Thirteen Crucifixions, 61

“Are you sure?”

            “Sorry.”

            “You don’t have to apologize.  I understand.”

            “Melissa, I—“ Stefan couldn’t finish the sentence.  He clasped his forehead with his hand.  “Fuck, my head’s starting to hurt.”

            “Take some Tylenol.”

            “I’m allergic.”

            “Do you want to sleep alone?”

            “Stay where you are.  I want you with me.”

            “Are you sure?”

            “Yes.”

            “Poor buddy-boy.  Poor, poor buddy boy.”

            “I’ll be okay.  It never lasts too long.”

            “Anyway, the woman’s supposed to be the one with the headache.”

            “Welcome to the Millennium.”

            They were in bed.  It was late.  Stefan suddenly had no interest in sex.  What Melissa didn’t know, and what he wasn’t prepared to tell her, was the real identity of the man who had just bought one of Glen’s paintings.  Stefan came into the Westwind just after Douglas P. Furnis had signed the cheque. They hadn’t seen each other since he tried to run Stefan over in his Jaguar.  He quickly left the café, trying not to notice Stefan’s startled glare.  They lay side by side, Stefan and Melissa, bonded in their two solitudes.  Stefan reached out and gently stroked Melissa’s stomach.

            “Don’t”, she said.

            “Sorry.”  He withdrew his hand, curled up and faked being asleep.  Melissa also turned away, to make sure that he couldn’t tell that she was weeping.

“My dear Michael:

            Finally a letter from your long-lost Matthew.  Yes, darling, it is me!  Thank you for your letter. I am pleased, no, delighted to hear from you.  I have been so worried about you, darling Michael, but I just couldn’t tell you right away.  Things were happening so awfully fast.  I’m only now beginning to fathom the impact of this huge leap I have made.  I would also like to apologize for deserting you so suddenly.  A cowardly act on my part, for which my spiritual director has suggested I come clean with you about.  Forgive me, dear Michael, if I have caused you any hurt or distress.  I still love you and will always love you.  Even if the nature of my love has changed the love itself remains and shall always remain unchangeable.

            “Which brings to mind a teaching we were given recently about the nature of God’s love. Even when we stop loving, or refuse to love, the Divine Lover Himself remains constant, and because Love can never be conquered will even use our resistance and refusal of Himself in order to conquer us into a complete and joyous surrender to the Love that remains throughout all ages.  We are like instruments, or transmitters.  The current of Love must continue unabated.

            “Pardon me while I digress.  Michael, it has been so long since I have last seen you or heard your voice.  Are you keeping well, my boy?  I am so glad you are staying with Sheila.  At a time like this you will be needing each other.  Do send her my warmest regards.

            “But let me tell you a little about our little community.  For we are a Christian community of thirteen: five men and eight women, plus two cats and a cocker spaniel named Timothy.  We are ecumenical.  We are three Catholics, an Anglican (me), five Quakers and four no-name Christians.  The community itself is less than a decade old, and quite spontaneously appeared among an ecumenical gathering that had been working together for some years on justice and peace issues.  They had come to beginning their committee meetings with a few minutes of silent prayer, which grew to a half hour and within months they were meeting for silent prayer which became the wellspring out of which their work with the homeless and refugees began to flourish. It eventually became evident that several of these people felt called to live together in community as a means of witnessing to the love Divine, and were provided with the premises of a former convent here in rural ---------.  Now, our primary work of ministry is in the area of hospitality.  We have generous retreat facilities and have already generated quite the international response.  Which means that you, Michael, will be coming out to see me here?  Oh, but you must.

            “But I haven’t said what got me here.  It actually began with a series of dreams involving this beautiful green-eyed boy (get your mind out of the gutter.  It was all pure and innocent) wearing a white shirt and blue jeans.  These dreams began to happen just when you and I started sleeping together again.  I at first believed the youth in the dream and you being present beside me were somehow connected.  But when I started sleeping alone, the dream continued.  In the last dream he appeared in he actually spoke saying, “His name shall be Adam.”  That day, a young man came into the store with a priceless collection of Faberge eggs for me to take on consignment.  He mentioned that he was in the process of moving, but not simply to a new place, but into a new life.  I asked him what he meant by this.  He replied that he was answering a call from God and would soon be living in an ecumenical monastic community called the ‘Place of the Transfiguration”, which is the same place where I am writing this letter from.  I felt with this individual a peculiarly powerful connection.  Not sexual, though he is rather attractive, in an other-worldly seraphic kind of way.  His name, it turns out, is Adam.

            “He began to visit me in the shop on a regular basis. We began to arrange meetings together.  Now Michael, I know this is all news to you.  Though this Adam and I never became lovers, though there was never so much as a hint of anything sexual in our liaison, I felt as if I was cheating on you.  I have been open with you in the past, as you have been with me, regarding our spurious affairs and peccadilloes.  This was different altogether.  Something very deep, personal and sacred was being revealed between us in this relationship, but something also entirely unlike any kind of romantic or amorous entanglement.  At the time, it felt that to speak openly of this to you, or to anyone, would be to somehow cheapen it, to rob it of its beauty. I have never felt so protective of a new love, albeit an innocent love, in my life.

            “I went with Adam on a weekend retreat.  Chris, the superior and I hit it off right away.  I knew that I had rediscovered the Divine, and that now I must embark on this journey.  I had been putting it off these past thirty years.

            “Our life here is very simple, very focussed and very intense.  We all live in voluntary poverty, having sold our possessions and pooled our resources.  We trust in God for our daily provision and He always provides.  I am very new at this kind of life and have much to learn. Right now I work in the kitchen, soon I’ll be tending livestock.  We have quite a farm going.  It is very quiet here.  Usually I am in bed by nine or ten and up at five for morning prayer.  Our order of service is much along a Benedictine pattern with strong Quaker and Anglican influences.  I will tell you more in succeeding letters.  Do write to me soon, Michael.  I love you.

Matthew

            “So what do you think?”  Michael said, as soon as he’d finished reading the letter to Glen.

            “What would you like me to think?  Or more important, what do you think?”

            “I wish I had an answer.  It’s going to take me a while to figure out how to answer this.”

            “As it should. I recognize the community.  My friends, Randall and Barbara are associate members.”      

            “What do they think?”

            “They seem to believe quite completely in the community’s vision and mandate—by the way, I haven’t heard any mention made of Matthew, except something in passing about two recent new members.  I would assume that this guy named Adam is one of them.”

            “Do you think he’s been brain-washed?”

            “You know Matthew far better than I do.  Does the letter sound like the writing of someone who’s been brain-washed?”

            “It definitely still sounds like Matthew.  It sounds like Matthew on Prozac.”

            “This is obviously for him a joyous experience.”

            “What about your friends?”

            “Completely sane.  Totally self-possessed, both of them.  Would you like to meet them sometime?”

            “Yes, I would, actually.  I would.  What have they said about this group?”

            “Much the same as what you read in the letter.  They’re a close, but not a closed, unit.  The community is very intent on being a refuge for outsiders, which tends to keep them pretty outward looking.  I also believe they’re being sponsored and overseen by various groups and churches.  The spiritual director Matthew made mention of, for example, he would be one of, I think, three clergy from different churches who perform this duty for them.”

            Michael looked up at the kitchen clock.  It was ten past one.  They were sitting at the kitchen table.  Both had been out for the evening and had converged back at the house, first Michael, followed by Glen in the past forty minutes or so.

            “I just hope he’s okay”, Michael said.  “That he’s eating all right, not being held against his will.  These group dynamics can be very powerful.  Insidious.”

            “Well, he’s given you an open invitation to come visit him, so this way you can see for yourself.”

            “I’m going to try to convince him to leave”, Michael said, his blue eyes ablaze with resolution.

            “It doesn’t sound as though you’d meet with much success.”

            “That isn’t like him to get messed up in something like that.  I mean, religion’s okay if it makes you happy and helps you live right and everything, but once it takes over your life like that—“

            “Maybe you should allow him time to make up his own mind?”

            “He can’t.  Not as long as he’s sunk in that kind of environment.  How can anyone want alternatives when they’re not around to present themselves.  No, I’ve got to go and get him out of there.”

            “Good luck.”

            “As soon as he sees me he’ll start wanting to leave.  I will be like a lodestone of reality for him.  I’ve always been able to talk reason into Matthew.  I can’t sit idly by and watch a religious cult deprive him of that beautiful mind of his.”

            “I think you should talk to Randall and Barbara.”

            “Whatever.  But my mind’s made up.”

            “Would you like me to come?”

            “No.  I have to do this alone.”

            “Whatever you say.”

            “Glen, listen.  Do you realize how important this is to me?”

            “I think I have an idea.”

            They each stared quietly across the table, being careful to not catch each other’s eyes.  Suddenly Michael, bright-eyed as an executioner who has just removed his black hood from his face, smiled and laid his fingers on Glen’s forearm.  He quickly slid his arm off the table, looked up at the clock, and said, “It’s late.  I’m going to bed.  Good night.”  Quickly, like a cat dodging a stone being hurled by a loutish boy, Glen sprang out of the kitchen and up the stairs to the safety and sanctity of his bedroom.