Taking a deep breath and with his hands outstretched in front of him, he ventured a couple small steps into the inky darkness and stopped. Fear seized him as he tried to breathe, unsure whether or not to continue. As his stomach clenched he felt it again, The Great Sadness settling on his shoulders with its full weight almost suffocating him. He desperately wanted to back out into the light, but in the end he believed that Jesus would not have sent him in here without a good purpose. He pressed in farther.
Slowly his eyes recovered from the shock of moving from daylight into such deep shadows, and a minute later they adjusted enough to make out a single passageway curving off to his left. As he followed it, the brightness at the entrance behind him faded and was replaced by a faint luminosity reflecting off the walls from somewhere ahead.
Within a hundred feet, the tunnel turned abruptly to his left and Mack found himself standing at the edge of what he assumed was a huge cavern, although initially it seemed to be only vast empty space. The illusion was magnified by the only light present, a dim radiance that encircled him, but dissipated within ten feet in every direction. Beyond that he could see nothing, only inky blackness. The air in the place felt heavy and oppressive, with an attending chill that fought to take his breath away. He looked down and was relieved to see a faint reflection off a surface-not the dirt and rock of the tunnel, but a floor smooth and dark like polished mica.
Bravely taking a step forward, he noticed that the light-circle moved with him, illuminating a little more of the area ahead. Feeling more confident, he began to slowly and deliberately walk in the direction he had been facing, focusing on the floor for fear it might at any moment drop away beneath him. He was so intent on watching his feet that Mack blundered into an object in front of him and almost fell.
It was a chair, a comfortable-looking wooden chair in the middle of… nothing. Mack quickly decided to sit and wait. As he did, the light that had assisted him continued to move forward as if he had kept walking. Directly in front of him, he now could make out an ebony desk of considerable size, completely bare. And then he jumped when the light coalesced on one spot, and he finally saw her. Behind the desk sat a tall, beautiful, olive-skinned woman with chiseled Hispanic features, clothed in a darkly colored flowing robe.
She sat as straight and regal as a high court judge. She was breathtakingly stunning.
“She is beauty,” he thought. “Everything that sensuality strives to be, but falls painfully short.” In the dim light it was difficult to see where her face began, as her hair and robe framed and merged into her visage. Her eyes glinted and glistened as if they were portals into the vastness of the starry night sky, reflecting some unknown light source within her.
He dared not speak, afraid that his voice would simply be swallowed up in the intensity of the room’s focus on her. He thought, “I’m Mickey Mouse about to speak to Pavarotti.” The thought made him smile. As if somehow sharing a simple delight in the grotesqueness of that image, she smiled back, and the place noticeably brightened. That was all it took for Mack to understand that he was expected and welcome here. She looked strangely familiar, as if he might have known or glimpsed her somewhere in the past, only he knew that he had never truly seen or met her before.
“May I ask, if I may… I mean, who are you?” Mack fumbled, his voice sounding every bit to him like Mickey, barely leaving an impression on the stillness of the room, but then lingering like the shadow of an echo.
She ignored his query. “Do you understand why you are here?” Like a breeze sweeping away the dust, her voice gently ushered his question out of the room. Mack could almost feel her words rain down on his head and melt into his spine, sending delicious tingles everywhere. He shivered and decided that he never wanted to speak again. He only wanted her to talk, to speak to him or to anyone, just as long as he could be present. But she waited.
“You know,” he said quietly, his own voice suddenly so rich and resonant that Mack was tempted to look behind him to see who had spoken. Somehow he knew that what he had said was the truth… it simply sounded like it. “I have no idea,” he added, fumbling again and turning his gaze toward the floor. “No one told me.”
“Well, Mackenzie Allen Phillips,” she laughed, causing him to look up quickly, “I am here to help you.” If a rainbow makes a sound, or a flower as it grows, that was the sound of her laughter. It was a shower of light, an invitation to talk, and Mack chuckled along with her, not even knowing or caring why.
Soon again there was silence and her face, though remaining soft, took on a fiery intensity, as if she was able to peer deep inside of him, past the pretenses and facades, down to the places that are rarely, if ever, spoken of.
“Today is a very serious day with very serious consequences.” She paused, as if to add weight to her already tangibly heavy words. “Mackenzie, you are here, in part, because of your children, but you are also here for…”
“My children?” Mack interrupted. “What do you mean, I’m here because of my children?”
“Mackenzie, you love your children in a way that your own father was never able to love you and your sisters.”
“Of course I love my children. Every parent loves their children,” Mack asserted. “But why does that have anything to do with why I’m here?”
“In some sense every parent does love their children,” she responded, ignoring his second question. “But some parents are too broken to love them well and others are barely able to love them at all, you should understand that. But you, you do love your children well-very well.”
“I learned much of that from Nan.”
“We know. But you did learn, didn’t you?”
“I suppose I did.”
“Among the mysteries of a broken humanity, that too is rather remarkable; to learn, to allow change.” She was as calm as a windless sea. “So then, Mackenzie, may I ask which of your children do you love the most?”
Mack smiled inside. As the kids had come along, he had wrestled to an answer to this very question. “I don’t love any one of them more than any of the others. I love each of them differently,” he said, choosing his words carefully.
“Explain that to me, Mackenzie,” she asked with interest.
“Well, each one of my children is unique. And that uniqueness and special personhood calls out a unique response from me.” Mack settled back into his chair. “I remember after Jon, my first, was born. I was so captivated by the wonder of who this little life was that I actually worried about whether I would have anything left to love a second child. But when Tyler came along, it was as if he brought with him a special gift for me, a whole new capacity to love him specially. Come to think of it, it’s like when Papa says she is especially fond of someone. When I think of each of my children individually, I find that I am especially fond of each one.”
“Well said, Mackenzie!” Her appreciation was tangible, but then she leaned forward slightly, her tone still soft, but serious. “But what about when they do not behave, or they make choices other than those you would want them to make, or they are just belligerent and rude? What about when they embarrass you in front of others? How does that affect your love for them?”
Mack responded slowly and deliberately. “It doesn’t, really.” He knew that what he was saying was true, even if Katie didn’t believe it sometimes. “I admit that it does affect me and sometimes I get embarrassed or angry, but even when they act badly, they are still my son or my daughter, they are still Josh or Kate, and they will be forever. What they do might affect my pride, but not my love for them.”