Angel Read online

  He sat listening to his own thoughts, feeling the absence of Sara’s replies, until the ticking of the clock seemed to penetrate the walls, calling him back to his normal state of unproductive busyness. He stood and smiled at the stone as if it could smile back at him. Then he walked through the courtyard and back, he thought, to his normal routine.

  Angel

  “Every angel is terrifying,” begins Rainer Maria Rilke’s “Second Elegy.” “But if the archangel now, perilous, from behind the stars took even one step down toward us: our own heart, beating higher and higher, would beat us to death. Who are you?”

  The poet described angels as “mountain ranges, peaks growing red in the dawn of all Beginning.”

  Paul entered the church foyer still lost in his thoughts. While his eyes were adjusting to the dim light (it took longer these days) he was nearly blind. Across from him, the front door opened, and bathed in the rays of the late-morning sun was a startling vision. It was an angel, a radiant, luminous being. Her long hair, like spun gold, surrounded her in a halo. Her huge eyes, the color of the ocean, were a portrait of childlike wonder and love. For a moment, Paul was so moved by his mystical vision he was tempted to fall on his knees right there and pray to God.

  He took a step forward and squinted. As the figure came into sharper focus, he realized his mistake. He was not looking at an angel, nor was it even a woman. It was a young man. He appeared to be in his early twenties. His shoulder-length hair was dishwater brown, not spun gold. It hung forward to obscure his face. He had a slim build, not bony, but more “skinny” than “thin.” He wore a white long-sleeved T-shirt with a picture of the Pillsbury Doughboy in the center paired with tattered jeans. Paul felt a twinge of embarrassment over his mistake—human for angel, man for woman—but his fascination with the being was not diminished.

  The visitor ran his finger beside his ear and tucked the wayward strand of hair behind it, revealing his entire face for the first time. Paul had never seen a face so beautiful outside of an art museum. A dimple in the chin and the slightest trace of stubble made his jaw line masculine. That, and his strong cheekbones contradicted the delicate, feminine nature of the rest of his features—the upturned nose and soft lips that curled up at the ends, creating a captivating pout. He had a swan-like neck, and his large eyes—were they blue or green?—were as riveting as they had been when Paul thought they belonged to an angel. Each feature was perfection, and the whole was more than the sum of its parts. He was not at all feminine in his movements. Masculine, and yet too pretty to read entirely as a man.

  Paul’s pupils dilated, and his heart began to race. Could the young man hear it from where he was standing? Who on earth was he? Paul was struck with the desire to take up painting just to try to capture his classical beauty. An angel. An angel had walked in through the door of the church. He was simply the most beautiful work of art the minister had ever seen. Paul was captivated and terrified by the intensity of the feeling.

  “Can I help you? I’m Paul, I’m the minister here,” he said over the sound of his beating heart. He put out his hand.

  The young man took it. The corners of his lips turned up into a curlicue smile. Soft hands. A firm handshake. He was a corporeal being after all. “Hi,” he said. “I’m looking for the AA meeting.”

  The AA meeting. Well, it wasn’t exactly what Paul had expected an angel to utter. The young man was not looking for a church or a minister. He would go to his meeting and walk out the door and might never appear again. Normally, Paul would have pointed down the hall and said, “Turn left.” Instead, he said, “This way,” and he gestured for the younger man to follow.

  “Thank you,” the visitor said, and he smiled again. It was just a typical everyday smile, the kind you give to the clerk at the drug store when she hands you your change. One of his front teeth, the third to the left, was slightly crooked, creating a small gap. Paul seized on the imperfection. The young man had flaws. He could need somebody. He could need a minister.

  As hard as he tried, Paul could not come up with anything else to say on that walk of a hundred feet.

  “Here it is.”

  “Thank you,” the visitor said with a small nod, and then he started into the room.

  Paul called after him, “If you need anything else, let me know.”

  But he was already taking a seat in the circle of recovering alcoholics. Why had Paul said that? “If you need anything else?” He only needed directions. Who wants lots of personal focus showing up for their AA meeting?

  “What am I thinking? He’s a man. A man.” But he knew it was already too late. The vision had been too powerful. It would not leave him.

  It was only the second time in his life that Paul had experienced something he truly believed was a direct message from God. The first had not been nearly as intense. When he was a young man, about the age of the mystery visitor, Paul had prayed for guidance about his career. He asked the Lord if he should become a minister or perhaps study business or law. That night he had a vivid dream in which he met Jesus Christ and kissed his hand. He knew immediately upon waking what he was meant to do with his life. He never doubted God had spoken to him through the dream. For years, Paul prayed to God to give him another sign. He longed for a truly transcendent experience, but he never had another dream or vision. Not until now. Paul had no doubt his vision of an angel was a message of some kind, but this time he had no idea what the meaning was.

  He went back to his office and tried to think about the eulogy for Mary Adams. He couldn’t. He tapped his pen on the desk and gazed out the window. Wasn’t this guy young to already be in AA? He could help this young man, he thought. He could be his mentor and teacher. There was nothing strange about wanting to help someone. That was all it was, surely. God had given him a sign that this was someone he should notice so he could help him spiritually. Yet Paul sensed his attraction went beyond a desire to be of service. What was it?

  It wasn’t sexual, he told himself. It couldn’t be sexual. He was not gay. He had to be feeling something else. Inspiration, a pure appreciation of beauty. There was nothing wrong with admiring beauty where it existed, even in a male form. God had created it. It was divine energy. The guy needed a community, a church home. There was a reason God had sent him through that door right when Paul happened to be standing there. He felt the enormity of fate in the chance meeting. He could not let the young man walk out as though nothing had happened. Somehow he had to find a way to speak to the angel again. He needed to know what these feelings were calling him to do.

  He tapped his pen on the desk. The more he waited, the less time passed. How long did AA meetings run, anyway? He left his office and went to Julie’s desk, where they kept the three-ring binder that showed how long each room was in use.

  “Do you know when the pavilion will be available?”

  “Well, there’s an AA meeting in there now. Did you need it for something?”

  “No. No. Not right now. How long are they in there for?”

  “They have the room for an hour and a half.”

  “That’s how long the meeting goes?”

  “I don’t know. I think they clean up after. Why?”

  “Just wondering. I’m going to take a walk in the courtyard to work on my eulogy, if anyone needs me.”

  He picked up a prayer book and paced into the courtyard. He held the book in front of his face, but the words just danced. He sat down on a bench. From there, he could peer over the top of the book and glance into the pavilion window. He knew where the young man was seated, and could just barely make out his left side. He was slumped forward with his elbow on his knee. His long hair brushed his shoulder whenever he tilted his head.

  Paul suddenly felt uncomfortable spying on an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, so he tucked the prayer book into his pocket and went back into the foyer. He looked at the bulletin board and took down three out-of-date announcements. Then he straightened the pamphlets in the visitors’ rack. That didn’t take much time, so he decided to take them all off the rack and arrange them alphabetically by title. Some of the booklets had pictures but no text on the covers. He decided to place those at the end of the rack. Because it was “Hope Church,” there were entirely too many Hs. He hadn’t left enough space. He took the pamphlets from last part of the alphabet down on a nearby table. He placed a stack of “Welcome to Hope Church” on the rack and turned around to grab “What Would Jesus Do?” and crashed straight into someone, regaining his balance by placing his hands on the other person’s upper arms. It was his angel. They stood with their faces just inches apart. Paul gasped and backed into the rack, causing several copies of “Membership and You” to rain down on the floor.

  “Sorry,” the young man said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “It’s…. I wasn’t looking.”

  “Well, I was just going to say thanks again for the directions.” He turned away and started to walk toward the door.

  “Wait!” Paul called after him.

  The angel turned back. He raised his eyebrows and tilted his head. Paul had asked him to wait, and he was waiting. The problem was, Paul hadn’t planned anything to say beyond that one word.

  “Here,” he said, handing the young man a pamphlet. “It gives our service hours. You’re welcome to come on Sunday. We have a very nice… a very supportive community. You’d like it.”

  “Yeah, sure. Thanks,” he said as he folded the pamphlet and put it in his back pocket. Then he turned and walked away.

  That night Paul lay awake in his bed, fascinated and troubled by his vision and embarrassed by his awkwardness around the young man. He replayed every moment, the angel stepping forward and becoming a man, the way he looked when his face was fully revealed, the surprising affection Paul felt on discovering the small gap in his teeth, the warmth from his body when they crashed by the literature rack. He tried to convince himself that his appreciation for the young man’s beauty was purely aesthetic. He wanted to gaze on the face again the way he appreciated the beauty of other forms of nature—an expansive canyon or a sunset over the mountains. But human beauty was different. A scenic vista creates appreciation and wonder, but not longing. For the stranger, Paul felt longing. Some part of him ached to be in his presence again. He knew, as well, that simply being near him, seeing him, would not be enough. Seeing him again could only increase the longing.

  In the privacy of his room, he allowed his mind to explore the nature of this ache. He stopped trying to critique and explain. He came back to the moment when their bodies touched, when their faces were so close, his hands on the visitor’s arms. He imagined their lips coming together, his hands exploring the other man’s chest. He imagined at first something ethereal—the pair bathed in white light, communing with an angel. But his musings gave way to something much more physical and sweaty, a pure masturbatory fantasy of limbs and tongues and powerful erections.

  As he lay in the glow of his climax, he wondered who he was and what this all meant. He thought back to his youth and the forbidden Playboy and Penthouse magazines he had kept hidden in the crawl space. He remembered the time one of his teachers bent a little too far down and accidentally exposed her right breast, and how that image played into his fantasy life for years; how all-consuming his high school infatuation with Sally Guthrie had been, how nervous he had been about that first kiss and how much persuasion it had taken to get her to third base.

  He thought about Sara, how lovely her shyness about her body was. How much he longed to ravish the paragon of Christian community, to become the only one to unravel her secrets. He loved the freckles that dotted her skin (and that she hated so much), her little teacup breasts (she called herself an “ironing board”), and the undeniable intrigue of the ginger hair that decorated her nakedness. These had not been substitute fantasies. He had not desired women because he thought he was supposed to. The attractions had been as real as the wind and the tides, a true force of nature. So what was this? What was this?

  The following Sunday, Paul surprised the greeters by joining them in the foyer. He said he’d decided it was much more welcoming if the minister took the time to greet all the newcomers personally. His eyes were wide, and he watched each person coming through the door with a sense of anticipation. The young man never arrived.

  “It was nice to see you out there greeting like that,” Julie said after the service. “It was a good idea. A lot of people had good things to say about it. Since Sara died, well, it’s just nice to see you so engaged again. Like old times.”

  He greeted the visitors again the following Sunday, and the two after that, and each time he held onto the nervous expectation that his angel would appear. He never did. Each Wednesday afternoon Paul found something to do in the pavilion or the lobby. He watched the alcoholics file in and leave. The visitor was not among them. On every occasion, Paul was both disappointed and slightly relieved. He started to wonder if he had imagined the whole thing. Perhaps the young man did not exist at all.

  Here Is the Church,

  Here Is the Steeple

  Archaeologists think they know what ancient people believed. Ancient tall things were supposed to be monuments to the divine and our modern structures monuments to mankind. We’ve become self-centered and arrogant. That’s what they say. But is that true? The Egyptian pyramids were tombs of the notable people of their day. We inscribe our large buildings with Masonic cornerstones and mythic symbolism. Future archaeologists might think the Sears Tower was built to take us closer to God.

  If man was created in God’s image and God makes mountains, isn’t it natural we’d try to build mountains of our own? Weren’t all these structures created out of the same human desire to climb? Building a cathedral is building a mountain. It is the creation of an edifice so large and grand that we are humbled in its presence. Could it be that, paradoxically, the magnificent churches with grand steeples represent a Christianity of humility, not hubris?

  Paul was gazing out the conference room window into the foyer and the spot where he had first seen the young stranger. He pictured himself reaching out to him, touching his cheek.

  “I’m not saying we shouldn’t fix it. I’m just saying it shouldn’t be our priority.”

  Paul’s attention snapped back to the room. Mike Davis, the church board president, was serious and pragmatic. Mike was always the alpha in any meeting. He was a business owner who had focused so much of his time and attention on his industry that he couldn’t quite keep his focus on a wife. He was now on his third.

  As with most churches, the church board was made up entirely of volunteers. They almost always ran unopposed, so the main qualification was a willingness to do the job. You didn’t have to pay them, but you couldn’t fire them, and it was hard to give them enough appreciation to keep them interested. The rotating boards changed the tone of the administration every couple of years. Sometimes you’d get a volunteer who couldn’t get around to doing any work but who didn’t want to relinquish the title and the position, and everything would grind to a standstill. Other times an overly enthusiastic volunteer would put in so much time and energy that she would start to feel resentful, and she’d end up quitting the church entirely.

  Mike had brought a serious business tone to the board. He believed strongly that the principles of corporations should be applied to the church. Under his leadership, the board had created a mission statement and posted it everywhere. Their priority was “growth,” which they equated with success. Paul had nothing against growth, per se. It would be good for his ego, certainly, to see the pews full each Sunday. But he was uncomfortable with the implication that worship was a product to be marketed the same way you’d sell a soft drink or a pair of designer jeans. It seemed that the entire culture had become permeated with a marketplace mentality and that church should be the exception.

  Once, people had viewed commerce through the lens of faith. Now it seemed people viewed faith through the lens of commerce. Instead of arranging their lives to live in accordance with their faith, they went “church shopping” to find a faith that fit their lifestyle. Something had been lost, Paul believed, yet he realized there was really no way to turn back the clock.

  Mike had stirred up so much enthusiasm for his growth mission that it would have been foolish of Paul to try to squelch it. He certainly did not question Mike’s intentions or his devotion to the church. Yet the board president was unyielding in his opinions, and it was hard to convince him of the value of anything that could not be quantified. At issue today was the crumbling church steeple, which had become an eyesore and a home for bats. Repairing it properly would cost $30,000, and Mike was in favor of tearing the old thing down.

  “People don’t choose a church because of what the building looks like,” Mike said. “They’re not attracted by steeples. They come because they see ads or billboards. What is important is what is inside. The church could be in an old car lot. Advertising is where we need to spend our money if we want to grow.”

  Paul was having a hard time articulating his argument. He had not received a formal education in the finer points of church architecture and design. He only knew that there were sacred places, and they spoke a language he understood without words, beyond intellect. There were places that invited contemplation and places that called for activity and involvement. The mega churches with their rock music, headset microphones, and video screens were as far from his sense of a sacred place as the mind could travel. A church should be a departure from the outside world of constant distraction and stimulation, not an imitation of it.