~~/*\~~ Cory ~~/*\~~
The only thing more depressing than a funeral, was a funeral that nobody came to.
Bud wasn’t religious. His funeral was done at the funeral home. The eulogy was given by someone on staff. Someone Bud had never met.
The only people in attendance were Bud’s immediate family, one or two people from the meetings. Cory was there too. He was the only one wearing a tie.
The picture of Bud was of him with some friends. It was years old. Apparently, more recent pictures were unflattering. Marco squeezed Cory’s hand in solidarity, during the ‘non-denominational’ prayer. The ritual was carefully worded to make it hard to know which deity it was talking about. The vagueness was meant to be inclusive towards all, but after months of study, Cory could only hear how hollow the platitudes were.
“Dear Lord,” The speaker declared in front of the few in attendance. “In our grief, we embrace the certain and natural cycle of life and death. We appreciate that while our loved one is no longer with us in physical form, their spirit lives on in our hearts and memories, enriching our experience of life. Grant us wisdom enough to find peace in the truth of these words. We thank you for the wisdom of our fallen brother. Amen.”
~~/*\~~
“A part of me feels like it’s all my fault.” Cory said to Marco afterwards.
“Why?” Marco asked gently.
“He asked me to go camping with him.” Cory sighed. “We did that once, when he was feeling the edge of it. I knew he had relapsed at least once.” He lowered his eyes. “When people like him relapse, sometimes they need a swift kick. Sometimes they need space. There’s nobody who feels worse about it when you slip like that.” He rubbed his eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I didn’t even think about it. I had my own stuff going on, I was angry at other things, and didn’t want to take on someone else’s…” He shook his head. “No excuse. I failed him. I left him alone when he relapsed, and he overdosed.”
“It wasn’t an overdose.” Someone said.
Cory turned. It was one of the young men from the front row. He came over to stand next to Cory, but really he was just getting closer to the table full of finger foods. The small gathering had several people from Bud’s various Twelve Step Programs, so there was no wine or spirits included in the buffet. The young man heaped a paper plate with some generic sandwiches, cut into quarters; and a few cookies from a plate by the coffee urn.
It’s all so mass produced. A man is dead, and they’ve done this a thousand times before. Cory thought. No wonder I think we’re beneath God’s notice. We’re certainly beneath our own.
“He was your sponsor, right? In one of the programs?” The young man asked. “I’m Artie. I am… I was his son.”
“N-Not the programs, exactly.” Cory stammered out, trying to think of the appropriate thing to say. “One of the groups for people related to Alcoholics. Bud came by our meetings now and then. Gave us advice about what to look for… One night we got to talking. I would even say we became friends.”
“Friends.” Artie repeated wryly around a mouthful of sandwich.
Cory understood the tone. He had used the same tone whenever someone claimed to be a friend of his father, from back in his drinking days. The only real friends that his father had in those days were the other barflies. “What did you mean? It wasn’t an overdose?”
“I was the one that found the body. His dosage was small. It killed him because he’d spent so long using in the past that his body couldn’t handle one more hit. Even a small one.” Artie’s voice was flat, hard, unforgiving. He was at his father’s funeral and angrier at his father than he’d ever been. “After years of being clean, his system still hadn’t recovered.”
“That’s the way it goes sometimes, I guess.” Cory said awkwardly. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
Artie turned that glare on Cory. “It was always going to happen. Sooner or later, it was inevitable.”
Cory suddenly realized he was completely in over his head. “Bud was-”
“He was a junkie.” Artie cut him off roughly. As harsh as his words and tone were, Cory could see the reflections of tears in his eyes starting to bud. “I grew up with addiction in the house. I know it’s not his fault. But there’s a point where you can’t be anything else, and it happened long before I came along.”
Artie left it at that and walked away quickly. Cory let him go, feeling his heart thudding painfully.
“Try not to judge him for being harsh with you.” Marco offered. He’d been so quiet, that Cory almost forgot he was there. “He just lost his father. Anger is stronger than despair.”
Cory thought about that for a second. “I will admit that I take refuge in anger when something makes me feel small and worthless. I did it with you just a few weeks ago. I felt bad, and I took the opportunity to insult you, your religion, even God Himself.” He sniffed. “Is it too late to apologize for that?”
“Never.”
The two men shook hands, and Cory felt better for it. “Well. I’m done here.” He glanced out the windows. “It’s a nice day. I think I’ll walk home.”
“It’s a pretty fair hike.” Marco advised.
“I know, but I could use the walk. Exercise helps.”
~~/*\~~
As glad as he was to have finally made peace properly with Marco, he kept thinking about Artie all the way home. “There’s a point where you can’t be anything else.” He replayed the phrase. It was true, he knew, that some alcoholics kept it up because after a while, they couldn’t enjoy anything other than getting drunk.
Which made him think of his studies with Marco. He’d heard about the promises of Paradise, where there would be no war, no crime, no poverty. Where nobody would ever grow old, get sick, or die. If Bud was going to be returned to life, what would he do?
Addiction is a disease. Will he simply never want to get high again? What if he does?
Marco shook his head slightly, lost in thought as he walked from the train station to his home. If there’s a point where we’re never anything but our sins, then why would we be brought back to life at all? What would Marco even say to someone like Bud?
“What would I say to him, if it was me?” He suddenly asked himself.
~~/*\~~
With nothing else to do for the rest of the day, he went to one of his ACA Meetings. He heard people talking about their struggles. One or two of them mentioned Bud. The meetings might have been anonymous, but everyone knew at least one or two people, if only their Sponsors.
There are friends here. And confidants. He thought. But he couldn’t help but compare it to the ‘other’ meeting. Total strangers came to me with a genuine smile, complimenting my thoughts on hopeful ideas for the future… I saw people hugging each other. There was love in that room.
The whole point of these meetings was to give mutual support to just hold on. The Witnesses could say the same. But there was something different about them, at a deeper level.
Spiritual level. The thought came to him. Bud was broken by life, and the only comfort he sought came from a syringe. Would he have relapsed if he was a believer? I know that being faithful doesn’t make you immune to things like disease, or sin, or even addictions… Would the hope have been enough?
~~/*\~~
That thought followed him home. He sat in front of the TV, though he was so lost in his thoughts that he had no idea what was on. Finally, he turned it off, feeling buoyed by the silence.
Would the hope have been enough to keep on the ‘straight and narrow’? Marco talks about that. I heard people talking about their problems at the hall. Most of them settled the matter with “One day, it’ll be over.”
Cory pulled out the Bible that Marco had given him, and flipped through it until he got to the story of Job. “We’re all Job, one way or another.” He murmured cynically. “You will call, and I will answer you. You will long for the work of your hands.”
He read the verse over and over, locked in the loop. The very next words were about God only noticing the sins one committed, but Cory knew the story of Job well enough to add context. Even at his lowest point, Job had faith that God would call him back. If God still loved Bud, then He must see something that Artie, Bud’s own son, couldn’t see anymore. But if someone like Bud was such a waste of ‘god given life’, then how can God see something to save? To bring back? To call from the grave?
He read the verse again. You will long for the work of your hands.
~~/*\~~
Later that night, Cory microwaved his dinner, thinking about that quote. Bud, for all his sins, was still a product of God’s work. God put the effort into making him exist…
So what? A thought came from somewhere. Your father made you and your brother. He isn’t exactly overcome with joyous paternal caring.
And you? He challenged himself. You’ve created nothing. Well, not nothing, but hardly anything like a person, or a world, or a cosmos. I don’t suppose you can care about anything you’ve made…
You aren’t God. He countered. What works can man do that impress God? He’s not impressed by diamonds and gold. The cosmos is full of precious metals. And yet, it says it right there… He will have a longing.
Has anyone ever… longed for me?
Do you even know what that word means? What do you ‘long’ for?
He stopped his internal debate right there, not wanting to look too closely at that one. He ate mechanically, the room silent. He wasn’t looking at anything. Not even his food.
With his dinner eaten, and the plastic tray in the bin, he took the garbage out, still on autopilot. While he was out near the garbage bins, he went to his garage space and opened the door. Behind the car, he had several boxes in storage. Wrapped in newspaper and old cloth were his artworks. He hadn’t looked at them in years, but he couldn’t throw them away.
It’s probably ruined by water damage or something. He told himself. But the lone blank canvas was untouched. He should have tossed it out years ago, but he didn’t. His paints and brushes were still in the box.
They’ve surely dried out beyond any use now. He told himself, opening one and testing it. The sharp chemical smell was familiar.
There’s nowhere to set up. He told himself as he carried the canvas and paints into his apartment. His kitchen was large enough, once he moved a few things out of the way, laying out the old drop cloth on the tile floor.
It’s been too long. I’m surely out of practice. He told himself, setting his acrylics down and bringing out the pencils, stenciling the shape that had been forming in his mind since he sat down, hours before. The words that promised Paradise had been turning into a picture in his head while he stared at nothing for hours and hours…
This part of my life is behind me. He told himself as he examined the outline he’d drawn on the canvas. And then he took his palette and started mixing a few blobs of paint together, looking for just the right shade, mixing the perfect combination.
This is a waste of time. He told himself as he kept painting until the room was dark.
But when he finally turned the lights on and kept working, he couldn’t help but notice he was smiling giddily. He hadn’t been this energized in years. When his back started hurting, he pulled over a chair and kept going. When he started yawning, he started the coffee pot, and kept going.
~~/*\~~
The death of his friend had encouraged him to take some time off. He’d sold it to the boss as ‘medical leave’, since his back was also causing him continued pain. His employers were sympathetic, and agreed. Cory returned from his leave two weeks later, and he went back to work. Nobody said anything about his absence. His fear of being fired as soon as he walked in the door was apparently all in his head. There were no hard looks from the boss about how he couldn’t physically cut it at the workplace anymore.
There was, however, one message left for him from a coworker. It was a printed copy of an online news story. The Gottleleiba, which Cory and Marco had both declared ‘ugly’, when it went up for auction at their Gallery, had just been resold. For nearly three million dollars.
Marco had added a notation in red pen. “What is it really worth now?”
~~/*\~~
“...the court had ruled in favor of Hancock Industries. The news caused an uproar from the crowd gathered outside the Courthouse, and while a riot did not occur, police were called to give the Defense Counsel a police escort away from the scene.”
Driving home from work, Cory scoffed at the news on the radio. A small family group bringing a Class Action against a multinational company. They never had a chance.
“A spokeswoman for the Class Action Group, who has asked not to be named for her own safety, had this to say: “The hardest part is trying to convince our supporters that the Law can still be a force for good. We’ve amassed thousands of signatures. There have been hundreds of volunteers calling our local leaders, telling them to take us seriously, and actually do something to help our community. It’s heartbreaking to know that thousands of people, begging for our leaders to take us seriously, don’t match up against one man with money. They can’t buy and sell our lives like this. It can’t be allowed. We matter more than that!”
“Yeah, so you say.” Cory groused to the radio. “But it didn’t make any difference to the verdict, did it?” He switched the radio off. “Figure it out, lady. Our lives don’t mean spit.”
Which made him suddenly think of Rennie’s story. Of ‘the answer’ coming just as he’d asked the question. It wasn’t realistic, of course. It wasn’t sensible.
And yet…
“Alright, God.” He said aloud, pulling to a stop at the traffic lights. “Let’s try this. You know that the real reason I have trouble with this is accepting that any of us…” He stopped himself. It’s a prayer. Be honest, at least. “I have trouble believing that I matter to You. That You might love me, personally. After all, You’re supposed to love everyone, but that doesn’t stop You from smiting people. So if You can convince me that I, personally, matter to you, then… I don’t know. But I know nothing happens until I can believe that.” His voice went low and bitter. “My own father can’t convince me I matter to him. What have You got?” He suddenly remembered. “Oh, um: Amen.”
The traffic light changed, and Cory started driving again. When he turned the corner, he saw someone stopped on the side of the road, with the hood up.
It was Marco.
Startled, Cory pulled over, just in front of Marco. He stepped out of his car, and waved. “What happened?”
“Not sure. Engine overheated.” Marco frowned at his car. “I called a tow truck. It’ll be here soon enough.”
“I’ll wait with you.” Cory promised, glancing around. “There’s a coffee cart around the corner, if you want to stay with your car.”
~~/*\~~
Cory fetched them coffee, and they settled in to wait, sitting in Cory’s car.
“It was nice of you to come with me to the funeral.” Cory said first off. “I’m sorry I forgot to say it at the time.”
Marco nodded. “I wasn’t sure if giving you time to yourself was a good idea or a terrible one. Some people need time and space to process a loss, others need company to stop from spiraling.”
“No, I appreciate it. I had some thinking to do.” Cory assured him. Nothing more than that.
There was a long silence. Cory got the impression that Marco was trying to feel his way into the conversation, but wasn't sure if it would be welcome or not.
“Bud was a friend.” Cory said finally. “When he died, his own kids weren’t even surprised. They knew he’d never stop being an addict.”
Marco gave him a hard look. “And you? When you think of Bud, what do you think of him as?”
Cory dodged the question. “The day I decided to stop studying with you?” He said finally. “It was… My father had just gone on one of his ‘holier than thou’ rants about how he was the example we should be following. It makes me crazy when he does that.” The same day, you showed me that verse from the Apostle Paul about ‘becoming imitators of me’...” He let out a breath harshly. “I know that Paul had his own problems to overcome, and I know he had his own past to atone for. I guess it just set me off.” He stared at his feet for a few steps. “But Bud was the guy I was supposed to call when I was getting nervous about something, and…”
“Mm. It’s hard.” Marco admitted.
“Everyone I’m supposed to imitate? They all rate as a little more than an example of what not to do.” Cory sighed helplessly. “How do I measure up better than all of them put together?”
“The whole point of believing in God is the understanding that humans don’t measure up to what’s needed. Not to run the world, not even to run our own lives. Paul never called himself blameless. And when he told people in the early congregations to become imitators of him, he immediately qualified it with: ‘As I am of Christ’. Paul knew the only way to set the proper example was to try and be better than he was. Than any man was, really. But Christ came to earth specifically so that it wouldn’t disqualify us when we fell short. Not if. When.”
“I don’t want to imitate my own father. How can I expect to imitate Christ?”
“You can’t. But why aim for the lowest standard, when you can aim for the highest one? You’ll fall short. We all do. But who’s better to follow? You want to follow a bad example because it’s easier?”
Cory sipped his coffee. “I guess not.” He pulled out the news article about the Gottleleiba. “What was this for?”
Marco sipped his own drink, and seemed to be fortifying himself. “When you were talking about what you were worth to God? What you felt like you were worth? I finally realized that was a much bigger deal to you than I thought.”
And Cory suddenly laughed as something jumped into his memory. “Do you remember when those schoolkids came by the Gallery on a field trip? They thought the impressionist wing was stupid because nothing looked like what it was supposed to.”
“I remember.” Marco agreed. “As I recall, you said to them: ‘When you stand up close, all you see are spots of color. When you see the whole as one, you see what the artist wanted it to be’.”
Cory waved the article that Marco had left for him. “Which is the point you’re making, right? Artie had seen his own father as nothing but his addiction. A blemish that had ultimately taken his life. ‘Up Close’, all you see of people is their best moments, or their worst ones.”
“Like social media. Everything you see is carefully posed, curated, even staged purely for the camera.” Marco agreed. “You never see the reality of someone’s life. God sees the whole. He sees things you don’t even see in yourself.”
“That goes both ways, you know.” Cory said archly. “He sees the worst parts too. Things you hide from everyone, including yourself. I’ve spent some time in those twelve step programs, brother. People can fool themselves into believing a lot of things. And I’ll admit, before I started studying with you, part of me put ‘religion’ in that category.” Out the windshield, he suddenly saw a tow truck come around the corner. “That’ll be for you.”
“Yup.” Marco stepped out of the car and waved it down. Cory went with him.
~~/*\~~
Marco’s car was hooked up to the tow truck pretty quickly, and taken back to the garage. Marco went over to Cory soon after. “They say it’s a cracked hose. Simple enough fix, but it made the radiator overheat too fast.”
“You need a ride to the garage?” Cory guessed.
Marco checked his watch. “It’ll still be an hour or two. Not wild about sitting around that long at this time of day.”
“Then I’ll give you a ride home.” Cory nodded, and the two of them made their way towards his car..
“Actually, I was on my way to your place.” Marco admitted, pulling a USB out of his pocket. “The website got a really good talk that I thought you should hear, given some of our conversations. It’s all about how we can be sure God cares about us personally, as individuals.”
Marco shut the passenger-side door, just as Cory froze, stunned into immobility by the words. After a moment, he looked up at the sky. “Okay. That’s just showing off.” He commented to the sky, and headed around the car to settle behind the wheel. “Alright, you can wait for your car to be ready at my place then. Let’s get drive-thru on the way. I had to skip lunch.” Cory said shortly as he started the engine. “So. Tell me how I can be sure God cares about me as a person.”
Marco began scanning the dashboard. “You have somewhere I can plug in the USB?”
“No. But I want to hear it from you. You’re the one I was studying with all that time, and… well, this is going to sound insulting, but-”
“You want to know if I understand it myself, rather than let a stranger do the talking.” Marco nodded, not offended. “Alright, but I’ll leave the talk with you anyway when we’re done. I figure an Elder will explain it better, even if he’s from another Cong.”
~~/*\~~
They went to the nearest fast food place, and got lunch. Marco settled for coffee, since he was focused on something far more important than food. Cory’s home wasn’t far from there, but it was clear neither of them cared to wait.
“Now, the first time this topic came up, I showed you that verse about how two sparrows sold for a ‘coin of very little value’, right? But God noticed all of them.” Marco finished tapping at his phone, and read the line again. “Yet not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father’s knowledge. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. So have no fear; you are worth more than many sparrows, Cory.”
“It does not say my name.” Cory countered with dignity.
“No, it doesn’t. But it applies to you as much as anyone.” Marco pointed out. “In fact, just for this verse, any time it says the word ‘you’? Fill in your name, because it applies to you directly.”
“Granted, but I don’t think it helps your case.” Cory countered. “God loves me as an individual person. I know, because He wrote me a personal letter. It’s two thousand pages long, was written thousands of years before I was born, and it happens to be addressed to every single person on Earth.”
“Of course it is.” Marco agreed lightly. “If God addressed His comments by name, He’d have to list everyone who has ever lived, and send everyone an individual copy.” He tapped at his screen. “Of course, He’s done that before.”
“What do you mean?”
“There have been plenty of times when God has mentioned people by name. Even spoken to them directly. Or sent an Angel to speak highly of someone’s qualities and actions.”
“You ever had an angel show up and tell you the same thing?” Cory challenged.
“Not that I know of. But Jesus once said ‘It is not a desirable thing with my Father who is in heaven for even one of these little ones to perish’. Given that He’s spoken to His servants by name, multiple times, doesn't it stand to reason then, that He can, in fact, tell us ‘little ones’ apart?"
“I will concede that God knows things.” Cory drawled. “Being ‘all-knowing’ is part of being God. But that doesn’t mean He loves us all. Remember that all these miraculous dealings happened centuries before either of us were born. Times have changed.”
“Times have changed, but nothing else has. God’s personality hasn’t changed. His reasons are all still valid. His Promises are all still in play. In fact, that’s the whole point.”
Cory blinked. “I don’t follow.”
“For me, the big proof of God’s love for us is the Resurrection. All of God’s Promises for the future are built around that at their core.” Marco said finally. “You remember the Lazarus story. If God only cared about his followers as a whole, or humanity in general, then why would Jesus need to resurrect a single man? Wouldn’t he say ‘Focus on the living, for they number in the millions.’? Instead, he wept with the man’s family, and called him from the tomb by name.”
“Y’know, I remember reading that part of the Lazarus story. I always wondered why he was crying, given that Lazarus would be alive again in five minutes.”
“Because Jesus was empathetic. So is his father. Psalm 56:8 says ‘Do collect my tears in your skin bottle. Are they not recorded in your book?'. Every suffering and sadness we go through is being remembered for the day when He can pay it all back. Jesus even said it would be paid back a hundred fold.” Marco said warmly. “Another point in favor of His memory being that good. Every single detail about us, our memories, our lives? All of it is safe in His keeping.”
“So God has a bigger ‘computer’ to keep track of our files in greater detail.” Cory countered doggedly. “It’s not a sign of love, just information storage.”
“And the universe is made the way God designed it. If we were all faceless beings, why would He make the effort?” Marco reasoned.
"I guess God's memory is why I can't believe He loves us individually." Cory admitted. "I remember every bad thing I've ever done. God surely remembers all the ones I’ve forgotten, too."
“Ahh, but that brings us to Jeremiah 31:34.” Marco tapped at his screen again. "For I will forgive their error, and I will no longer remember their sin." Marco set his phone down. “Think about that, given what else we just talked about. Every hair on our heads, every star in the cosmos, all of it Jehovah remembers intimately. Our moments of suffering He’s recording for the day He will pay us back a hundred-fold in joy… but our sins He will forget.”
Cory hesitated, struggling against a lifetime of opposing thought on the subject. “I don’t know.”
“Ultimately, we don’t have to agree with God’s perspective. We couldn’t comprehend it anyway. But for whatever reason, God loves us beyond all our value, and all our failings; the same way a millionaire would pay a fortune for a painting that we’d consider an eyesore.” Marco made his pitch. “The Resurrection is proof that God cares about us individually, because it’s the only way that every single individual gets to experience Paradise. God didn’t make the universe Static. The world and everything in it is remaking itself constantly. But People get to live eternally.” He took a sip of his coffee. “God made Man in His image. That includes living forever. God made billions and billions of people, and hopes that all of us will be His Friends forever.”
Cory drank the last of his coffee. “When I got home from Bud’s funeral, I opened up the app and started looking for verses about the Resurrection, Paradise… There’s one line that I must have read a dozen times.” He quoted it. “You will long for the work of your hands.”
“Longing.” Marco looked over, interested. “You don’t long for something you don’t care about.”
“Still just words.” Cory said coyly. “Words never really did it for me. I’m more ‘visual’ that way.” He pulled out his keys. “So I decided I should probably do something about that.”
There was something in the tone that made Marco take notice. “Oh?”
~~/*\~~
Cory opened his front door and Marco walked in behind him. The sharp smell of drying paints hit him like a wave, just as his shoes hit the drop cloths on the floor.
The small home was full of paintings. None of them were overly large, but they were all freshly completed. One was on an easel, the rest were propped up against the walls, the furniture, one was spread out on a table… The room had been given over to them.
And on each canvas was a picture of Paradise. They were nothing like the images that had been in the literature they’d studied, but they were clearly inspired by the same passages. One was of a blacksmith beating a sword into a farming tool. One was of a graveyard, every grave open, and people taking down the headstones. One was of a small girl planting a tree in a cracked and ruined city street.
“There was a time when few people knew how to read, so Churches gave lessons via artworks, stained glass… Using Bible passages as inspiration is a time-honored custom in the art world, going all the way back to the Dark Ages.” Cory admitted. “But there are more famous paintings depicting Dante’s version of Hell than there are of Paradise on Earth.”
“They’re beautiful, Cory.” Marco said, actually tearing up. “How did you do this many?”
“I haven’t stopped in weeks. I wake up, and I paint, and I sleep. I haven’t left this house in days.” Cory admitted, with a shining smile. “Something just… broke loose. I can barely keep up with it.”
“They’re wonderful.” Marco declared.
Cory went over to his easel, and drew back the cloth that covered it, showing his latest work in progress. It was only just begun. The background was skeletal, only a few lines drawn in pencil on the canvas, but in the foreground of the picture was an image of two men, meeting each other with joyful smiles. It had been painted in carefully, with a lot of loving attention. One of the men was instantly recognizable as Cory. The other was someone Marco had never met, but he knew who it was. “Bud?”
Cory nodded. “A reunion shot of him coming back… in Paradise.” He let out a breath. “As I painted him, I had to redo his face a dozen times. The first time was to get his ‘surprised’ expression right. But then I realized he wouldn’t have dark circles under his eyes. Or old needle tracks on his arms. Or that scar on his neck from when he fell down the stairs. I repainted his face a dozen times, taking away all the…”
“All the damage. The imperfections. The suffering.” Marco said it for him with a nod. “And that was when you realized what God saw, when He looked at Bud. Because the whole point of a Resurrection is to take away everything the world has inflicted on you.”
“Right. And I realized: If I could feel a longing for my friend to come back from the dead, all better, all fixed… Then surely God could.” Cory nodded, feeling something like a tear gathering in the corner of his eye. “I could never convince myself that we deserved it, but as I got to work painting all these, I could just… see more and more of that world. And the clearer it became, the more detail the paintings had, and the more ‘in focus’ it was.” He let out a shaky breath. “In spite of everything I’ve said, and everything I’ve done… That world seems to make more sense than Heaven or Hell. For that matter, this world we’re living in right now stopped making sense to me a long time ago, even before I started learning from the Bible.”
“Amen to that.” Marco nodded. “Everything that seems so unfair about the world? It’s because we were never meant to live this way. Sickness, death, poverty… None of these things are what we were designed for.”
“As I worked on these paintings, I started asking questions. What would the houses look like? Can there really be such a thing as a practical home in a Paradise world? What about plumbing, what about power, what about, what about, what about…?” Cory shook his head. “I think I made my sense of Paradise more realistic by painting it than I ever did by reading the scriptures.”
“Nothing wrong with that. Some people learn by reading, some learn by watching videos, some people learn by literally painting a picture.” Marco chuckled. “If I’d known it would help this much, I would have suggested it months ago.”
“Months ago, I would have said no. But now… Maybe I’ll just keep going. A painting for every Bible story…” Cory couldn’t stop smiling. “Who knows what I might learn from them?”
Marco was still gazing at the pictures, smiling broadly. He could picture it too, now that Cory had brought the descriptions to life on canvas. They said nothing for a long time, just looking at the paintings, sharing in the common dream of a better world to come.
~/*\~~/*\~~/*\~
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