A Love Not Earned

We live in a world that tends to promote one kind of love--the grasping kind that doesn't understand how to put the needs of someone else first. But what might it look like to have these conniving cobwebs cast aside? Is it possible to love selflessly with no invested interest? Could this love ever be natural?

The following story is inspired by Shakespeare's Othello.

“Emilia, my sweet,” Iago strode forward and kissed me on the forehead.

I closed my eyes, treasuring this rare moment of affection. “My husband?” I replied. As much as I hated to acknowledge it, Iago rarely showed kindness to me unless he wanted something.

“I have a new job for you,” he said, kissing my neck. He kept planting his dry lips on my bare skin. His touch sent a chill through me—oh, how I wished this was genuine!

“A job?” I tried to sound playful and keep my body from stiffening.

“Yes, my pet. You will be attending the Lady Desdemona. She is the wife of that Othello.”

I tried to remember Othello. He was a little older, dark-skinned, and barrel-chested. He looked like an oaf next to my slim and suave Iago, but he also possessed that kind of ego that makes people take notice. He also, unfortunately, had been in more battles than Iago, and he supposedly demonstrated valiant conduct in them, which helped him leap up the command ladder faster than his intelligence deserved. Poor Iago had been forced to watch Othello rise above him as Iago’s brains went unappreciated, and I could feel the shadow it left on him. And now he wanted me to share in his humiliation by employing me to Othello’s wife? I thought we had suffered enough.

“Must I?” I sighed, trying to play the part of the languishing lady.

“Yes, Emilia, you must. But you won’t regret it, I assure you. In fact, I have a feeling that you could be the key to moving both of us up in the world.”
My eyes narrowed on his face. What is he up to? I love Iago, but he is like every other man I know when it comes to women: he chews them up so he can get something out of them and then spit them back out.

“Don’t give me that look,” Iago said. “I know you suspect me of being underhanded, but I mean that together, no one can keep us from the power we both want. Don’t deny it,” he said as I was about to protest. “I know you want it as much as I do. You really could be our key, my pet. As I always say, ‘If she be fair and wise, fairness and wit, The one’s for use, the other useth it.' You are pretty and you have brains to use that prettiness if you choose to use them.”

“So you’re not just going to use me for your own ends again?” I asked, trying to pierce through his flattery.

“Good heavens, child! You really are a foolish wife, aren’t you? What is good for me is good for you! If you would—” he stopped himself. “Forget I said that, my sweet.” His arms reached out and encircled my waist, folding me towards him. This was what I wanted. Every tongue lashing, every night spent alone and ignored, every chilly stare that stripped me down and found me wanting—all this could be forgotten when he held me like this. All I really wanted was his love. Why then did I feel like I was being embraced by a spider who wrapped me in a cocoon of death? I didn't care. At least this spider’s poison left me feeling numb; no pain could reach me here.


“By the way,” Iago said the next morning as I sat brushing my hair, “I want you to get Desdemona’s handkerchief for me.”

I barely heard him. My numbness from the night had left me feeling light and giddy, but I nodded.

“Tell me what you are going to get from Lady Desdemona,” Iago commanded; his voice was brittle. I stopped brushing and looked at him, my eyebrows raised. I had hoped, briefly, that maybe he loved me now and that last night had softened him toward me forever.

“Tell me,” Iago repeated.

I was wrong.

I laid down the hairbrush and tried to hold my hands in my lap to keep them from trembling. “I will get Lady Desdemona’s handkerchief for you,” I answered, my eyes lowered.

“Very good,” his voice was syrupy again.

My eyes sought his. His handsome features swam as I observed his oily smile. “But why?” I said.

“Don’t trouble with ‘why,’” Iago replied, his voice now icy. A smile spread across his face again like butter, and he added more softly, “It’s just a little trinket that would please me. I know how you aim to please me.”

Yes, he knew. Ever since I had met him, I had aimed to please him. Yet it seemed like each deed I did only served as another link to the chain he kept fastened to me. But maybe this time it would be different.
          
“Lady Desdemona,” my husband said, bowing, “allow me to present to you my wife, Emilia. I hope she may serve you well.”
         
I curtsied, keeping my eyes trained on the floor. Iago had taught me that sometimes the only way to gain power was to let those in power think that they have the upper hand.
          
“Honest Iago,” a warm voice said—a lady’s voice, rich as honey, “for as my husband calls you, so I’m sure you are. And thus, I’m sure that your wife is more than a suitable companion. You may leave us, then, and allow us to get better acquainted as women.”
          
My husband bowed again and brushed by me, leaving a cold breeze in his wake. Honest Iago: that was what she had called him. Many people called him that. The appellation was fitting, was it not? Yet I wondered if any of those people had ever felt his dry kisses.
          
“There, dear, we’re alone now,” Desdemona said. “Aren’t you going to look at me?”
          
I had nearly forgotten the lady whose confidence I was supposed to gain. I forced my eyes up slowly so as not to seem impudent, and then I really saw her for the first time. Fresh eyes sparkled back at me, and vibrancy radiated from them as well as her smiling mouth. The sun lit the edges of her thick, strawberry-blond hair like a halo. Looking at her was like looking at a misty field on an autumn morning as the sun burns the air-cobwebs away.
          
“Well? Are you satisfied?” Desdemona laughed softly. “I hope it isn’t my ugliness that makes you stare so.”
           
I blushed. “No, mistress,” I murmured. “Only I was surprised that my lord, Othello, had married one such as you.”
          
“You mean that you are surprised that one such as I married him, a Moor?”
          
I coughed and nodded almost imperceptibly. This was not a good beginning.
          
“Never fear, Emilia, I am not angry. Everyone else has been wondering the same thing.”
          
“Then,” I said, feeling bolder, “what do you see in him? Why do you love him?”
          
“Why do you love your own husband?” she asked.
          
“That is easy enough,” I said. “Iago is handsome, and he has the finest brains of anyone I know. And he makes me feel—loved, sometimes.” I thought of last night in my spider’s arms and my snug, unfeeling cocoon, and I hoped my words did not sound as hollow as they felt.
          
“My husband makes me feel loved, too,” Desdemona laughed, “but that is not why I love him. I might not be able to hold on to my love for him if it were based upon his. No, I love him even when he is surly and frowns at me, although I haven’t seen him that way very much yet.”
          
“Then why?” I asked. “Why do you love him?” Surely you don’t love his ego.
          
She looked at me thoughtfully. “I love him because he is true. But if that does not make sense to you, then I love him because loving him is like breathing. I’d sooner be smothered than stop breathing out my love for him.”
          
Her clear eyes shone as she said this, and my own eyes bent to the floor. This was not the kind of self-serving love I was used to experiencing. This was a love I never even knew existed—a love not earned but breathed. And I wondered if I, too, could love like she did. Could I love Iago as devoutly as she loved Othello? I looked at Desdemona’s cloudless countenance, devoid of all cobwebs of deceit. She was like truth itself. And I thought of Iago, handsome and honest Iago, shadow-faced and constantly spinning a web of his own designs. If I had to choose which to love, would I choose Iago or truth?
          
Perhaps I will never know. 

My Last Duchess

The following story is inspired by Robert Browning's poem, "My Last Duchess."                                                     

Inspector Radcliffe stroked his mustache meditatively. “Friar Pandolf,” he said; sunlight beamed into Radcliffe’s office, lighting up a stream of dancing dust motes. “Thank you for agreeing to see me. As you may have heard, I am investigating the circumstances of the death of the late Duchess of Ferrara. I understand that you recently painted her portrait?”

“That is correct,” Friar Pandolf replied. His fiery beard twitched, and he clasped his hands together as his eyes met Inspector Radcliffe’s.

“Well, sir, there is reason to suspect that the duchess may have been murdered.”

Pandolf’s hands unclasped as his red eyebrows shot upward and he leaned forward. “You don’t say? That is sad news. Very, very sad. She was such a pleasure to paint, too!” He fingered his beard.

“Since you are one of the last people outside of the household to see the duchess, I thought I’d ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind,” Inspector Radcliffe said.

“What? You don’t think that I killed that sweet lady, do you?”

“Certainly not, Friar. I’ve already made inquiries and your alibi seems airtight. No, I want to ask you about your impressions, both of the victim and her husband.”

“Quite a devoted couple, I’d say,” Friar Pandolf said, glancing down at his hand on his chin before clasping his hands again.

“Indeed?”

“Yes. You would have thought they were newlyweds, even though he is a bit older than she—was.”

“What made you think so?”

“Well, she was pale and demure as I first started painting her portrait. We were alone then, you see. But when he walked into the room, she lit right up and started smiling at him, at me, and at everything. I had also complimented her on her beauty a few times before the duke came, but when I made some similar comments in front of him, she kept looking at him as if to see if he felt the same way. Then she’d blush prettier than ever. As a painter, I noticed and appreciated this effect right away. So I kept complimenting her as long as the duke was around, just so that I could paint those spots of joy on her cheek and the depth and passion in her earnest eyes.” Friar Pandolf nodded and smiled as he stared into the air. “Her beauty and love were a delight to depict.”

“And what of her husband?”

“Oh, he noticed her blushes too. I only assume that he knew they were all for him—how could he not? He was certainly dedicated to her, though. He kept pacing behind me and watching her keenly, as if he couldn’t bear to let her out of his sight. I don’t blame him. If I had a treasure like that, I would want to feast my eyes on her as much as possible.” Friar Pandolf reddened slightly. “I’m speaking hypothetically, of course.”

“Of course,” Inspector Radcliffe bowed his head and smiled, the corners of his thin lips just touching the tips of his mustache. “Just one more question, Friar. You couldn’t possibly imagine the duke wanting to murder his duchess, could you?”

“Him—murder her?” Pandolf’s flame-like eyebrows leaped to singe his hairline before he shook his head. “Certainly not. He obviously loved her.”

“Yet even love makes us do strange things,” the inspector murmured. He smiled again. “Thank you, Friar Pandolf, for lending me your valuable time.”

Friar Pandolf nodded and rose. He gazed at Inspector Radcliffe’s jet black mustache as his hand fidgeted for his own chin, but then his hand dropped and he strode majestically from the room, his head held a little too high.

“Roberto,” Inspector Radcliffe inclined his head as he shook hands with a tall man entering his office. Roberto’s fingers were hard and strong. “Thank you for coming,” Radcliffe added as he ushered Roberto into a straight-backed, wooden chair. He resumed a seat opposite him.

“It is no problem,” Roberto’s teeth flashed in a brief smile that failed to match the strength of his grip.

“I understand that you were recently employed by the Duke of Ferrara?”

“I was. I was his gardener.”

“But you no longer work there? You were fired?”

Roberto’s jawline hardened. “I resigned,” he said.

“Of course. And why did you resign, may I ask?”

“You may ask, but I would prefer not to answer,” Roberto answered. “The duke asked me to do something—that was outside my job description. Very far outside it.”

“I see. How would you describe your employer? Would you say he was devoted to his wife?”

“Very devoted,” Roberto laughed bitterly. “He watched her every move like some greedy animal. Wouldn’t let her out of his sight. Though he was, I think, too jealous.” He ran his fingers through his thick dark hair. “He didn’t seem too happy when I brought the duchess a cherry branch or led her around the garden on her white mule. I suppose he thought I was too forward.”

“And what of the duchess? Was she devoted to her husband?”

“She certainly was. She quite worshiped him, actually. He was the sun of her world, and, like a sunflower, she flourished whenever he was around. I’m pretty sure that her love for him was the kind that warmed her up to everyone and everything. She sighed at the reds of a sunset and beamed at anyone who complimented her, as if to share her happiness. She was—beautiful. And she made everyone feel like a king,” Roberto smiled more genuinely this time, and he wore a vacant expression that Inspector Radcliffe had seen before. “Whenever her husband gave her a gift, she received it as though they had married yesterday and he was not the proud old fool he was. I think she believed that he loved her the same way she loved him.” Roberto’s shoulders sagged. The veins in his forearms bulged as he muttered, “He didn’t deserve her.”

“But I thought you said he was devoted to her?”

“What was that? Oh. So I did. So I did.”

“I’ll be honest with you, Inspector. I don’t understand why I need to meet with you,” the duke yawned and settled into a padded chair in his drawing room. Sunlight spilled in undiluted pools between thick drapes.
            
“I’m sorry, Your Grace,” Inspector Radcliffe bowed and remained standing. “As the Duke of Ferrara, I’m sure you must have numerous engagements. This will only take a few minutes. I wish to inquire about your late wife and the nature of her passing. Did you and she exchange any unpleasant words?”
            
“Oh, my last duchess and I never had a cross interchange. I thought of confronting her many times, of course, for her displeasing conduct and unfaithfulness, but it would have been no use,” the duke spat on a jeweled ring on his finger and polished it. “She would have responded meekly enough, I’m sure, but she wouldn’t have changed. So I refused to stoop to using words with her. She required—a less delicate approach.”
            
“Your Grace?”
            
“I killed the duchess,” the duke said. He picked a piece of lint off of his embroidered tunic. “Or, rather, I had her killed. I wanted the gardener to be the one to do it—I thought it would be a pleasing irony—but he refused. It made no difference. I have other faithful servants.”
            
“But, Your Grace! From all accounts, the duchess was most faithful to you!”
            
“Was she? I could not see it. If she were faithful to me, she would have reserved her smiles for me alone, and she would not have blushed so much from the compliments of others.”
           
“Still, Your Grace, this is a serious offense! Did it not occur to you that the duchess’s love might have been truer than you had imagined? Couldn’t you have had more faith in her and her love?”
            
The duke surveyed Inspector Radcliffe with an icy stare. “Are you a religious man, Inspector?”
            
“No, Your Grace. I can’t say that I am.”
            
“Why not? Did you doubt that God loved you?”
            
“Well, Your Grace, if the Almighty does exist, I must say that I did doubt that He loved me. I had a hard upbringing, Your Grace, and it appeared that God was more lenient with others. I have moved on to loftier areas of thought.”
              
“Then why do you question me? I saw evidence to believe that my wife did not truly love me. I concluded that my faithful wife was nonexistent, and so I killed her and am moving on to a different bride—one whose dowry will line my coffers. You saw evidence to believe that God did not love you, so you decided that a faithful God did not exist and you killed him. You, too, have chosen a more appealing god. So tell me, Inspector: who has the greater guilt—you or I?” 

Villanelle: When the Snow Flies

I’ll be home when the snow flies
When lofty white women swell with quiet labor
A salty pearl drops, dissolves, and dies.

As dull Chill descends with his numbing lies
Sniff for that sparkling, truth-telling powder
I’ll be home when the snow flies.

When tongues first catch that small, cold prize
And diamonds melt like fleeting vapor
A salty pearl drops, dissolves, and dies.

When “Silent Night” drowns out your cries
Listen for that frosty whisper
I’ll be home when the snow flies.

When warm, woolen blankets of red and green dyes
Prick like lonely shrouds each December
A salty pearl drops, dissolves, and dies.

Look up! A thousand angels in disguise
Fluttering downward. Now remember
I’ll be home when the snow flies—
A salty pearl drops, dissolves, and dies.

Photo Poem: Unseen Love

She’s in her world of gray and white

Her lashes droop like dusky drapes

Yet sunshine splashes, springtime spatters

Crayons hover—waiting for drapes to lift. 

Haiku: Autumn's End

                                                                   
The oak bleeds scarlet
Dry leaves rattle on the grass—
whispering corpses. 

Sonnet of a Pregnant Virgin

My mother, see! Your hands are claws of ice
Please warm them at my flaming heart and hear:
While morning puke suggests a sacrifice
of my virginity, no man crept near
my bed. Your tears are streams that doubt I’m true;
They’re rivulets of question marks that cry,
“This shame will shadow you down avenues
of death. My daughter! Why, oh why, oh why?”
Be still, my dear. This seed is heaven sent
I’m shadowed only by the Most High’s grace
I’m dirt, but in His holiness He’s lent
His Son to me, the sod that bears His face.
Through weeds of sin, my soul does praise the Lord
And says, “Be it according to thy word.”

A Quart of Water

For my writers' group one week, we decided to write stories based on a picture. In the dining room of the Bible school I attended and now work at, there is a strange 18th century painting of a young man and woman sitting and looking uncomfortable. This was my inspiration.

“Please, have a seat,” Anna said.

“Thank you,” the young man replied. He settled into the straight-backed chair, a creak erupting from its wooden frame. Anna took another chair two paces away, angling the spinning wheel so that it punctured the distance between them.

John glanced about the room. “Is your father home?” he asked.

            

“No, he isn’t. He said he’d be back in awhile.” Anna resisted the urge to adjust the white cap covering her hair.

            

John fidgeted with the wide-brimmed hat in his hands. “Did he forget that I was coming?”

            

“No, he remembered,” Anna felt her face grow warm. “He’s just strangely new-fashioned about these things.”

           

“Oh.” John seemed to absorb most of the characteristics of the chair he was sitting in. Perhaps he was aware of this; he placed his arm on the table and let his hand hang off of it with forced nonchalance. His body didn’t seem to belong to his hand.

            

With clammy hands, Anna fingered her skirt. Her eyes darted from the floor to the ceiling, uncertain where they should rest. She crossed and uncrossed her feet. Picking up a Bible, Anna rifled through the pages as if she were looking for a particular passage, yet her eyes strayed over the young man across from her as if she were observing a cougar. John’s placid face didn’t seem to register any of this. His clear eyes stared at a fixed point; he seemed to be waiting.

            

How is a courting person supposed to act? Anna wondered. She tried to remember what her father had told her that afternoon.

            

“Anna, darlin’, the day has come,” her father had said after taking a big gulp of their fresh spring water. Their family’s spring was the envy of the colony. “Yessirree, the day has come,” her father’s serious eyes quickly disappeared into the crinkles of a smile.

            

“What day, Papa?”

            

“The day when you get yer first suitor.”

            

“What?” Anna’s pulse pounded in her ears. She wasn’t ready for this.

            

“Yep,” the older man replied. “Young John Platt came to me while I was workin’ outside on the farm, and he said, ‘Mr. Bradford, would you do me the pleasure of allowing me to court your daughter?’ I stopped what I was doin’ and sized him up careful like. Then I says, ‘John Platt, I like you, and since you asked me so nice I will give you that pleasure. How about you come by at six tonight?’ And he said he would.”

            

“Oh no! Papa, what will I do? What will I say?”

            

“Now, now, settle down, girl. I expect that he will guide the conversation. Just be patient and let the man have his say, and once he’s done so then you’ll be able to think of something to say. Now I’m going to step down to the town for a spell when he comes by. The doctor promised that he’d clean out me ears and sell me one of those newfangled ear trumpets. You know my hearing ain’t what it used to be.”

            

“Yes Papa.” And so here Anna sat, wondering if every young man was this silent on his first courtship visit. She’d always thought that John Platt had the disposition of a dumb ox; this visit only confirmed her suspicions.

            

The clock struck quarter past six.

            

At the sound, John unfroze. He coughed. “Well, seeing as your father isn’t here,” he said, “could you give me a quart of water?”

           

Anna blinked. “What did you say?”

            

“Could I have a quart of water? Your father promised me some this afternoon if I came at six.”

           

“He did?”

            

“Yes, I asked him if he’d give me the pleasure of allowing me a quart of water, and he said he would if I came at six.”

            

“Really?” Anna said. Sunlight blasted through the windows, making the whole room lighter. “Mr. Platt, it would be my greatest pleasure to give you a quart of water.”

Ezekiel's Delight

Over the past couple of years, I've jotted a few stories or poems, from the sublime to the ridiculous...         

The noise of the market was more muffled than usual. I advanced to the front of the straggling crowd, like one advancing into the maw of a hungry tomb. Would Death’s appetite ever be satisfied?

            

For years I’ve performed signs at the command of the LORD so that Israel may see with their own eyes what God is saying to them. Call me “a living object lesson,” if you will. But I’d never expected to see a dying one.

            

Jagged wood grazed my shin as I stepped onto the wooden crates I had stacked to proclaim God’s word to the masses of passerby. Sand scraped rough wood as I planted my feet.

My lips cracked as they parted: “Thus says the LORD,” I croaked. Something like sandpaper lodged in my throat. Not one head turned. “Thus says the LORD,” I repeated more loudly. “Son of man, behold, I am about to take the—delight of your eyes away from you at a stroke.”

A child cried nearby. An image of Tirzah’s face swam into view. Her warm honey eyes crinkled with pain. I closed my own eyes to block out the image.

“Yet you shall not mourn,” my breath snagged, “or weep, nor shall your tears run down. Sigh, but not aloud; make no mourning for the dead. Bind on your turban,” my hand trembled as I felt for the one I was wearing, “and put shoes on your feet,” my feet shuffled unconsciously, grit scraping the box again. “Do not cover your lips, nor eat the bread of men.”

My words echoed hollowly as though over a valley of dried bones. Death and Darkness were absolute, pressing me down, leaving me sure of nothing but loneliness. My eyelids felt moist, and, realizing that they were still closed, I opened them. Bodies shifted and swarmed—moving skeletons. Only a few were looking at me, but I doubted that they’d even heard me. This was probably the shortest message I had ever delivered, but I was surprised to see the morning still reeling around me.

Was God really worth all this?

I checked a sigh and got down off of my pathetic pedestal. Then I froze. At the far end of the market, someone had heard me. She stood, motionless, her eyes locked onto mine. And there, through that long silent tunnel between us in the bustling crowd, stared my darling Tirzah. My gaze groped for her reaction, expecting to see the pain in those honey brown eyes. Her eyes did crinkle, but not with pain. Overflowing with tears, those eyes actually beamed—beamed!—and that beam ripped through my darkness and fortified me for many storms to come.

She died that evening.

And the next morning, I did as I was commanded. 

A Torch for the Journey

“All right, Kayla, the word is ‘ham.’ How do you spell ‘ham’?”

A thousand eyes drilled into the back of my head. Oh, for a thousand tongues to drown out what each eye was saying! Yet my one lonely tongue remained trapped behind my teeth as I balanced on the edge of a wooden folding chair. The July sun streamed through the tall windows, hot on my head like a spotlight. My friends sat in the front row as well, trapped with me in the humiliating battle of a Bible spelling bee at our first Family Convention. Meredith sat on my left and Daniel on my right, her wide green eyes and his darting blue ones carefully trained away from my face. Only they understood the weight a roomful of eyes could bear on eight-year-old shoulders, like a cloud ready to dump rain or shoot lightning bolts.

“The word is ‘ham,’ Kayla,” Mr. Demme repeated. “Would you like to spell that?”

I stared at this man, towering behind his lectern as he gazed at me. While he might have founded his own math company, this was the man who tugged my pigtails and gave under-doggies that flung me over Mt. Monadnock. His smile might have cheered me now, but I couldn’t see it through the cloud resting on my shoulders.

“That is too easy,” I told myself. “It can’t be h-a-m. It must be a whadyacallit—a homonym.” I wracked my brain for any alternate spellings I had learned in third grade, but all I could see was a blank gray chalkboard. I don’t know this word! The legendary butterflies were slamming their fragile bodies against my stomach lining, threatening to rise to my chest and come soaring out of my mouth on the wings of a whimper.

I looked at Mrs. Kathy Demme, Mr. Demme’s sister-in-law, who sat across from me to hand Mr. Demme the cards with the spelling words. Watching me, she had the eyes a doe has when she looks at her fawn tottering to walk. Our gaze held for a moment before I shook my head.

“Are you sure?” she asked, speaking softly like she were at a funeral and I had lost my best friend. “If you don’t try, you’ll be out.”

I shook my head again and stared at the floor. I wasn’t going to fail spelling a word I didn’t know, not in front of all these people. On signal, Daniel rose from his chair to my right. “Ham,” he said, his eyes flitting like a fawn’s when it’s caught in a trap, “h-a-m.”

As he sat back down with a Demme bouquet of congratulations, heat flared upwards in my face, breaking free from my body and streaking like a flame through the cloud until it hit the ceiling and formed into a rabid little creature that bumped around in search of escape. The higher my shame rose, the harder it pushed me into the ground until my two M-sized feet made an indent in the wood floor. I couldn’t take it any longer. Unneeded for the spelling bee, I rose and slipped out of the dining hall to the wide paneled hallway. With the silent laughter of my audience giving chase and nipping at my heels, I broke into a run for the open door which beckoned with the sunshine of freedom and release—release for the furry, saw-toothed creature of shame that bobbed along the ceiling over my head.

I wasn’t upset because I was a pastor’s kid who couldn’t win the Bible spelling bee. I was upset because I had known the right answer, yet I had still failed to achieve the perfection I strove for and the acceptance I craved.

As I burst into the sunshine and undammed salty rivers, my shame broke free too. Yet as the scent of fresh-cut grass hugged me, the little beast failed to self-destruct. Instead, he soared higher, feeding hungrily off the air.

I was born into a long line of spiritual Einsteins. My great-great-grandfather founded our church and led the building construction with nothing but a few cents and the power of the Holy Ghost. When my great-grandfather was a little boy, he circumnavigated the globe on his knees. My grandfather was recognized by many as a genius who could figure out how to design a perfect staircase without even having to scratch his head. And although my daddy never went to college, he possesses all the human skills that Jesus had except walking on water.

Descending from this brilliant line, three brothers and a sister saw the light of day well before I did. All of them graduated at the top of their respective homeschool classes, and they leaped forward into colleges like academic cheetahs who outran their classmates and embarrassed everyone for even trying to outstrip a Sandford. They did all this with the utmost grace and poise, like any member of the feline race, so they couldn’t help but win friends as every project they pawed sprang into life.

Following this wake of life, I became known as “Kendra’s sister,” or “Chad’s sister,” or “Craig’s sister,” or “Clyde’s sister.” I wore each title like a duchess, but it was still a lot to live up to. As my cub heart purred with pride for my siblings, I turned to win my own conquests; I started at Vacation Bible School.

“I can’t get it,” I whimpered. I scrutinized my carefully selected pile of seashells and the blue picture frame they were supposed to stick to. Panic rose in my chest as I watched the other children rise from their finished crafts and dash outside to play, leaving lopsidedly decorated picture frames, puddles of glue, and a showy dusting of glitter behind them, as if to proclaim that they had worked their artistic magic with pixie dust. No fairy dust or puddles congregated near my work site, but the seashells swam mysteriously before my eyes as my fingers froze to the table, too frightened to execute the brilliant plan I had drawn in my mind for decorating this future masterpiece.

“There, there, Kayla,” my teenage brother said. Craig wasn’t the stereotypical I-don’t-care-whatever-get-over-it teenager. He volunteered as a leader at Vacation Bible School, and he was my guardian angel, minus the halo and wings. His dark eyes didn’t reproach his six-year-old sister for being too pathetic to do a simple craft. Instead, he gently descended over my sterile work station and became the fingers I was too paralyzed to move.

“You have a plan?” Craig asked. “Tell me what to do.”

Sniffling, I directed his big piano-player hands. Under my direction, they glued one neat row of sea shells around the frame and then swirled a single stream of glitter glue around them so that it looked like the outline of a giant butterfly. His hands performed this task as calmly as if he’d been playing Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. My smile beamed through the fog of tears: the frame was even better than I had imagined! Maybe perfection wasn’t possible on my own, but with such divine intervention, perhaps something even better was attainable.

Yet if I couldn’t reach this ethereal standard in this lifetime, raw survival and endurance was the only alternative. Or so I thought. A few years after that day at Vacation Bible School, I rode my first roller coaster at Disney World. My older siblings all raved about how much they had loved Thunder Mountain Railroad when they were kids, so I prepared to embark on a journey of a lifetime with them. If they loved it, so would I.

I buckled myself in to the plastic car next to Craig, tucking all of my arms and legs into the vehicle, and prepared to enjoy the ride. It was the journey of a lifetime, all right. Riding that thing was like being thrown into a black bottle and tossed into a raging sea. Darkness engulfed us while rain pelted our Mickey Mouse slickers from every side, and as soon as I gasped for air at the top of a wave, we plummeted downward and jerked in another unforeseen direction. Unable to see and scarcely able to breathe, I gritted my teeth as I waited for the nightmare to pass, drowning in the knowledge that riding roller coasters was one skill I couldn’t share with my siblings. The furry creature of shame was a monster leering over me now, and I lay down to block out his snarls.

“It’s okay, dear,” Craig’s voice broke over the snarls and cradled my head in his lap. “We’ll make it through—” Sudden lurch to the right—“Don’t be afraid—” My stomach dips below my feet—“I love you—” Speedy ascent that slows to a crawl—“We’re going up a little rise and are about to go down again—” We plunge into a gaping abyss—“Now we’re about to turn left. That’s it. It’s okay, dear. Up another hill now.”

In this manner, Craig talked me through Thunder Mountain Railroad like Sacajawea soothing Lewis and Clark across the wilds of the frontier. By the end of that trip, I knew two things: I hated roller coasters, and my brother loved me anyway. And I decided that I could survive any journey if such a torch burned by my side to light the way, and if that were the case, perhaps the torch was there to help me do more than survive until I reached my destination. Perhaps on this journey I was meant to thrive.

Yet even Sacajawea’s journey met some rapids in her canoe, and so did Craig. When he was almost nineteen, one of his friends drove off a sixty-foot cliff in California. Her quirky smile had been a torch in his canoe, and when he heard that it had been extinguished, he immediately went for a walk that winter morning. The New England chill breathed into every walker’s nostrils and froze every hair huddled inside, and it would have paralyzed every limb if they didn’t keep moving. As Craig’s tall, dark form wandered up the road, brooding in his own black bottle, a strange dog (he never told me what breed) came bounding up to him and followed him to our local lake. Winter had crusted the surface of the lake and then polished it until it was as smooth as an eggshell, except where the shell broke to reveal water churning under the surface.

Meditatively, Craig stooped to pick up a piece of ice, wondering what it would look like to see it skidding over the glass and into the water many yards from the shore. As soon as the ice flew from his hand, the dog at his side flew after it without hesitation, legs flailing as she danced across the ice and landed in the water with a soft plop. The dog hadn’t stopped to consider the wisdom of the journey. She hadn’t paused to check the temperature of the water at her destination. She had just leapt after it, twirling on the cracking floor like she was a ballroom dancer thirsting to try extreme sports. Why? Because she was a dog, and dogs “fetch” things. Responding to the chase was as natural as panting to her, so she simply lived out her identity on this short journey. Frolicking on the ice was just part of the fun.

Naturally, Craig didn’t see the dog’s response as fun. He responded with a quick rush to the neighbor’s house for a 911 call, and soon the fire truck wailed in and Craig had to apologize to the owner of a very wet dog. Yet this wet dog had distracted him from the tragedy at hand, and Craig found a tiny torch glowing in his own black bottle on the stormy sea.

Still, the storms of growing up as the youngest in a long line of geniuses weren’t over for me. When I was fourteen, I entered one more Bible contest, but instead of spelling short words with my peers, I re-enacted a lengthy passage of Scripture before college-age competitors and a handful of judges. This contest was part of a larger team event, and I had poured five weeks of feverish energy into preparation for the fateful night when I would once again stand with a thousand eyes upon me.

“When Gideon came, behold, a man was telling a dream to his comrade. And he said, ‘Behold,’” I imitated a British accent, “ ‘I dreamed a dream, and behold, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian and came to the tent and struck it so that it fell and turned it upside down, so that the tent lay flat.’” (Judges 7.13, English Standard Version) As I said this, I slapped my thigh and turned a somersault, becoming that upturned tent. This tent lay flat for a moment, heaving slightly. Surprised laughter rippled through my audience as their eyes bore into me, but I didn’t cower under the cloud this time. I was older now and I was a Sandford, settling into my identity of excellence. I leaped back up and was soon blowing imaginary trumpets and smashing phantom pitchers as I roared, “A sword for the Lord, and for Gideon!” (Judges 7.20)

The cloud showered its applause, louder than a downpour on pavement. Most of my competitors shook their heads, certain that this youngest player would take first prize, or at least second or third. And, as I watched other competitors falter over their verses or recite them like limp fish, I had to agree. Yet when I collapsed in the brown recliner at home, I held a bouquet of congratulations labeled “4th place.”

It doesn’t matter how that label got there. Yet the number stunned me, and because I had only won fourth place instead of placing with my teammate brother Clyde, our team had lost the whole event. I sprawled in the faded chair like a wilting vine, my lifeblood of Sandford confidence draining away. I had striven for perfection again and lost. I had tumbled and yelled word-perfect passages to please the judges and failed. I had stood before an audience, unafraid to perform and shine like every other Sandford. Yet in every way that I had sweat and stood on the scales of public opinion, like proud Belshazzar, I had been found wanting (Dan. 5.22-27).

The rabid monster was now devouring a hole in the ceiling above my head, and I was sinking far into the floor, too white and bloodless to resist its oncoming attack.

However, just then, Craig came through the front door, arriving back from the Bible memory contest. No longer a Vacation Bible School leader, he still hurried in my direction. As he hovered over me, his tall frame momentarily blocked out the monster gnawing on the ceiling.

“I thought you were wonderful!” he exclaimed, and like a dove, he descended and folded me in his wings. At the sound of those words, I heard the monster choke, and just before the wings blocked it out of sight, I glimpsed it cowering and shrinking like an ice wolf before a torch. I closed my eyes to the vision and nestled in those wings for a few moments, drinking in the truth that I didn’t need to earn this love. And it would light the rest of my journey.

The Reign of Terror

Not so long ago, my family received a telephone call that prompted us to switch on the TV and watch the World Trade Centers burn. The flames were licking a hole into the first tower when the second plane came careening out of the sky and slammed into the other tower. The news reporter yelled, and the air shimmered with hot, smoky fear. Who could do such a thing? Tears burned my eyes as I watched black clouds billow, and as the buildings collapsed like mammoth fountains that have just been shut off, our blithe confidence collapsed with them. In their place, we erected towers of terror, disguised as American determination. We lengthened airport security lines, stooped to racial profiling, and marched into Iraq to strike at the center of the rattlesnake nest. Yet while we kept the reign of terror at bay on physical American soil, the towers of terror remained in our hearts.
One would have expected these towers to crumble on the day that America got her retribution. Ten years after 9/11, I huddled in front of a television once more, watching the crowds of elated people celebrating the death of Osama bin Laden. My heart rose with their cheers, but then it sank like a shriveled balloon. Why so much joy over the death of one man? I knew why: hundreds of burnt corpses testified to this man’s destructive schemes. Yet we had only added one more corpse to the pile. Justice may be necessary, but the common people of America must be able to do more to end fear than cheer over a corpse. We may have eliminated one enemy, but hundreds more are lurking around the corner to take his place, making the cheers of a few years ago a hollow memory.

These enemies could be anywhere—not just in a cozy den in Afghanistan—and they might not even plan to be our enemies yet. Hundreds of the Middle East’s brightest students pour into American colleges and universities and then pour back out again to their own countries, where they throw themselves into helping their country’s cause, whatever that might be. I got to visit some of these students two years ago at a college perched in the mountains of West Virginia. My sister had instructed me in nearly half a dozen things not to do with my feet or hands when visiting a Muslim from another culture, so as we chatted awkwardly over tiny teacups of bitter coffee, I felt like my hands and feet were dangerous limbs I should cut off to avoid giving offense and getting strangled. But as the hot liquid shot down our throats, I warmed to the shy smiles that offered it. And while they repressed laughter as I spilled handfuls of rice into my lap from eating with my hands, the laughter was good-natured. These students were opening their arms in hospitality and extending their hands in friendship. They were far away from home and wanted friends—American friends. This is a desire common to most of the Muslim students I have met, voiced more recently by a Saudi Arabian girl in Connecticut who asked me, in broken English, “Will you be my friend?”

Unfortunately, many Americans don’t get to see or hear such heart-melting pleas because they are either too busy or too afraid. To them, every Arabic-speaking man looks like the next Osama bin Laden, and every woman wearing a hijab looks like his bloodthirsty wife. They envision the smoke billowing from the World Trade Centers, build their towers of terror higher, and don’t see the lonely Muslim student on the other side. Instead, they flaunt their false confidence by “partying it up”: sleeping around, getting drunk, and shedding every extra fiber on their bodies that they can without getting expelled or arrested. Every one of these acts screams against the moral fiber of every respectable Muslim. Forget the rabid radicals! If I visited from a hospitable Muslim culture and stood ignored, watching these everyday atrocities, I might march back to my country and cry, “Death to America!” too. I’m not saying that I know this has happened, but one can only teeter on the brink of a violent religion for so long before losing one’s balance and falling over the edge. As Americans, we don’t want to be the ones to push them.

What of those radicals who have already fallen into the bloody Islamic pit? Many of them are far away where only the military and secret governmental forces can deal with them. Such radicals live only for the sword and probably won’t stop until they perish by the sword. But many more Muslims are clinging to the cliff side or wandering in the dusky zone near the edge, and they are just everyday people like us. They look like that Turkish couple who just moved in around the corner, that girl with a head covering in the grocery store, or that handsome Arab student speeding by on his motorcycle. These are the people we can save from the pit. While the army is cracking down on terrorist groups in Afghanistan, American citizens can prevent some of those terrorist groups from ever forming. By showing love and hospitality to the Muslim next door, we might be tugging them away from the twilight zone that obscures the precipice of insanity. As we grasp their hands in friendship, we might be saving them as well as ourselves. It’s much harder to hate a nation comprised of friends.

Of course, it’s nearly impossible to make friends with people who have already sworn to make you their enemy. As Americans, we know this only too well as ISIS gains strength like some Frankenstein monster. Two burning towers are seared into our memory, and we naturally quake in our self-constructed tower of terror, tempted to lash out at the innocent Muslim student standing behind it. Yet when we watch these world events and feel paralyzed by fear, we can still do something: show love to that Muslim student. We have heard that “perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4.18, English Standard Version). Now is the time to test that statement. Perhaps when we stretch out our withered hands to the neighbors who wear the same skin as our enemies, our paralysis will vanish. Perhaps as we invite them into our homes, we are supporting the troops who have to calm those who were never invited. Perhaps as we hug these people to our hearts, the towers built inside from the choking ashes of 9/11 will crumble.

We may never see a world free from enemies until Christ returns. But maybe someday, when we switch on the TV to see the latest tragedy, we won’t retreat to a tower of terror but of love, and this love will help us to destroy terrorists by rendering their acts useless. They may be able to kill the body, but they cannot kill the soul that dwells in love (Matt. 10.28). Only when we enter this new tower will the reign of terror end.