Midnight Jesus by Jamie Blaine

Author:Jamie Blaine
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2015-09-01T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY - THREE

TREASURES IN THE DARK

“Push out into deep water.”

—JESUS, LUKE 5:4 ISV

IT’S JUST AFTER MEDS, AND I’VE TAKEN MY PATIENTS OUT for the last smoke of the night. Everybody’s passing around the pack of community cigarettes, lighting them end to end, people at the end of their ropes talking about love and sex and work and God and trying to make it through one day at a time.

The smoke break often slips into a little reprobate Bible study before bed. Nothing fancy or planned. Just fifteen cigarettes glowing in the dark, a flashlight, and motel Bible. Old drunks and outlaws, loose women, outcasts, losers, dope fiends, failed suicides, and schizophrenics reading about the peace that passes understanding, grace that trumps all sin, and a love and forgiveness that knows no end.

“Listen to this,” the lady they call Crazy Mary says. “He leads me beside still waters and restores my soul.”

“Still waters,” Lonnie, a jilted pillhead, echoes back. “Sure could use some of that.”

Everyone nods, letting the notion sink in. Late nights at the psych ward can be pretty peaceful sometimes. No rush. No hurry. Nowhere to go but up from here.

There’s a black gentleman, a retired former deacon, given to whiskey after his wife died. He’s got a grey afro and scraggly beard and has become something of a leader to the group, so the other patients nicknamed him Moses. He slips a pair of glasses from the pocket of his red plaid shirt and reads a passage from the book of Job about darkness and the whirlwind, and everybody stares at the ground, shaking their heads.

“Lotta stuff in there I can’t understand,” Lonnie says.

“Me neither,” Moses replies. “But it’s them parts I do that bother me most.”

“I hear you,” says Lonnie.

Moses leans across the circle and hands the Bible to Keith.

Keith’s hair sticks up, he’s got a bad stutter, and his mouth hangs open most all the time. He wears charity glasses from the Lion’s Club—a thick, old, pewter-framed pair that sits crooked on his head, and he shuffles from the psychotropic meds. He’s mentally challenged, actively psychotic, and has been in and out of prison and group homes all of his life. Keith has been on acute ward lockdown for a month now, and I could get in trouble just for bringing him out. But I promised Keith if he didn’t cuss anybody or throw anything all evening, I would take him out to smoke with the patients from the other side. He kept his end of the deal and I’m keeping mine.

“Mr. Keith,” Moses says. “It’s your turn.”

“I-I only, uh . . . I only know one,” Keith says, hands shaking and head down.

“That’s okay,” says Moses. “Just read the one you know.”

Keith thumbs through the Bible for the longest time. Then he puts his face close to the page and slowly begins to read. “For G-God,” he says. “So loved . . . th-the world. That he gave . . . he gave his . .

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