The Holy Intruder just elbowed into my psyche and is taking up precious cognitive space usually reserved for judging others, feeling sorry for myself, nursing grudges and disappointments, or composing acerbic speeches to have ready when forced to engage with stupidity.
“Let it go,” Intruder whispers. “Nothing matters.”
“You’re wrong,” I whisper back. “What about shooters, liars, and war?”
“Exactly,” Intruder nods. “What about them? In the end, they will be Nothing.”
“All that suffering. All those dead. All that fucking shoot-em-up big truck lunacy? You’re wrong. This can’t be the way. It matters.”
“Okay. Fine. It matters. And it doesn’t. The guest list keeps growing. Atoms, neutrinos, critical masses, haters, and innocent wisps of life–I’m building bigger ballrooms all the time. Biggest ballrooms anyone’s ever seen.” Intruder grins.
“NOT FUNNY,” I yell as I run for the river.
In a frenzy, I dig newly exposed rocks out of the cracked riverbed to make higher walls for my labyrinth. Here among brittle, twisted roots and silent spiders, I can scream. Here I can hide and pretend. Here I can beg the Force of Life to get it over with quickly. The great decline is upon us.
Intruder appears with a platter of caramel apples and an entourage of angels and demons.
She says, “To arrive beyond, you must love the contradictions. Swim in the yins and yangs, square pegs, round holes, turning and tipping points, collaboratives, kibbutzim, and killing fields.”
These words threaten to crack me open, but I resist. Like a young Palestinian, all I have is rocks to defend myself. With what’s left of my throwing arm, I pelt her without mercy.
The Holy Intruder kneels, naked. I throw and throw. Welts rise; bruises turn black and purple. She waves a million arms in surrender, bows her head, and closes her many eyes. The demons surround the body and tend to her wounds, but it’s over. The angels and I link arms and dance the Hora. “Hava Nagila,” we shout. “Let us rejoice.”
She awakens into seven Celtic witches of great beauty; their melodies and harmonies take flesh, burning bright and gentle against the coming night.
We are the fatted calves. We are the scapegoats dashing for the wilderness. Burdened by the vile sins of our kind, we run amok. The Holy Intruder runs with us, surrounds us, and turns the stampeding masses toward dawn. We are one ascendent mass of punctured tires and chromosomal abnormalities.
The escape route is circular. We’re in the parade whether we like it or not. The Holy Intruder lifts the baton, and we’re off. It appears to be another day.
Short visits with an honest God 