…

Having fallen asleep in the chair, Zac awoke suddenly. It was still dark, though not completely. The first gray light of dawn hung in the air like something not so much present as faintly remembered. Zac felt something was about to happen. He almost smelled it more than saw it, sensed it so strongly that, though he was shivering with cold and ought to have crawled into bed, instead he lingered at the window in the gradually increasing light.

Below him the scene was the same as the day before, yet utterly transformed by a fresh blanket of new snow. It was like awaking to a different world, all soft and glistening, changed to a beautiful strangeness. St. Heldred’s church, as clean and white as a building could be, looked dingy by comparison with its surrounding glory, while Eldy’s Balloon and Flower stand, festooned with drifts, might have been a fairy palace. Every letter of the Porter’s General Store sign wore a stole of radiant white and every windowsill of every house, every crossbar of every window, was dressed as with an altar cloth from heaven. Telephone poles and fence posts were capped like little bishops with perfect, conical hats and even the delicate icing on the power lines lay untouched in tall, magnificently unbroken rows of holy stillness.

It was all so exquisite that Zac knelt by the window with his nose to the glass, trying to get as close to the beauty as he could. And that’s when he saw the man.

He was standing in the doorway of Porter’s Store. He wore a white shopkeeper’s apron, white as the snow, and he was completely still, as still as the dawn. He seemed perfectly a part of this quiet, perfect morning. At first Zac couldn’t quite make him out in the semidarkness, wasn’t even sure he was really there. Then, gradually, beneath the white apron appeared denim overalls and a red flannel shirt. One hand rested on his waist while in the other he held what at first seemed a walking stick, but turned out to be a furled umbrella.

At this point, with the charred skeleton of the umbrella that had killed his mother still vividly etched in his mind, the boy at the window nearly turned away from the man across the street. But something kept him looking.

That something was the man’s face, clearer now in the growing light. Right away Zac saw it was not a handsome face, not by a long stretch. No, a plainer face could hardly be imagined. What was striking about it, however, was how full of character and good humor it was. This was a peculiarly happy face, and for that reason, attractive.

Correctly guessing the man to be Mr. Porter, Zac couldn’t help staring, as the storekeeper in turn surveyed the silent, snowy morning. Still he had not moved; all that changed was the light. Though Zac couldn’t see the sun rise himself, he knew Mr. Porter was seeing it. New-minted light was reflected in the man’s countenance, in his eyes, in his smile that was as warm as if his best friend––in the person of the morning––had just arrived at his doorstep.

He was still beaming when he happened to glance up at the window where Zac was watching, and their eyes met. Embarrassed, Zac drew back behind the curtain, and when he looked again Mr. Porter had withdrawn into his store.

But Zac stayed at the window. He stayed until the yellow, clanking plow came rumbling along to perform its glorious violence upon the perfect snowdrifts, and he stayed until the first car crept squeakily along the frozen street. He kept staring as other cars arrived to enact their elegant, five-cornered ballet and as the first shovelers began to clear sidewalks in front of houses where smoke rose straight up from the chimneys. And he kept on staring long after, because he just couldn’t tear himself away. Moreover, though he wasn’t aware of it himself, his left leg was not jiggling. A boy who, until two days ago, had never merely looked out a window for more than ten seconds at a time now found himself rooted to one spot, hardly daring to breathe lest he lose hold of …

What?

He didn’t know.

But something in Zachary Sparks had changed.

Return to Non-Fiction

Listen to this Interview with Mike Mason about his book Practicing the Presence of People.

Click to hear interview

Interview with Mike about Champagne for the Soul

(The interviewer is Rosanne Farnden Lyster of InCourage magazine.)

“Happiness has not been my strong suit, which is why I needed to experiment with joy.” So writes Mike Mason in the introduction to his book Champagne for the Soul. In October of 1999 Mason began an unusual experiment. The best selling Canadian author of The Mystery of Marriage, and a man who confesses to having experienced a good deal of moodiness and depression in his life, decided to be deliberately joyful in the Lord for a full 90 days. The idea itself bloomed out of tragedy, but led to a renewed Mike Mason and a book that chronicles the wandering of one man into joy. Mason spoke with InCourage about what joy is, and isn’t, and how you and I can also dwell in joy.

RF: What stands in the way of us experiencing joy?

MM:       One thing: forgetting the gospel. The gospel is the most wonderful thing in the world. If you know it, and believe it, you will be joyful. You can’t help it. So if you’re not joyful, you’re not believing the gospel. You’ve lost touch with its amazing power. You’ve forgotten why you came to Jesus in the first place—because He, and He alone, has the words of life that set you free. He alone loves you not for anything you do but just for being yourself, which you can’t help anyway! Everyone who gives their life to Jesus does so with great joy, because this news is so electrifying. The gospel is simple, but you’ll never encounter anything else like it. Over and over in my experiment I discovered great joy in a simple return to the gospel. It gave me the permission to keep stripping away from my life everything that doesn’t really work, everything that doesn’t truly bring deep, satisfying joy. My thought life, the way I prayed, my relationships, my work—everything was overhauled for the pure sake of joy and love. Only the gospel gives a person such radical freedom.

Joy is a good litmus test of the truth. How do I know that I’ve connected with the gospel? I know it by the joy it gives me. If I don’t have joy, I’m believing some lie.

RF: What is the difference between authentic Christian joy and a facade of “I’m happy all the time because I’m a Christian”?

MM:       We can only know this in our own hearts. The heart doesn’t lie, though we may lie to it. But if anyone will sincerely commune with his or her own heart, it will be perfectly obvious whether true joy resides there, or only a facade. Love, joy, peace, freedom—anything that’s real has a taste and feel all its own. You know it when you have it, and you know it when you don’t. These things are no secret and they’re easy as pie. Of course, making joy hard and complicated is what keeps us from it.

RF: Is there a particular person or experience chronicled in the Bible that you believe reveals an important truth about joy?

MM:       What comes to mind is the picture of King David leaping and dancing with joy before the Ark of the Lord as it was brought up to Jerusalem. This was no isolated experience—it’s the way David was. We know this from the Psalms in which, like Mary pouring precious perfume over the feet of Jesus, day after day David lavished the most extravagant praise upon his Lord. God has many servants but few lovers. David was a lover, a wild, passionate, warrior-poet whose example of ecstatic living has never been surpassed except by Jesus. And so Jesus is not ashamed to sit upon the throne of David for ever and ever.

RF: Does Jesus model a kind of joy in the Father that is accessible to us?

MM:       Joy is fundamentally relational. We can’t have it in ourselves but only in relationship. Jesus’ life was all about His relationship with His Father. He did nothing on His own, but only what He saw His Father doing. This thrilled the Father so much that He said out loud, “This is My beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.” When Jesus received this blessing from His Father, He hadn’t yet “done” anything—at least, nothing recorded as public ministry. All His ministry flowed out of the knowledge of His Father’s pure, abundant love.

Jesus wants to lead all of us into this same experience—a profound, certain, felt knowledge of the tender, constant love of our Heavenly Father. This is what Christianity is. In such a relationship, what deep security lies, what infinite resources—what neverending JOY!

RF: What practical tips can you offer those who might want to experience a deeper and more consistent joy in our lives?

MM:       To most people the first thing I’d say is get some rest. We’re so busy, so desperately overworked, overcommitted, overstimulated. Make some room in your life to lie down in green pastures. If you don’t, the Lord may make that room for you and you won’t like it.

Next I’d say (and this is closely related): Learn to pray. Prayer isn’t what you think it is. If you find it a boring duty you’re not doing it right. To pray is to come into the presence of the living God. Such prayer is as personal as your own face. You can’t have anyone else’s prayer life, you can only have your own. Don’t settle for some ritual form of prayer that doesn’t work. Get real. Find out what works for you to bring you into the real presence of the Joy-Giver.

Next: Do what you love to do. Pay attention to what your heart desires, and follow those desires both in big things (like career) and in the small, ordinary choices that fill every day. All of us have to do many things we don’t want to do. But if it would make you happy to take an hour to sit in front of the fireplace with a cup of tea and listen to some music—why not do it? Don’t keep living with an empty tank. Fill up.

Finally: Accept what you can’t change. Joy doesn’t run from adversity but faces it squarely. The worst part of any trial is that you don’t want to be having it. Embrace that hard thing, honestly and robustly, and you’ll not only draw its fangs but it will lead you to greater joy. Prisoners have been known to kiss their fetters.

RF: Are a good sense of humour and an ability to experience joy related?

MM:       The first syllable of Hallelujah is Ha! When the exiled Israelites returned to Zion they testified, “Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy.” How much more is this true of Christians as we enter the kingdom of heaven! When the Bible speaks of joy, I believe it means an emotion—something we can feel. People who are not repressed, people who are in touch with their feelings, will experience an abundance of both laughter and tears. For the two are so close together. I’m talking about being real, being fully alive. In this world how can we help but cry? But in Jesus all our tears are continually converted into laughter. After Job’s horrendous trials, one of the healing things the Lord did was to point out the ostrich—a big, silly, ungainly, flightless bird whose wings “flap joyfully.” What a joke! How Job must have laughed! For the believer in God, life is not a tragedy but a comedy.

RF: What does joy look and feel like when we are in the midst of great struggle, or pain, or depression?

MM:       Real joy, even in trials, is not static but is always in motion, always seeking its outward expression, which is a full and happy life. I was reminded of this when, soon after my book was published, I fell sick. For four months I was not myself and I did not know whether I would get better. (As it turned out, I didn’t—at least, not fully. To this day I bear the scars and debility of that illness.) Throughout this time I continued to have joy, but not in the way I’d grown used to. This wasn’t a joy that translated easily into happiness. It was deep and sustaining, but it didn’t bubble over. While the rest of me struggled, joy lived deep inside. It felt like a little child tentatively exploring an immense, dark cavern with a small candle. A new place was being opened up in me, and though I had no heart for it, joy courageously explored the new territory.

In my book I maintain, contrary to popular opinion, that in the Christian life joy and happiness are inseparable. Happiness without joy is a masquerade, and joy without happiness is a spiritualized lie. In other words, true joy is incarnational. Everything true and good in Christianity is not merely spiritual but is meant to overflow into daily life. If it doesn’t, we have to ask ourselves if we’ve got the real thing.

During my illness, this belief was tested. But I continued to believe it and so—as I clung fiercely to a rich and incarnational view of joy—the Lord brought me through the deep waters to a place where I am now happier than I’ve ever been in my life.

He is faithful.

Different than me, anyhow.  To clarify the degree of difference, I once asked him what would be his favourite way to spend an hour.  “To sit and contemplate a tree.”  I don’t remember what my response would have been to that question at that time, but if it involved trees, it would have been something more along the lines of climbing them or building a tree fort.  Certainly nothing involving contemplation.

But that’s the way Mike is built.  He’s a contemplative.  Indeed, had God not messed up his plans by sending him a wife, a daughter, and more friends than he would have found in even the most teeming monastery, Mike would be a monk today – a “contemplative” in the “Oh, and what do you do for a living” sense of the word.

While it’s true Mike’s prayers would have accomplished just as much inside the walls of a monastery as they have outside – he loves to pray, there’s nothing he’d rather do – the world would not have been blessed by his remarkable books about marriage, friendship and parenting.  And God, being a good God and wanting the best for His world, did what He had to do to make sure those books got written.  He sent Karen, and many less-than-monkish friends, and ultimately, Heather.

The Mystery Of Marriage (Multnomah Press, 1985) was an astonishing first book, a poetic, high-flying celebration of the one sacrament Brother Michael had thought he would never experience first-hand.  Christian bookstores packed with “how-to” volumes on the subject couldn’t keep this strange, not-particularly-practical item on their shelves: it became the favourite book of many newly married couples, a keenly-felt, deeply-thought book on that most intimate of relationships by a matrimonial novice who wasn’t much used to intimacy.  J.I. Packer commented that, presented with a book on marriage by a newlywed, he expected shallow naivete, platitudes and idealism unseasoned by the practical realities of long years lived together, but was astonished to find himself reading a book filled with “wisdom, depth, dignity, and glow – an outstanding achievement.”

Intimate relationship didn’t come naturally to this introspective, solitary man.  But the fact that such territory was foreign to Mike meant that he has had to work to get good at it: like a traveler in a strange foreign land, he has had to pay attention.  And, like the best of travel writers, Mike sees things the locals never notice, appreciates all the particularities and peculiarities of these strange countries that the natives take for granted.

Practicing The Presence of People: How We Learn To Love (WaterBrook Press, 1999), Mike’s book on friendship, is my favourite.  His startlingly original premise is this: “Why not take all that I’ve learned about knowing God through contemplative prayer and apply it to knowing people?”  And do you know what?  It works.  Brilliantly.  The disciplines of developing intimacy with God, modeled by such devotional writers and mystics as Brother Lawrence, yield extraordinary results when applied to human beings who are, after all, made in God’s image and likeness.  This strange, sideways-thinking, sometimes mystical, always practical book ought to be read – and, more important, lived – by the hundreds of thousands of people who have worn out their copies of the marriage book with many readings and re-readings.  Frankly, The Mystery Of Marriage didn’t work for me when first I read it, newly married: it took almost 20 years of marriage before it began to resonate with me, and now it is pretty much the only book on the subject I find myself returning to again and again.  I suspect Mike’s friendship book will have the same sort of longevity.

Whether it was so intended or not, Mike’s latest book essentially completes a trilogy on human relationships.  In  The Mystery Of Children: What Our Kids Teach Us About Childlike Faith (WaterBrook Press, 2001), the author looks deeply into his year-by-year relationship with his daughter as she grows from infancy to the verge of adulthood.  As transparently personal as his previous relationship writing, this book about growing young by raising a child had me praising God that He has called this contemplative mystic to forsake “the religious life” and, instead, to live a life more ordinary, a life more like mine, but to live it religiously.  His experiences with his daughter are the same as those of any parent: the difference lies in his response.  He mulls, he meditates, he prays: he dives very, very deep into the waters of parenthood, and comes up with rare pearls we surface-swimmers and water-treaders might never discover on our own.

If you need to learn about something, go to somebody who had to learn it the hard way.  One day, mulling over the Beatitudes, Mike came to a realization about Jesus’ strange, powerful words: that essentially they all had to do with the heart of what it means to become like a little child – and that childlikeness could be discovered by moving out of one’s strength into the area of one’s greatest weakness.

Intimacy with God comes easy to Mike Mason: the hard part is intimacy with people.  But the Teacher has assigned Mike to major in that subject, and so he’s spent the greater part of his life working hard in a discipline that makes him feel small, unskilled, continually challenged and out of his depth – just like a child.

But in this particular school, Mike is what teachers call “motivated,” a hard-working student who, unlike his more naturally inclined fellow students, does all his homework, works through the Questions For Further Study at the end of each chapter, and even carries out a Schedule of Regular Review.  So if you need somebody to tutor you for that upcoming exam – whether it’s in Marriage, Friendship or Parenting – I recommend that you call up Mike.

Or, better yet, borrow his notes.

Ron Reed
BC Christian News

Once I’d met my Heavenly Father on His throne and fulfilled some assignments, He asked if I’d like to come back and spend an entire day in the throne room.  At the time I happened to be swamped in guilt and self-pity, and it astounded me that God would issue such an invitation to a creature in this sorry state.  But of course I jumped at the chance.  Wouldn’t you?

And so, in a series of short visions lasting from one to five minutes each, I spent an entire day wandering around the holy of holies.  Exploring everything, chatting with people, and participating in the wonderful glory times before the throne.  Talk about worship!  Here on earth I do not think we can quite grasp how vital is the worship of God to our very existence.  It’s as fundamental as breathing, and even has a similar rhythm––in, out; in, out––as we draw near to God to give Him praise, then flow out into lives of love.  Hence in heaven the glory times are not continuous but come in waves.  They’ll begin spontaneously, last for perhaps half an hour, then gently subside.

I’ve learned many new songs up there, although it seems I can never remember more than a few lines.  “Daily I bow before You,” goes one.  “Daily I offer praises to You, for You alone are worthy of praise.”  Such lines will be repeated several times, just as we do with choruses in church.  Very simple but also very, very beautiful.  The music just flows.  There are no songbooks, no overhead projections, no rehearsal.  Everyone sings spontaneously and the only conductor is the Holy Spirit.  Everyone begins and ends together; everyone knows the words because the words are given.  To sing this way is utterly magnificent.  It’s a musician’s dream, so free and natural.  You just open your heart like a flower to the sunshine and the music fills you entirely.  Suddenly you understand that your whole body is a musical instrument, a perfect instrument of praise.

The accompaniment I heard was mainly trumpets.  I noticed a set of drums, but their sound wasn’t obvious.  Drums are simply not prominent in the heavenly music as they are in ours.  There’s rhythm, even what you might call a beat, but it’s very sinuous and wavelike.  And of course the acoustics are fantastic.  The musicians are located far off against the walls to the left and right, but the music seems to be everywhere.

Following one of the praise times I went off to investigate the music’s source.  Along one wall I discovered a row of horns, all stacked bell-down on a shelf about a hundred feet long.  So much shining brass––or more likely it was gold.  There were horns of every shape and size, including all the common ones but also many others never seen or imagined on earth.  Whatever you like to play, or whatever you’ve dreamed of playing, you’ll find it there.  I noticed one piano, a beautiful nine-foot grand being played like crazy by a wild bearded guy with a mound of curly hair.  Drawing closer to listen, I recognized the pianist as Keith Green!

Between the glory times the Father often moves about, though He’s never far from the throne.  At times His manner is like that of a fiery preacher, striding about the dais and shouting answers and rallying cries to the company of heaven, who in turn shout back to Him.  During one of these sessions, as various people in the crowd were speaking out spontaneously, I found myself joining in with something like, “The love of the Lord endures forever!”  I don’t recall exactly what I said; it was nothing very profound, and feeling shy, I spoke more under my breath than aloud.  But immediately those nearest me called out, “What did you say?”  So I repeated, a little louder, “The love of the Lord endures forever!”  This time a larger circle of people all around me cried out, “What?!  Speak up!”  Then I yelled with all my might, so loudly that it nearly took my head off.  What a feeling!  Never will I forget the utter, joyous abandon of that cry.

From this I learned that heaven is no place to be timid, but rather to do everything with all your heart.  If you have a question or a comment, you shout it out loud and clear for all to hear.  Accordingly, there can be a lot of noise up there, a lot of commotion.  It’s all a bit like a thunderous, Holy-Spirited pep rally.

Yet it can also be very quiet.  There are many moods.  The holy of holies is always changing; all day long people come and go as different events take place.  There are also times when nothing in particular seems to happen.  People mill about and chat.  And then, before you know it, another great wave of praise is gathering and rolling in.

Throughout all this, the light level is continually changing.  The glory of the Father shines blindingly bright, all the time, but He also varies its intensity depending on what’s happening or who is coming before Him.  It’s never dark, there are never shadows, but sometimes the room light will dim, then brighten again, as different individuals approach the throne.  The Lord is a master of mood lighting.

Near the throne are the so-called “living creatures.”  It is difficult to know what else to call these.  They’re not angels and they’re not animals.  I’ve read a fair amount of science fiction, but more unlikely-looking beings than these would be hard to imagine.  My first thought upon seeing them was, “My goodness!  The Father has some mighty weird friends!”  They’re enormous, maybe fifteen feet high, and all they do is praise.  While they move around some, they’re never far from the throne, and this proximity to God suggests they are in some ways closer to Him than we are.  I went up close to one of them, the eagle-like thing, to have a good look.  It really does have a face like an eagle with a huge hooked beak.  As for the rest of him, what can I say?  Is it feathers?  Wings?  Robes?  I’m not sure.  I recall peering up into its great eye and wondering, “Does he even know I’m here?”

The day I was there, at least ten thousand people must have been present in the throne room.  I suppose the place is big enough to hold the whole world, or at least all of the redeemed, plus countless angels.  The angels are everywhere and they have various roles as musicians, doorkeepers, guards, or escorts.  Angelic escorts are assigned to everyone who enters the throne room for the first time.  In appearance these angels look just like us.  You can tell the difference, if you think about it, but you tend not to think about it.  They intermingle so seamlessly with the redeemed that you barely notice them.

In this vast throng, it is surprising to realize that everyone can see or hear equally well from any point in the room.  Even more surprising is that the Father’s throne, a white chair, is not at all high and lofty.  In fact it is only about four feet off the ground, just high enough for the Father’s head to rise a little above the crowd.  Nor is the floor banked, but flat as a table.  Many churches, it turns out, have platforms and pulpits higher than the throne of God in heaven!  But I should add that both the height and the size of the throne are variable.  It sits on a dais, with several steps leading up to it.  At times these steps appear steep, at other times so low as to be almost level, showing that God is both exalted and approachable.  Everything in heaven, I have learned, is like this, changeable according to circumstance.  Things are what they need to be for any given purpose.

The thrones of the elders are surprisingly small, yet still very beautiful.  No bigger than folding chairs, they’re easily scooted back from the usual semicircle to make way for various events.  I don’t know who the elders are; Judd claims to know all their names and what they do, but I’ve never felt led to talk to them.  All I know is that one of their functions is to witness everything the Father says and does.  He never does anything in secret; always there are witnesses.  There are no private audiences with the Father.  You may talk to Him one-on-one, but you’re never alone.  Everything is open and public.

On rare occasions I have seen the Father in other places besides the throne room.  Why or how this happens is a mystery to me, except that behind the throne is a door reserved solely for the Father’s use.  I’ve seen it also from the other side, while walking around the outer court of the temple.  Just to look at this door is to feel its deep sacredness; one would never presume to go through it.  Apparently this is the same door mentioned in Ezekiel, the one that was to remain shut because the glory of the Lord had entered there.  Oddly, however, Ezekiel has this door in a different location.  In many ways the temple is like a vast puzzle, the pieces of which never quite fit together in a completely logical way.

Everyone, of course, wants to know what the Father looks like.  His face, the moment you see it, is one you will instantly either love or hate.  If you really want to know more, study Daniel 7 or Revelation 4.  It’s all there, exactly what He’s like.  John says, for example, “His appearance was like jasper and carnelian.”  While these stones come in a range of colors, generally they are light brownish or ocher-colored.  In short, the Father is not white, but He’s not black either.  Neither is His complexion reddish or yellow, nor a true brown, but somehow all of these colors mixed together in a shade more light than dark.  It’s a very distinctive, creamy-golden tone that I’ve never seen on anyone else.

As to race, the Father is neither Jewish-looking, nor Arabic, nor Oriental, nor Negroid.  Probably His features come closest to being European, but really He fits no racial category yet somehow includes them all.  Daniel reveals that He has white hair.  Think of a lightly tanned Santa Claus––or better still, Father Christmas––and you won’t be far wrong.  In age He is timeless, ageless.  If you had to pin a number on Him, you might say sixtyish, but even then you’d have to add a million years or so.  That’s the impression He gives.  Really the Father is an old, old man who doesn’t seem old at all.

Return to Non-Fiction

A few years ago I began a ninety-day experiment in joy. I made up my mind that for the next ninety days I would be joyful in the Lord. Because this was an experiment, it allowed room for failure. If at times I wasn’t joyful, I wouldn’t despair or beat myself up. Rather I would gently, persistently return as best I could to my focus on joy.

So began (and continues to this day) the happiest time of my life. My experiment was a phenomenal success and it produced a permanent change in me. “Rejoice in the Lord always,” exhorts the apostle Paul (Php 4:4). Is it really possible to be happy all the time? While life certainly has its ups and downs, I still want to answer, “Why not?” Why not accept the grand, stupendous gift of life like a big chunk of watermelon, letting the sweet pink flesh melt in your mouth, and as for the rest, spit it out? Why gnaw away dolefully on seeds and rind?

Today I believe more than ever that nothing essentially prevents a Christian from always rejoicing. We’re also exhorted to “always have hope” (Ps 71:14), to “pray continually” (1 Th 5:17), to be “always giving thanks” (Eph 5:20), and to “keep all God’s commands always” (Dt 5:29). Would Scripture set such high standards if they weren’t possible? Jesus even said, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48). The God of the Bible is a God of absolutes.

Consider the matter of love. Does anyone argue that we should love sometimes but not all the time? No, love “always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres” (1 Cor 13:7).

Or what about freedom? According to Jesus, “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (Jn 8:36). Do you want a little bit of freedom, or do you want to be free indeed? The Christian graces are not for sometimes but for always.

The same holds true for joy. God wants us to be joyful indeed, rejoicing in Him always. The moment we hear this, we get stuck on that little word always, and our hearts sink. And so we overlook the key phrase in the Lord. Nowhere does the Bible exhort us to do anything in our own strength, but only in the Lord. It would be cruel to expect anyone to be always happy apart from God. But “in the Lord”—why not? Who wouldn’t be overjoyed with a God who “has given us everything we need for life and godliness” (2 Pet 1:3)? In the words of a Christmas carol, “Why should men on earth be so sad / Since our Redeemer made us glad?” If you have Christ, why not rejoice? If you don’t have Christ, why not open your heart to Him?

Any happiness we think we’ve produced for ourselves will soon fade. The real thing comes from Beyond. Indeed it’s the essence of joy to know that the Beyond is somehow contained within us. Knowing this, we know too that there will be no end to our joy, for we’re connected to a Source that is limitless and eternal. Far from originating joy, humans are meant to be like an echo, reverberating God’s joy and sending it back to Him. The very word rejoice contains (in the prefix “re”) this idea of “over again” or “back.” The message of joy bears repeating, for in this dark world we need to hear about joy again and again. Paul obviously thought so when he wrote from a prison cell, “I will say it again: Rejoice!” True joy is tireless. It’s like a little child squealing, “Do it again, Daddy!” to which our heavenly Daddy replies heartily, “Yes, let’s do it again! And again and again!”

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