Christian Clarity Review

Homam

The breeze blows softly, washing the small valley with the light scent of the banyan trees and carrying the sounds of every day life to all with the ears to hear.

Homam sits, contemplating the changes brought about by an influx of young Muslim converts to his village. His friend Abdul was killed last week in rioting over an honor killing. But Homam and his family are okay.

For the moment.

Timing is everything. You know your time, the geist des alters and how to make that spirit pull a plough, you got it made. Knowing when and how to steer left or right of the trouble: that is the thing.

Abdul proved it: everyone lived outside their own religious mind and heart. No matter what they said they believed or how it made them feel, the world revolved around a larger geist than each man’s own system. It was this larger thing that made up the real commerce and it was this larger thing that was in truth les irréductibles : das und die vielen. The smaller economies within it were of no consequence and only served the larger whole even though each imagined itself to be everything.

In the Hindu system Hindus are correct. In the Muslim system the Muslims are correct. In the Christian system the Christians are correct. The Jews are the same. Everyone in an endless game of top-the-bat. But that the bat exists and there is a struggle proves it is only a game within something larger.

It is in the time-outs where you make your money. Homam has always imagined himself selling drinks at an American baseball game to those who say there is no such drink but always give up the cash for it.

He blows out the smoke from his hand rolled cigarette as the music drifts out from inside. The mayor is inside with his wife. The bedsprings creak like an old, metal sign swinging slowly back and forth on rusty hinges: fif-teen rupees, fif-teen rupees, fif-teen rupees…

The mayor doesn’t understand him, how he doesn’t mind having a whore for a wife. The mayor always looks at him as if he is insane even as he forks over the rupees politely when Homam looks in Omar’s direction. Omar is his bouncer; a twenty percenter.

People like to pretend they never peak over the fence after they already did. They like to pretend that drink doesn’t exist. Thus: Omar .

Homam is glad his wife is a whore; knows that it is the prostitutes who are the wisest people on earth. She understood before Abdul that everyone lives outside whatever mind or heart of religion they have. After all, if everybody lives the system they speak, then no body will rent another person’s body for a mental experiment with physical consequences that can’t be had in their own system. There wouldn’t be any homosexuality, adultery or divorce except by the atheist.

Homam knows he is rich because every body wants a peek over their own particular fence. So Abdul was right in his perverse Muslim way: speak peace to the prophet, but understand you live between the prophet and your fellow man’s pride and ignorance. To survive you have to turn his ignorance and pride into your cash. The prophet understands. He made the system.

Homam took anohter drag on the cigarette and blew out the smoke through his nostrils. Definitely. We just live here.

Homam prefers the Americanism of “the other guy” to “fellow man” though. It is so… right there. That the Americans even have such a saying proves they understand. He knows there is no “Allah”, but that the Hindu gods have made the system and run it for whatever peculiarity of gods that made them do such things. But as long as all the gods use the same cash, have the same medium of exchange, even if it is souls and bodies, what difference is there if the other guy thinks he is smarter for saying certain words more often than others? Cash is cash.

Homam. It is the one thing he can never get over, the one thing that doesn’t fit in the whole or in the Hindu.

It is an odd name for a Hindu. His mother had said it was Biblical, though he had no idea why he would be named with a Biblical name. But once again, it only proved that you really have to live outside your own system. Other people make you. His mother had been wise to make him carry around a proof. Whenever he forgot the lesson, there it is in the other guy’s mouth, the other guy’s thoughts of who he is.

The mayor’s son sits out on the porch with him, looking disgusted. A young man, he is full of ideals: still trying to obtain to them and keeping intact all the ones he has already obtained. Prostitutes are beneath him. So are their husbands.

But silence in the the kid’s system is there to be filled with proofs that his system is god. The kid is a new Muslim. The prophet this … great Satan that. Moral perfections just over the next hill. You know.

The kid just doesn’t know when to stop. His kind are the dangerous ones: new converts there to out-perform the older converts.

——-

Homam: Did you hear of the wedding bomb?

Kid: It wasn’t a ‘wedding bomb’. The wedding party was an accident. Islam respects marriage. Besides, it wasn’t even Al Qaeda. It was the Jews.

I didn’t know that.

The prophet, may he be blessed, has instructed us to go after the infidels. Do you realize that doing so is true compassion? That many in the world suffer because they don’t know the prophet? We are holy warriors uniting those who have been lied to with their truth.

And the others?

Like pimps and prostitutes? I say kill them. They know what they do. They have heard of the prophet.

You are a brave young man.

To say that to you? The prophet protects me. Omar is nothing.

But you only use such words as you grew up with. I suppose every prophet is a prisoner to the speech of those to whom he speaks, eh? A prisoner to their will? It is too easy to kill. I say overwhelm me –then I’ll say he’s a prophet.

Be careful. He may give you what you wish for as a bullet.

—————–

The reeds bend softly in the breeze; a bird sighs in the banyan trees. The bedsprings are creaking rapidly now.

Homam smiles: The kid is still in his infancy. He is a fool and doesn’t know it. Homam knows the kids hears the very same creaking sign as Homam, at the very same time as: ”Your wife is a whore and you are a corruptor! You’re wife is whore and you are a corruptor! You’re wife is a whore and you are a corruptor!…. and thinks it evil. The kid has been given so many rupees all his life he knows nothing of how to get them from the other guy and how hard that is.

But in his easy wealth the kid is dangerous. Homam recognizes the signs.

Abdul had told him years ago: there will be times when they get lost in their minds and hearts and forget the larger economy. In those times, they will blame anything evil that happens to them on their stepping out of their own lie of what the world is. They will blame it on you because you live outside all the time and in their mind tempt them to so as well. In those times it is best to take a vacation for a while. Know when the other guy has gone back in his own system for more than a few days. Get out of town. Or kill them first.

His wife knows some things. But she is always blind to those moments of violent clarity. She doesn’t understand the subtleties of timing and cash.

Maybe France. Uruguay?

———————————————————————————–

At sea:

First the ship instead of a plane, which adds weeks to their arrival and delayed them when they needed to be on site yesterday; then the delay at the dock. Now the word is the crew is still too sick to start getting familiar with the equipment.

In the wheel house, steadying himself with his knees against the rail, Izzy looks out over the bow. The ship plows into the next wave. Spray and small flecks of foam shower onto the thick, angled window in front of him. The flow over the glass distorts the sight of the clouds, horizon, white-topped wall of on-rushing water, then the pointed bow of the ship. Melting and blurring, it stretches and drains out the bottom and sides of the window. All of it pours in from the top in reverse as the ship rises. Having grown used to the repetition, it is a timing that beat steadily inside him and a clock by which he waits impatiently to make the day pass.

He stands, finally comfortable with his own sea legs, gripping his wrist just below the bandage. A huge wave throws up more spray than before. It smacks into the glass in front of his face, snapping him back to the present.

He sighs heavily. Waiting is the worst.

“A what?” The Captain sits in his chair behind a small console in the middle of the wheelhouse, holding a handset to his ear.

Izzy turns at the tone of his voice. The commander frowns and points to the deck behind him. They both look down at the deck and see a crewman talking into a handset by the lower hatch, looking toward them and pointing to an upper deck on the far side of the main cargo hold.

Izzy sees nothing at first, then a head and shoulders pop out from behind the open hatch. Two arms grip the thin rail. It isn’t a crewman. “It’s that guy from the day labor agency. What’s his name? John ..Billy ..something like that. Jimmy.”

—–

There is still a ringing in her ears. The nausea has passed. For the first time since coming on board she opens the door leading to the main deck and walks into the sunshine. Mary has finally gotten her sea legs, learning to anticipate the constant rotating, rocking motion of the floor beneath her. She walks over to the rail. Gripping it hard and looking over the horizon, she takes in a long, deep breath.

It feels good to get out of the cabin where all the walls were grey metal and into the open. The wet scent is wonderful as it flows over her a little faster than the speed of the ship slipping into the next wave.

“Eight foot seas.” Izzy says from behind her over the sound of the wind and waves. The beauty and the enormity of the sky and water somehow make it seem necessary to speak louder than usual to be heard.

“I’m sorry?” she says turning.

“We’re in eight foot seas now. Weather report says we’re heading into twenty and thirty foot seas. Maybe worse. Enjoy it while you can.”

He hands her a mug of tea. She gratefully accepts. Drinking the entire contents without stopping, she sighs with satisfaction at the end.

He smiles knowingly. “Hungry?”

“Starved.”

“There’s plenty of chow in the mess. Enjoy the view for a minute. This’ll be a rare site.”

They look toward the horizon as one hump of water after another roll toward them, each handing off to the one behind the reflection of the sun as an orange light. The image is half solid, half melting, flowing in the same spot and whole.

“No birds out this far. We’re definitely at sea.” Izzy leans on the rail as he speaks.

“I’ve never even been on a fishing trip. We took all our vacations in the mountains. One year we went to the desert. But I’ve never been on the ocean.”

“We?”

She hears the attention to detail in his voice and resents it proves she is a widow. Simply saying “I am a widow”, even to herself seems too much work. “My husband and I and our little girl–though not so little any more.”

“Bobby told me about her. Beth Ann? You must be proud.”

“You know Bobby?”

“We’ve drunk from the same bottle a few times.”

“You like him.”

“He’s a great guy–good commander.”

She gives a small laugh. “All you military types are the same. Ask about someone and all you get is: “They wear clothes. They serve his utilitarian function well.”

“Sorry about the way things got started.”

“Did he really say I was the best?”

“That he did.”

A warm breeze washes over them.

“You seemed nervous the first time you came to see me. Why? You don’t seem like the type.”

“I’ve been hearing about you for a couple of years. ‘Mary’s doing this. Mary’s doing that.’ How attractive you were. How smart you were. How he hoped he could set us up after the accident. All that. I needed your expertise and I needed it quick and the rest was baggage to get tripped up over—and we’d never even met. Not my favorite type of situation, you know?”

“It was business.”

“It is business. There’s no room for awkward here. The space will be a little cramped as it is besides the situation with Bobby. There’s no miss here. None.”

“You didn’t want me to come.”

“It wasn’t my decision.” It was a small fudge and that only in his estimation of her system. He had always considered himself a non-religious determinist. “It won’t make any difference, right? You’re the best. The mess is open. The chow is good. We’ve got a lot of work to do. Nobody really knows anybody and we’re not a team yet.”

Mary moved toward the open hatch behind her. “Let’s get to it.”

“We’ve had some excitement since you’ve been asleep.”

“News?”

“No. None of the site. But there is a stowaway.”

“Like in the movies?”

“I suppose so. It was one of the day laborers. He says he just wanted to know what was out here. I don’t know whether to believe him or not.”

————————————————

Henry

Henry speaks into the fading darkness in a voice barely above a whisper: “I think when I grow up, I want to be a tree.”

A warm, soft voice of merriment beside him asks, “What kind of tree would you be?”

He is surprised she is awake. He raises his arm and she snuggles in beside him. “Oh, I’d be a myfruit tree.”

“Myfruit, huh? Would you be delicious?”

He thinks for a moment. “I’d be groovilicious.”

She snuggles in closer to him before asking, “Yummm….would I have to peel you or could I just pop you in my mouth?”

“Who says I’d be for eating? Maybe I’d be a spice–or better as a drink. Maybe they would strip my pulp and make ropes from my fibers. Or beautiful furniture from my wood.”

“People would see that desktop and say “Hey, I see you had a Myfruit tree!”

“I’d be a valuable asset—even dead. Maybe you could make a narcotic from my flowers–if you had the heart to pick one. You could sniff me and see gods.”

“Well I hate to burst your bubble honey, but only the female of the species get to bear fruit.”

“There you go–spice or desktops it is. Cinammon is a kind of bark. Maybe I’d be good with coffee.”

She laughs and kisses him on the mouth. “I love you–no matter what those other voices say.”

—-

“I’d loose my leaves in winter. But I’d be hardy to a hundred below.” he says, grabbing some coffee and kissing her on his way out. “Even volcanic ash and nuclear winter wouldn’t kill me. But I guess I could be cut down.” The door closes behind him suddenly and a little louder than he intended. He smiles and shrugged as he turns toward the car.

She watches him walk out to the car and wave goodbye, wondering what is going on.

He never discusses work.

She has given up asking about it long ago. But now as she watches him backing out of the drive she wonders what could have brought out that small exchange. It isn’t that it isn’t in him to be that way or have those thoughts; but he would never have said them.

Forty minutes later Henry sits in his office. Having finished the paperwork to get the young grad student on board the project, he sits staring at the still-rotating characters on the screen.

“Any luck?” It is Jack Wallace, head of the aerospace arm of Crenshaw Humming, one of the largest sponsors of the research underway in the Antarctic. His company built and share the facilities in which the Astrobiology Institute work and have constructed a large portion of the experiments that were to have run in the underground Antarctic lab. Jack is well known as the prince of profit who inherited the company from his father, likes to talk techie but knows next to nothing of actual scientific value.

Dmitri smiles at the thought of Henry’s former description of Jack: “He pronounces the word ‘dendrite’ perfectly.” Dmitri had replied, “Everybody has niche.”

Jack sees Dmitri’s smile. “What?”

They generally avoid each other. But the plate has intrigued Jack as well. There is a general truce on.

“Nothing yet. Dmitri has an idea. We’ll see how it goes.”

“Keep me posted.”

“Sure.” Henry nods and watches Jack walk away.

“Any news on the site?” Henry asks Dmitri.

“Nothing. Still nothing.”

“It’s gonna be a long day.”

Jack shakes hands with several of the staff and waves to Henry as he gets on the elevator. Beside him in the elevator his assistant says, “Mr. Wallace, I don’t think Dr. Fielding likes you. I’m not sure he can be trusted.”

“He’s a thinker–good one. He’s sees me as a necessary evil. We understand each other.”

“The second crew is still at sea. Everything is on schedule.”

Jack nods and patiently waits to reach the top. There is only waiting now. Everything that can be done has been done.

————————————————————————-

1Corinthians 12:12-27 For even as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of the body, being many, are one body, so also is the Christ. For also in the power of one Spirit *we* have all been baptised into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bondmen or free, and have all been given to drink of one Spirit. For also the body is not one member but many. If the foot say, Because I am not a hand I am not of the body, is it on account of this not indeed of the body? And if the ear say, Because I am not an eye I am not of the body, is it on account of this not indeed of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where the hearing? if all hearing, where the smelling? But now God has set the members, each one of them in the body, according as it has pleased him . But if all were one member, where the body? But now the members are many, and the body one. The eye cannot say to the hand, I have not need of thee; or again, the head to the feet, I have not need of you. But much rather, the members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary; and those parts of the body which we esteem to be the more void of honour, these we clothe with more abundant honour; and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness; but our comely parts have not need. But God has tempered the body together, having given more abundant honour to the part that lacked; that there might be no division in the body, but that the members might have the same concern one for another. And if one member suffer, all the members suffer with it ; and if one member be glorified, all the members rejoice with it . Now *ye* are Christ’s body, and members in particular.

In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen