Golden Calf

Ava reclined with her Bible in the backyard while two of her children and some of their friends played in the pool. She read the verse, Micah 6:8, for the third time, feeling she should probably consider it for a sermon but she couldn’t figure out how to round out the points on mercy and humility. Why was she struggling with it?, she wondered. More importantly, why hadn’t thought about this before?

The children began to get rowdy. There was angry yelling and splashing and a growl. She lifted a gold bangled arm to shield her eyes from the sun, which had moved into her line of vision while she read.

One of her children was standing rigid and glaring at one of the other kids, all on pool floats. Ava climbed out of her lounge chair and walked over, her maxi dress blowing in the breeze.

“What’s the matter?”

The nine year old pointed a stiff finger and arm at one of the other boys, “He wants to play on my blow-up shark.”

“Well, Johnny, you’re supposed to share your toys with your guests.”

“But it’s mine and it’s my pool.”

“And if you want people to want to play with you, you should share.”

He walked up to the other kid with purpose, and Ava headed back to her chair.

Behind her, she heard the words, “I’ll let you play with it if you give me a dollar.”

Ava squinted her eyes tight, breathed deep, and managed to turn and go back.

“Johnny, that’s not sharing. Guests don’t pay.”

“Fine,” he yelled and pushed the shark over.

For a moment he glared at the kid playing with his shark, then he climbed out of the pool, went to the pool house, and came back with another toy.

At church the next day, Ava was greeted bright and early by a staff member who told her as they walked to Ava’s office, “We’re buying the bigger house we prayed for.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful,” Ava told the woman, looking at her to show her sincerity.

Another staff member chatted her up before she could get in the door, and in the course of conversation asked, “When’s Mason coming home?”

“In a week.”

“Gosh, he sure does stay away a long time.” The woman’s eyes grew wide. “I’m sorry, that doesn’t sound right.”

“It’s okay. I don’t take offense to it; he’s working for the family,” she assured her and unlocked her door, stepping inside.

An hour later, Ava had the mic in her hand, “God will hold you and protect you. Trust in Him, follow Him, and you and your family will be safe in His blessings,” she ended her sermon and backed away from the pulpit as the band came out.

As she mingled among her congregation, Ava overheard two women discussing the too obvious breasts, or chest, as they called it, on one of other members of the church. “I wouldn’t wear anything like that, and to church too.”

She looked at the woman they were discussing, blankly, unconsciously, and when the blankness subsided, and she actually fixed her eyes where she was looking, she saw only a dress that she recognized from the most expensive shop in town. Because she shopped there. Looking from person to person among the crowd, they all looked the same. The women complaining, their husbands nearby, every single person in sight was decked out in finery, the tokens of the “good life,” a gleaming watch here, golf pins and tennis pins, socks with yacht prints peeking out from under suit pants, skin that smelled of expensive cologne.

Ava felt odd. She couldn’t place what was wrong, she just saw everything with a new eye and a sense of unease. When she stepped out of her church, she walked slowly through the parking lot, trying to pinpoint what she was feeling. The gleam of the luxury cars sparkled at her as she passed. Then she heard voices that struck her still.

“He’s going to look out for us, this one. Keep the money in our pockets and our homes secure,” one man cheered as he pointed to a button on a golf bag in his trunk.

When she got to her car, Ava paused at the door as if winded, though her breathing was not what was affected. She closed her eyes and prayed, simply calling out to Jesus in her mind. She didn’t have anything else.

On the way home, she passed another church. Something caught her eye. It was two women, both clad in the layers one associates with those without a home, walking to the door. She stopped for a red light and watched them go in. A car horn blared behind her and she jerked forward, then turned to the side and found a place to park.

She took in the quaint church as she walked inside. Behind the door there was a side passage labeled, “shop for free”, another bearing the words, “we listen,” and in the vast area beyond, the congregation were washing each other’s feet. There were a group of people near the doorway who were looking anxiously at one very comfortable and pleasant Latino woman who was washing the feet of the first in line.

Ava watched mesmerized for some time as the line shortened. When the isolated group had gone, the woman turned to Ava.

“Can I help you?”

“Oh, I, was just cur… fascinated,” she nodded, slowly, deeply as she realized herself how she was feeling.

“Many people feel that way,” the woman spoke in a light, insignificant almost laugh that was disarming, as though that were the least interesting part of the whole thing.

“I wondered why this group was separate from the others,” Ava pointed to where the people had been standing.

“They are ashamed to mingle with the others. We have had prostitutes, homeless people, those who think their feet are ugly, shy people, some who are afraid of how they’ll feel having a stranger touch their feet, gay people, and those who were just nervous about the church. And some people that once felt that way are out there mingling today.”

“I…”

The woman smiled a tiny smile, “Come in and sit down,” her arm gestured smoothly.

“I’m Pastor Ava Jones.”

The woman blinked, “I’ve heard of you.”

“I hadn’t heard of you.”

She laughed again. “My name’s Margarita. I’m about to start my sermon. Do you want to stay?”

Ava breathed deep, knowing full well there was no other answer but having to muster strength to say it. “Yes.”

Margarita walked up to the interior of the room where a pulpit would usually go, but there was none. It was a relatively small church, but airy, and there was nothing but pews and a couple of stained glass windows in this room so there was space for more people than one would think. Margarita looked large standing there in her brazen smallness.

“Good morning, thank you all for coming. We usually like to start with a little singing.” She then began to sing It is Well with no accompaniment but the feeling that crept out of her. The crowd sang with her, including Ava.

“Something’s on my mind this week. Many of you have probably been distressed about the news, we hear about awful things that happen to people and we don’t know how to process it, we don’t know how God fits in. I’m going to share a trick with you, one that seems counter-intuitive but is really powerful and effective. You pray for the person who did the evil act. Not because you support them or like them or even feel like you can see them as a human being, but because praying gives you strength. I’m going to be honest and tell you that I don’t really know how it works. I just know it does, and that it reminds me of Jesus. Praying for your enemies takes the fear out of a situation. And you never know what good, world-changing act may be brought about this prayer. So today, I want to ask everyone to take a moment to pray for someone that scares them. That man in the news this week or someone from your own life. Do it now during this moment of silence I’m about to give everyone or later on when you can muster it up.”

Ava sat in the pew completely transfixed. She felt certain that God was moving in her life today but she had no idea what she was supposed to do with what was happening, so she sought the strength of the hard pew. The sermon ended and people began to mill about, many leaving, some talking among themselves or to Margarita. Ava couldn’t seem to move. When she finally did stand up, she puttered forward aimlessly.

Margarita appeared within Ava’s sight with a man and woman. “This is my husband, Abe, and our fellow leader, Gwen,” she said, her arm around both of them. “Abe provides a ready and compassionate ear and Gwen manages the free ‘store.’”

They both gave simple “Hi”s but their expressions and voices indicated the same peace Margarita displayed. “How are you?” Abe added.

She looked at him, absorbing the tenderness in his astute words and expression.

She breathed deep and blinked before answering him, “Humbled, lost.”

“Why lost?”

“Everything I’ve built my life on seems to have crumbled to dust and I don’t know… or understand what to put in its place.”

“That will come, exactly as it should. The hardest part, the rarest part, is already past.”

She nodded blankly, partially understanding and partially not. “Thank you,” she told him, then she looked at the women, “thank you all.”

Ava went back to her car and finally made it home. Her husband was still gone, and the kids were at a friend’s house. She walked around her large home, with vast spaces and luxuries all around, and all she could see suddenly was the grasping, the claiming as one’s own. Mine, mine. What I’ve done, what I possess. She saw it then as a pretty fortress to keep out anything and everyone who might try to take away one’s own, made up of things, and it no longer looked pretty to her.

The attic room contained movies, music, and books that her husband owned but was rarely able to enjoy. He’d only once used his billiard table. Seeing these things reminded her, that he had bought swim trunks for the pool that he’d never been in and he slept in their bed so seldom that she moved the decorations on the nightstand to make room for his things. The desk and the safe were the items he used most when he was home.

Everything, their whole lives, was about getting, having, and preserving, and this was supposed to be some proof of God’s blessings? Or something? She couldn’t even explain it anymore. Those people from Margarita’s church, they were closer to being Christlike, risking, sacrificing, doing the undone.

She heard the children bumping the front door as they talked, dropped backpacks, and took off shoes in the entryway. Going downstairs, the door shut now, they greeted her with, “It took you longer to get home after us than it normally does.”

“Yes, I found a detour.” She smoothed the hair on her daughter, Becca.

“Oh,” they said and went back to their conversation, “what was wrong with that kid?”

“I don’t know. They don’t act like anyone else I’ve ever known.”

“Me either.”

“What kid?” Ava asked.

“When Mrs. Turner brought us home after the sermon, there was this weird kid at the store. We were getting out of the car and they poked their ugly head out of their car window and yelled out, ‘stuck up.’ Why would they do that?

Ava’s body stiffened, and she looked up towards God. She had to breathe deep before she could speak,“Well, why they did it is their responsibility. You have to ask yourselves if you were acting ‘stuck up.’”

Becca scrunched up her face, “What is it?”

All the routines of the evening remained the same, dinner cooked and eaten, kids playing as they normally played. It was inside her that everything was different. She was consumed with an ever-increasing conviction that something had to change, and part of the change, she realized, was discovering everything that needed to change.

Ava called her husband that night. There was nothing special in that. As she listened to the phone ring, she took off her bracelets and watched herself set them aside.

When he picked up, she wasted no time launching into, “Mason, I have something very important to talk to you about. A major change. I want you to come home. No, not right away; for the rest of our lives. Well, I can tell you this much, we’re ruining our kids, we’re not a good Christian example, and I want a husband not a piggy bank. I don’t want to live this protected life anymore. Life isn’t about security.”

If you enjoyed this story, you can read the others in the collection by purchasing The Breaking.