Lisa pushed open the door of the
computer lab and felt the cold blast of the Oregon winter force
itself upon her skin, pricking her nerves further with the pang of
loss and loneliness. Her boyfriend or whatever he was had finally
ended things and had left her with a shattered heart and an empty
feeling of despair, leaving echoes in her soul, loose memories
rippling through her mind of a time when she had more confidence, a
warmer time of bliss and love.
As she made her way, plodding slowly,
she knew another night was upon her of homework and red wine, after
the cafeteria dorm dinner, with her friends, both ways to block out
the emptiness with a constant busyness and buzz.
In the state nearby, in the small city
of Santa Clara, Jen Ames hurried home from her friends' house,
zipping her windbreaker over her t-shirt to block out the chill
spraying from the ocean. School had ended a few hours before and she
had gone to her friends to study for the test the following day.
Now, she hurried home to have a quick dinner before joining her
parents' and her new friends for the Golgotha Temple bible study.
She did like this church better than
the droll Methodist church her mom used to drag them all to—For
here, the services were cool, vibrant yet relaxed. The senior pastor
always wore Hawaiian shirts, the worship band played contemporary
Christian songs that spoke right to her heart, the pastors taught in
a way that made the Bible understandable and relevant to her life.
In his home in Northern California,
Levi Temple sat dejectedly staring at his computer screen in his
darkened study. Above him, in the bathroom, he could hear the bath
water running for his children's post-dinner nightly rituals. His
wife, Lorena's, soft voice came through the walls as she spoke to the
children, working them through the process of bath, bed, and beyond.
She had given him the pass for this
nightly ritual, as she could see his mind in a storm. It still
affected him, even after fifteen years of leaving Golgotha Temple. They had made a play of his name, Levi from the Levites the servants of God and his last name Temple, as if he was married to the church, a servant of the church. He
could feel the pangs of shame, the memories of the suffocating
control in his youth, and his eventual abrupt departure that left him
with a loss so far-reaching he could still feel the after-effects
these many years later. He heaved a sigh outward and blinked back
the hot tears in his eyes. Resting his hands on the keyboard, he
begin to type, his story, his memories, and his thoughts on what had
happened to him.
“Maybe this,” he said to himself.
“Maybe this will help.”
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