Sensing in me doubt, not of a spiritual kind but still doubt all the same, a pastor friend said to me two weeks ago, "I think, perhaps, you are trying to do too much. What you need is a Pocket Jesus." And indeed from his pocket he withdrew a baby Jesus, arms out-stretched above snug swaddling clothes, all carved from olive wood and no bigger than a quarter.
"How many of these do you have in there?" I grin at his deep suit jacket pocket but I am only answered with a matching grin and the little wooden figurine being pressed gently into my palm. My fingers curl around the strange little effigy and I wonder to myself, "Isn't this a graven image?" I bury my hand in the pocket of my leather jacket and silently let the gift drop into the depths. It is almost a week before I take it out again.
And realize that it is a carving of an angel, wings out-stretched, not the baby Jesus at all.
But for five days, I didn't know that.
There was something so strange about it. That little boy Jesus riding in the soft dark silk of my jacket pocket. Something so odd. I thought about it before anything else every morning. I remembered it every time I shrugged into or out of my jacket. I started to brush the hem of that pocket when I passed the jacket hanging on the coat tree at home or the hook at work. I started to close my eyes and dream of that peaceful place that nestled my talisman, my compass, my safety.
"Why should I need you?" I finally said, somewhat indignant, near the end of day four. "I do not need you." I was standing, arms crossed, feet planted wide, staring across the room at a pocket in a motorcycle jacket. I was quite honestly miffed... hurt... fuming a little even. Over-reacting? No. I had actually come to rely on that little Pocket Jesus... and it was seriously bothering me.
"I have Christ with me. I don't need you," I continued aloud. "I don't need the trappings and the rituals and the tokens of faith. I feel it here, in my chest, in my heart, in my muscles and blood and bones. I hear you... Him!... clear and strong and brave and tough. I don't need the weight of you tangible. Why do you try so hard to remind me that I am only human? That I have physical desires like touch and sight? Why do you worry away at my faith when it is all that I have?!"
And finally the moment came. The moment that had been so long in the coming -- four days had never been longer. My own epiphany. As that fourth day rolled over into the fifth and the light of dawn crept into my studio and restored color and life to the canvases and palettes around me, it became very clear.
It's okay.
We are all only human. And sometimes the rituals and the easy comforts and the tangible, factual knowledge is what we need to carry us over or past a rough emotional sea. Sometimes we just need it to be simple.
And I crossed the room and reached into the pocket and withdrew an angel. I lifted her to the dawn light and she was actually an olive tree. Then brought her closer to my eyes and saw a cross... and a dove... and a woman praying.
Just keep it simple. And divinity tumbles home.
EJ
