The Ladder of Divine Ascent

Johnny C lies between the bushes and the bricked side of the church covered by an old army poncho liner.  He presses his back to the building to try and absorb any remaining heat that may have been stored there over the course of the day in this south-facing wall and, anyway, the pressure lessens the pain in his back.  The mulch provides a soft-enough bed and a rounded rock with a flat side acts as pillow with his frayed knit cap a cushion between bone and stone.

I stand over him and watch his rhythmic breathing.  He has found some relief in sleep from the voice that speaks to him when he is awake and criticizes him at every turn.  It’s something that came unbidden in his late teens that he named “Lou” after his deadbeat dad.  It is tiring for him to constantly argue with the voice and when he does it makes others around him uncomfortable.  It is therefore no surprise he avoids people.  They do not hear what he hears.  They do not fear what he fears.

But now he is dreaming and it is a kind of righteous respite or at least that is how he characterizes it.  An impossibly long ladder reaches from earth to heaven and angels are ascending and descending, seemingly going about their angelic duties.  One of them passes nearby and Johnny C takes in an expectant breath, afraid to move.  I make eye contact with the being and we acknowledge each other with a slight nod.

Johnny C wakes up in a fit of coughing, disappointed to find it is not real and that Lou has returned with his deep deprecations. 

***

Johnny C feels like crap, his lower back yelling at him even when Lou isn’t.  He roams the nearby streets but never far from the church and its adjoining soup kitchen.  He considers it home base and is afraid of getting “tagged” if he wanders too far afield.  Mary is oftentimes there and the sight of her face provides its own bit of warmth and motivation.

“Hey Mary.”

“Hey Johnny C”.

“Will you marry me?”  But that part is only a thought in his head before being quickly drowned out by Lou, “Who would marry you, you worthless windbag?”

“Shut up!” Johnny C barks before realizing Mary has misunderstood his outburst and he watches her back quickly disappear down the street.  

***

The Saturday evening meal is wrapping up as I sit quietly by Johnny C and watch him dab some soup from his beard and beat some crumbs off of his clothes.  Father Jacob comes out of the back door of the church and addresses this harried group, “Brothers and sisters, please join us for Vespers if you can.  We will be starting in about fifteen minutes.  Please note some of our iconography is being repaired so please be careful as there is some scaffolding and a ladder that you should avoid.”

Johnny C isn’t sure what to make of the “brothers and sisters” part as it sounds just a bit on the condescending side and he is sensitive to that sort of thing.  Being slighted by others or straight up ignored has been his lot in life since Lou first drove him out of polite society.  He has never gotten used to it but he thinks maybe he should give Father Jacob the benefit of the doubt and take him up on his offer.  What else is he going to do?  Where else is he going to go?  

***

He pushes through the door to the church and the first thing he notices is a flowery burning smell hitting him full in the face.   He recognizes it as incense, a smell that faintly clings to Father Jacob’s cassock.  A memory from his childhood floods his mind as he sees the face of his mother bending over him with the smell of lilacs in the air from her perfume and a cigarette dangling from her lips.  She is saying something in a reassuring tone after exhaling smoke out of the corner of her mouth but then her expression shifts to a look of fear when the sound of a door opening heralds the arrival of his dad.  She quickly crumples the cigarette into an ashtray and Johnny C feels tears welling up in his eyes.  “What the hell?” he whispers to no one in particular.  He can’t remember the last time he’s cried about anything at all, especially in public.  I pat his shoulder and give him a bit of a reassuring nudge so that he ambles over to lean against one of the small pillars that line either side of the church, wiping his eyes with a dirty sleeve as he goes.

He sees there are no pews here and others are standing as well.  A small child is crawling on the oriental rug and pulls up on the closest adult who smiles down at her.  He has never had children and thinks it would be nice if the child chose him as a standing pole.  Others wander around lighting candles and bowing in front of elongated images of people that Johnny C finds peculiar if not down right strange.  His gaze is drawn upwards following the voices singing from somewhere above and behind him.  They are definitely not of the Lou variety.

Right on cue Lou hisses at him, “Stop looking around, dumbshit,” but he ignores him.  

He sees a circular opening in the ceiling surrounded by angels that extends upwards into a large white cylindrical space and disappearing into that space is a ladder that he just now notices is standing in the middle of the room.  It seems coincidental but he can’t shake the feeling it is somehow related to the ladder in his dream from the night before.  Out of curiosity Johnny C inches towards the ladder and away from the pillar to see where this ladder may be going.  Little by little a large face comes into view at the pinnacle of the cupola.  It is a bearded man who is not smiling or frowning, just looking; looking at Johnny C who suddenly feels like he is floating inside that glowing space and staring into the face of God.

***

That night Johnny C is back in his hidden sleeping spot and wonders at how muted the voice has become in his head.  He feels like he can actually think and what he is thinking about is something Father Jacob shared at the end of “Vespers” as he’d called it.  He told a story about a woman with a disease that kept her isolated from others in her community and feeling alone in the world.  With great determination she forces herself through a crowd and touches Jesus and is healed.  It is this touch that has taken hold of his imagination and he is suddenly wide awake and full of a strange resolve.

I observe him jump up and throw off his cover with an energy I have not seen in years.  He makes his way around the church trying the windows until finding one unlocked that he can jimmy open with the help of his pocket knife.  He scrambles awkwardly in through the opening and makes his way to the nave.  He finds several light switches in a row and flips a few on and off until he finds the one that lights up the inside of the cupola.  The ladder is there like an impossibly large candle that ends in a flame-like glow high above the floor.  It is so very similar to the ladder in his dream and there are angels represented in mosaics surrounding the opening no less!

He feels a sense of growing awe in approaching it through the dark and quiet church.  That feeling intensifies to the level of terror when he grasps a rung and doubt threatens to immobilize him.  He waits for the voice to start berating him, but then he looks up and the face of God is there impassive yet beckoning.  Johnny C slowly ascends in fits and starts trying not to look down.  I stand at its base and hold the ladder with both hands to steady it.  I am concerned for him but know he must do what he must do.

Johnny C stares at each rung and counts them out slowly as he ascends until the number twenty brings him even with the high ceiling and his head begins to enter the glowing cylinder.  Five more rungs and he is fully within the cupola and imagining he is in a space capsule that is suspended in a heavenly orbit.  He looks up to the last few rungs and realizes he is finally face to face with God.

He feels his heart beating in his chest and there is a whooshing sound in his ears.  Vertigo threatens to take ahold of him.  He is afraid yet fearless as he reaches out to touch the face that will heal him.  Just before his finger touches the mosaic Lou yells out in a kind of final desperation, “Don’t!” which causes Johnny C to hesitate but then steels his resolve.  With arm at full extension his finger touches the mouth and the sensation of a large balloon popping passes through him from head to toe.  The fingers of his grasping hand loosen and then release as his upper body starts to arc backwards and away from the ladder.  

I feel the wings sprout from my shoulders and a surge of energy pulses through me as I launch myself from the floor towards the falling figure.  I meet Johnny C as his falling body exits the cupola and I maneuver to see him face to face.  His eyes widen and then focus as I allow him to see me.  Time has slowed down to a crawl, like sinking into the depths of the ocean, my wings throwing flickers of light and shadow across him as we descend together.

“It’s OK, Johnny.  You are loved.  You have always been loved.  Your faith has made you whole.”

The outline of a door appears in the floorboards below which Johnny C cannot see until it opens and light comes pouring out enveloping him as he falls through it.

***

Light is glowing in the eastern sky as Father Jacob ascends the steps and pulls out a ring of keys from underneath his cassock.  The sound of the bolt clicking seems louder than usual and he realizes the sounds of the city are conspicuously absent this morning.  He stands there for a moment with his eyes closed taking in the silence until bird song breaks him from his reverie.  

He enters the church and the first thing he notices is that someone has left the lights on in the cupola over night.  The effect of the circle of light in the darkened church with the faint glow of color through windows behind the altar is nice and again he pauses a moment to take it in.  At the base of the ladder he notices what appears to be the sleeping form of Johnny C and wonders how he got in.  Father Jacob approaches and then leans over the still man and tries to awaken him but soon realizes he is no longer in his earthly body.  He crosses himself and looks upward following the ladder through the circle of angels to the face of God and wonders what it would be like to touch it.