Dye

The week before Easter the rain descends upon the city. It gathers everything in its toothless mouth and gums until everything is glop. Across the street from our house, in a tree, there is a pale plastic bag hung on a branch. It looks like the shroud of a ghost. It sags as though it once carried something heavy and now is empty.

The local newspaper’s website reports that publicly funded food assistance is a fraud. Some recipients sell their food cards for cash. Some for drugs. The newspaper subscribers comment about what should be done.

A detective knocks on our door and warns of a young man in a dark hooded sweatshirt who has been abducting young women and assaulting them in abandoned garages. “Have you seen anything out of the ordinary?” He asks. I look around the neighborhood. “What is out of the ordinary?” I ask.

At Bible Study the children attempt to dye eggs and succeed in dyeing their hands; it looks like they have strangled rainbows. With water and soap they rinse and wash and rinse and wash but the stains are still there.

The week after Easter the rain descends again upon the city. Most of the bag is gone; a few tattered strips are the only evidence of it. Something must have carried it away.

Children of God

Even as a child I hated children. I saw them as messengers from Satan. He planted mockery in their moist minds and it bloomed out of their mouths and I kept that vile bloom in a vase. I grew up changing the water, giving it fertilizer, keeping it alive. Until as an adult I hated children.

Then God asked me to move into this community house, in a neighborhood swarming with children.

“God!” I laughed, “You are so funny.”
“I am,” He replied, “But now I’m serious.”

God has a sense of humor, but I have no sense, so often he is reduced to a running joke, which runs me over until I understand.

“God!” I shouted, “I’ll move in. Are you happy?”
“I am,” He replied, “Now do it.”

So I did. I took things down and put them up. I lifted things up and set them down. I sat down and I stood up. I thought, I don’t know what I’m doing, but I know why I’m doing it.

And the children came unto me. Loudly.

Actually, they came unto a weekly bible club. It's led by my 4 housemates, who in personality and/or appearance resemble a Doberman Pinscher, a Border Collie, a Golden Retriever and a Beagle. They make a good team.

I am the Chihuahua. At every child's squeal, my eyes bulge and my body trembles.

This week the leader is talking about how even though Jesus was God, He washed the feet of people. Even those He didn’t like. Even His enemies.

The leader requests that the children remove their socks. After reveling in a theatrical ecstasy of disgust, they do. He takes old ice cream buckets and fills them with water. His big hands lower their little feet into the water. Their squeals sound different.

“Could I wash someone’s feet?’ I say, but none of us hear me.

I watch and wait. I wait and watch. Long, longer, too long, long enough.

“Could I wash someone’s feet?’ I say again.
“Oh, I don’t think there’s anyone left,” The leader says.

Sadness settles around my heart. Something was opened for a moment, and I didn’t enter it. The children did.