Late Night with Jesus

I love Jesus so much I am afraid to talk about him. Jesus loves me so much he does not stop talking to me, not even for a brief cool-down period when I am being exasperating. 

Jesus does not ask me to give him five minutes to finish his train of thought on something he is working on. Jesus does not set a boundary because there is only so much one person can hear about my workload or my cats. Jesus does not stay home when I go to the supermarket or the nether regions of my own cerebellum. 

Jesus does not roll his eyes when I compare people I know to Lord of the Rings characters or ask his guidance on how much of my income to devote to scrunchies. Jesus does not take a walk around the block when I ask him to confirm that “irrevocable” means “irrevocable.” Jesus does not stop talking to me, which is fortunate since I do not stop talking. But that is about the only thing I can say about Jesus and be sure it is Jesus I am talking about.

I love Jesus so much I do not want to misrepresent him. I know Jesus does not stop talking to me, but I also know that I talk over people. When I was six years old, my father offered me a dollar to stop talking, and he was the second kindest man I ever met. 

When I am nervous or fully oxygenated, I am capable of volume and velocity that only the Word can decipher. I can throw my voice. I do not intend to do ventriloquy with the Ancient of Days. I love Jesus so much I curl in a ball in his lap and ask him to forgive me for acting like he is in mine.

I love Jesus so much I am hesitant to tell you what I am about to tell you. I have laid all kinds of J-E-S-U-S stencils over my life and colored them with my own crayons. I have assigned Jesus dialogue in a script where all the characters were me. I do not want Jesus to get the blame when my neuroses gallivant in circles. But Jesus does not stop talking to me, and the other night Jesus showed me a movie, and I am telling you, it was definitely Jesus.

It was definitely Jesus, because I did not have the ingredients on hand. There is no oil in my cupboard, olive or otherwise. I do not attempt to anoint myself with nonstick cooking spray. My refrigerator is full of runny dairy that promises to keep me light and fit. 

Jesus and I have been talking about my eating issues since the last peanut butter sandwich in 1990. I was nine. I love Jesus so much I know he did not invent Type I diabetes, but he was involved with the insulin pump. I do not presume to know how any of this works, if that is even the right word. 

Jesus still has his scars, and I expect I will keep all the pinprick constellations on my fingers and belly. I do not know where my eating issues fit into all of that. I know Jesus is big on feasts, and heaven is a long table where you are somehow able to talk to everyone at once. Jesus knows that I push naked lettuce leaves around at Thanksgiving. 

I love Jesus so much I have to tell you what Jesus did. I love Jesus so much I know it was Jesus. I would have to love myself very much to invent it, and I do not have access to this much. 

So, this is what Jesus did. Jesus interrupted my regularly scheduled dreams about Hobbits and retinopathy to park some sort of Corvette or Ford. I could not tell you what it was, only that it was one of the ones old men are proud to show off at classic car shows. The sky was dark, in the good way, and Jesus and I were sitting on the hood. 

Jesus knows I do not stop talking long enough to think about what Jesus really looked like, so he looked like he did in Sunday school. He was wearing his off-white robe, with his hair to his shoulders and his legs dangling next to mine. We were talking without any urgency. I could not tell you what we were talking about, only that it was ordinary, maybe the orange shrub out my condo window or the fact that every song is improved by the harmonica. 

But this is the part I have to tell you. Jesus and I were eating French fries. We were eating from the same red paper boat. It was bigger than extra-large. I was not concerned. I was not calculating the insulin bolus for such an invasion of carbohydrates. I was eating French fries with Jesus. Jesus was not sad that I had missed many previous potatoes. Jesus did not remind me that I had declined invitations to spontaneous salt and bread before. Jesus kept talking to me.

I love Jesus so much I think this is going to happen someday. I do not want to say that Jesus is giving me a pass to be weird with food until I meet him on that hood. That would be saying too much, and I love Jesus too much to say it. But since I had that dream, I ask a little less often whether “irrevocable” means “irrevocable.” Jesus knows I am neither light nor fit. Jesus keeps talking to me. I do not presume to know how any of this works, but that is probably the wrong word anyway.