Guest Blog: A Knock on the Door

Another gem from Elizabeth:

Wow! Something really amazing happened this morning, as I was starting to write a little piece about empathy and human connection for this blog, as if I know all that much about either. But I’m trying to learn as I try to work toward mental and emotional healing.

But I scratched what I was trying to write when this amazing thing happened, because life gave me such a surprising gift. An adolescent boy, I’d guess about 16, rang my doorbell and presented himself as the cousin of a friend of mine, a 14-year-old boy I call V. This young man at my door, who I don’t know from Adam, said, “My cousin (V.) told me about you and asked me to come over and see if you need any help.”

I said to this young man at my door, “Well, not today, but thank you. Come back another day. I don’t have any money. But I do have this serious weed garden problem you could help me with when I have some.”

He said, “That’s all right, you don’t have to pay me.” He seemed a bit surprised by my presumption that he’d want to get paid.

I said “Thank you, thank you so much. Come back another day because I would have to pay you.”

I came back to my desk in total awe.

V. is motherless child. A few of years ago, his mother was shot and his father put in prison. He doesn’t quite know why, or he’s not saying. Until a couple of months ago, he was living in a house behind me with about twelve relatives. Now he lives in the inner city with his grandmother. Haven’t seen him in a while, and worry about him. He’ll show up again soon, I hope.

Now I don’t know anything about this adolescent who just rang my doorbell, except his connection to V.. but I have a feeling I will. But let me tell you the events that led up to this great blessing of a total stranger coming over to ask me if I need any help. For free.

I teach, so I have summers off. In my neighborhood, kids of all ages congregate at the yard next to mine to play basketball and noodle around all day. Built into the hemlock that dominates my back yard, there’s a ladder to a ledge about five feet off the ground, and a swing hangs from one of the branches. My front porch has a porch swing. So naturally, kids infiltrate my yard and porch.

Sensible people urge me to keep these kids off my property. “If a kid fell out of that tree, you could get sued,” they warn me. Of that little tree ledge, they say, “Tear it down. Legally, it’s what’s called an attractive nuisance.” I know they’re right, but I can’t help feeling that I would just be adding to the sickness of the world if I shooed these kids off my yard. I’m trying to heal my own sickness, and contributing to the insanity around me—in this case, the fear of lawsuits that leaves many of us in a state of paranoia—is just more than I can bring myself to do. At least not on purpose.

A couple of years ago, the neighborhood kids started started knocking at my door. They’d come in in flocks to see my cats and because I’m really bad at names, I just started giving them letter names. Thus the name of this 14-year-old friend of mine, V., who immediately dubbed me Z.

V. and I hit it off right away. He’s amazingly quick-witted and curious, funny and rascally. He started to come over by himself to hang out, look at the pictures on my walls, the weird chotskies and such I have too many of, and listen to music. As I’m writing this, I’m listening to Mozart’s Vespers, one of his favorites. He was fascinated by the food in my kitchen: I don’t eat much American food. He’d pull some mint out of my garden and we’d make tea, maybe play some Monopoly or cards, and I’d usually end up feeding him something and giving him a chore, so I could give him some pocket change. He’d end up buying food to share with his friends with that money.

I have serious depression issues, and some days when he came to my door I’d tell him I wasn’t accepting company. At my lowest, my depressions get so bad I’m afraid to answer the phone and quake at the sound of the mailman for months on end. I isolate. I can’t manage to get out of my bathrobe. I don’t want people to see how badly off I am. I have nothing to say and no way to communicate. No words but words of misery. V. would do his best to pull me out of my funk. “Let’s play Monopoly, Z.,” he’d say. “Let me in. Please?”

People told me, “Don’t let that child in your house. You could be accused of child molestation. He could steal from you.” Sensible people say I should have shut this child out of my life. He’s not your problem, they say. But V. isn’t a problem. He’s a delight. And he has helped me more than I have helped him.

What’s the point of this little story? As a dear friend of mine says, be good to people and the universe will take care of you. And as I’ve started to meditate on that and try to practice it, my view of life has become brighter. And even though life has dealt V. a pretty brutal hand, I hope the universe will take care of him as he tries to make it to manhood in the inner city.

Sometimes it seems that life is all about cruelty and swindle and pain, and the best thing to do is distrust and shut people out. Particularly during periods of depression.

But today, this adolescent boy, a total stranger, showed up at my house. He was sent on a mission by a 14-year-old orphan. He said, need any help? And I know that life is certainly not all about cruelty and swindle and pain.

Guest Blog - The God Negotiations: Acts II and III

Yesterday, Act I to Elizabeth's masterpiece. Today, the concluding acts.

Act II

God was right! He always is, you know. If you cover your body in garbage bags, very easily obtainable in these amazing free shopping places called dumpsters, you stay nice and warm throughout a Cleveland winter and the weird people don’t bother you. It’s as if they aren’t even there!

Down on the streets of Cleveland, I was getting very chummy with this nice guy named Joe, and we were sharing this delicious elixir called Wild Irish Rose. Spring was springing, the rats dancing most gracefully, and all I had to do was look up at the sky and see the most serene beauty, a different picture every day, indeed every minute sometimes. Joe had just made me the most glorious crown out of aluminum foil that really worked in keeping the extra-terrestial bureau of investigation from extracting my most precious thoughts, and which Joe said was most becoming on me, when God turned me into water vapor. The last thing I heard was Joe moaning, why does this always happen whenever I meet a nice chick?

Then I was going up, up, up into the clouds, and the next thing I knew I was in God’s office. Some weird music was blaring, the lyrics going something like War, huh, good God y’all. What is it good for? . . . The office was an absolute disaster. God was sitting at his desk playing solitaire on his computer, still in his bathrobe. Well, he always wears a bathrobe, even to work. Who’s going to stop him? He’s God!

I had to shout The Serenity Prayer in His ear three times before He recognized my presence. Just hold on, He said. I might win this one. But He didn’t, sighed, and turned to me. Sorry, forgot all about your appointment, He said, looking more than a bit dour. Like the last thing he wanted was the presence of another soul.

You called me, I said, quite annoyed by being pulled away by all the fun I’d been having in Cleveland but trying to keep my cool. Didn’t want to be smooted. Or smited. Whatever.

Right, forgot, He muttered. Where’s that file?

He finally found it under a pile of Weekly World Newspapers. Have you considered that life I was telling you about?

I was thinking maybe You have something better in there. Maybe a Guess model. Any of those in your file?

Oh, no, you don’t want to be a Guess model, he said. That’s a terrible fate.

Well, I didn’t know what to say. They seem so happy in their photos, but I didn’t pursue it. Instead, I just asked, What else do you have in there?

He shuffled some papers around and pulled out a form. I have a very promising life as a worm, He said. There. That sounds good.

A worm? Are you kidding me? Who wants to be a worm?

Well, they are quite evolved. If you happen to get cut in two, you live on as two worms, which could help you to unkink some philosophical quandaries. Plus, it would be a chance for you to actually do some good for the planet earth. Darwin was very interested. . .

No, no, no. They’re too icky. Make me something a little less icky, please. I’d like to be human.

He muttered under his breath for a while, saying things like, oh, sure, they all want to be human, and so few of them who think they are really are. Really, I should have let Satan take over. This job is just too much pressure sometimes.

Why, oh why, is God always saying things like that? He’s omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient and all the rest, yet His office is a disaster and you can’t get Him on the phone for months on end.

O.K., He says. If you insist on a human form, I’ve got three choices for you: a Catholic bishop with a taste for choirboys, a diamond miner in Africa, and that one I was telling you about.

A diamond miner in Africa! That sounds absolutely idyllic! Zebras and giraffes and amazing flowers, and all I have to do is find a few diamonds?

You think? You think worms are icky? The ants in Africa are huge! Plus it says you get your hands chopped off at the age of 15 and spend the rest of your life looking around for someone to feed you. I don’t think you’re ready for it, though, he says. Too spiritual. He crumples that form in his hand and throws it at the wastebasket, missing.

Oh. I sit there for awhile, mulling it over my remaining two choices. I twist a lock of my hair around my finger and try to look cute. He just scowls at me. Don’t even try it, he growls.

I was thinking, I do like hats. Bishops get to wear these fabulous hats and beautifully embroidered vestments and tell people what to think in glorious cathedrals with amazing stained-glass windows. And I do like choirboys myself, just not that way. That’s the only trouble. Hmmm. Meanwhile God played more solitaire on his computer. Finally he turned to me and said, I’ve been playing this game all afternoon, and I just can’t seem to win. Look, take the first option. Just take it and get out of here. You’re wasting my time.

Is that a command? What about free will?

You have three minutes, He said, turning the sands of time from His Yatzee game.

I pondered and pondered and swiveled myself around and around in the desk chair God had so benificiently provided for me. Fun! Finally I said O.K. So what’s so great about this life You’re trying to sell me on? Anything else on that form You can tell me? Any perks?

He looked at the form. You get to be a woman and have a child. That’s really cool. And you meet some wonderful people who will help you along. Oh, and every once in a while you laugh so hard that water spurts out your nose, and there’s a 7-11 down the street from you that sells excellent Indian convenience food for cheap. But back to the main problem you’ll have. Let me tell you, the cures for your disorders are there—you just have to persist. You find them and then that’s the end of it. Sort of like an Easter egg hunt. What the heck else could you want?

I know, I really do know, that God loves me infinitely, so I figured I’d take His advice.

O.K. I said. I’ll take it.

Act III

There is no Act III. Or rather, I’m living it.