“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 He looked at the bulletin board and took down three out-of-date announcements.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.