Tears of the Messenger

Where do you start? Where do you begin when telling someone the story of your life? I could start with the date and time of my birth but that is not really where I began. I believe our life begins long before our conception. We are thought out and molded and shaped in advance of that first spark of life. But when do we first become aware of our being. When do we first become ourselves. I think back to my very first memories...flashes..feelings..images that I do not always understand. Then the randomness starts to settle and I see events and special times played out like segments of old home movies. However, as I flip back through the years looking for the point that I can identify as the moment I emerged as a person, there is one thing that is clear...God has always been real. Before my mother took me to church. Before I first heard of Jesus Christ. Before someone taught me the "right way" to pray. Before all of this, I knew God. There was no explanation nessicary. He just was. He was in the rays of sunshine coming through the trees, in the whisps of wind that blew through the window of my room, in the explosion of bird song on spring mornings. His voice has always been in my heart. I have always heard him. When I was very young I loved the darkness of night because that was when the house and the world was most quiet. That was when I could hear God most clearly. It was at night in my bed that I felt closest to him. Maybe that is why the evil of this world thought it would be the best place for it all to start. It was there in the darkness of my room ,surrounded by the gentleness of my Creator, that my father first came in his drunken pain and started evil's life long battle to drown out the voice of God.



The Mission

I can feel the cement beneath my body as I lay prostrate on the floor. I can feel the coolness of it and its uncomfortable rigidness. This floor is my anchor...it keeps me tied to this world. Because it is here, face down on the floor with my head cradled in my hands that I approach God. My eyes are closed but I can feel the light. I can feel my body surrounded by his pure, perfect radiance. There is a feeling of floating...weightlessness. The things of this world melt away as I come into his presence. How do I describe my time with God? As he comes to me it is like sinking down into warm water. I am not just with him...I am surrounded by him. His power, his goodness, his love flows over me and envelops me. Time and space and existence are gone. There is only God. I never want to come back. I never want to let go. I just want to stay here with him ,surrounded by him. But as soon as those thoughts come they are dispelled. I know that some day I will be able to stay here with him. Some day I will be able to pick up my face and look upon him and and sing the songs of the saints and spend and eternity praising him....some day. But today, there is the mission. Today I am still an instrument that my father uses to do his work here on this earth. It is that work that brings me here now. As I lay here before him he fills me with the information and the knowledge that I need to do what must be done. I see images and I am given an awareness of things past and present, I have recollection of a life time of memories that are not my own. As usual it is painful. As usual my heart breaks and my eyes fill with tears of sorrow and sympathy and anger. As usual I silently ask the father to take this work from me...to let me turn away. As usual...he does not. "Mr.Torrisi"... I hear someone call my name. It is distant and dream like. "MR. TORRISI"...this time is it more clear and I know it is time to leave the light. I feel the hard floor...I feel it pulling me back. The aches and stiffness of my body and means that I must have been laying here on the cement, in the presence of God for a long time. I begin to pull myself up slowly. I think my true age is catching up to me. I push myself up and set back cross legged on the floor rubbing my legs and back. I still haven't opened my eyes because when I do I know the task that lies ahead of me. I always try to remind myself that it is the work and will of a perfect all knowing God...but when it comes right down to it....I know that I am going to hurt someone...a lot. I will my eyes to open. I see the walls and the bars of a small jail cell painted white. There is a simple bed on one wall and an old stainless steel toilet on the other. In the doorway stands officer David Phillips. A large, fit young police man in the pressed white shirt and black paints that make up his uniform. I look up at his face as he steps into the cell to help me off the floor. "Mr. Torrisi, I am going to take you up the hall so that you can talk to someone..alright?" I see the uncertainty in his eyes that I know must come from dealing with someone who is mentally unstable. I try to make him feel more at ease. "That is fine officer Phillips. Just tell me where you want me to go." He smiles. "Mr. Torrisi I am suppose to cuff you when I take you out of the cell, but you aren't going to give me any problems are you?" I can't help but smile. "No sir, I am not here to make any problems...for you." He pats me on the back. "Good, good, lets get you up to see the doc." He steps out of the way an allows me to go out of the cell first and points for me to turn left up a long white and gray industrial looking hallway. Officer Phillips is a good man and a good policeman. But above all else, he is a strong man of God with a great faith. That is why he is here. God has choosen him to play a part in this mission and it is is going to require him to completely trust a man whom everyone around here thinks is insane.
Officer Phillips and I begin our walk down the hallway toward the evaluation room and even though it is on the other side of the building I know that I only have a few minutes to reach out to this young police officer and let him know what God requires of him today. If I cannot earn his trust, my mission here will be over before it starts. Why can't this ever be easy? I close my eyes and let the feeling of his peace return and whisper the prayer I have said hundreds of times before..."Father, let your work be done." Just as it passes my lips officer Phillips clear his throat behind me nervously he takes a couple of quick steps until we are walking side by side. "Mr. Torrisi.....?" Something in his voice is strained, uncertain. Like a little boy about to ask his parents for something but is unsure how to start. It is unexpected and it makes me forget about what I have to do. I want to hear what is making him so uncomfortable so I quickly try ease his awkwardness. "Is it okay if you call me Jack?" He smiles and I see the nervousness settle a bit as . "Alright, Jack...uhm...the word around here..I mean some of the inmates....they seem to think that you are some kind of magic powers or something." I cannot help but smile. In all of my trepidation over how to start this conversation, God made the first move and as usual it is from from a place that I could have never imagined. I turn to officer Phillips and smile. "You know you can't trust what you hear around here." I lean in and whisper," these people are crazy ." He chuckles quietly to himself, as if he is trying not to laugh out loud. Maybe it is against the rules to laugh in uniform. But I can see in his eyes that he has more to say. He is searching for the words...and I know that there is something deeper, something that drives him to ask questions. Then understanding pours over me like an unseen rain. This man's soul is opened before me and I all of the emotions and the guilt that churn there. I know where the conversation is about to lead and I want to help it get there. "Officer Phillips..its okay..just say what you want to say." He gives me a quick questioning look, then turns his eyes nervously to the ground and finally he begins. "Jack, there is an old timer in here that says a few years ago he was being held at a detention center up in Dayton Ohio. I guess there was a young Mexican kid in there...a real bad ass. He was arrested for beating the shit out of a bunch of guys because they bumped into him outside a movie theater or something. I guess the boy was violent and out of control. Even the hardest cons were afraid to get around him. They eventually put him in a cell by himself. The way he tells it they brought you in the next day, he says he can't even remember any one saying why they picked you up, but for some reason they put you in the cell with this crazy kid for the night and the next morning this bad ass was a different. When he came out of the cell every thing about him had changed. He spoke very little at first and when he did it was to ask someone for forgivness. He said he had heard from God and how he was God's servant. He kept saying he was a rope or some things crazy like that. He was all calm and peaceful. The kid became like a hero for the rest of the time he was there. He started protecting the weaker inmates and the guys who couldn't fight. . Somehow he made arrangements to speak with the guys he assaulted and I guess the kid's attorney managed to get him off with just probation. Now this kid runs a home for kids with problems. The old man says now up in that area you see him in the news all the time. He gets invited to speak at churches and and colleges and counsel meetings about child abuse. It all start with that night in the cell with you. Strange thing is that no one saw you after that night. All they could figure is that you got bailed out or released. But either way they say it was like you just disappeared. Do you know anything about that Jack?" I don't speak. I just lower my eyes and wait. After staring at me for a moment he continues. "I mean I know Jack, this all seemed strange to me too. So I decided to look into it a little bit. I pulled your file Jack. Basically all it says it that you were brought in three days ago. It doesn't say what you are charged with or where you came from or even what patrolmen brought you in. Talked to everyone that works here. No one knows nothing about you and the thing is, I seem to be the only one who cares about all of this. I need to know Jack...what is going on!?" His eyes meet mine and stay there...he is looking for explanations and he is looking for more. He wants the truth and even though I wish I could have taken a different path...I was going to take him to the truth today. So I start slowly. "The kids name is Robert Ochoa. From age 3 until about 9, one of his uncles that lived with him would wait until they were alone in the house and hang him upside down and beat him with peaces of knotted rope until he bled and then he would urinate on him and he wouldn't let him down until Robert told him how much he liked it. The uncle would explain the wounds by telling Roberts dad that his son was disrespectful and acted like a girl and that he was teaching him how to be a man so he didn't grow up being a fag. His dad never ask Robert to explain and he let this happen for 6 years until Robert took a metal ball bat and beat his uncle so badly that they had to use finger prints to make a positive ID. The uncle survived but he was in a permanent vegetative state. He was a minor and after seeing the scars from the years of abuse they ruled it self defense and let him go home. A couple of days later Robert's dad decided that he was going to punish him by beating him to death with the handle to a shovel. Robert...9 years old...survived by stabbing his dad in the face with a broken beer bottle. Then he ran away and he lived on the streets for years by doing whatever crap he could to survive until the night at the theater. He use to go there just to be somewhere safe for a couple of hours. The guys he assaulted didn't bump into Robert, they were drunk and they ended up knocking a five year old boy down to the sidewalk. Robert snapped. He beat all four men close to unconscious with his bare hands. He is a good young man with a mighty heart and that was ripped out of him by sickness and hatred and indifference. You want the truth? I was there with him in that cell. This little boy was reduced to nothing but pure anger and a tortured soul. All I did that night in the cell was deliver a message from the only place that could have any hope of bringing him back." Officer Phillips turns his back to me and looks up and down the hallway then quickly turns and steps so close to me that our faces almost touch. His eyes are searching, they are full of both hope and disbelief. I see the turmoil in his soul. "Jack, are you telling me that you are...you think you are a messenger of God!?" I have been shown enough of this mans life to know the answer he is hoping to hear. Today his faith will be tested. Today I will give a voice to his nonverbal God.