Numinous

Wow is that strange, thought Nathan. He had remembered how he and his friend Tim had had some interesting discussions at Starbucks about abiding in Jesus’s love and what Jesus Christ had revealed about patience. He had forgotten about most of those discussions as they were nearly five years ago already, but remembered a general sense of satisfaction about helping Tim at a critical time of his life, as he was battling addiction issues. Maybe this C.H. was a friend of Tim’s or something or a husband of a church member he was failing to remember. It was odd someone would leave a note in his car like this. He thought he had locked his Prius before coming to the church meeting. Starbucks was next to Highway 41 which was close to the road home, so he rationalized that he needed a quality cup of coffee or a latte after the stress of the day. As he entered the Starbucks, he noticed a fairly crowded scene and Yusuf Islam music playing over the speakers. The song was “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood”, the song recorded by Nina Simone, Yusuf Islam, Elvis Costello and many others. There were students with laptops, a man with a goatee in his mid-50’s looking very professorial, and a couple of rough looking young people looking like they were fresh from an Occupy Wall Street protest. One of the young people had a sword on his forearm and the other had a ring through his lip donning a sweatshirt with a skull on it. Several of the younger people seemed to be very angry about political issues as the words “resistance,” revolution,” “justice” and “protest” were heard a lot during his short sampling of the conversation. For the most part, the scene was fairly peaceful and the smell of caramel coffee and of grounding beans provided an excellent olfactory experience. As his eyes turned to the right side of the room, there was only one chair left. A thin Afro-American woman sat on one side and had a lap top on the table. His eyes met hers and they were such warm eyes. One table down was a man in his thirties with sunglasses and a white sports coat and no tie. “Anyone sitting here?” “No.” announced the proper looking man, who reached for his coffee. He greeted him by saying “Namaste.” “Namaste,” replied our main character. “My name is Christopher.” Chills crept up Nathan’s spine as a fire would climb up a dry pine tree. “You’re CH?” “Yes, I am,” gracefully came from his lips. His welcoming eyes looked right at him, stating, “We are the way, the hope and the life. You had a tough meeting back there. There are some folks who don’t understand you and believe you are trying to trick them. I know that to be far from the truth.” Nathan was starting to get scared. Why would a man he doesn’t even know be following him? “Were you tailing me from the meeting? You left that strange note to screw with me, didn’t you? I don’t need this today!” Nathan is now raising his voice and the guy with the tattoo is looking in his direction with some anger. “Calm down. I’m not here to hurt you but to empathize with you and to assure you that I’m always with you, more so in times of trouble.” The mysterious person went on describing Nathan’s own life to him from childhood and in less than two minutes he was driven to tears. A Starbucks employee came by and remarked, “Is this man bothering you sir?” He shook his head no. Another deep chill came down Nathan’s spine as he noticed CH to bear an uncanny physical likeness to the late Christopher Hitchens, who had passed away recently. He looked exactly like him, an amazing resemblance, as a matter of fact. Nobody seemed to notice at Starbucks, surprisingly, not causing any kind of stir at the coffee shop. Soft music by Natalie Merchant played in the background. "Why would you look like Christopher Hitchens? That seems like a rather silly choice." The man with the English accent continues. "There are a number of reasons of why I would portray myself to you in this fashion." "But you could have been a gray and bearded guy or somebody looking like Christ, Mandy Patinkin, Kenny Rogers or Alec Guinness. Why this image??" “Compassion, equality, and the profound magic of peace and love for starters. I also wanted to challenge your traditional conceptions of God, to open up your mind a little. I want you to see that spirituality can be infinitely abstract, truly amazing and quite wonderful. I could have come as Pat Robertson, Barack Obama, Joel Osteen, Richard Dawkins, Seth Godin, Krista Tippett, Stephen Fry, Mother Theresa, Joshua Calhoun or Carl Sagan. Would that have been as good? I think NOT. Pat Robertson would have been quite a turn-off, wouldn’t it have? Don’t worry, to the rest of the people in here I appear to be a college professor in my late 60’s. No worries Nathan. I’ve got you covered." The voice was certainly that of a young Chris Hitchens in all its urgency and exuberance. “I’m using Chris’s body image to help you have a revelation that spirituality is infinitely abstract. I exist, but the rules made by organized religion and far off what the truth really is. The universe is incomprehensively abstract and as the poet Rumi once, “Behind every atom of this world, hides an infinite universe.” We need to start over with some more simple conceptions of what it is like to be faithful. Back to religion. Even though Christopher was an atheist, I had great love for him and he has made it into my heaven by the way. What others thought of him is not an issue. What I think of him is the only issue.” “Much like Chris faced, you face a great spiritual crisis and you are compassionately engaged in debate with people you deeply care about. You have people in your church who believe you are doing the wrong thing, yet you love your job. This is a true dilemma. The key is to try to find a way to win them over to your side. Love your enemies Nathan. This is why Chris loved to debate with people on the God question, because he had such a great love for mankind. He owned a passionate desire to convince souls one at a time to use reason to solve human problems instead of relying entirely on blind faith. What people tend to not remember about Hitch was his huge sense of compassion and his excellent sense of humor. He had a love for humanity and its future which was almost as big as the universe! He actually was on the right track. You may not understand this huge irony, but I loved Christopher dearly even though he didn’t believe in me. His book on G.K. Chesterton would have been his biggest seller yet had he lived long enough to write it, and for such interesting reasons! I won’t get into it now.“ The mysterious force inside Mr. Hitchens’s body seemed to glow with intensity.