She stopped talking, but only long enough to put away some seasonings into a spice rack on a ledge by the window and then turned to face him again. She looked at Mack intently. “Hasn’t it always been a problem for you to embrace me as your father? And after what you’ve been through, you couldn’t very well handle a father right now, could you?”

He knew she was right, and he realized the kindness and compassion in what she was doing. Somehow, the way she had approached him had skirted his resistance to her love. It was strange, and painful, and maybe even a little bit wonderful.

“But then,” he paused, still focused on staying rational, “why is there such an emphasis on you being a Father? I mean, it seems to be the way you most reveal yourself.”

“Well,” responded Papa, turning away from him and bustling around the kitchen, “there are many reasons for that, and some of them go very deep. Let me say for now that we knew once the Creation was broken, true fathering would be much more lacking than mothering. Don’t misunderstand me, both are needed-but an emphasis on fathering is necessary because of the enormity of its absence.”

Mack turned away a bit bewildered, feeling he was already in over his head. As he reflected, he looked through the window at a wild looking garden.

“You knew I would come, didn’t you?” Mack finally spoke quietly.

“Of course I did.” She was busy again, her back to him.

“Then, was I free not to come? Did I not have a choice in the matter?”

Papa turned back to face him, now with flour and dough in her hands. “Good question-how deep would you like to go?” She didn’t wait for a response, knowing that Mack didn’t have one. Instead she asked, “Do you believe you are free to leave?”

“I suppose I am. Am I?”

“Of course you are! I’m not interested in prisoners. You’re free to walk out that door right now and go home to your empty house. Or, you could go down to The Grind and hang out with Willie. Just because I know you’re too curious to go, does that reduce your freedom to leave?”

She paused only briefly and then turned back to her task, talking to him over her shoulder. “Or, if you want to go just a wee bit deeper, we could talk about the nature of freedom itself. Does freedom mean that you are allowed to do whatever you want to do? Or we could talk about all the limiting influences in your life that actively work against your freedom. Your family genetic heritage, your specific DNA, your metabolic uniqueness, the quantum stuff that is going on at a subatomic level where only I am the always-present observer. Or the intrusion of your soul’s sickness that inhibits and binds you, or the social influences around you, or the habits that have created synaptic bonds and pathways in your brain. And then there’s advertising, propaganda, and paradigms. Inside that confluence of multifaceted inhibitors,” she sighed, “what is freedom really?”

Mack just stood there not knowing what to say.

“Only I can set you free, Mackenzie, but freedom can never be forced.”

“I don’t understand,” replied Mack. “I don’t even understand what you just told me.”

She turned back and smiled. “I know. I didn’t tell you so that you would understand right now. I told you for later. At this point, you don’t even comprehend that freedom is an incremental process.” Gently reaching out, she took Mack’s hands in hers, flour covered and all, and looking him straight in the eyes she continued, “Mackenzie, the Truth shall set you free and the Truth has a name; he’s over in the wood-shop right now covered in sawdust. Everything is about him. And freedom is a process that happens inside a relationship with him. Then all that stuff you feel churnin’ around inside will start to work its way out.”

“How can you really know how I feel?” Mack asked, looking back into her eyes.

Papa didn’t answer, only looked down at their hands. His gaze followed hers and for the first time Mack noticed the scars in her wrists, like those he now assumed Jesus also had on his. She allowed him to tenderly touch the scars, outlines of a deep piercing, and he finally looked up again into her eyes. Tears were slowly making their way down her face, little pathways through the flour that dusted her cheeks.

“Don’t ever think that what my son chose to do didn’t cost us dearly. Love always leaves a significant mark,” she stated softly and gently. “We were there together.”

Mack was surprised. “At the cross? Now wait, I thought you left him-you know-’My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’“ It was a Scripture that had often haunted Mack in The Great Sadness.

“You misunderstand the mystery there. Regardless of what he felt at that moment, I never left him.”

“How can you say that? You abandoned him just like you abandoned me!”

“Mackenzie, I never left him, and I have never left you.”

“That makes no sense to me,” he snapped.

“I know it doesn’t, at least not yet. Will you at least consider this: When all you can see is your pain, perhaps then you lose sight of me?”

When Mack did not respond, she turned back to her cooking so as to offer him a little needed space. She seemed to be preparing a number of dishes all at once, adding various spices and ingredients. Humming a haunting little tune, she put the finishing touches on the pie that she had been making and slid it into the oven.

“Don’t forget, the story didn’t end in his sense of forsakenness. He found his way through it to put himself completely into my hands. Oh, what a moment that was!”

Mack leaned against the counter somewhat bewildered. His emotions and thoughts were all jumbled. Part of him wanted to believe everything Papa was saying. That would be nice! But another part was objecting rather loudly, “This can’t possibly be true!”

Papa reached for the kitchen timer, gave it a little twist, and placed it on the table in front of them. “I’m not who you think I am, Mackenzie.” Her words weren’t angry or defensive.

Mack looked her, looked at the timer, and sighed. “I feel totally lost.”

“Then let’s see if we can find you in this mess.”

Almost as if on cue, a blue jay landed on the kitchen windowsill and began strutting back and forth. Papa reached into a tin on the counter and, sliding the window open, offered Mr. Jay a mixture of grains that she must have kept just for that purpose. Without any hesitation, and with a seeming air of humility and thankfulness, the bird walked straight to her hand and began feeding.

“Consider our little friend here,” she began. “Most birds were created to fly. Being grounded for them is a limitation within their ability to fly, not the other way around.” She paused to let Mack think about her statement. “You, on the other hand, were created to be loved. So for you to live as if you were unloved is a limitation, not the other way around.”

Mack nodded his head, not so much in full agreement, but more as a signal that at least he understood and was tracking. That seemed simple enough.

“Living unloved is like clipping a bird’s wings and removing its ability to fly. Not something I want for you.”

There’s the rub. He didn’t feel particularly loved at the moment.

“Mack, pain has a way of clipping our wings and keeping us from being able to fly.” She waited a moment, allowing her words to settle. “And if left unresolved for very long, you can almost forget that you were ever created to fly in the first place.”

Mack was silent. Strangely, the silence was not that uncomfortable. Mack looked at the little bird. The bird looked back at Mack. He wondered if it was possible for birds to smile. At least Mr. Jay looked like he was, perhaps if only sympathetically.

“I’m not like you, Mack.”

It wasn’t a put down; it was a simple statement of fact. But to Mack it felt like a splash of cold water.