In Spirit Realm

In accordance with proper protocol, I am acknowledging archival consideration. My name is David Lane, revealing myself to Metatron. My report begins now.

                I’ve been in the spiritual fight for a number of years now. I was recruited by the angel Malachi, along with my childhood friend Rex. We were just getting our feet wet when SOUL collapsed. SOUL was the largest organized resistance group here in the Spiritual Realm, helping to combat Satan’s forces who are also remarkably organized.

After SOUL faded into irrelevancy, most people took it as an out. By people, I should clarify that I mean human beings. The angels, well they felt a compulsion to continue the fight. Many of them broke off into smaller groups with less oversight. For them, this war has been a defining part of their existence for longer than my home planet has existed.

It was a bit different for the people though. We were invited into this. Yes we accepted, but it was still a huge transition. The Spiritual Realm serves as a mirror world. Many aspects function the same way, if not similarly. But it’s in another dimension and so far removed from the world we occupied that for many of us, it was easier to return to our earthly connections than try to fumble around in the post SOUL chaos trying to find a place to fit. Why Rex would want to go back to the way things were before is a mystery to me. All we were doing was running the streets and getting into the kind of trouble impoverished black kids get into in Baltimore. Malachi gave us purpose. The kind of purpose you don’t get from a fancy job or even humble societal contribution. He introduced us to a way to truly help the world. The prospect of returning to some life in the mud…you could say I’ve outgrown it.

I don’t regret SOUL falling apart. I wish it happened a little later. Rex, myself and a few other newer recruits had not fully integrated into the ranks. Our lives were still heavily between the two worlds as we worked our way through basic training and academic growth. There’s a lot of bible to learn, a lot of history, a lot of logistics and that’s before you get into learning how to fight and in cases like Rex and I, learning how to use our powers. The point is, we weren’t knowledgeable or experienced enough to completely transfer to the Spiritual Realm as some lifers…or temple dwellers as the layman’s term goes choose to do. To be honest, I don’t think Rex ever would have wanted to do that. But I would have liked to.

I carried on with Malachi for a while, but he fell into what I can only describe as a deep depression after losing SOUL, which you could consider his greatest accomplishment. I was hungry for knowledge. I wanted to see more of the world. I wanted to build bridges and fight evil. He just wanted to cut down demons, as many as he could find. What should have been a lifelong mentor quickly turned into an anchor around my neck. I guess you could say I outgrew him too.

So, now I travel between the two worlds. I stay at my cousin’s house, which has been my registered address since I was a kid. And wouldn’t you know it, in the middle of my demon hunting and soul saving…that’s soul as in the ethereal engine of human beings, not the defunct organization…I’ve been summoned for jury duty. The Physical Realm has its inconveniences. It seems mundane enough, but it would so happen that it’s February. And with the details of this case, I find myself having a Paul experience. One could say…an identity crisis.

It’s fairly straightforward, or at least it’s presented that way. Young black kid accused of knocking over a store that he’s never even been in. He claims a false arrest and police brutality and now we have to come to a verdict. Looking at the evidence, it’s wrong place wrong time. There’s no other suspect, but the clerk’s testimony doesn’t put the kid in the right spot at the right time, given that the kid has already provided evidence of him making a purchase at a shoe store several miles away at the professed time of the robbery. The authorities gave him a beat down he didn’t deserve. That makes it fairly open and shut, and five of the other jurors who share my ethnicity agree. They want to call racism. They want to call discrimination. They want to call the authorities corrupt. They want to claim injustice. And I want to say all of those things too. But then more facts come out.

The kid, though he may not be the offender in this case, is not a first-time offender. He is not even a second-time offender. And while this particular store he’s never been in, this particular clerk has history with him…negative history of petty theft. Is a man who has been robbed by a young man who assumes his masked assailant might be the very same a racist? Or does his past experience with this same kid come to the surface. He may be incorrect, but is he racist?

Then there’s the arrest itself. The kid gets arrested because the clerk identifies him when he sees him later that evening. Is a police officer a racist because he pursues a lead a citizen gave him? The first words out of the mouth of the kid when they ask him to stop walking is an expletive directed at them and their mothers. It began volatile and only escalated from there. By the time of the beating, the kid has cursed at them, refused to cooperate, and gotten into a shoving match with one of the officers. Knowing how many of these situations end, I instinctively move to commend the officers for not coming up with an excuse to kill another unarmed black man. And that may be a sickeningly low bar, but it’s what speaks to me.

It is during deliberation with the jurors, that I realize my two identities are clashing. Because I, as a black man, am disgusted by the thought of minding my business and being treated like a common criminal just because it’s the easiest explanation. I think about the arrest, and what I would want to do. Some white bread cop who is likely borrowed from Virginia with no familiarity with my home or its residents, judges me guilty and behaves as such. Me in that situation, I’m tempted to do what this kid did.

But then my Christian identity speaks out, and I see that badge. That badge represents something in this country, a level of authority. And as a follower of Christ, I am to honor my authority. Were it me, I am to surrender myself and let the process do its business. It’s a spiritual trust in the system that my racial flesh has no reason to believe in. How am I to make heads or tails of that? My faith can’t be circumstantial, but my race certainly isn’t either.

They scream and cry at each other during deliberation. Mothers who just want their white counterparts to give a bit of grace and accept that there is always a racial undertone. And I hear that. But I am also forgiven of many sins that I know I have committed. In the face of punishment, I can’t ever claim injustice; I deserve worse. And this kid, he has a reputation…one he earned. He has a relationship with this clerk…one he forged. And while it means this clerk looks through biased eyes, how do we not consider the look?

I lack omnipotence. I see no one’s heart. So, I must judge what I can see. God’s judgement is always certain. He is always right. Because His choices are made with all the information. He’s never in the dark; He’s never making an educated guess. God has never formed a hypothesis. He deals with the facts. The facts of the case, and the facts of the heart. I don’t have the facts of the heart, only the case. And I judge this kid innocent of robbery. But how do I judge him innocent of wrong doing?

How, when I know that the sins of his crimes would not be speaking for him if he had not committed those crimes? The thief who hung next to Jesus knew he deserved the judgment he was receiving. He knew what it was to get what he deserved and so he recognized a man who deserved the opposite. This kid is not that thief. He is the other one who would rather lash out at the purveyors of justice rather than humble himself. I know why these jurors must act as though he has done no wrong. I know why they must act like his history should not mean anything. I know that when they are in the presence of a white juror who is so hateful of their skin that he argues the kid’s receipt that proves his whereabouts is a forgery, they feel they have no choice. My identity hears them and is compelled to behave as them. But my other identity cannot behave as them, because it is not like them.

I judge this kid innocent of the crime of which he’s been accused, but I do not judge him guiltless. It is a nuanced conversation that they do not want to have. They don’t want to discuss his past or his behavior when questioned. They just want to discuss his color, and privatized prisons and corrupt judges and racist clerks. That is not a conversation I want to have. Perhaps I’ve outgrown it.

In moments like this, I regret the collapse of SOUL. That I did not get an opportunity to put down roots in the other world. I have few friends here, very little family and no one that I can consider a kindred spirit. I long for the place where my two identities become one. For my spirit has no race. And that world does not make me choose.

Protocol acknowledged. My name is David Lane requesting that archival consideration be ended upon benediction. End of message to Metatron.

               For everything there is a season. Wise words of King Solomon. Wisdom Woman reflected on his words at the beginning of every year and the end. And though it had been many centuries since the words were first penned and even longer since they were first vocalized, Wisdom reacted to them as though she were experiencing the very genesis of the idea.

               “What a wonderful man…left to sail the seas of despair.” She said out loud to no one in particular.

               There were few humans with whom Wisdom felt a kindred spirit. The lived experiences left little to no overlap. Their limited lifespans kept them from developing the kind of perspective that she could begin to wrestle with. Even the most extreme of circumstances appeared somewhat petty to her. That was a struggle she constantly visited upon the Almighty. Of all the things she understood of His ways, there were countless more that she didn’t understand, couldn’t understand, would never understand. And one of those chief mysteries was how the Almighty’s love was never compromised for creatures who seemed so…small.

               Solomon did not seem small. Perhaps it is because he could have asked for anything. And he was remembered for requesting the one thing humans invested great effort in avoiding…wisdom. Among their kind was someone who got it, how indispensable it was, how priceless it was. Wisdom was created for that very purpose. She reminisced on the conversation with the Almighty when He asked her to part with some of her essence for the sake of Solomon. She was happy to oblige if for no other reason than the sheer surprise that this was a human’s request. She watched Solomon with great interest after that. And her favorite contribution of his was Ecclesiastes chapter 3.

               “For everything there is a season.” Wisdom said out loud.

               She sat in her office waiting for her next client. She had done this for so long that she could not remember when she started doing it. But it had to be relatively recently since she was adhering to the roman calendar. It had been a long day listening to story after story, declaration after declaration, goal after goal. Everyone was thrilled to tell her all about their ambitions for the new year, how much further they would be in twelve months’ time.

               “I’ll have that corner office.”

               “I’m getting my license this year.”

               “This is my last cigarette.”

               “I’m going to apologize to my dad.”

               All that and many more. Which always stirred bittersweet emotions in Wisdom’s heart. On the one hand, most of the goals she had the pleasure of listening to were appropriate and necessary. On the other hand, the bulk of them were doomed to fail. Whether it was due to a lack of discipline, an absence of understanding the nature of the problem, a secret desire not to change at all, or a refusal to accept humility, most of the people she spoke to would be back in one year’s time talking about trying again.

               There was very little to complain about. Trying, failing and trying again was part of the human experience. Still, Wisdom couldn’t help but think of the countless parents she met, voicing their sadness that their child, who was clearly struggling with an easily solvable problem if they just knew a little more or had lived a little longer, would not ask for help. She had taken an innumerable amount of her own grievances to the Almighty. And on the rare occasion where doubt crept in about His ability to solve her problem, or care to do so, she was quickly shown how foolish it was to even entertain such a thought.

               Over the years she had listened to all manner of self-discovered solutions. A shaman, round trip around the world, mediums, various medications, yoga, self-help books, therapy, drugs and many more. And while some of those things were useful tools, what she understood to be pieces of a puzzle, her clients usually viewed these methods as the whole puzzle itself. She could write a book exclusively covering the personal irritation fueled transcriptions of men and women trying to crack the proverbial code. What was the right combination of tools to create a fool proof strategy to accomplish any goal? Her answer was seldom the wrong combination, but rather the missing piece. Until all the pieces were accounted for, trying to figure out how they fit together was a fruitless undertaking.

               “If they want to attempt to move a carriage without the aid of horses, let them,” the angel Samuel said to her once after a particularly futile intervention with a young man tired of his rebellious spirit. Somehow, Wisdom had met a being who had even less patience for humankind than she did. That saying always stuck with her though, quite amusing if she was honest with herself.

               “If you want to attempt to move a carriage without the aid of horses, be my guest,” she once said to a pastor who was struggling to develop the spiritual competency of his congregation while exclusively preaching new age gospel.

               Her interactions with Samuel were one of the crucial pieces to developing her evolving view of humankind. His impatience was an indictment on her own. And she could feel it every time her gut instinct was a check a decidedly cruel thing he said about them.

               Solomon gained his wisdom by asking for it. But for most, the price for this inestimable jewel was time, scarce in its supply and nonrefundable. In the vast majority of cases, the way to get them to grow was to wait. Her very nature called for patience, and at times she tarried alone with the Almighty to face the truth of how little she possessed. Like the humans, every year come January, she set the same goal…grow in patience. Not for the sake of herself, but for the sake of the people who required an unworldly amount of it.

               “Where, Father, do you find the patience?” She asked after hearing for the twenty-seventh time that this would be the year someone would go back to school.

               The days changed, the years changed, the eras changed. But the nature of humankind did not change. Her conversations did not change. There was always another person foolishly thinking they would will themselves to the next level. There was another person lost in self-pity for having fallen short of their goals. There was always another person who was certain they had become enlightened, even though like clockwork, they would have another undoubtedly opposite revelation in six months. It seemed useless to hope for anything more.

               To grow in knowledge was to grow in despair. Solomon understood this. The day Wisdom read those words, she felt like she understood why the Almighty loved them so deeply, so endlessly. Not because of what they mostly were, but because of what a small few of them would be. There were people who would begin to grasp the depths of spiritual enlightenment, and credit the right being in response. That there was even one who understood meant there could and would be more.

               Wisdom knew that most of these people would abandon their resolutions. She knew that most people would die with nothing but regret for all the things they wished they had done, or not done. She knew that January would come and go this year and the next and the one after that. And she would continue to hope for their success, knowing that most of them would fail. She would continue to allow herself to be disappointed, because it meant that she still had expectations of them, the way the Almighty did. She knew most of them would fall short of every goal they ever set, but she knew that a small few of them would not. A small few of them would face the end of their lives with no regrets, having resolved to be better. And she shared a commonality in most of their defeats, perhaps she shared a commonality in a few of their victories.