Christian Clarity Review

Somewhere:

Charlie squeezes the orange and notes with satisfaction it gives a little with the pressure from his hand.

But not too much.

He pulls an old, white plate from across the table and places the orange on it with one hand while fishing his pocket knife from a coat pocket. Testing the blade with his thumb as a thousand times before, he carefully lays the knife beside the plate. After an unsuccessful search of several drawers, he finds the whetstone by the open window. A few strokes and he is ready.

Thunder sounds from some distance away. He sees the overcast sky and prays again for rain.

The sharp smell of citrus erupts into the room with the first cut. He carefully begins a ring around the orange, little by little with a practiced hand exposing the bright orange flesh.

The cat licks its paw, looking on with little interest.

Somewhere else:

The river hills are in brilliant color behind her with the clouds drifting to the south like smoke. Oranges and greys, browns and shadows move with the wind, rippling in place as Jack takes the south trail and Florence follows.

The trail snakes across the hill at a rather steep angle for her. But Jack isn’t in a hurry.

He loves her.

Every step he is thinking of how to say it. Offhandedly. Intensely. Maybe in a rush mixed in with something else about the great outdoors or scrambling up the hill.

Maybe it is best to not say anything.

It is extraordinarily hot.

He slows down.

Looking at the ground and on guard for the tree roots that had almost tripped her up when she had been out here with Michael, she runs into him.

Somewhere:

Charlie lays the peel carefully to the side. His wife will make an orange sauce later from the zest.
Perhaps she will glaze the ham with honey and orange. That would be nice.

He quarters the orange in a few deft moves and lays the knife down.

Fat drops on the window sounded the beginning of the rain.

Turning the chair to watch the rain against a muted sun, he protests slightly as the cat takes the opportunity to jump in his lap before he can reach the plate.

The rain grows loud quickly on the tin roof, drowning out all of his thoughts except for thankfulness.

Somewhere else:

He is shy.

She knows lots of guys like him. They all love her after one kiss. But he is clean that way–genuine. (He likes Johnny Cash!) That is good. He can smile a smile true enough at its beginning to really disappear at its end; to let it go. His smiles are there and gone as reality changes around him. Maybe…

A thrill goes through him as he realizes she isn’t pushing away. It catches in his throat and comes out in a ridiculous wheeze: ” ‘kay?”

“Okay what?” she says, shifting and leaning against him with one hand on his chest, her hair swinging in the effort of brushing off the mud on her new hiking boots with the other.

He gives up his idea of how things might be if he did everything right-said everything perfect. Then takes a breath. “Jesus likes it here when he walks.”

The words are just another piece of the earth with their own kind of light. She forgets about the boots and wonders what else he can say. But the words are like his smile. His silence is as honest as the sound.

She looks up at him.

He is looking at a bird on the ground.

She pushs him a little.

“What?”

“Nothing. You don’t talk much, do you?” She can feel his heart beat faster under his shirt.

He looks down. “Oh. I thought maybe you were the one, you know? I thought we’d go for a walk and if Jesus spoke through me somethin’ in front of you that’d be like a sign. We could both rest and let him talk life to us through each other. And then maybe? ..more.”

She doesn’t say anything. He is so simple. If she uses her regular words he might blow away. He says whatever comes to mind. It isn’t intellectual or smart but there is something to it that she can almost handle, like wood or flowers. She sees things in his words that have nothing to do with what he said but that need his voice to be. Not like Michael at all. She smiles at hearing her dad say Michael speaks like a fart in the face.

He thinks she is making fun of him and doesn’t understand her smile.

Somewhere:

Chewing on the pieces carefully, he is satisfied. These navel oranges are a little more expensive.
But they are worth it: good orange flavor and more big bites to the effort.

He folds the knife up and puts it in his pocket. The cat protests at the inconvenience.

Gathering up the few seeds he has spit out, he places them in a cup. Later, one day, he will plant them. She will frown and tell him they don’t have any place in the yard for the trees even if they came up. (A frost would get them anyway.) But he keeps them just the same, surviving beyond her words even before she says them.

The rain is plenty already but he asks for more, praying in his heart for her to drive home safely from the store. He is in those days of being prayed through, besides the names, for those that are to him now mere signs and hints of the future as pictures from the past: ‘the hungry’, ‘the poor’, ‘the naked’, ‘the oppressed’, ‘the prisoners’, ’single people’.

Even though when he was younger he had always prayed in a hurry, (the words coming out in a stumbling rush as if something were hunting him from behind to stop the words, masked as a desire delayed until the words were done), he prays now in a walk, chewing on the orange.

He prays for them generally and sometimes as now, particularly; apart from their groups. Names. Jimmy at the hospital. Lois for a job. He prays for them intelligently, not worrying what to say and not less because they are strangers; names passed on from a list. He prays for geography, places with names and races and for more oranges in the sound of the rain.

One of the kids calls to see how things are. He holds the phone out to the rain: fine.

Somewhere else:

“I’m hungry.” he says.

“I’ve got an orange. Want some?”

“Sure.” He is hesitant.

“Well, you can peel it then.” She gives him the orange after letting her hand slip off his chest slowly and pushing him a little more.

He uses his thumb to punch a small hole in the skin and begins taking off thick pieces of the peel.
“You don’t have a knife?”

“No. I didn’t?”

She remembers her father, making a little fun at Michael. “I don’t know what to think about a man that don’t have a pocket knife.” She immediately regrets having said it.

It is so obviously not her own but borrowed for the occasion he smiles softly.

She watches as he works on the peel. “Don’t get so much orange with it! It’s all we got.” She sits down under the big oak tree nearby and takes off her pack.

He leans over the side of the trail, throwing the peels into the water and watching the current take them. A large catfish swirls with a big sound and a piece disappears. “Did you see that?!”

She looks up too late.

“I didn’t know catfish would eat orange peels.”

He hands her the orange.

“You peeled it. You divide it.”

He frowns. Why do girls make simple things hard? It’s just an orange. But he tears it in two and gives her the bigger half.

“I’ve got a bottled water we can share if the sweet makes you thirsty.”

“Okay.”

They sit under the oak and eat the wedges of orange in silence.

It is a good orange. Not bitter at all.

Somewhere:

A loud clunk against the back door announces she is home. She opens the door with one hand and carrys the groceries in the other. “Worst rain I’ve ever seen!”

The sacks leans on each other as put down her purse.

“Hmm. Did you get the milk?”

“Yeah-but two percent. They were out of fat free.”

“Any orang..?”

“I saw Pat Smith. She said Jimmy had a heart attack last week-a whole week ago! Nobody called us or anything! We’ll have to..”

“How is he?” The cat jumps down from his lap and walks toward her.

She takes a slice of orange off the plate and eats the whole thing at once. After a while she says, “He’s okay. They had to put in a pace maker.”

“Hmm.”

“Are you listening to me?”

Thunder sounds close by.

Somewhere else:

She washes her hands in the river and drinks his water. He is nice. Okay, he is more than nice. But Micheal wants the same things she does. Her mother said common goals are important. They can teach other to speak as things go by. They can teach each other a lot. That will be something. People like Jack are too much like the land they come from; like the wind or rain that blows in just when you need it. But who wants to be wet all the time? Maybe somebody like Jack will live next door.
They can be friends. Besides, when he looks at her, she knows he is holding something back. (as if what he might say would blow her up!)

“You ever think the truth was longer?” He pulls on a piece of grass.

“Than what?”

He looks around, then at her. “Than this. The river, everything. It’s here and..” he points to the bend up ahead, “? around there. Longer than now-than us.” He throws a stick in the water.

She laughs, thinking about them both: Micheal with his dirty jokes every time he hears the word ‘pole’, and Jack doesn’t even understand he is competing.

He tries to understand the humor in what he has said. But he just can’t laugh. So he says, “Sorry.”

“I just never thought of length that way. It’s okay.” She makes a note to herself to always have oranges. And water.

He looks in her eyes and knows it is no good. “Maybe we should go.”

“Let’s walk a while first. And talk.”

——————————————

Proverbs 30:18,19 There are three things too wonderful for me, and four that I know not: The way of an eagle in the heavens, the way of a serpent upon a rock, the way of a ship in the midst of the sea, and the way of a man with a maid.

In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen