When he had finished his meeting with Stuart, Paul walked to the cemetery next to the church and sat on the ground beside Sara’s stone, on the plot where he hoped his bones would one day be buried. The cemetery was designed to be peaceful and meditative. It was far enough from the road that the cars sounded like a distant breeze.
“Have you seen Mary Adams?” Paul asked Sara’s slab of granite. “I’m doing her service this weekend. She’s probably with you now.” He paused, imagining but not hearing her answer. “Stuart had a picture of her from when she was young. She was pretty. It was like looking at another woman, another time…. You’ll never be old, will you?”
He sat for a moment, pulling weeds from the grass by his feet.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen to him. People are supportive. They’re all taking shifts bringing him food. But what is he going to do when they leave? I don’t know whether to pity him or admire him. I can’t imagine being that committed to anything. There’s something noble in it.” He sighed.
“God, I miss you, Sara. I just don’t know what I’m doing anymore. You had a way of pointing me in the right direction. My job is to inspire people. How can I do that if I’m not inspired? I don’t need God to send an angel down on a cloud to touch me on the shoulder. But I wouldn’t mind a little spark of inspiration. I just want to wake up to life again, to feel the presence of God in something. I’m just going through the motions, and the members of the church deserve better.”
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?”