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By Root 1456 0

and the Holy Spirit, while Mitchell listened, experimentally. He was playing along and not playing along. He wanted to see what it felt like. “I told you we were meant to meet!” Janice said. “God put it on my heart to talk to you and now you’re ready to be saved! Praise Jesus.” Next she was talking about the book of Acts, and Pentecost, about Jesus ascending to heaven but giving Christians the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, the wind that surpasseth all understanding. She explained the gifts of the Spirit, speaking in tongues, healing the sick. She sounded thrilled for Mitchell but also as though she could have been talking to anyone at all. “The Spirit listeth where it wills. It’s as real as the wind. Will you pray with me now, Mitchell? Will you get down on your knees and accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior?”

“I can’t right now.”

“Where are you?”

“In my hotel. In the lobby.”

“Then wait until you’re alone. Go into a room alone and get down on your knees and ask the Lord to come into your heart.”

“Have you ever spoken in tongues?” Mitchell asked.

“I was given the gift of tongues once, yes.”

“How does that happen?”

“I asked for it. Sometimes you have to ask. One day I was praying and I just started praying to receive my tongues. All of a sudden, the room got really warm. It was like Indiana in the summertime. Humid. There was a presence there. I could feel it. And then I opened my mouth and God gave me the gift of tongues.”

“What did you say?”

“I don’t know. But there was a man there, a Christian, who recognized the language I was speaking. It was Aramaic.”

“The language of Jesus.”

“That’s what he said.”

“Can I speak in tongues, too?”

“You can ask. Sure you can. Once you’ve accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you just ask the Father to give you the gift of tongues, in Jesus’ name.”

“And then what?”

“Open your mouth!”

“And it’ll just happen?”

“I’ll pray for you. Praise God!”

After hanging up, Mitchell went out to see the Acropolis. He wore both of his remaining shirts in order to stay warm. Reaching the Plaka, he passed by the souvenir stands selling imitation Grecian urns and plates, sandals, worry beads. A T-shirt on a hanger proclaimed “Kiss Me I’m Greek.” Mitchell began climbing up the dusty switchbacks to the ancient plateau.

When he reached the top, he turned and gazed back down at Athens, a giant bathtub filled with dirty suds. Clouds were swirling dramatically overhead, pierced by sunbeams that fell like spotlights on the distant sea. The majestic altitude, the clean scent of pine trees, and the golden light lent the atmosphere a true sense of Attic clarity. Scaffolding covered the Parthenon, as well as a smaller temple nearby. Aside from that, and a lone guard station at the far end of the summit, there were no signs of officialdom anywhere, and Mitchell felt free to roam wherever he wanted.

The wind bloweth where it listeth.

Unlike every other famous tourist sight Mitchell had seen in his life, the Acropolis was more impressive in reality; no postcard or photograph could do it justice. The Parthenon was both bigger and more beautiful, more heroically conceived and constructed, than he’d imagined.

Larry was nowhere in sight. Mitchell walked over the rocks, behind the small temple. When he was certain no one could see him, he got down on his knees.

Maybe listening to a woman going on about “living for Christ” represented the exact sort of humbling that Mitchell needed in order to die to his old conceited self. What if the meek really would inherit the earth? What if the truth was simple, so that everyone could grasp it, and not complex, so that you needed a master’s degree? Mightn’t the truth be perceived through an organ other than the brain, and wasn’t that what faith was all about? Mitchell didn’t know the answers to these questions, but as he stood gazing down from the ancient mountain, sacred to Athena, he entertained a revolutionary thought: that he and all his enlightened friends knew nothing about life, and that maybe this (crazy?) lady knew something big.

Mitchell closed