Understanding People Who See Jesus In Burnt Toast
In Chicago, Ill., the Virgin Mary appeared on the underbelly of a pet turtle. In Sacramento, Cal., there is a statue of Madonna that weeps blood like a horned lizard right before it is eaten by a predator. And in Houston, Tex., a woman found Jesus in a Cheeto. They are all miracles. Everyone is saying so.
Jesus always loved fish, especially the stick kind.
I have been skipping from state to state with a bus-full of the meek, running the miracle circuit of America. We stop in diners, hospitals, houses and gas stations, kneeling silently before stains and mold to get the best shots with our digital cameras. Then, when the blotches don't fix us, we drive away. As I look around the bus at all the hopeful faces I only see our similarities, save the old people and the minorities; with them it's easy to see the difference. We have come together through hope -- and through a shared, unrelenting belief that faith is for suckers. We want some goddamn proof.The results are inconclusive. All I have learned so far is that Mary loves rust stains and Jesus loves burnt food. They stay pretty consistent in their means of return to Earth, rarely crossing over into one another's territory. Mary lives in sinksAt least 14 things are watching you, right now.
And in some cases, they truly are horrifying. During a stop at an underpass in Chicago to see Mary in a salt stainUgh.
We pass the time between miracles and state lines discussing which items containing the image of Mother and/or Son we've spotted on ebay recently, and how much we think they are worth. Everyone has decided $430 is reasonable for a tortilla"I'd love to paint you."
We all pay our admission and huddle into a room as he pulls back a curtain to reveal the crudely painted body of God. We start a slow clap. As soon as we find unison, sure enough, the painting starts to drip oil. We watch it seep down the canvas and tell each other what it means.A middle-aged woman on our trip who refuses to comb her hair or wear leather tells us it is a sign that Jesus wants us to stop our oil dependence. A man from Idaho insists that the miracle is a sign that we need to escape our corporate lives in exchange for a tax-free, art-centric society where no one uses money, especially to pay taxes. An old couple from Colorado say it's there to wash us all clean of our sins, regardless of how horrific they may have been. "Even murder," they say, hypothetically. As everyone argues quietly over its true meaning, one woman speaks above the rest. "I need it on me!" she shouts. Within seconds, everyone is crowded around the painting, touching it and wiping their fingers across their foreheads. "Everybody, try to be cool," the painter says. But no one is interested in being cool, they are interested in being healed. He panics briefly before throwing his hands in the air and shouting out a new idea, "Hey, who wants to go the beach with me!?"Everyone stops clamoring and looks to modern Jesus. We all do. We all want to go to the beach with him. Seeing these pilgrims in their bathing suits, it's suddenly clear why most of our tour group is pleading with God for rationality. Entire swaths of fabric hide in the shady rolls of human desperation as the group huddles around modern Jesus asking questions and baking in the sand at edge of the Earth.What if this is all there is?
I am in the water because I have deliberately separated myself from the group so that he'll acknowledge that I am different from everyone else. I am special. I swim a few yards, doing the most impressive stroke I remember from the middle school swim team. I do it to demonstrate my superior strength, and my nonchalant ease in the terrifying vastness of the ocean. I want him to gaze out at the water and say, "There. Yes, he among you knows how to be content with the world. He does not project rationality while never perceiving it. He gets it. That guy swimming the butterfly, he gets it." Before long I can no longer touch the sand and I feel myself drifting from shore. I'm tired from all the swimming and each effort I make to paddle back sends me further out. Panic. Far off, I can see modern Jesus watching calmly from his beach blanket. I know at once that this is a test of some sort, to prove something, maybe. I accept.For a furious 15 minutes, I splash and dive and rage against the undertow. I inadvertently swallow pints of seawater and consider giving up while God's descendant watches. Finally, my toes find a grip in the sand and I can pull myself to shore, exhausted. I win, surely he owes me something now. Maybe not money but surely something equally great, like a dinner somewhere. When I can finally stand I walk toward the group. Most of them have collected their towels and are headed back to the bus, but modern Jesus is there, waiting. Sort of. He didn't see any of it because he fell asleep. "I beat the ocean," I tell him. "I fought it and beat it.""Cool," he says."I swam against the undertow. I didn't ask for help, I only asked for the strength to bear my lot in life."He sits up and looks me in the eye. "You shouldn't have done that. You're supposed to swim parallel to the beach and then swim in. Everybody knows that.""Oh," I tell him, and water floods from my nose.He shakes his head and hits his sandals together before putting them on. "That was stupid," he says but I can't tell if it's directed at me. After saying goodbye, we settle in on this bus for a long drive to Seattle. Someone there has found an angel in a piece of garlic naan and hundreds of people are making the pilgrimage. While everyone sleeps I stay awake because I know that I have work to do. I know that sometimes you are given a gift in life, whether through a stain or a piece of food or through an experience at the beach that could be mistaken for idiocy. But it is up to you what you do with it, how you shape it, how you retell it, and how you turn it into something you can convince other people is a miracle.And maybe make a little money in the process.
Check out more from Soren in Infiltrating the Green Movement: Undercover on the Bandwagon and Exploring the Internet in 11 Days: An Epic Online Odyssey.