Blessed Child (29 page)

The discussion on the tube was advertised as a summit—the definitive analysis of the boy's power. The guests sat around a gray table very similar to the one Larry King hosted from, a slightly off-center half-moon with Donna Blair at its center and the seven experts in a semicircle. They were the leading authorities from the fields in question—religion and science.

Dr. Caldwell was there on the left. If she hadn't been a leading authority on psychic phenomenon last month, she was one now. Dr. Shester, a well-known physics professor from Cal Tech, sat next to her. The other five were religious leaders: an Islamic imam wearing a turban—Mohammed something or other—a Hindu priest with a shaved head and a long white beard whose smile would not take a break, two Protestant leaders from opposing camps, and a Catholic bishop. Their names kept popping up under their faces as they talked, but between listening to the overlapping diatribes and thinking about Leiah, Jason hardly cared who they were. For all he knew, they were
all
wrong.

Donna was talking to the Hindu holy man. “Yes, of course. But what do you make of the boy's own words? He's referred to either Jesus or the Holy Spirit on two occasions. He's said that the way to walk in what he calls the kingdom is through the power of the Holy Spirit. If you believe he's the incarnation of a higher power, as you say, why would he invoke a Christian message?”

“That is quite simple,” the man said with an Indian accent. He would not relax his smile, and Jason found that annoying. “First of all, it is not only a Christian who speaks of God's Spirit. We all believe in God's Holy Spirit. And the boy was raised in a Christian monastery, was he not? He will then use what language he knows. He speaks of Jesus, and so do I; Jesus was an enlightened teacher of great wisdom. The boy speaks of God, and of course, so do I. And he speaks of God's kingdom, which is the Christian way of addressing the greater consciousness.”

“You are being too general,” the imam interjected.

“Hold on; you'll have your chance to respond,” Donna said, cutting off the imam.

She addressed the Hindu priest again. “I know this is all very controversial, sir, but what if the boy were to specifically validate one religion, say Christianity, and denounce another? What would you then say?”

“But I don't think he would, you see.”

“But if he did. Hypothetically.”

“If he did, then I would say the same thing that a Christian would say. I would say that he's a ten-year-old boy and he is mistaken.”

Donna addressed one of the Christian leaders. “And you, Dr. Clark, would you say the same if the shoe were on the other foot?”

The gray-haired man smiled. “If Caleb were to denounce the deity of Christ as some of my friends here would, I'd assume that his power does not come from God at all. But he hasn't done that.”

“He hasn't in so many words,” the other black-haired theologian cut in. “But for starters, not everyone is convinced these so-called miracles are real. And—”

“Please, sir,” Donna interrupted. “You can't seriously be suggesting that the evidence we've all been exposed to is some magic trick. Have you been to one of these meetings?”

“As a matter of fact I have.”

“And you honestly question the authenticity of what you saw?”

“Of course. As do many others.” The others smiled, obviously embarrassed for the man. He cleared his throat. “But that's not the point. Even if they are authentic, the nature of these events we've seen don't reflect the Spirit set forth in God's Word. For starters, God is a gentleman. He doesn't knock people over for no reason. He deals only with willing participants. He certainly wouldn't knock a cameraman from his feet for the kicks of it. I don't see how any such thing would bring glory to Christ. And he's not the author of confusion. How can you see any one of the meetings and not think of confusion? If, and I say
if,
what I've seen is real, it looks totally beyond the control of God's Spirit.”

“But you wouldn't say that Caleb's power comes from his own mind like Dr. Caldwell would?”

“If it's real, no.”

“Then what is the boy's source? If it's real.”

“I don't know. But it isn't God.”

For a moment they all sat in silence. Then the imam spoke up. “You see, this is the kind of bigoted, narrow view of God that is customary with the Christian. The whole world is rejoicing at the works of this prophet from God, and yet the Christian will throw the boy in hell because he does not attend his church.”

Three of them broke out in response at once, but Jason couldn't tell which three. He flung an arm out to the television. “You see, they don't have a clue. And if the rest of them think this is God, then why don't they tell us why God doesn't do this more often? Or at all, for that matter. Why do a million prayers for the sick go unanswered?”

“Your lady friend's making the religious ones look like fools,” Leiah said softly.

“She's not my lady friend. And she's only asking them questions. They should be able to answer simple questions.”

“She's pushing them into disagreement while the two scientists sit by to set them all straight.”

Jason didn't dispute her analysis.

The gray-haired evangelical, the boy's defender, Dr. Clark, was speaking again. “I'm not saying that Caleb's incapable of making mistakes. As long as he's human he'll be making mistakes. But to say he's authoring confusion or that God doesn't knock people down because he's a gentleman is to misplace huge sections of the Word of God. Jesus Christ himself had the people in an uproar, confused over his identity, if you will. They ended up killing him to silence his voice of dissent. Several weeks later his own disciples were accused of being drunk at Pentecost. The biblical record is loaded with incidents of God's reaching out to man as dramatically and in many cases more mind-boggling than what we've seen through the boy. Why are we so surprised to find God alive today?”

Donna seemed caught off guard. “More dramatic cases? Such as?” She was obviously no biblical scholar.

“How about the sun standing still? Imagine city walls collapsing on their own, or the parting of the Red Sea, or a woman turning into salt. Need I go on? Jesus fed five thousand with two fish and five loaves. He calmed a storm with a word. And the early church was hardly less dramatic in its demonstration of God's power. Perhaps the biggest difference between then and now is that they didn't have cameras then. They had writers, and those writers gave us the Gospels.”

The skeptical evangelical spoke up. “Yes, they gave us the Gospels, but nowhere in the Gospels did Christ knock people over for the fun of it, now did he? Certainly not pagans.”

“No, not for the fun of it. But you will remember that the men who came to arrest Jesus—and I will assume they were pagans, given their plans—fell over at Christ's words. It's at the end of John's Gospel. I don't see how this is any different.”

The dark-haired man appeared flummoxed. “Please, you can't ask me to believe that a host of believing people sitting in a room would all suddenly be healed with no expectation of it. I don't see the pattern in Scripture, not at all.”

“God is not bound by our boxes, my friend. If he can heal one, why not ten? And if ten, why not ten thousand? He frequently healed everyone who came to him, not just those with exceptional faith. He healed from a distance, and he healed in the dark. What faith does a dead man have? Lazarus could not form a thought, much less believe, and yet he was raised.”

“But surely miracles were at the least meant to lead one to faith.”

“Yes, if you don't believe in me, then at least believe in the evidence of the miracles, Christ said. We will see where the boy's miracles lead men.”

The conversation stalled. Donna blinked and faced the physicist. “Well. What about you, Dr. Shester? You've been awfully quiet.”

The Cal Tech physicist grinned smugly. “Honestly, I really don't see where this is leading us, Donna. History is strewn with man's foolish attempts to explain the great questions of life with a few cute anecdotes from the local priest. If you couldn't explain something, it was because God did it. The world was flat and at the center of the universe because God made it that way. Man was made in six days from dust, and all kinds of other impossible things happened throughout history because God just did it that way. And if our neighbor disagrees or claims that a different god did it, well then we massacre them in a crusade and set the world right. Forgive me if I don't follow the logic. If we would just apply basic reason to these unique events, I'm sure we would find something very different from God. This is the time to explore new possibilities, not to argue over whose god is responsible. The laws of physics have been redefined a dozen times since Newton first defined gravity. Well, it looks like we're getting ready to redefine them again, and I for one am excited about the prospects.”

Caldwell was beaming. So was the Hindu priest, but not because he necessarily agreed. The other four looked bothered by the comments.

The Catholic bishop spoke up in a quiet voice. “I think Dr. Shester is confusing the issue. You may invoke all the examples from history you like, sir, but you must not ignore the evidence that presents itself at the current time. We don't live in the past. The boy clearly draws his power from a higher source. From God. In the same way Elijah did, in the same way Moses did, in the same way the apostle Paul did, and in the same way many God-fearing Christians do today, all over the world. You might be surprised at what an honest look at the evidence from around the world would reveal. God is not dead, my friend. He works in stunning ways every day. Now, if the boy claims that his source is indeed the Holy Spirit, then why must you immediately dismiss it? Perhaps it's time you reconsider your assumptions, beginning with the assumption that there is no God.”

“Nonsense,” Dr. Caldwell said. “Darwin settled the issue a hundred years ago. We're seeing a new step in evolution here, not some return to the dark ages, where you take everything you don't understand and dump it in a barrel called God.”

“Darwin did nothing but propose a theory,” the bishop returned with a smile. “A theory that has been progressively unraveling in virtually every scientific circle since the day it was so blindly accepted. And that was before the boy. If evolution survives another month, it'll only be in the minds of fanatics with clogged ears.”

The physicist flew off at that, but Jason let his mind drift again. This was like watching a political debate as an undecided. If you pick a side one moment, you might switch the next. In reality the answers were locked in little Caleb, and even if the boy knew how to unlock his mind, he wasn't being as forthcoming as the world wanted.

Which could be a good thing in the end. Even Jesus Christ was a bit elusive at times, if Jason remembered right.

“Doesn't it feel like we're in some Mad Hatter's game, where no one knows the rules, much less how to win?” Jason asked. “Listen to these guys; it's like arguing over whether Mars really is crawling with little green men after all.”

Leiah tilted her head and gave him a twisted grin. “He's a little boy, he lives on earth, and the last time I checked, he was brown, not green.”

“Yes, of course. And I love him too, Leiah. He's practically family. But that doesn't mean any of us have a clue what's really going on.”

“Any of us? So you're no longer subscribing to our psychic professor's doctrine?”

“I didn't say that. She makes more sense than anyone else.”

He and Leiah were exchanging jabs, sure enough. But they were smiling through it, instead of blasting each other as they might have two weeks ago.

Jason cleared his throat. “There's more to his predicament than all this nonsense over whether Caleb's a genie out of a bottle or a prophet of God. Things are getting overlooked.”

“Such as?”

He looked at her and lifted an eyebrow. “Such as the fact that the remote monastery Caleb spent his first ten years in just happens to get leveled during an invasion that has no business venturing so far south. Such as the fact that you and I are chased even farther south for eight hours with the boy in our custody. Not only was Father Matthew clearly convinced that Caleb's life was in danger, but we left Ethiopia under the same persuasion. Someone wanted the boy dead.”

“Well, hopefully when we left Ethiopia, we left the problem behind us. Not that the one we have now is any better.”

“They were trying to kill him, Leiah.”

“They're killing him now,” she said with a firm jaw. “He's changing.”

She was right. Neither of them could put their finger on it, but Caleb seemed to be changing a little. Adapting.

Jason shook his head. “I don't know. I just don't buy the threat to his life taking a back seat to all of this sudden popularity.”

She looked at him, taken aback. “So because he's a public figure now, you think he's in
more
danger? I thought the idea behind helping him go public was to protect him.”

“It was and we did. They were going to deport him, remember? But
why
were they going to deport him?
Why
were they trying to kill him in the first place?
Why
was Father Matthew so concerned for his life? For that matter, why did Charles Crandal react so strongly when Caleb mentioned Tempest? And now we know that Caleb
isn't
just a unique orphan in a spot of trouble. He's a person with unthinkable power. He's a person who maybe could change history. So maybe these ‘why's' are bigger ‘why's' than we thought they were. Does that make sense?”

“Donna seemed convinced that Tempest was—”

“An endorsement. I still don't buy it. You don't gag when someone endorses you. Donna's star-struck with Crandal. And I'm not necessarily saying Crandal
is
tied up in all of this. I'm just saying that the questions are bothering me more now than when Caleb was just a lost boy.”