Walter Wangerin Jr. - Wounds Are Where Light Enters: Stories of Gods Intrusive Grace

CONTENTS

ALSO BY WALTER WANGERIN JR.

The Book of God: The Bible as a Novel

Jesus: A Novel

Paul: A Novel

The Book of the Dun Cow

Naomi and Her Daughters

Ragman and Other Cries of Faith

Preparing for Jesus

Reliving the Passion

Mourning into Dancing

Whole Prayer

Letters from the Land of Cancer

Little Lamb, Who Made Thee?

ZONDERVAN

Wounds Are Where Light Enters

Copyright 2017 by Walter Wangerin Jr.

Requests for information should be addressed to:

Zondervan, 3900 Sparks Dr. SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

ISBN 978-0-310-24005-1 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-0-310-35034-7 (ebook)

Epub Edition October 2017 ISBN 9780310350347

Scripture quotations are taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1946, 1952, and 1971 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Any Internet addresses (websites, blogs, etc.) and telephone numbers in this book are offered as a resource. They are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement by Zondervan, nor does Zondervan vouch for the content of these sites and numbers for the life of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

The author is represented by Alive Literary Agency, 7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80920, www.aliveliterary.com

Art direction: Curt Diepenhorst

Interior design and artwork: Denise Froehlich

Editorial team: John Sloan, Gwyneth Findlay, and Robert Hudson

First printing September 2017 / Printed in the United States of America

For Robert Hudson,
editor and friend

I n 1948 little Wally was small enough to crawl under the church pews, young enough to be hauled up one-handed by his mother. At the same time, he was old enough to suffer a spiritual crisis. Wally had never seen Jesus with his own eyes. Surely, the Savior should be strolling through the rooms of Gods house.

Wally was convinced that all the other Sunday worshipers had seen the Lord face-to-face or they wouldnt be singing hymns without anxiety, nor would they merely murmur their prayers. They didnt have to shout, for their Jesus was nearby, wearing a robe and a rope and sandals, eating sandwiches, and drinking soda pop.

Maybe Jesus was hiding from Wally particularly. Maybe he was mad at Wally for some sin. But what sin? Wally couldnt remember. But shouldnt a kid remember a sin so bad that Jesus would reject him? Wally tried hard to remember so that he could say that he was very, very sorry.

The preacher preached gobbledygook. During his sermons, then, little Wally slipped from the pew-seat to the floor and peered through a forest of anklebones and pant cuffs and shoes and shoelaces. No dice. Not long and his mother grabbed him by the shirt collar, dragged him to the pew, and clapped him to her side with an incontrovertible grip.

She was a very strong woman, his mother, and her will was absolute. Once in Glacier National Park a ranger said, You meet a bear, give him the right-of-way. Dont look into its eyes. Dont run. Move slowly, slowly away.

When Virginia did meet a bear coming out of the woods and ambling toward her tent, she went after it, whacking two pans together and yelling, Not my kids!

The bear said, Woof, and turned away.

But Wally, he remained obdurate.

I wanted to see Jesus!

One Sunday, then, he clutched his crotch and jiggled. He said to his mother, I got to go pee.

She said, If you have to, you have to. But come straight back.

The heart of a child is capable of great desolationand thereby of great cunning. The more I felt abandoned, the sharper became my baby wit, trying to figure out where Jesus was concealing himself. I thought I might catch him off guard in, say, the pastors office. I looked there but found him not. I looked into the roaring boiler room. In the church kitchen. In the boys bathroom. And then, with a fearful thrill, I ventured the Holy of Holies, the girls bathroom. Boys never passed it by without spasms of awe.

The room had the aroma of woman-mystery. Along one wall was a counter before which were small cushioned stools, on which were little spray bottles of perfume and boxes of Kleenex, and behind which was an elaborate, wood-framed mirror, but no Jesus. On the other hand, there were two metal potty stalls. Nervously I swung their doors open, one after the otherthen returned to my mother, a gaunt, lost little boy.

The next thought that occurred to me was downright brilliant.

When the pastor turned to face the altar and began to chant, I couldnt believe that the deep bass voice was his. This was a pale, bespectacled man, too short and too mild to produce such a voice. So what? So he was only pretending to chant. That voice had to be the glory of the Lord! Now, the altar was a long, wooden affair, shaped something like a coffin. Thats where Jesus was hiding.

As soon as the service had ended and the people were filing out of church, I crept up the chancel steps and tiptoed to the altar. Then, suddenly, I jumped (booga-booga!) behind it. Lo, the altar had no back to it. A dusty floor, an old hymnal, a broken chair, but no Jesus. My Lord was not lying in there, reading the Bible or sipping orange juice.

The heart of a child can grow heavy with sorrow and cold with loneliness. I knew that I was not a pretty boy. Moon-faced was what my mother called me. Wooly-headed. Maybe I was an embarrassment to look at.

My life was over.

Sometime later again, during the same worship service, I noticed for the first time what my mother must have been doing all the years of my life.

The ghostly preacher faced the altar and said, Bread, and then he said, My body. Everyone was standing. My mother was standing.

The preacher said, Blood. Drink.

Gruesome.

The preacher turned to us and said, The peace of the Lord, and everyone sang, Amen.

Then a man came up the aisle telling the people in each pew that they should go on and walk into the chancel. There was a railing between the people and the pastor, and a long cushion on the peoples side where they could kneel. The pastor was moving along that rail.

When it was our pews turn I noticed a change in my mother. Her head was bowed and her hands were folded, you know, like the angel in our stained-glass window. Like everyone else at the rail, she knelt. But the most astonishing thing was that when the pastor came to her, she put out her tongue and the pastor stuck a little cracker to it, and my mother chewed and swallowedjust like a baby eating Pablum! Then he tipped a big golden cup to her lips. A sippy cup! And Virginia Wangerin drank! This was not the woman who could scare bears. This was not the mother so strong that she could haul a kid right off the floor with one hand only. This wasthis was different from anything Id seen before. I mean