Last night, I saw Jesus.  True story.  I touched his foot, gripped his big toe in my hand, pressed my finger to the indentation, the scar, in his foot.

 

The story should end right there.  If I could get away with a two line story, I'd be a pretty good storyteller, I think.  As would everyone else.  Which is one reason why it's rare anyone but Proust or Faulkner could get away with a two sentence story.

 

But usually the story begins to fall apart after those first two lines.  The steam, she is lost.  The hook loses its line. 

 

I have another two-line story.  I told it last night, and it goes like this: I stole a guy's wallet once.  We were in the port-a-potties at a campground in Key West. 

 

Usually when I tell that story, my audience says, "Really?"

 

And I then shrug, nod, and say, "I gave it back."  Because that's the true end to the story.  Really, I am neither a badass nor morally corrupt. 

 

Sometimes I think that if I could give that story a different ending I might somehow be a better writer.  Because the point would be telling a story.  Instead, my point usually is to just reveal some dumbass truth about me.  And yet, with something like the wallet story, I really don't need to tell people that I would never actually steal a wallet.  I think people tend to assume that the average person doesn't rob others; they don't need to hear a story as proof.  So really all I'm doing is teasing--being cutesy, gimmicky.  Gimmicky writers, unless their gimmick is truly extraordinary, tend to blow. 

 

And a writer that blows and doesn't swallow?  Is a tease.

 

On the other hand, if a writer reveals a universal and important truth, well, that can be different.  If the truth just makes the reader think, "Well, duh," or worse, "How cheesy," the writer has failed.  But if the truth makes the reader feel pain or joy or makes the reader think, well, that's the stuff that writers' dreams are made of. 

 

In any case, the second line of my Jesus story might have ruined the whole thing, anyway, it's hard to say.

 

When my friend K asked me earlier in the day if I wanted to go see him, I hedged a bit.  She'd asked in an email while at work, so I considered that she might have been obliquely referring to drugs.  But I've never been interested in the drugs that might make one have visions, and she knows that, I think.

 

She called soon afterward, and I said, "I don't want to go to church."

 

She laughed.

 

K is a photographer.  Not professionally, but in her free time.  She's an artist.  And she wanted to take pictures of the Johns Hopkins Jesus.

 

The Johns Hopkins Jesus is a statue just under 10 feet tall.  It was chiseled from a 10-ft piece of marble, which is pretty impressive when you consider how little room for error that leaves.  And it took nine years to complete, which averages out of one foot per year.  Makes you wonder how the artist tackled the project.  Did he start at the feet and make his way up?  Or did he start with a broad outline and then work on the details, layer after layer?  A sculptor would probably know the answer. 

 

K, who used to work at Hopkins, told me the story behind the statue.  In a nutshell, the founder of Hopkins didn't have a benediction or anything like that when the hospital opened, so Baltimoreans found the building blasphemous, full of the devil.  So, to ease fears, enter Jesus.  You can read more about the story and see a picture here.

 

I didn't really know what to expect, but I had nothing better to do and I like statues, so....

 

The statue is in the rotunda of the hospital.  If you look up you see floors of rooms.  It's because of the rotunda that we now have the term "rounds."  For to check on their patients, doctors would have to go around and around.

 

Jesus stands with his arms out and wears a robe that looks more Greek than Roman.  His hands and feet are huge, disproportional.  His eyes, like all statues' eyes, are blind.  His hair lays in coils on his shoulders, rather resembling the lambs' wool the bible speaks of. 

 

Now, a problem I have with artwork--and statues in particular--is that to fully appreciate them I feel a need to touch them.  Museums tend to frown on that, so I content myself with staring really hard, imagining how the work would feel beneath my touch.

 

But the Johns Hopkins Jesus is approachable.  No one guards him and there are no protective rails or glass. 

 

And the thing is, as soon as I saw the statue, I got déjà vu.  I felt so sure that I'd seen him when I was little.  But then I wondered if my mind was playing tricks on me, as I immediately flashed back to a JC Penney's store that had a huge Big Bird in the front window or maybe in the vestibule.  I loved going there.  So maybe that was what I was remembering.  After all, they were both huge.

 

But then I crept closer to Jesus and touched his immense toes, and the déjà vu got even stronger. 

 

I had two eye operations when I was little: one when I was three, the other when I was four.  I was born rather walleyed.  Not obviously so, but enough that my eyes needed fixing.  My mother is walleyed.  Operations weren't an option when she was little, and they really don't work so well on older people, so her eyes are still crooked.  Mine are a bit crooked, too, actually, but you can usually only tell when I'm really drunk or really tired.  When I was little, I had to do exercises to strengthen my eye muscles.  They largely consisted of gripping my pen and stretching my arm out, eye-level, in front of me and slowly pulling in my hand until the pen was right in front of my nose.  Even now, when I feel my eyes wandering, I'll cross them, and that will bring them back in focus. 

 

Anyway, it's just a weird thing to sort of feel yourself in two times at once.  As I touched Jesus' foot, I felt both 33 and 3, like the corporeal me was sharing the same energy as the ghost of me.  I felt very small and full of wonder, and I felt this sort of tingle of recognition. 

 

So many times I think I'll remember something but have no idea whether it's true or I'm just imagining it.  Or whether I am remembering it but because I was a small child my perception of the event would make it unrecognizable to my parents. 

 

I went to see my parents today, and I asked my dad if I'd had my operations at Hopkins.  He said I did.  I asked if there I'd seen a big Jesus statue, and he couldn't remember.  "I had other things on my mind," he said.  And I'm sure that's true.  Such operations were fairly routine then, but I suppose parents would worry any time their child needed surgery.  When anesthesia is involved, there's always a risk.

 

Close to the Jesus, there's a book where you can write notes to Jesus.  I don't know how long the book has been there; none of the entries that I saw are dated. One letter was written in Spanish.  Most of them asked for Jesus' blessing or for strength.  They asked him to watch over their loved one or thanked him for saving someone.  One writer talked about how lonely he/she was.  Another made me laugh by asking for Jesus to replace Tom as the center of her world.

 

If I or someone I cared about were to have an operation, I would write in the book.  I almost did it anyway.  I don't know why.  Maybe for the permanence of it.  But mostly because it wouldn't hurt.  That's how I feel about praying--it doesn't hurt, and it could help, if only because it centers you.

 

There were also some roses left at Jesus's feet, and a postcard. 

 

I tried to touch Jesus's hands a few times; the three-year-old in me wanted to leap for them or climb up on the pedestal, but I refrained. 

 

I really like that statue.  I can see how some might dislike it; in theory, I wouldn't like it.  But I like Jesus.  If he were on the cross, I would hate the statue.  But him just standing there, a personified benediction, I like.  Touching him is, according to the article, a good luck charm. 

 

The on-the-cross element, the dying for our sins, isn't the point to me.  Martyrdom is interesting but only in what it reveals about the martyr.  The life is where it's at.  Jesus wanted people to accept each other, love each other.  He wanted people to be righteous and good.  He wanted people to question and fight the corrupt.

 

That's why I have no use for Mel Gibson or his stupid fucking movie.  I don't need to feel guilty because Jesus suffered excruciating pain, and I don't need to see him in pain to appreciate what he did for people.  I don't need to be scared or chastened into digging Jesus. 

 

And the god element doesn't interest me.  There might be a god, I don't know for sure.  But I do know that the god people talk about is a projection.  Those who believe god is cruel and unforgiving and intolerant are cruel and unforgiving and intolerant themselves.  Those who believe god is loving and forgiving are that way themselves.  Okay, there are some rat bastards who prefer to believe god is loving and forgiving, but that perception is still a projection. 

 

The Johns Hopkins Jesus is meaty.  He resembles, as I suggested before, a Greek god more than anything.  He has thick wrists, ankles.  He appears strong but gentle.  There's comfort in that. 

 

I really like that statue.  I asked my mother if I'd ever seen it before.  "Yes," she said.  "You touched his toe."