“Do you remember the first time you climbed this rock face?” Dad asked.
I was seventeen - and had once bragged that I could make the climb with my eyes closed.
“I remember the first time I was successful,” I replied. “It was on my eighth attempt.”
And I remembered how disappointed you looked on the first seven attempts.
“What changed on the eighth attempt?” Dad asked. “Did the rock face shift? Did new cracks open up and new handholds form?”
“Of course not. It took the earlier attempts to understand how to climb the face.”
“And how about now?” he asked. “Is it still a difficult climb?”
“Not really.”
“So, you know this rock face?” he asked.
I gave him my best seventeen-year-old “Where are you going with this” look. He smiled. We were past the point where I needed to use words to get a point across.
“I went to a prayer meeting in Carlsbad, New Mexico last week,” Dad said. “There was a young Marked man there who was praying aloud, and his prayers made Jesus sound far away - like the only place Jesus exists is up in the sky. There was more than that though; his prayers sounded like he was worried about bothering Jesus - as if his troubles were the sort of thing that Jesus wouldn’t care about.”
I decided to climb with my eyes closed, to see if I could actually do it.
“As the young man went on praying, it became clear that no matter what he had in his life, it would never be good enough for him. He berated himself for not doing enough service in Christ’s name. He apologized for not spending enough time in worship. He worried that his very thoughts betrayed him and labeled him as a disappointment in Jesus’ eyes.”
I slid my hands and feet from one hold to another. I really did know the rock with my eyes closed.
“The worst part of all was that he seemed to think that the perception he held of himself must also be the way that Jesus perceives him - not good enough. He had allowed his own brokenness to shape his perception of Jesus.”
I came to the most difficult part of the climb. I’d need to reach out and grab a distant handhold and swing over so that my feet could land on a small ledge. There was no way to half do it or turn back, once the reach began. It required full commitment.
“So what changed on your eighth attempt at this climb, Jocie?” Dad asked. “You said there were no new cracks or handholds.”
“I was wondering when you’d get back to the original question,” I replied.
I made the swing with my eyes closed and landed on the ledge; then opened my eyes and smiled at Dad.
“Jesus is the rock face, Jocie,” Dad said. “Your perception of the rock face was always based on
your limitations - not His. Jesus hasn’t changed, and He never will.
For once, Dad looked proud of me.
******
“I hate to sound like a little kid, but are we there yet?” I ask.
Dad has me wearing a blindfold, as we ride somewhere in a private tube car.
“My first trip after I got out of the hospital was very special; so I thought I should do the same for you,” Dad replies. “Besides, I bet you can narrow down the possibilities, if you think about it.”
He says it as the car comes to a stop and the door opens.
“That was a short ride … so we’re still somewhere on the east coast, probably no more than one hundred and fifty kilometers from Winchester, Virginia.”
“Your family is weird, the way they do things like that,” Zera says.
“Don’t look at me,” Austin says. “It’s just the two of them.”
Dad let me pick my own security detail for this trip, and I chose Mom, Dad, Austin, and Zera. “If you think that’s weird, you probably don’t want to think about how I’d know that you two are holding hands.”
I hear their hands quickly come apart and Mom laughs.
“Don’t worry, Zera. If you hang out with Paulsons for long enough, you get used to it,” Mom says.
“Okay, smarty pants. Where are we?” Austin asks.
In my mind, I draw a one hundred and fifty kilometer circle around Winchester. Part of the circle is in the ocean; so I start to the south and follow the circle clockwise. Although I wouldn’t mind going to a beach, this trip is presumably to somewhere with more sentimental meaning for our family. Nothing near the circle stands out in the south or west, but when I reach a point to the north and east, I inhale audibly.
“You can take off the blindfold,” Dad says. “She knows.”
The sign on the station wall says “Welcome to Baltimore.”
“We’re going to the Baltimore Death Zone?” I ask. “It would be over two hundred years old. It must have all been plowed under ages ago.”
“Most of it was,” Dad says. “But there’s something there I want you to see.”
We take a private car from the station to the peninsula where the Zone used to stand. What had been an industrial district full of old shipping containers is now a beautiful riverfront community, complete with a peaceful, tree-lined river walk.
“You’d never suspect what happened here,” I say.
“Then tell us,” Dad says. “Or better yet, tell them.”
A line of people has gathered along the walking path. Their backs are to us, as they quietly wait their turn to see whatever Dad has brought me here to see. Dad must have anticipated a crowd today because my hand-picked security detail is not alone. I catch sight of numerous family members, and other members of Four, among the crowd. We’re waiting along with everyone else, when I hear Uncle Cameron’s voice yell from somewhere in front of me.
“Look everyone! Jocie Paulson is here! Let her through,” he says.
As a hush falls over the crowd, it slowly parts until I can see what the main attraction is. This is the site of the national Final Holy War memorial, and the centerpiece is an old shipping container with a bronze statue on top, depicting a girl with angel wings who is just about to smash the red light with a stick.
There’s even a news crew recording my visit.
“Welcome to Angel Park, Jocie,” Dad says.
I understand, now, why Dad walked so slowly across the stage when he visited the site of his torture inside the mountain. My feet feel like stones as I slowly walk to the old container. Inside is a recreation of the old bathtub - complete with a statue of Jordan, covered in sores and under a pile of ice.
There’s a statue representing me, too. It’s ripping a screaming cloth in half.
It’s not until I turn to walk away from the container - and the memories it represents - that I realize the crowd has been waiting for me to speak.
“Everything you’ve heard on the news is true,” I begin. “I was there. I was in the Baltimore Death Zone. I was there to hear the screaming, and to watch the pain, and the death of The Final Holy War. I want you all to understand what it was like, but there are no words I can say that would ever describe it.”
There’s a marked girl who looks to be about eight years old standing at the front of the crowd. She has bright eyes and a cheerful smile that reminds me of the girl I met outside Baltimore the night J.W. was cured. Like the girl two hundred years earlier, the one standing in front of me is lit up with hope.
“You don’t need to describe it, Angel,” she says. “What you did for us tells us how bad it must have been. It must have been so bad that you’d do anything to not see it again -even drinking toxin.”
“They called me ‘Angel’ when I was in the Zone, but I don’t want to be called that here. I’m not an angel. I’m just…”
My voice trails off, as I look at Dad. I’ve always focused on the sadness in his eyes, and today is no different. He’s sad because I’m sad; but I realize that there’s something else that’s always been there - hidden under the sadness.
Hope. It’s the light that burned inside him on that bike ride to ‘oh my god corner’ and digging himself out of the cave and when he was tortured inside the mountain. Nothing could put out the fire of hope. It’s who he is … and it’s who I am.
“Daddy,” I say, as if he and I were the only two here. “I understand, now.”
Dad smiles and many in the crowd turn towards him.
“The crucifixion; your time in the mountain; my time in Zone. Jesus was there. He was there to take something horrible and ugly, and turn it into something beautiful.”
“Look around you, Jocie.” Dad says. Then finish the sentence you started.”
I scan the faces in the crowd and everywhere I look, I see the same thing, hope. When I look up at Dad, there’s not a trace of sadness anywhere in his eyes.
“I’m not an angel,” I say. “I’m just an ordinary person who stood next to Jesus, when He took something horrible and turned it into something beautiful.”
I then realize who is standing beside Dad, with a hand on Dad’s shoulder.
“Daniel?” I say.
The black lines are gone from Daniel’s face. Just a few black dots remain, looking like nothing more than dark freckles. I walk to him and reach out with my hand to touch them.
“Dot, dot, dot,” I say, as tears roll down his cheeks.
“I was the first in line when Cindi and Amelia asked for volunteers,” Daniel says. “With your antivenin in me, they were able to reverse the genetic damage from Henry’s vaccine. It’s going to take a lot of testing, but the hope is that the mark of the beast will be gone forever. Just think, if this works then there’s going to be a little bit of you running through the veins of most of humanity - but I think we’d be better off if we could all share a little of what runs through your soul.”
******
The next two hours are spent among the people of Angel Park: praying, answering questions, and generally sharing the collective joy of being together. Eventually, Mom decides that I’m physically and emotionally exhausted, and announces that I need to rest. I take Dad’s hand and pull him aside so we can enjoy the river walk together. When I take his hand, I feel that his wedding band is back where it belongs, and I give it a curious look.
“Another family secret,” he says.
There’s a question on my mind, but Dad speaks first.
“I learned something from you today, Jocie,” he says. “I’ve avoided it for all of these years, but I think I should visit the mountain on the next anniversary of my time there.”
“What changed your mind?”
“I watched you at the container today. The memories were painful for you, and you were sad as you remembered the suffering and the death; but I sensed that you pushed them aside and focused on what kept you going through the experience: faith and hope. Then I wondered to myself if Christ would want to visit Golgotha - the next time He walks on the earth - and remember what happened to Him there. I think He would. I think He’d push the memory of the suffering aside and focus on the joy that His suffering brought about.”
We walk in silence for a while again, before I ask my question.
“Dad? If you had to do it all again, would you have told me what was going to happen, or prepared me for it?”
“In what way were you not prepared?”
He’s right. Knowing what was ahead wouldn’t have prepared me. He prepared me best by just being with me, and being my dad.
“The truth is, Jocie, you’re the one who spent the last eighteen years preparing me.”
“Preparing you? For what?” I ask.
“To get a glimpse of how I imagine Jesus sees you, and for the joy I imagine Jesus must feel, as He watches all of us solve an entire universe worth of the puzzles that He created.”