Let the preacher tell the truth. Let him make audible the silence of the news of the world with the sound turned off so that in the silence we can hear the tragic truth of the Gospel, which is that the world where God is absent is a dark and echoing emptiness; and the comic truth of the Gospel, which is that it is into the depths of his absence that God makes himself present in such unlikely ways and to such unlikely people that old Sarah and Abraham and maybe when the time comes even Pilate and Job and Lear and Henry Ward Beecher and you and I laugh till the tears run down our cheeks. And finally let him preach this overwhelming of tragedy by comedy, of darkness by light, of the ordinary by the extraordinary, as the tale that is too good not to be true because to dismiss it as untrue is to dismiss along with it that catch of the breath, that beat and lifting of the heart near to or even accompanied by tears, which I believe is the deepest intuition of truth that we have.
Best Friends. And I thought of what she had done all the millions of times I cried to her, collapsing at even the slightest wounding of my heart or pride. So I reached over and pulled her to me, wrapping my arms around her, and held my best friend close, returning so many favors all at once....
Her tone changed from shocked to curious. “How was it? Was it… different?”Sarah bit her lip, ashamed to be gossiping but feeling the strong urge to tell. “Yes,”she confided. “He’s nothing like John. Nothing like him at all.”“Really? What was different? Did he…?” Grace waved a hand as though erasing achalkboard. “Oh, forget it. I shouldn’t be asking this. But,” again her voice lowered, “is he tattooed everywhere?”Sarah knew it was wrong to talk about him like this, but her inner schoolgirl took over and she nodded, eager to share details. “He’s beautiful … like a stained glass window. And he’s really good with his … mouth.” She raised an eyebrow, giving Grace a significant look.Her friend gasped and giggled. “But isn’t it weird? Touching him?”“Skin is skin, Grace,” Sarah chided. “The tattoos are only on the surface, you know.He’s a man.” A sexy, vulnerable, intense, attractive, responsible, sweet, gentle and loving man.
The people inside were in intense worship; it seemed to Sarah like they were in another world or something. The pleasantness in the atmosphere drew her in. She felt welcomed, even though she had not been invited; noticed, even though she had not been seen; loved, even though she wasn’t known; and even though it didn’t make sense to her—it didn’t have to.
When her voice cracked and tears started spilling down her cheeks, I panicked. I wasn't good at consoling people at the best of times, but even a trained therapist would have struggled in my shoes. What could you possibly say to a girl who'd dug for hours trying to rescue her family after they'd been buried alive?