Take the Last Exit for Christmas
Today you spent the entire morning thinking about giving your life to the church.
It didn’t matter what church.
It didn’t matter what god.
It’s the surrender that counts.
Then you thought about taking your last few dollars and buying a bottle of sleeping pills and a bus ticket to the Great Smoky Mountains. You could walk and walk and walk until you got cold and hungry and dizzy and then you would fall down. No human would ever find you. You’d be covered with a shroud of dead leaves and snow, and in the darkest months the gaunt, winter-hungry scavengers would gnaw at your bones so that in the spring all that would remain would be your gold tooth.
Perhaps Jesus would like it that way. Perhaps, but you don’t know. What you do know is that you have sinned and that you can sin no more if you are no more. Simple. But it soon becomes apparent that you are a coward, and cowardice is the worst sin of all.
Your mind drifts to sad winters beneath ponderous darkness and clacking bones of skeletal trees, hustling through the dirty slush into shopping malls where the name of Jesus is blown like Muzak and countless Plastic Baby Saviors (competing for your dollar) lay mute-eyed in half-assed mangers, reminding you of all the things that are not yours:
That new car.
That great job.
That summer house.
That perfect spouse.
AND THE FUCKIN’ PEACE OF MIND THAT YOU WILL NEVER HAVE!
* * *
You stop.
You look at that speechless Gabriel on top of that stupid tree.
And for one second you become less cowardly.