“I’m not interested in indulging that kind of speculation because—”
“Because it detracts from the work,” I finish. “But this question has dogged The Project for years and I think the public deserves an answer: did you see the future or didn’t you?”
“I spoke what God told me to speak. Some of his messages are easier to discern than others.” He pauses. “The 2014 sermon was a mirror. We see in a mirror dimly, and then face-to-face. That’s what happened.”
“Do you consider yourself a prophet?”
“A prophet is only a messenger.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the one you get.”
“You do consider yourself God’s redeemer.”
“Yes.”
“Or do you just have a really healthy ego?”
He pauses. “I was long ago stripped of my ego.”
“Did you bring a girl back from the dead?”
He smiles at the rapid-firing of questions, immediately understands I’m trying to trip him up. My fingers ache from holding the recorder so tightly. It’s chilly in the barn, but I don’t want to go up to the house because when I think of writing this moment as it happened, it reads better here; dust motes floating in the air, Lev’s face tinged with the cold. The way our voices echo slightly as they play off each other. The sound of his boots as he paces the floor.
“In God, anything is possible,” he tells me.
“That’s not an answer either.”
“It’s still the one you get.” He pauses. “I was going to be a priest.”
“I know.”
“I thought that was what God meant for me. Well, it was, actually. I hadn’t correctly discerned His calling. God connected me with the church not to bring me to it, but to bring me through it. To walk me through its corruption, to bring me lower than I’d ever been in my life so he could show me a better way, so I, in turn, could show others.”
“How low?”
He comes to a gentle halt in front of me, contemplating.
“When I walked into church the first time, a boy, God’s love was everywhere,” Lev says. “And I had never known love. And when I knew His love, I stopped knowing fear because God’s perfect love casts out fear. Are you afraid, Lo?”
“Of what?” I ask.
“Anything.” His eyes search my face when I don’t answer him. “When I felt God’s love, I was no longer afraid of anything but when I got to seminary, I no longer felt God’s love. I was more alone, and more afraid, than I’d ever been. It was a test.”
“What do you mean?”
“God took His love from me to see if I would prove myself worthy of its return. I left seminary and I went home to Indiana, to my mother. Her anger was as alive as it ever was. I was made a boy again and she put her hate in me.”
I swallow, too afraid to ask him exactly what he endured, which one of those scars on his abdomen speaks to this moment of his life.
“What did you do?”
“I suffered my way back.”
“What does that mean?”
“I kneeled and I prayed to God for thirty hours.”
“What did—” My voice catches. “What did you pray for?”
“My mother,” he says, and it’s the last thing I expect to hear. “I asked God to bless and keep her safe. I told God I would serve Him in the name of her forgiveness and God knew He could trust His vision of The Project with me. He restored me. He made me His redeemer.”
“And what makes you so special?” I ask.
“I’m not special. There’s nothing special about me. Or maybe—” He steps toward me and he is very, very close. “Or maybe it’s that we’re all special … because everyone has been Chosen by God. Everyone has been Called by Him.”
“Even me.”
“Even you.” He pauses at the small, derisive smile this puts on my face. “You think that’s worthy of scorn?”
“If God’s calling me, how come I don’t hear anything?”
He brings his mouth to my ear. “You’re not listening.”
“Maybe he’s just not loud enough.”
“But how would you even know God to hear him? Your faithlessness is all over you. You believe so much of your anger, your need, your hurt, and your loneliness stems from what you’ve been denied, but you need to know this: if we deny God, he will also deny us.”
I step back from him.
“There is so much waiting for you beyond your want and your pain and your loneliness, Lo.” His gaze trails over my body in a way that makes me feel small, as though he can see all that lies beyond flesh and bone. “Aren’t you tired of denying yourself?”
I watch Lev return to the house through the windshield of my car.
It’s dark out, raining a little, the kind of rain that’s quick to turn to sleet. I want to get ahead of it as much as I can. I start the car, the rumble of the engine reverberating through my body. I shake my hands out, clearing my throat a few times, like I could expel the tight feeling in my chest, then I pull away from the house and drive the long stretch of road back to the highway, chewing on my lip, Lev’s voice in my head, trying not to imagine that there is a God calling out to me right now and the only thing standing between us is—
Me.
My phone rings from its place on the dashboard. I glance at it quickly—UNKNOWN NUMBER—before glancing back at the road. I’m nearing the intersection at the same time as a semi. The sight of it breaks a cold sweat out on the back of my neck. My phone continues ringing and I push on the gas when I don’t mean to, then try to correct with the brake.
Nothing happens.
“God,” I whisper.
I push the brake pedal again and nothing happens.
I turn the wheel hard, and in that moment between the road disappearing out from under me and the sudden stop that lies ahead, I listen.
2013
No one has ever left The Unity Project before.
* * *
He calls a meeting at Chapman House, in the Great Room.
There’s a low murmur of confusion as everyone arrives and settles in; no one but the three of them—Lev, Bea and Casey—knows what this is about. Bea sits dutifully at Lev’s feet, Atara seated next to her, as Lev stands before them. Casey stays to one side, keeping careful watch of everyone. Lev wants a full report of reactions later. Bea spots Foster, sitting near the back, and he gives her a questioning look. She shakes her head imperceptibly. His questions are not hers to answer.
Finally, Lev wordlessly calls them to order, raising his hands.
The room falls silent and Lev’s eyes fall on each of them, taking them all in. Bea wonders what he sees when he looks at them. If he’s as sure of them as he ever was or if he now only sees a vast new potential for betrayal. From here, Bea recognizes the deep hurt in his eyes—to have given so much, to have had it thrown back in his face.
I want to speak to you of paradise, Lev says.
Bea closes her eyes.
Paradise, he says, his voice flowing over her, is not a place you go, it’s the place that I carry within me. God has entrusted me with this gift. And for as long as you are in my presence, for as long as you live in my faith, you shall have the keys to the Kingdom. Its walls will protect you. Your faith fortifies its walls.