God's Not Dead 2 (19 page)

“WE’RE DIVIDED
and determined to stay on our side, standing and not seeing the others’ eyes.”

Amy speaks this into her phone. Sometimes lines like this come to mind when she least expects it. This time she’s on the courthouse steps and sees a crowd that’s doubled in size. Maybe more than doubled. And the sides have definitely squared off like boxers in a ring. They’re glaring and tossing out taunts and trying to make their case. Amy wonders if they know that the trial is happening
inside
the courthouse and not on these steps.

People are barking at each other. Not talking but literally yelping words that aren’t heard but are loud and just pelting noise. Amy can’t see Marlene or Brooke.

“Get it out of the classroom!” someone screams across the steps.

“God loves you, sinner!” someone else screams back.

Well, there’s a sophisticated conversation.

There’s a loud screeching sound followed by a voice speaking into a bullhorn. Amy looks over and sees a man near the doorway aiming his loudspeaker at the crowd and starting to chant, “Teach
 
—don’t preach!” only to be joined by half the crowd. The several news crews quickly surround him to get footage. Amy can’t quite believe all the national media represented here.

How’d this get so big so fast?

She’s become absorbed into the crowd now and feels like she’s at some music festival. For a moment she’s trying to make her way to the doors but making very little progress when a hand clasps around her arm.

“Ms. Ryan
 
—this way.”

Brooke is standing there and pulls her in the opposite direction. They squeeze and push through the crowd until they reach a group of students sitting on the steps in several rows. They’re quiet and holding hands.

“This is what we were studying,” Brooke says. “Nonviolent peaceful protest.”

Marlene gives that infectious smile of hers. “And we aren’t moving.”

“Want to join us?” another girl asks.

Amy just stands there, scanning the crowd around them. “I better go back in,” she says.

“How’s it looking?” Brooke asks.

“Not very good.” She tells the girls to hang tight and then works her way to the front doors. It’s nice to be inside and out of the noise.

Amy thinks of the girls sitting and performing their “nonviolent peaceful protest.” She remembers her own phase when she
was all about this. She studied people like Gandhi and saw the film and then decided to go all in. It was her
satyagraha
season. She always used to tell everybody that this was the term Gandhi coined simply because “passive resistance” still had negative connotations and was misunderstood.

Thinking about these seasons of her life makes her wonder if she’s just searching for another one. She gets bored with springtime so she rushes over to find summer, then bursts into fall and then falls headfirst into winter.

Is my faith just a season? Is it just another round of playing dress-up like I used to do when I was a girl?

The thought of studying peaceful protest and Gandhi and Jesus makes her think of the story she heard a pastor tell a while ago from the book of Mark. Jesus was with his disciples at a man’s house, dining with lots of disreputable people, and he got called out by the Pharisees. His response was to say that only sick people need a doctor. Jesus wasn’t there to try to save those who claimed they were righteous. He came to save those who knew they were sinners.

All these people standing out in front of the courthouse, all claiming to be right.

Do they consider themselves righteous too?

There’s something about Marlene and Brooke and their other friends that makes Amy think of Jesus. The Jesus she’s read stories about didn’t come with a sign or a threat or a bullhorn. He came to sit down next to you and have a relationship and simply share the truth.

It’s the truth that scares so many people. It’s fear of the truth that keeps the name of Christ out of the classroom. The truth that says Jesus is the only way.

Amy knows it scares her, too. It scares her a lot.

PASTOR DAVE
 
—or Reverend Dave, I’m still not sure which one he should be called
 
—has me worried. I knew from the very beginning he didn’t expect to be sitting on the jury, but when I got him on it, I hoped he would be sympathetic to Grace’s case. But now it seems there’s something going on with him that may or may not be related to this case. This morning, he’s been looking a little green. Is it a case of Montezuma’s revenge from a bad batch of tuna salad he ate last night? Or could it be something else?

After we come back from lunch and my second surprise witness is ready to be called to the stand, I watch the jurors all file in like a class of third graders. It’s always interesting watching jurors experiencing something that’s usually completely foreign to them. Is jury
duty fascinating? Probably not. But it’s definitely foreign. Pastor Dave is the last to come in, and he seems to have gotten worse.

He’s no longer pale
 
—he’s flushed. The guy looks like he spent his lunch break training for the next Olympics. In his regular street clothes. His face is dotted with sweat, and I can see rings around his armpits and spots even on his chest. His light-blue shirt is not a good one for perspiration outbreaks like that.

The older woman sitting next to him says something to him while giving him a look of caution. She then seems to try to sit as far away from him as she can.

“All rise!” the announcement comes.

The steady sound of a couple hundred people rising from their seats rushes over the room. Judge Stennis moves a bit more slowly than usual. I’m wondering if that steak he had for lunch is sitting well in his stomach.

“You may be seated,” he says.

For some reason, Pastor Dave remains standing. I don’t have to be a doctor to realize that something’s wrong. Really wrong. His eyes look out of it.

Judge Stennis looks over at the juror and waits for a moment, watching him to see if he sits or makes a sound.

“Juror number twelve, is there something you’d like to say?”

The pastor looks over at the judge like he’s very, very far away. There’s more sweat and more blotchy color on his face.

“Your Honor
 
—I don’t feel too
 
—”

He lurches forward and is caught by the railing in front of him as he falls down. There are several gasps and shrieks as the jurors around him stand and a few go to help him up. More people talk and stand and suddenly the courtroom is ruled by chaos.

Judge Stennis cracks his gavel but nobody seems to hear. Pastor
Dave is helped up to his chair while several people go to see him, including the bailiff and a police officer.

“What happened?” Grace says with a hand on my arm.

I can only watch and think the worst.

Our trump card just got trumped.

“I’m not sure. He looks sick.” I hate stating the obvious, but in this case I don’t have any idea what else to say.

“What are they going to do?” she asks me.

“I don’t know.”

The judge tries to get order in the court and calls out some instructions. The rest of the jurors are sent out of the courtroom while a team of paramedics comes in and checks out Dave. The crowd behind us mostly watches in complete bewilderment.

At one point I look over at Kane and his team. He’s trying to hide the smirk, but I don’t have to see it on his mouth. It’s in his eyes.

“They’re strapping him to a gurney,” Grace says in utter
 
—something. Disgust maybe. Disdain. Disillusion. Distaste.

She’s feeling a
dis
word right now.

Maybe she’s feeling a bit dissed by God.

As for me, I’m numb. This sort of thing happens to me all the time.
All
the time. I’m not a woe-is-me sort of guy, but the woes don’t take the hint, so they keep following me.

Once Dave has been wheeled out of the courtroom, the judge adjourns for the day.

“Wait a minute,” Grace says to me. “How can he just call it a day?”

“I don’t know if you realize this, but judges are basically sovereign power in their courtrooms. As far as operations like adjourning, they can do pretty much anything.” I collect my documents and files and follow Grace toward the door.

Peter Kane seems to be waiting for me. I can already hear what’s coming as he walks alongside me in that finely tailored suit of his.

“How’s
that
for proof there is no God?” Kane asks me.

I’m glad he’s out of Grace’s earshot. “He’s not gone yet.”

We both know, however, that the guy’s gone.

“You just lost the one juror you could actually count on,” Kane reminds me.

“Maybe his perceived bias would have backfired.”

As we reach the door, Kane turns and blocks it to talk to me in private.

“Have you seen the cameras out there, Tom? The protesters?”

I just shake my head and look perplexed. “No. I haven’t seen any of that. A few pigeons by the fountain. They’re pretty
 
—have you seen them?”

“Save your cuteness for your client. The country is watching. And do you know why? Because this will be yet another barrier broken down and obliterated in the court of public opinion.”

“Some of those protesters are on my client’s side,” I say.

He nods and I think I detect some type of old-guy aftershave that smells like Scotch and new-car leather.

“Does your client know that her lawyer is way out of his league? These new witnesses
 
—what did you do, google writers and speakers who argue for the existence of God?”

Again I nod and show no emotion except complete seriousness. “Actually, you’re right; I totally did that. That was after watching your hero on television.”

Kane indulges me with a sarcastic “And who might that be?”

“Lionel Hutz. Your TV doppelgänger.”

He looks around the mostly empty courtroom and then seems to stretch the muscles in his face.

“I’m sure that’s a very, very funny joke. But you see
 
—in my world, I’m a master at litigation, not pop culture.”

Before I can tell him where the name is from, Kane turns and heads out of the room. I figure he wouldn’t find it amusing in the least even though I still think
The Simpsons
reference is funny.

It’s either get ticked or get stupid.

I’d rather be the latter when it comes to Kane’s superiority complex.

It takes me a few minutes to find Grace, and when I do I stop and just watch her. She’s near the stone wall and the metal railing underneath the dome, overlooking the main floor below. You can see four sculptures from where she’s standing, and each one is a female figure sitting in a cloth-draped chair.

I stop because I can see Grace’s hands clasped together and her eyes shut. It’s no secret what she’s doing.

A few moments later, when she opens them again and continues looking down on the floor below, I walk over and stand next to her to look down too.

“You okay?” I ask.

“No.”

“Good.”

“‘Good’?” Grace asks in surprise.

“Yeah. If you had said you were doing okay, I’d know you were lying. And we can’t have any dishonesty between us. Right?”

“So how are
you
doing?” she asks.

“I just had a nice chat with Kane. So honestly? I suddenly have this terrible headache.”

This makes her laugh.

I glance down and then point at one of the sculptures. “I bet you know all about those, right?”

She nods. I’m sure she’s told quite a few classes what the limestone statues represent.

“Okay, so test me,” I say. “The lady holding a thing of wheat
 
—that’s for farming, right?”

“Agriculture,” she says.

“Same thing. And the one holding the scroll over her lap. That’s for literature.”

“Art,” she corrects me again.

“The woman with the sledgehammer. I’ve always thought that
should
be for law, but it’s not, right?”

“That one is industry.”

“Yes, of course. So the last lady holding the sword
 
—that’s the law, right?”

Grace looks at it and nods. “It’s justice.”

“Ah. An entirely
different
thing, then.”

I’m joking, of course.

“Do you think justice will show up in our case?”

“I don’t know. But since I’m not a praying sort of guy, you better keep them up. Every little bit helps.”

“You know, just because you’re not a ‘praying sort of guy,’ that doesn’t mean you can’t pray. They’re always heard
 
—even from derelicts like you.”

I laugh and follow as she heads down the stairs.

We still have time to figure out something new for our case strategy.

And maybe pray.

SHE DOESN’T EVEN KNOW.
A year after being diagnosed with cancer, Amy still hasn’t told her mother. Perhaps there’s no reason to do so now. Perhaps she can let it go like the other hundred things every single day that she never says anything about. But this was a big one. She’s tried. She’s called and left messages. But relationships are like plants in the middle of summer. If you don’t water them and look out for them, they’ll die. It’s that simple. You have to pay attention.

And I stopped paying attention.

After the strange mishap with the guy on the jury, and after the trial was adjourned till tomorrow, Amy finds herself wanting to get away from the dwindling protesters and the passionate teenagers full of faith. She doesn’t want to see anybody from this case.
All she wants to do is ask someone some questions. Someone who knows her.

Amy tries her mother’s phone again. Every ring is like hearing the puncture of a tire on her car. On the fourth ring, she gets a voice mail, a familiar one, the same one that’s been there for a whole year. She thinks about leaving a message, but she just clicks off the phone. What else is there to say that hasn’t already been said?

“Mom, I need to talk.”

Check.

“Mom, please call me; I’m in trouble.”

Check.

“Are you there?”

Check.

“Mom, I don’t get it. What did I do?”

Check.

A late-night curse-filled message.

Checkmate.

Mom will know she called. But the truth is that Mom has moved on. Maybe she had to move on. All those times of trying and all those times Amy
wasn’t
there. Mom knows what this is like because she used to be the one calling and leaving messages while Amy thought she was too big and too busy for her neurotic and needy mother. Words had been expressed
 
—some written in e-mails, some texted, some spoken out loud. Just like the kind of malicious words Amy used to write on a daily basis as if they satisfied some kind of addiction. Poison can come in all varieties, and the kind Amy was addicted to came out in her blogs.

Maybe her mother has really and truly had enough.

But just like an addict who’s gotten clean, Amy can feel the
withdrawal. The need to fill those places that the hate and cynicism used to fill. She had hoped or thought or maybe just wished a bit that hearing Mom’s voice could perhaps . . . just possibly . . .

She pulled over to get gas before making the call but hasn’t even gotten out of her car yet. The tank is half-full. Or half-empty, depending on how you look at it.

Or maybe you’re just stuck in the middle like you were back at the courthouse, in between two camps of people like you’ve always been. Good old In-Between Amy.

She wonders if God sees her this way. He’s up there and the devil is down there and she’s stuck in the middle doing neither of them any good. At least she used to be a warrior for one of them, right? Even if it hadn’t actually been for the right side.

Go see the pastor Mina told you about.

It seems so pedestrian. So cliché. So needy. She’d rather go see a shrink and get a prescription for something.

Go see him.

A truck behind her honks, jolting her. She starts up the car and leaves. She finds the address of the church she e-mailed to herself.

What else is there to do?

Her options are continuing to shut on her. She might as well take one that’s still open.

Church of the Redeemer is off the main road, perched on a small hill. It’s an older church, the kind that appears to be a relic of the past with its stained-glass windows and steeple. Nowadays so many churches seem to be connected buildings situated around a parking lot that look equipped to handle a Super Bowl. Amy finds the small parking lot. It’s Monday afternoon, so there are only a handful of cars parked in the lot.

It still takes her time to find the office she’s looking for. Nobody was at the welcome desk or the reception area, so Amy finds a directory and spots his name on it. Reverend David Hill. Room 204. She heads upstairs and goes down one hallway, then another, to eventually find the door.

It’s closed. The glass window to the side of the door is dark. She knocks, then tries opening the door, but it’s locked.

Well, there you go, Amy. This is what God’s telling you.

“Can I help you with something?”

Amy would be startled except for the fact that the voice sounds almost soothing. When she turns and sees the friendly, dark face looking at her, she realizes the accent sounds African. Maybe Kenyan. He’s holding a couple bags of garbage.

“I’m looking for Pastor Dave. But I guess he’s not here. Obviously.”

The man nods and walks closer. He has comforting eyes that don’t move from hers.

“My ex-boyfriend’s sister, Mina, told me Pastor Dave was wonderful and I should come see him.”

“Well, I’m sorry; he’s not here. He won’t be back until after next week.”

“Oh, okay.” She suddenly feels very stupid being in this hallway looking for someone who doesn’t even know her. “Thanks.”

As she turns to go, he speaks again. “You know
 
—they call me a bit of a neat freak around here. I don’t mind taking out the trash when it’s necessary. We have a custodian who tells me he’ll do it, but I really don’t mind. But if you need to talk, I’m actually a minister.”

She normally would say no. But something about this man
 
—something about the fact that he’s holding those trash bags and
grinning and acting like he has all the time in the world
 
—tells her that she should talk to him. That she needs to talk to him.

“I’m Reverend Jude,” he says in his thick accent as he extends his hand after putting the bags of garbage down.

“Amy,” she says.

They walk downstairs, and he leads her into a small chapel. It has a stained-glass window at the back, behind the pulpit. There are two rows of pews on each side. The reverend sits down in the back pew and offers her the space next to him.

“It’s so quiet here,” Amy says.

He nods. “I love to come here at this time and look at the colors on the wall. Isn’t it amazing how they almost twinkle at you?”

Amy stares up at the glass and finds herself a bit lost in it.

“So why did your friend of your ex or the sister of your boyfriend
 
—?”

“My ex-boyfriend’s sister,” Amy clarifies.

Jude just laughs a low, good-natured chuckle. “Yes. Good thing we have that cleared up.”

“I’m sorry. I like editing everybody. That’s why I hate my own messy life.”

“And why is your life messy?”

Amy begins to tell the reverend her story. About growing up with no faith and getting older and beginning to resent it. About her mother resenting her resentment. About learning that she had cancer and being dumped and then seeing God somewhere in the middle.

“Everything
 
—it happened so fast
 
—and all of a sudden I just found myself alone and all I could do was pray and ask God for help,” she says.

Amy recounts her recent months
 
—about the cancer going into
remission, about her doctor dying of ALS, about all the emptiness that makes her wonder if her faith was ever real to begin with.

“Why would you wonder that?” Reverend Jude says.

“It’s because
 
—I’m struggling to believe. I’ve examined the facts. I know Jesus existed, but my worldly brain seems to be at war with my heart on the faith side.”

The scolding that used to come from her mother in moments like this is nowhere to be found. Neither is an impatience to get to the point or to move on to something else. The man seems quite content to stay in this pew with her for hours. He takes a moment before responding, then speaks clearly and softly and slowly.

“Actually, I think you already do believe, Amy. And the proof is that you’re here. Do you know how many men and women are threatened by the idea of walking through the doors of a church? Or how many procrastinate in doing so? And that’s on a Sunday morning. But you’re here on a Monday afternoon, of all times. That’s admirable.”

“Maybe not,” she says. “Maybe I’m just trying to hide from as many people as possible.”

Jude laughs. “I believe you’re not willing to put God back on the shelf now that your cancer is gone. He won’t let you dismiss the thought of him.”

She nods. She knows he’s right.

But what if I want to put God back on the shel
f
?

It’s almost like the reverend can read her mind. “I believe part of you
senses
Jesus’ presence and wishes he would just go away and leave you alone sometimes,” he says.

Bingo.

“I have to admit,” she says, “I’ve had that thought.”

“Of course. You know the thing Satan loves more than a noisy crowd yelling and screaming?”

“What?”

“Silence. Complete and utter silence. The kind you might have in the middle of a lake, sitting in a small boat with a fishing pole in your hand. This lazy, let-the-world-pass sort of quiet. When we stop caring and stop feeling those nudges coming from God
 
—well, that’s when things get dangerous.”

“I just
 
—I feel like God was there when I needed him. But now
 
—I don’t know
 
—it’s like maybe he has better things to do than worry about me. Maybe it’s better if he leaves me alone.”

Jude shakes his head and smiles. “He loves you
too much
to do that.”

She’s never thought of it that way.

Loving someone so much they won’t let go.

It’s like the opposite of what Marc is doing. He’s lonely and needy and for some reason wants what the holes in his heart can’t have. But God chasing after her? The God of the universe
 
—the maker of the sun and the moon and the stars, the giver of life and the one who knows and sees all?

How can he want anything to do with me?

“I’ve just been
 
—I’ve sort of been floating in the middle of the ocean for the last year,” Amy tells the reverend. “It’s like
 
—like I was saved after my plane went down but I’m still lost at sea wondering what to do next.”

“That can happen,” Jude says. “And it’s good that you are reaching out to someone as esteemed as Reverend Dave.”

The humor on his face and the wry tone of his voice make her think he’s teasing or maybe having an inside joke.

“It’s time to stop floating, Amy. It’s time to stop waiting for
God to blow you back to shore. I think it’s time you start paddling to find dry land yourself.”

Another thing she’s never thought of before. She always assumed if God did the first part, he would continue the job.

He’s put me here and is allowing me to continue the job.

“Do you know something, Amy? God delights in using us in ways we never dreamed of . . . and in giving us things we never even knew we wanted. We just have to give him the chance.”

They talk for a few more moments, and Amy eventually admits out loud that it was probably a God thing that she ran into Jude. “Thank you for everything you’ve said.”

Reverend Jude laughs. “I don’t know about a ‘God thing.’ Reverend Dave was serving jury duty this week. And as it turned out, he had to be rushed to the hospital this afternoon. He and his appendix decided to get a very quick and nasty divorce.”

Amy can almost feel her mouth flopping open and staying that way. “He was on a jury?” she asks, thinking of the guy whom the paramedics had to come and take away on a gurney.

“Yes. A big-profile case.”

She laughs. She laughs so hard that tears start to form in her eyes.

“What is it?” Jude asks.

“That thing you said about God delighting? I can sure see it now. He’s just loving this.”

Do you trust him enough to give him a chance?

God is certainly showing his sense of humor to her.

“The thing God loves is us, Amy. He loves us. That fact will never change.”