In Part 1 of “The Day of the Living,” I explored a bit randomly some knowledge we have of eternity in heaven and on earth, which sparked an imaginary conversation between Saint Anthony of Padua and myself post-Parousia, recorded below.
I know I am not alone in reflecting on what life might be like after Jesus Christ comes again, and these reflections, if engaged with a well-formed conscience, should not be avoided as if God would otherwise be upset with us. We cannot and must not be ashamed of a healthy imagination. 1 John 3:2 says, “What we shall be has not yet been revealed;” it does not forbid us from wondering what we might be. Why would God provide us with the faculty of imagination, or any human faculty for that matter, if not to glorify Him and His creation through proper engagement of it? Still, we must remember that fiction is fiction, not doctrine.
On an additional and completely unrelated note, I feel I must mention that I don’t plan my rants. They just sort of happen. Suddenly and irrepressibly. The above opinion is a common one among those who study collectively creative writing, English literature, and Catholic theology.
*ahem*
Well, that’s about as much or as good of an introduction for my first fiction piece on Stop to Smell the Flowers as we could hope for at this point. Without further ado, I present:
“When All Has Been Revealed”
“Nothing is mysterious now,” Lindsay said.
“Nor surprising.”
Anthony was always in communion with Lindsay, but now he had chosen to be in presence with her. It was why Lindsay spoke aloud in the first place. She knew Anthony was there to join her under the palm trees, though she hadn’t seen him yet. On the old earth, Lindsay would have been surprised by his sudden appearance. She paired this thought with Anthony’s comment and smiled at the irony they produced.
Anthony smiled, too, knowing her thought.
“Nor hidden,” Lindsay added.
More irony, Anthony thought, to which the woman nodded in acknowledgement of her friend’s illustrious patronage. Afterward, she stood from her sitting position to greet Anthony properly. She bowed her head, and he replied with an even more profound gesture of reverence.
The man indicated the spot where Lindsay was previously sitting and insisted, “Please, enjoy your rest.”
The woman offered an invitation for him to join her, which Anthony accepted, and they both sat. It was day. The sunshine warmed their skin, but never seemed to produce traces of sweating or discoloring upon it, and the shade provided by the palm trees was occupied out of respect for the sun’s ability to create contrast, rather than avoidance of direct exposure to its heat.
Closing her eyes in recollection, Lindsay breathed in the Spirit of Truth and shared aloud her memory: “A mystery. Such a mystery. That’s what Reena called it.”
“Your search?”
“For her cell phone, yes.”
“It wasn’t a mystery in heaven.” Anthony shrugged.
“No, I imagine it wasn’t.” Lindsay laughed. “But we were utterly perplexed at the time.”
Nothing mysterious. Nothing surprising. Nothing hidden. The two beneath the trees reviewed the list again in their minds.
“I thought her phone might be here, actually.” The woman glanced at their surroundings, at the bits of dew on the few sprouts of grass nearby and at the hundreds of levels of bark leading up to the palm branches they owed their shade to. She patted the rocky surface of the landscape which neither looked nor felt as uncomfortable as it would have on the old earth.
“You thought it was buried in the ground?”
“No, I thought it might have fallen–” Lindsay stopped short, discovering her companion’s amused expression. “Your tongue is as witty as it is incorrupt.”
“Thank you, Lord, for this gift.”
Anthony said this because He had appeared, as Man, before His brother and sister. Lindsay leaped to her feet to embrace the Redeemer, and Anthony expressed patience before approaching and embracing Him, too.
When Jesus spoke, every thought, every view, every sensation dissolved into a distant reality, then was brought back into a clearer and more beautiful reality, as if The Christ was recreating that very moment and everything comprising it. “Mysteries exist to be explored,” He said.
Lindsay knew this. She knew this. Then why did she say…
“Am I allowed to be proven wrong in heaven?”
Both men laughed. “You are not wrong to say mysteriousness no longer exists,” Jesus comforted the woman.
“Only half-wrong,” Anthony whispered.
Lindsay would have narrowed her brows at him, but she did not wish to remove her gaze from their Lord. “I was informed in my temporal life that you were a simple man of simple speech. How can I be half-wrong?”
Answering for the friar, Jesus, with renewed permission from Lindsay, cupped her flawless cheeks in His pierced hands. “Mysteries still exist…”
“I just understand them now,” Lindsay finished, eyes still fixed on the Man before her.
“There,” the Lord breathed, dropping His hands. “You aren’t half-wrong or all-wrong. You live in the fullness of Truth, and that is a mystery of itself.”
Nothing mysterious. Nothing surprising. Nothing hidden.
“Any additions you’d like to make to those initial observations?”
Lindsay turned to Anthony for help in answering their Savior, expecting him to still be standing beneath the palms of the trees, but he had parted from them physically. She turned back around to find Jesus waiting with outstretched, upward-facing, beautifully scarred palms. She grinned. Palms of the trees. Palms of His hands. She was sheltered by the first and upheld by the other.
Jesus, she realized, was wanting to dance, and Lindsay couldn’t even imagine denying Him. Dancing was working, but she enjoyed it. Work had become play, and play had become worship, and worship had become purpose.
“So,” the woman began, placing one hand in one of her Savior’s and the other upon the shoulder that carried the sins of the old world. They began to sway. “Mysteries exist…but are no longer mysterious.”
Jesus smiled and spun His Father’s daughter gently around, as if encouraging her to “circle back” and begin again with a similar expression of her thoughts.
“Surprises exist,” Lindsay continued, nodding absently and then to the place where Anthony had both appeared and disappeared. “But are no longer surprising.”
Jesus slipped both hands into Lindsay’s, locked their fingers together, leaned away from His Father’s princess and then pulled her back to Himself. They swayed a bit more before Lindsay voiced her final conclusion.
“And things may be…hiding,” she decided at last, “but are no longer hidden.”
Jesus stepped away from His Father’s disciple and bowed, both in gratitude and congratulations. When He lowered Himself, Lindsay could see past Him and discovered a curious scene just a few dozen paces to the east. Anthony was sitting upright on a leather, L-shaped couch that was as familiar to Lindsay as the memories created upon or around it in her earthly life.
Her brother reached between the couch cushions to retrieve Reena’s cell phone, where it was “hiding but not hidden,” and composed a text message with it.
Knowing the text was intended for her, Lindsay waited for the identical object that had appeared in her hand to signal its reception of Anthony’s message.
The words Found it displayed on the screen.
Very funny, she replied. Lindsay looked up from her phone just to confirm that Jesus was delighting in their conversation, too. He nodded and smiled His confirmation as the phone chimed once more.
Lindsay read, I knew it wasn’t buried in the ground. Phones are usually buried in the couch.
I’ll tell Reena, she thought with mirth, although Anthony, in a way that was no longer so mysterious to Lindsay, had already communicated the same message to her.
Stop to Smell the Flowers 