Chapter 2 Some Wee Little Man, Part 1

My feet were dangling over the ledge of the Rialto’s balcony. I rested my chin against the rusted railing, high above this old theater, its open space setting sentinel over sacrifice and hope. Some work lights remained on in the vacancy below, casting their eerie beams in the unsettled dust.

Our momentum with this stone behemoth is increasing and more volunteers than ever darken these doors, grasping a vision of what could be. Deep trenches are being dug in the alleyways for plumbing and electrical and long pipes of all types. Dry wall is being hung to conceal and rejuvenate, and we’re just a few short months away from the completion of Phase 1.

But, despite the anticipation, a cloud of faithlessness still hangs over me and taunts me, deep within this stuffy atmosphere filled with particles from the past.

So, there I was, alone, staring at the mystery of the rays of light below and the form and shape they take in the disturbance of dirt and filth, piercing some stirred up reminder of our own creation. And wouldn’t you know, perhaps sensing my musings, he walked in, just like that. I suppose he was fully aware that I was the only one left inside, and, of course, fully aware of the pity party I was throwing for myself.

I watched him from my perspective above, and I quietly studied his gait. He looked around, inspecting the progress with his hands on his hips. He gazed up at the starry blue dome above him, seemingly pleased—and then, like a father who knows where his children have been hiding all along, he spun around with a gleam in his eye and locked in on me.

All of a sudden, I felt like Zacchaeus, some wee little man with a wee little faith.

“Come on down, Jeff,” is all he said, laughing. It was more of an invitation than a command, but either way, I made my way down stairs and met him below.

“You’ve made a lot of progress here,” he said with a smile.

“Yes. We have amazing volunteers.”

There was an awkward pause, or at least it was awkward for me. I kicked around some of the wires on the floor and then he broke the silence.

“What exactly were you doing up there?”

He knew what I was doing up there. I was doubting, wanting desperately to see him, to get above some perceived crowd, the very ones who would move their way through this bastion in search of him too.

“I don’t know. Struggling with the enormity of it all, I suppose.”

Back to laughing, he chuckled and said casually, “You know I won’t call you to something that I don’t intend to finish.”

“Yes, you’ve said that.” How could he be so casual about something that was causing me so much stress?

“But, yet, you doubt?”

I shrugged him off. He gives me the choice to shrug him off. Like some petulant child, I wasn’t in the mood for his assurances. So I pressed him. I changed the subject toward something I was really thinking about, if you must know.

“I read something about you the other day, about how you healed people of their disease, physical and mental. But another translation said that you also healed them of their emotional disease.”

“Yes.”

“It said that word got around that you were healing everybody.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

Kind of a play on words, actually. The word got around that the Word was getting around.

So I walked around a bit myself, thinking. I made my way down to the stage and he stayed back near the rear of the theater. He hunched down and started drawing with an old stick in the debris on the floor, which I love, because, you know, I always picture him doing that anyway.

“It said that you healed people of the bad effects of their bad lives. What about that? Is that still true today?”

I didn’t have to shout it. Sound carries in this old place.

“What do you think?” he asked.

Always another question is what I think. He’s not skirting though, he never is. He’s probing.

So I dug in and fired back, repeating my question.

“Are you still healing people of the bad effects of their bad lives?”

I wonder if Zacchaeus asked the same question, in the conversation that wasn't recorded. He wasn't living such a good life. Anyhow, it came out more like a challenge, more like I was irritated with these claims.

So, he spun around again, this time circling my flank with his words, not looking up from the little picture he was drawing.

“From your perch upon the balcony, your eyes were fixed upon the beams of light.”

“Yeah, so?”

“You were looking for me, but what else did you see when you looked at the light? What gave it form?”

As usual, I just stared at him, perhaps not knowing how to respond, perhaps just choosing to stay irritated. He wasn’t going to wait around anyway, this Jesus of my imagination. He got up and slowly walked out the side door into the early evening.

And he left me alone with a mystery once more.