Forgiveness, even though we don't deserve it
A short story about death, angelic intervention, and much-needed repentance
Today’s reflection is a short story navigating God’s clemency for the repentant:
Who is there like you, the God who removes guilt and pardons sin for the remnant of his inheritance; Who does not persist in anger forever, but delights rather in clemency, And will again have compassion on us, treading underfoot our guilt? You will cast into the depths of the sea all our sins (Micah 7:18-19).
Saturday of the Second Week of Lent
Micah 7:14-15, 18-20
Luke 15:1-3, 11-32
Johnson T. Patterhorn arrived at what looked like Heaven’s gateway. Unsure if he was dead or just dreaming, far off stood an extremely high set of glass doorways. They rose up at the end of a road, set in the midst of an immense wall.
After walking for what seemed hours, progress slowed to a crawl as folks milled about in a mind-numbing snail's pace, crammed together in backed up traffic.
"Who's in charge, here?" Johnson murmured to folks as he tried to push forward. As he worked to get closer to the doors, his progress seemed to only increase the size of the entrance yet make the distance farther away.
"What a frustrating operation," Johnson said aloud. "Extremely inefficient!" He was not in a good mood.
Mr. Patterhorn's perturbation bubbled up both from his distaste for delay and the poor timing of his apparent death. Mostly the timing.
He’d just landed the perfect job. For once, people would be working for him. Big salary. Perks. Lots of travel away from the wife and the nosy neighbors. No more reports about his fiery anger, or his "controlling" personality. He'd be handing out the judgments. Finally, the big boys needed him. Nobody wanted his new job because of the hours and commitment. Johnson jumped at it before they could change their minds.
Geez. And then he dies and lands in the middle of a muddling, shuffling sheepish crowd. All the way back to the bottom of the ladder. Johnson sighed, blew out his cheeks, and shouted, "For God's sake, can we get this line moving a little faster!"
An angel magically appeared in his face, tapped Johnson on the forehead with his forefinger, somehow squeezing his angelic body between Johnson's chest and the fellow's back in front of him. Johnson knew he was an angel because of the name tag attached to his collar. In large gold print the label said, “Your Angel’s Name Is:” followed underneath by “Jay Teepee.” Odd name, Johnson thought, because the angel looked Asian.
"Glad you showed up," Johnson said. The angel smirked and tilted his head, studying Patterhorn's face.
“That’s an odd name,” Johnson said, pointing at the angel's name tag. It seemed a better remark than bringing up the oddity of the angel’s ethnicity. Johnson, though, was dying to know if there was such a thing as angel ethnicity.
Jay Teepee responded politely. “My name is your initials pronounced phonetically.” He paused, but Johnson looked confused.
“Johnson T. Patterhorn. Initials are J.T.P. So, I’m Jay Teepee,” the angel explained.
Jay wore a white suit that showed off pinstripes of blue. Johnson was still wearing the dark suit with bow tie, topped by his signature straw, he put on that morning. He looked down and saw that the angel had bare feet.
“Ah,” Johnson said after fully sizing up his angel. “So … You're the one responsible for traffic control?”
The angel held out his hand, waiting for a handshake, and his smirk widened a bit more. Johnson complied. The angel’s hand felt warm and familiar.
“You here for my orientation and to help get me settled in? Can we speed this up? When do I talk to the big guy and get a lay of the land? Looks like you could use a fellow like me up here. The customer service sucks.”
“Lay of the land, eh?” Jay said. “Follow me.”
The angel placed his right hand on Johnson's facing right shoulder, and then moved his left hand to Johnson’s back to move him forward. It was more of a push than a follow, Johnson thought. The crowd parted for their advance.
Instead of proceeding to one of the huge translucent doors that swung slowly to and fro as people entered through them, Jay directed Johnson far to the right, away from the bothersome crowd. A small wooden-looking door stood by itself, a hundred yards down the wall. It had no door handle, and was marked, “Viewing Room.”
Alone amid a vast white stone wall that rose hundreds of feet into the air, a green light appeared blinked above the lonely knob-less door. Jay Teepee took Johnson’s hand and pulled him through the door. Literally. Woosh.
“Wood is less difficult than traversing yards of stone,” Jay said, shaking his head in a head bobble, as if that explained everything.
On the other side of the door, within a large closeted room, stood a giant plate glass window. Twenty feet wide and 20 feet tall, Patterhorn calculated. The window filled the wall and looked out onto a white alabaster roadway that ran left and right. It was bordered on the side opposite the window by a lovely stream. The scene was lit in a blue hue from above, a soothing contrast to the dull white lighting in the viewing room.
They were alone, the angel and Johnson, looking out at the calm scene. Patterhorn sighed as the minutes went by. They stood silent, waiting for, well, he didn't know what. Johnson, resigned but dutiful, remained at his place next to Jay and watched for something to happen.
Finally, a lone woman came dancing from the right. Not walking, but dancing. Her hands waved in the air. She was thin, dressed in a white pantsuit. Her mouth moved as if she were shouting. Johnson strained to hear her.
“You can’t hear them go by,” Jay said. “It’s OK. You’re just supposed to see.”
“All right.” Johnson responded. He nodded approvingly, playing along. “What exactly am I seeing?”
“That’s Olivia. She’s been greeted by Jesus, washed and made clean. That's what happens after you get through the doors. She’s now entering the valley, heading down the road, off to the right, which we can’t quite see. That leads into Heaven. She’s thrilled, as you can tell.”
“Yeah, she looks pretty happy.” Johnson watched her go off to the left and out of his sight. “That was entertaining. Why am I seeing this, Teepee?”
"You can call me Jay.“
Johnson slowly copied Jay's smirk, and then started in on a familiar refrain of his.
"Well,” Johnson began slowly. “You can call me Ray or you can call Johnny or you can call me Sonny, or you can call me RayJay, or you can call me RJ ... but ya doesn't hafta call me Johnson!"
Patterhorn laughed, loudly, and slapped his hand on the window. "I've been waiting to say that for hours!"
The angel chuckled. "Well, back to your question, Johnson.”
He directed their attention back to Olivia. She led a very confused and wild life. and finally died from a heart problem exacerbated by drugs. “On her deathbed she cried out for forgiveness.” He folded his arms across his chest. “And then, well, there she goes. Let in on a technicality.”
“I'll be,” Johnson said, setting into a serious posture also, but he couldn't help himself. “Fortuitous. She got in by the hair of her chiny chin chin, did she?”
“Yes,” Jay said. “One very well-timed hair. Doesn’t seem fair. Life of sin, and then God forgives her because of a 'fortuitous' final plea.”
“That’s a bit harsh,” Johnson said, surprised. “Are angels always so judgmental? Loopholes are a necessary part of the process,” he said, waiting a bit before saying, “Jay.”
The angel harrumphed. "Hmmph."
They waited some more.
“Next is Figueroa,” Jay said.
There he came. The man had his hands held in prayer. He was also wearing white. The fit looking fellow was crying, and walking in stilted steps as he made his way past the picture window. His body shook in random tremors. At one point he dropped to his knees and kissed the ground, then stood up, tremors repeating, and shuffled onward.
Johnson thought the man was disturbed about something, then changed his mind. “He in disbelief, isn't he?” Johnson asked.
“Yes,” Jay said. “Very good deduction. Figueroa was raised in a religious home, and lived the bulk of his life trying to do good things. He never thought it was enough, though, for good reason. He prayed every day that God would forgive his trespasses.”
The angel slowly tilted his head over to Johnson and whispered, “He had an ugly secret that no one knew about but us angels and God.” Jay grimaced as he said it.
“Well,” Johnson said. “He obviously did enough good stuff to get in, didn’t he?”
“No,” Jay said, shaking his head emphatically. “His two or three hour problem every month was so heinous that God should have sent him straight to hell.”
“Really?” Johnson said, sidling up to his angel, finding himself wrapped up in Jay’s disgust for Figueroa. “What did Figueroa do?”
“He murdered old people, one at a time for almost 20 years,” Jay said, whispering, sharing a dark secret with a large dose of angelic disgust. He spoke so quietly that Johnson found himself shoulder to shoulder to hear the words.
“Nooo!” Johnson said back, also in a whisper. “How’d he get away with it?”
“Not my call,” Jay said, shrugging his shoulder. “It’s all been erased. He’s as clean as a whistle. But he knows deep inside that he doesn't deserve it.”
“Wow,” Johnson said. “That does appear lax on the consequential side of things.”
As soon as he said the words he regretted them. He realized his placement in the viewing room was a probable test of loyalty. "Must be some mitigating factor that we don't see," he quickly added, loudly, slowly eyeing the ceiling for cameras.
“Yes, there certainly must be,” Jay agreed, no longer whispering. “Well, as you say, Johnson, God can do what he wants, no matter how ludicrous it appears."
They watched as Figueroa exited to the left, just like Olivia.
"OK, Johnson, this next one’s important,” the angel piped up.
“Oh yeah?” Johnson queried. “I’ve got to pay attention, huh?”
“Yup.”
Johnson waited, and waited, and waited. “Nobody seems to be coming.”
“Yeah. That’s right,” Jay said.
“What’s going on? Jesus got a real barn burner on his hands back there?” Johnson asked, trying to look through the window off to the right.
“Well, I guess it's what I thought," the angel said. "You're still here." He looked over at Patterhorn. "It was supposed to be you.”
Johnson frowned, looking around, expecting somebody to show up. Jay lifted his hands into the air, and said, "Oh well."
Johnson looked at the angel, ran back to where the door should be where they came in. It was gone. He was worried. There must be someone to talk to, other than this Asian peeping Tom with an attitude that just stood there shrugging at him.
“Let’s go over there, then,” Johnson insisted, poking Jay in the chest. “If I’m supposed to be over there, what are we doing in here?”
“You have obviously decided to go in another direction.”
“What the dickens? No I didn’t. I’m right here. It must be some mistake.”
Johnson was furious.
“I’ll say!”
“Can’t you do something?” Johnson whined.
“That’s why we’re here.”
Johnson stepped back, trying to focus on what happened. “I don’t understand.”
“Oh, look,” Jay said, turning to look out the window. “It’s Vinny. The bus driver.”
A young man dressed in regular street clothes crept along the glass wall, his hands covering his face. He stopped right in front of Johnson, face pushed against the window, blubbering and sobbing, slobbering his tears all over the glass. He looked back where he came from and began running that way.
“Oh, no,” Jay Teepee said.
“Vinny? Who’s this Vinny guy? What's the matter with him?”
“Vinny is a suicide," the angel said, his hands on the window, looking back where Vinny had run.
"He jumped off a bridge because he ran over a person who stepped off a curb at the wrong time. The man he ran over is dying." The angel shook his head. "You see, the man he hit screamed at Vinny. The fellow shouted some awful things. His body lay broken and crushed, but he still managed to call Vinny every name in the book before he passed out from the pain.”
Jay shook his head. “Vinny has serious love and trust issues. This accident has sent him over the edge. Apparently, Vinny has run away from Heaven."
"Well, Jesus can fix that," Johnson said. "There's always a way. This doesn't sound like him. He should just do what he did with that Olivia chick, and the Figueroa fella. And me, too. What's the problem here? Why am I not over there? He needs me. I've got a lot to offer here? This is all messed up!"
“I didn’t see that one coming,” Jay said, still looking back at Vinny's exit back to the right. Then he snickered.
“Oh, my. I didn’t see that one coming!" The angel covered his mouth with one hand. "That’s terrible. Hits a man that he didn’t see coming. Oh my goodness.” He tried to muffle his laughs, but lost control. “I didn’t see that one coming!” he yelled out.
Johnson was horrified. “That’s not funny! Who are you?”
Looking around the room and through the window, Johnson begain shouting. “And you, Jesus! Who are you to let this Vinny guy go, and let those two awful folks get in? This doesn't make any sense!"
And that’s when Johnson T. Patterhorn woke up.
He was in the ER, covered in tubes and strapped down in every direction. His wife, son, and daughter were in the room. They gingerly touched him from both sides of the bed. Their eyes were red, and the sadness was unmistakable. Johnson was covered in bandages. He couldn’t move without grievous pain, and even as he lied still he hurt miserably. He coughed out some words.
“What happ-happ-ened?” Johnson said.
“You were hit by a bus, honey. It’s all over the news. I’m so sorry to say this, but you are dying.” His wife covered her face with her hands.
“We’ve been praying and praying that you would wake up, daddy,” said Johnson’s daughter. She was at his side. “At least we get to say goodbye. Talk to you one last time.”
“Uh ... bus?” Johnson said, struggling to talk.
“Oh no!” He sputtered out.
“I am the ... guy who ... Vinny didn’t see coming? I need to talk to God,” he yelled.
"What, honey?" his wife said, sure her husband was hallucinating. He was hard to understand.
“What happened ... to the driver?” Johnson said next.
She turned to a man standing over by the door in the hospital room, next to his son. “He’s that fellow over there,” she said angrily.
“He insisted on coming to see you. Now that you’re awake, you can tell him to leave.”
“No! ... It’s OK!” Patterhorn shouted over to the driver. "Tell him ... to stay!"
Each word tore at his lungs. He began pleading with the bus driver.
“It was ... an accident. Not your fault.” Johnson could see the man’s ashen face. “Really ... It’s OK ... Thanks for coming ... to see me. That's what ... this is all about ... Vinny. You’re OK ... Believe me .. I know God loves you ... You can trust him ... He’d do anything ... to get you ... to join him.”
Johnson began spitting up some blood. His whole body hurt everywhere. He was really in terrible shape.
“My name is Matt, Matt Vineyard,” the fellow said, nervous and confused. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know any Vinny.” Then the man's eyes opened, like he remembered something. “Oh!”
He fainted. A nurse attended to him.
“Dr. Chung told us to pray for you,” Johnson’s son told him, helping the nurse with Matt.
“He’s a Chinese doctor,” Johnson’s wife said. “Jay. Jay Chung. He was at the accident, and held your hand the whole way to the hospital. He’s been wonderful. But he couldn’t save you.”
She patted Johnson's hand, lightly. It was crushed, along with every other limb. "He said we need to leave everything in God's hands now."
"Does he have a weird sense of humor?" Johnson said, getting the whole sentence out at once. His face hurt as he said it.
Surprised by the question, she thought about it. "He kind of smirks when he talks, but that's just because he's Asian, I think," said Johnson's wife.
Johnson could feel himself slipping away. “Jay Teepee is ... Dr. Jay Chung,” he said.
Then, with a last plea, he said “Please, Jesus ... don’t let Vinny run away ... and don't abandon me ... to myself."
Then Johnson T. Patterhorn died.
In the next moment, Johnson stood looking directly into the face of Jesus who was holding both of Johnson’s hands. He was blowing lightly on Patterhorn’s face to wake him up.
After realizing Jesus was in front of him, Johnson dropped to his knees. He looked to the left and right, and peeked behind Jesus. He was the only one there. No family. No hospital room. No large glass doors. No line of folks.
“I’m so sorry, Jesus,” Johnson said, looking up to Jesus. He let go of Jesus’ hands, holding instead onto the edge of the son of God’s garment. He dropped his shoulders, and looked back into Jesus' eyes. He struggled for a second or two, knowing Jesus was peering into his soul. Johnson let go of trying to block him, allowing the holy one see into every corner of his being. In a painful flow of power and restoration, Johnson let Jesus course through his veins, pouring himself into the man’s body.
Patterhorn sensed his body healing, transforming as the pain of so many sinful memories rushed at him. His soul was being morphed somehow, clearing up everything he had ever worried or wondered about.
As the purging of memories began to slow, Johnson held up a hand to say something. Jesus nodded to him.
“Is Vinny OK? Did he take his life?” he said, and then apologized for interrupting. "I don't want you to stop, but I'd like to know."
“Matt is OK,” Jesus said, smiling. "Nobody has called him Vinny since he was six years old. That was his mother. She loved him. He lost her the day after Christmas that very year."
Jesus stared into Johnson's face until he allowed him to finish his restoration. And then Jesus said, "Do you want to come with me?”
“I don’t deserve it. I’m not a very nice person.”
“I want you anyway.”
Johnson T. Patterhorn believed Jesus, accepted his hand and followed him into a stunning white light.
“Is there really a viewing room,” Johnson asked. "And, Is Dr. Chung actually my personal angel?"
Jesus was quiet as they walked. Holding hands was not awkward.
“Well, it’s different for everyone. Angels are amazing creatures, just like you. Whatever it takes.”
“How did you know what would work for me? Why at the last minute?”
“I don’t give up very easily,” Jesus said. “You're right. I can fix things. Much more to tell you about the angels and the minutes you speak of. But first, do you want to see the lay of the land?”
So beautiful, John. I loved it, old professor Ronda Chervin