Mark Bourne - Mustard Seed.pdf - Mark Bourne - widez2

MARK BOURNE

MUSTARD SEED

Donnelly's hand rose high, hoisting the Bible like a trophy. Her forehead

furrowed, and her voice rose with practiced inflection that echoed among the

rafters and stained-glass windows. Her rhythms and cadences crested and rolled

in waves, well rehearsed after years of roadside revivals in forgotten Southern

towns. Thank you, Lord, for making me your instrument for one more day.

"Men of Earth are cavorting with creatures who never read the Gospel --"

She cast her gaze across her beloved flock.

"Who never heard the Word of God --"

They must hear her words if they were to be saved.

"Who never felt the guiding hand of our Savior --"

She was their lamp in the darkness brought from the stars, ever since those

first faint signals were heard by the Farside Lunar Receiver. And those first

vessels descended from the clouds.

"Who have no souls, for the Kingdom of Heaven was prepared by Jesus for Man

alone."

Like a lighthouse on a rocky shore, she gazed down upon her congregation. A

subconscious clock measured the dramatic pause, then her voice modulated to a

preordained pitch. "We walk not with angels, but with aliens blind to Man's true

gift to God's firmament -- our Savior Jesus Christ!" She thrust the Bible before

her like a shield. "Jesus said..." She paused to catch the eyes of those before

her; it was an easy haul. "Jesus said, 'No one can enter the Kingdom of Heaven

but by me'!" She clenched her eyes shut and listened.

There had been a time, years ago, when the stained glass would have rattled with

"Amen!" and "Hallelujah!" ringing throughout the sanctuary. And on Easter and

Christmas Sundays (when extra fold-out chairs were brought in from the

Fellowship Hall) the room had been so filled with upraised voices that the walls

might have burst open and flooded the world with the Lord's holy praises.

Today, though, Donnelly heard the central heating clunk on. Far away bells in

the courthouse clock chimed the hour. Old Ralph Hardin in the rear pews needed a

Kleenex. No more than twenty souls here today. Fewer than last week.

She opened her eyes, lowered the Bible to the pulpit. Her brow lost its furrows,

but not the thin lines like dried-up river beds. Her voice was almost inaudible

over the heating system.

"Don't forget next Sunday's Christmas Eve candle-lighting service. Bring your

friends." She despised the dead weight of defeat in her voice. "That's all."

There was no organist to play the benediction and postlude.

She turned away, loosened her collar, and rubbed her eyes, keeping them closed

longer than she really needed to. The sounds of shuffling coats and snuffling

noses rose behind her. The exit door in the rear foyer groaned on its arthritic

joints, and December's gray chill slid down out of the Ozarks and brushed the

back of her neck. Winter's teeth nipped at Reverend Ardith Donnelly of the

Central Presbyterian Church of Harper, Missouri.

She turned back to her pulpit to gather up the sermon. Gerald Morris was peering

up from the floor below. The chicken farmer clutched his overcoat against his

belly and stared at her with eyes that rarely blinked, two eggs pressed into a

moist dough face.

"Revern' Donnelly?" His voice, like his brown suit jacket, was thin and faded.

"Yes, Gerald, what can I do for you?"

"M'mama wants to know when you're comin' out to the nursin' home agin. She says

your services alwiz brighten her day. She says so alia time. She's real sick,

and the doctors, they don't know how long " His voice thinned away to nothing.

She exhaled, then smiled. "The Lord's work keeps me busy all over, but He and I

will be back at the home real soon. Tell your mama to keep a lookout for us."

He grinned. "Bless you, Revern' Donnelly. Jeannie and me'll have you over to the

house for supper real soon. Thas a promise."

"Much obliged, Gerald." She smiled warmly.

"Revern' Donnelly?" He looked away from her gaze. "Jimmy Don Ledbetter says he

saw two of them Seekers in St. Louis last week. He says they talked with just

ever'body about how glad they was Earth was joining the Union. Then one of them

helped Roy Capehart -- you know, the taxidermist? -- fly through the air.

Without wings or nothin'! It was its Gift, it said. Then another'n made colors

in the air and music came from the pictures they made. Said we could maybe do it

someday. Ever'one had just the best time! Isn't that wonderful?"

Donnelly looked down at him. "Gerald, doesn't the Bible tell us that God gave

Man dominion over all beasts through Brother Adam?"

His eyes narrowed, but never blinked. "Well, I s'pose so."

"And what does the Bible say about Satan tempting Jesus with miracles?"

He looked at his hands kneading his overcoat. "Jimmy Don Ledbetter says --"

Donnelly shut her eyes. "Gerald. There are new temptations out there among the

stars. The Seekers know neither Christ nor salvation, even though all you need

is the faith of a mustard seed." She replayed an old memory: a sanctuary filled

with multitudes in her spiritual hug. She had been a pilgrim, a searcher for

God's wisdom, sharing what she found with others. She had been young and strong

of voice. And of spirit.

The memory faded, leaving only the floaters drifting across the insides of her

eyelids. "Only God knows what is in their hearts," she said quietly. She opened

her eyes. "You tell Jimmy Don --"

But he was on his way toward the exit, shrugging on his overcoat. The door

whimpered shut behind him.

She knew as much about the Seekers as anyone else in these parts. Twelve years

now after First Contact, dozens of assorted aliens -- "extrasolar emissaries" --

were on Earth, mostly in big cities like New York and Moscow, London and Tokyo,

Beijing and Bombay. Their immense ships had followed their transmissions,

offering humanity membership in a galactic trade Union that was opening new

markets in the outer galactic reaches. The world was still knocked cock-eyed by

it all. The cultural elite were declaring it the greatest event in human

history. A new age on Earth. Peace and prosperity. Heaven on Earth.

But no heavenly trumpet had sounded. Just those first signals from out of

Sagittarius, heard only by electronic ears. No salvation had come, for it

arrived not on angelic wings and a fiery throne, but in huge vessels orbiting

Earth and landers descending from the clouds, even in non-Christian lands. And

more were arriving all the time.

She felt betrayed, but she wasn't sure by whom. She only knew that the invasion

was complete. Wal-Mart was selling Seeker-inspired toys for Christmas. For

Christmas! Hallmark's biggest sellers were miniature spaceships hanging from

Christmas trees across the land -- "collect the whole set!" Earth would never

again know a cosmos in which Man was adrift and alone. The fruit from the Tree

of Knowledge had tasted sweet.

Donnelly turned her back again, stuffing the morning's text into a dog-cared

file folder. This was the third go-round for this sermon. And the last.

The rear door complained and a cold breeze scraped across the back of Donnelly's

neck. She sighed, but did not turn around. "Be right with you," she called. She

listened for footsteps on the floorboards. Instead, she heard glass tinkling the

sound a crystal chandelier makes when given a gentle swing. She turned. The room

was empty.

"Who's there? Come out!" The tinkling stopped abruptly, as if someone muffled

all the crystal droplets at once.

At the far end of the aisle, a knobby spike of colored glass reached out from

behind a pew. Five faceted fingers grew at its tip and waved. To the tinkling of

tiny bells, a spun-glass sculpture walked into the aisle.

Donnelly's brain struggled to find analogies. A leafless bush in winter, crafted

by a glassblower. Branches and twigs of fine crystal were shot through with

blues and reds and golds flowing through icy veins. They reached up from a nest

of dew-dipped spider webs where indefinable hues came and went, blending,

shifting, sparkling in the sunlight slanting through the colored windows.

Donnelly stared across the room at the...the thing. A sour taste crawled up onto

her tongue.

"I must ask you to leave," she said, struggling to keep the surprise and disgust

out of her voice. "Keep your Satan-sent ways out of God's house."

The creature quivered. Two translucent twigs reached down into the glittering

webs. They reappeared and held aloft a meaty ovoid sac. The bladder wriggled

wetly, split open across the middle, and spoke to Reverend Donnelly.

"Hello. Pardon me, please," it said in a dead-on Missouri accent. "I wish to

talk with God." The fragile-looking thing scuttled up the aisle on glassy insect

legs, bringing the sound of windchimes in the rain.

Standing there with it approaching her, Donnelly felt a familiar bitterness burn

in her chest.

The creature reached the steps at the base of the pulpit. Diamond glints danced

across its surfaces. It raised the sac toward Donnelly's face. The Talker

symbiote's humanform lips smacked open, flashing straight white teeth. "Please,"

the translator said. "Teach me to talk with God."

Donnelly wanted to spit. "God listens to our prayers. Can you pray?" She put as

much venom into her voice as a good Christian could muster.

"I have practiced the prayer rituals of six hundred forty-four worlds," said the

translator. As it spoke, lights like golden fireflies chased through its

master's branches. "I have perceived no response."

"What can you know of God?"

"I have worshipped the deities of many cultures, often at the cost of emotional

or physical pain. Occasionally, enlightenment was gained. But none offered what

I desired."

"Why come to me?"

"I enjoy the quiet places of your world. Trees. I enjoy trees. I was strolling

nearby and recognized the religious symbol at the summit of this building. I

meditated, then chose to seek out the religious leader here. That, I perceive,

is you. Your species has developed religious expression with great complexity

and ritual. Humans have many god-forms. Perhaps one has the answer I seek.

Perhaps you do."

The thing tweaked Donnelly's curiosity. The Talker's perfect human voice

softened its master's alien appearance. "What do you seek?" she asked.

The alien sparkled and its Talker took in a gulp of air. "I am old for my kind.

And an aberration. As a whole, my people dislike travel. We are --" the

translator's lips curled upward in a wry smile, "-- home-bodies. I, however,

enjoy the company of other species and have lived for centuries in many cultures

on many worlds. I have experienced ... marvels that cannot be spoken of in your

language, which has neither words nor concepts to describe them."

The Talker frowned for its master. "I have reached the limits of

life-prolongation techniques useful to my species, and now approach the end of

my biological processes. Once I believed that I had experienced the known

universe to its fullest. But the long journey to this galactic arm revealed many

more ... wonders beyond my experience. Oh, if only I could share them with you!

But your language cannot convey --" Flecks of light whirled, changing their hue.

"You have no --" The translator's rubbery features mimicked human frustration

well. "And still there are uncountable galaxies beyond this one. I fear that I

will not live to experience all..." The sentence withered away.

It stood silent for slow seconds, then climbed the three steps to Donnelly's

side. Crystalline arms lifted the Talker closer. Its voice was edged with hope

and desperation. "I wish to never die."

Donnelly studied the tiny fires and woven geometries of the alien. This creature

hoped for the salvation promised by the Son of Man. Could it even have an

immortal soul? Would God create mind without soul? These beings sailed the stars

long before Eve sealed Adam's fate. What sins did they know, and were now

bringing to Earth?

Donnelly remembered the hot smells of musty tent cloth and road dust, of

sweating sinners who wept at her feet and begged for salvation. She had saved

souls by the dozens at each town and farm. Now, perhaps, a greater flock was

being offered.

With proper guidance, this reborn creature and its gifted symbiote could preach

the Word in churches, in cathedrals throughout the world. Millions would travel

far to hear an alien proclaim God's message. And not just on Earth. Imagine the

Good News spreading throughout the heavens! A million worlds cleansed by the

blood of Jesus Christ. With this disciple at her side, Reverend Ardith Donnelly

could take up the sword and see to it that Christ died for the sins of a galaxy.

This must be her true calling, the reason God guided the Seekers' ships out of

the darkness to Earth, where the light of Christianity could dim a million suns.

The Lord led this poor emissary to Donnelly's pulpit, to the one true faith, to

the feet of Christ's own lighthouse. If Donnelly's Earthly flock chose to stray

from the path of righteousness, well then she and the Lord would carve a new

path that spread for light-years in all directions. Thank you, God. Thank you,

Mark Bourne - Mustard Seed.pdf

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