As Mack turned to accept the lunch bags, he felt Sarayu slip by, kissing his cheek as she passed, but he didn’t see her go. Like the wind he thought he could see her path, the plants bending in turn as if in worship. When he turned back, Papa was also gone, so he headed toward the workshop to see if he could find Jesus. It seemed they had an appointment.

10 WADE IN THE WATER

Jesus finished sanding the last corner of what looked like a casket sitting on a table in the workshop. He ran his fingers along the smooth edge, nodded with satisfaction, and put the sandpaper down. He walked out the door brushing the powder off his jeans and shirt as Mack approached.

“Hey there, Mack! I was just putting some finishing touches on my project for tomorrow. Would you like to go for a walk?”

Mack thought about their time last night under the stars. “If you’re going, I’m more than willing,” he responded. “Why do you all keep talking about tomorrow?”

“It’s a big day for you, one of the reasons you are here. Let’s go. There’s a special place I want to show you on the other side of the lake and the panorama is beyond description. You can even see some of the higher peaks from over there.”

“Sounds great!” responded Mack enthusiastically.

“It looks like you have our lunches, so we’re ready to go.”

Instead of angling off to one side of the lake or the other, where Mack suspected a trail might be, Jesus headed straight for the dock. The day was bright and beautiful. The sun was warm to the skin but not too much, and a fresh scented breeze softly and lovingly caressed their faces.

Mack next assumed that they would be taking one of the canoes nestled against the dock pylons, and he was surprised when Jesus didn’t hesitate as he passed the third and last of them, heading directly for the end of the pier. Reaching the end of the dock, he turned to Mack and grinned.

“After you,” he said with a mock flourish and bow.

“You’re kidding, right?” sputtered Mack. “I thought we were going for a walk, not a swim.”

“We are. I just thought going across the lake would take less time than going around it.”

“I’m not that great a swimmer and besides, the water looks pretty damn cold,” complained Mack. He suddenly realized what he had said and felt his face flush. “Uh, I mean darn, pretty darn cold.” He looked up at Jesus with a frozen grimace on his face, but the other man seemed to be actually enjoying Mack’s discomfort.

“Now,” Jesus folded his arms, “we both know that you are a very capable swimmer, once a lifeguard if I remember right. And the water is cold. And it’s deep. But I’m not talking about swimming. I want to walk across with you.”

What Jesus had been suggesting, Mack finally allowed into his consciousness. He was talking about walking across on the water. Jesus, anticipating his hesitation, asserted, “C’mon, Mack. If Peter can do it…”

Mack laughed, more out of nerves than anything. To be sure, he asked one more time, “You want me to walk on the water to the other side-that is what you are saying, right?”

“You’re a quick one, Mack. Nobody gonna slide anything past you, that’s for sure. C’mon, it’s fun!” He laughed.

Mack walked to the edge of the dock and looked down. The water lapped only about a foot below where he stood, but it might as well have been a hundred feet. The distance looked enormous. To dive in would have been easy, he had done that a thousand times, but how do you step off a dock onto water? Do you jump as if you are landing on concrete, or do you step over the edge like you are getting out of a boat? He looked back at Jesus, who was still chuckling.

“Peter had the same problem: How to get out of the boat. It’s just like stepping off a one-foot-high stair. Nothing to it.”

“Will my feet get wet?” queried Mack.

“Of course, water is still wet.”

Again Mack looked down at the water and back at Jesus. “Then why is this so hard for me?”

“Tell me what you are afraid of, Mack.”

“Well, let me see. What am I afraid of?” began Mack. “Well, I am afraid of looking like an idiot. I am afraid that you are making fun of me and that I will sink like a rock. I imagine that-”

“Exactly,” Jesus interrupted. “You imagine. Such a powerful ability, the imagination! That power alone makes you so like us. But without wisdom, imagination is a cruel taskmaster. If I may prove my case, do you think humans were designed to live in the present or the past or the future?”

“Well,” said Mack, hesitating, “I think the most obvious answer is that we were designed to live in the present. Is that wrong?”

Jesus chuckled. “Relax, Mack; this is not a test, it’s a conversation. You are exactly correct, by the way. But now tell me, where do you spend most of your time in your mind, in your imagination, in the present, in the past, or in the future?”

Mack thought for a moment before answering. “I suppose I would have to say that I spend very little time in the present. For me, I spend a big piece in the past, but most of the rest of the time, I am trying to figure out the future.”

“Not unlike most people. When I dwell with you, I do so in the present-I live in the present. Not the past, although much can be remembered and learned by looking back, but only for a visit, not an extended stay. And for sure, I do not dwell in the future you visualize or imagine. Mack, do you realize that your imagination of the future, which is almost always dictated by fear of some kind, rarely, if ever, pictures me there with you?”

Again Mack stopped and thought. It was true. He spent a lot of time fretting and worrying about the future, and in his imaginations it was usually pretty gloomy and depressing, if not outright horrible. And Jesus was also correct in saying that in Mack’s imaginations of the future, God was always absent.

“Why do I do that?” asked Mack.

“It is your desperate attempt to get some control over something you can’t. It is impossible for you to take power over the future because it isn’t even real, nor will it ever be real. You try and play God, imagining the evil that you fear becoming reality, and then you try and make plans and contingencies to avoid what you fear.”

“Yeah, that’s basically what Sarayu was saying,” responded Mack. “So why do I have so much fear in my life?”

“Because you don’t believe. You don’t know that we love you. The person who lives by their fears will not find freedom in my love. I am not talking about rational fears regarding legitimate dangers, but imagined fears, and especially the projection of those into the future. To the degree that those fears have a place in your life, you neither believe I am good nor know deep in your heart that I love you. You sing about it; you talk about it, but you don’t know it.”

Mack looked down once more at the water and breathed a huge sigh of the soul. “I have so far to go.”

“Only about a foot, it looks to me,” laughed Jesus, placing his hand on Mack’s shoulder. It was all he needed and Mack stepped off the dock. In order to try and see the water as solid, and not be deterred by its motion, he looked up at the far shore and held the lunch bags high just in case.

The landing was softer than he had thought it would be. His shoes were instantly wet, but the water did not come up even to his ankles. The lake was still moving all around him and he almost lost his balance because of it. It was strange. Looking down it seemed that his feet were on something solid but invisible. He turned to find Jesus standing next to him, holding his own shoes and socks in one hand and smiling.