Listening by Dave Mckay Mckay (best summer books .TXT) 📕

"But you're trying to get us to follow you, and you're trying to get all these other people to do the same thing. Is that fair?"

"Can I say something?" asked Bobbi.

"Sure," Sheree answered.

"You know, I've never considered myself to be a Christian either. But something in my spirit says that what Chaim is saying is true. Shouldn't we let the people here in Japan each decide for themselves? What Chaim is saying, and maybe what Rayford is teaching too, is a different kind of Christianity."

Sheree was shocked, and hurt. Before this, Bobbi had not questioned her stand against Chaim's conversion to Christianity. She felt betrayed that Bobbi would be talking like this now.

"You heard what he said, Bobbi. He said "Hate". That's where it's leading. I've seen the way Christians act when I talk about the Goddess. Do you want to be part of that?"

"Well, I don't know..." Bobbi had no defence, but neither was she backing down.

"I don't know either, Sheree," said Chaim. "I don't know what the word meant or why I said it. Maybe we should have waited longer... for an interpretation. You know that I love you, don't you?"

"Chaim, it's not you that I'm against. It's Rayford, and the influence he's having on you. You used to be so open and accepting, but now you're changing. Can't you see it?"

"What I see," said Chaim, "is that listening is all about change. We each have prejudices, and God wants us to overcome them. If you think..." and he paused to look around for something to illustrate his point. Then he banged his fist on the picnic table. "If you think this table is real, but Bobbi thinks it isn't, then one of you is wrong and needs to change. Would you change your beliefs if you found something better?"

"Stop loving, and start hating? Is that what you're asking me?" Sheree said, raising her voice in anger. "No, I'm not going to do that. Not for anyone. Some things can't be compromised."

Chaim was stumped.

"Sheree, please. I don't want to lose you and I don't want to hurt you. You each have to do what the spirit is telling you to do. I'm not going to stand in the way of that."

When Sheree didn't answer immediately, he went on. "Maybe you're right. Maybe others will feel the same as you after they hear what Rayford and I are saying." Then he decided to go farther. "Maybe they shouldn't even hear it. It's up to the two of you... each of you... to decide for yourselves what you want to do with what I'm saying. They're your followers, not mine."

It wasn't a perfect solution, but it could buy time. Sheree could see the good sense in not fighting, for she too had deep feelings for Chaim; so she let the discussion die, and shifted her attention to the needs of the day. She showed Chaim, who was starting to feel his tiredness now, where he could sleep at the back of the van.

"The table makes down into a second bed, and there's a third bed over the cab which Bobbi uses," she explained. "So you can have this one." Sheree dearly wanted Chaim to know that she did not have anything against him personally.

"Later on we'll be driving into the city, but if you can sleep through it, please do."

Then she and Bobbi left the van to give Chaim some privacy. They returned to the park, where they sat side by side in two swings and talked.

"Why didn't you back me up?" Sheree asked, when they were settled.

"We were listening," Bobbi said, "and I got a picture of a line of people holding hands. I thought it was saying that we can do this; we can work together with Chaim, just passing on what he gives us and letting others down the line decide for themselves."

"We can work together with Chaim?" Sheree asked, looking deep into Bobbi's eyes. "Or we can work together with each other?"

"Well, both... if you're willing."

"If I'm willing? What does that mean? I love Chaim dearly, Bobbi. You know that. But he didn't do what you and I have done here; and Rayford had even less to do with it.

"It isn't really Chaim that I'm against. I want to work with him. But Rayford's messing with his head. It's been the history of religion. Men interfere and try to use it to achieve their own ends. What you and I are doing here is beautiful and free. We need to keep it that way."

"So how do we do that?" Bobbi asked. She was probably the least Aboriginal of all the assistants working with the six judges. She had been raised by European foster parents, and only when she reached university did she begin to show an interest in her Aboriginal roots.

"We don't pass on their poison, for one thing," Sheree answered. "Let the members here in Japan and in Korea decide for themselves."

"But how can they decide for themselves if we don't even let them hear what Chaim and Rayford are saying?" Bobbi asked.

Sheree was barely able to mumble the word "intuition" before her eyes went blank and then rolled up into her head.

Bobbi knew the look, and it triggered a similar disinterest in the previous conversation for herself. She didn't get audible voices like Sheree, but she did receive visions. They sat there silently for a couple of minutes, just dangling peacefully in the two swings, with their hands on the ropes.

"Did you get it?" Sheree asked eventually.

"Yeah. I saw a big building with no door or window, something like a warehouse."

"Right," said Sheree. "And I know how to get there. Do you think it would disturb Chaim if we drove there now?"

"He was expecting us to go into town anyway. What do you suppose it's all about?"

"Let's see how he's doing. I'm not sure, but maybe this is to show us... and to show Chaim... that we don't need Rayford."

When they opened the door of the big van, they found Chaim snoring peacefully.

"I really do like him. He's so free from the usual male pretensions... when he's not listening to Rayford," Sheree whispered as she turned the key.

They drove in silence for several minutes, following the freeway past several exits, and then taking a turn to the left, followed by a number of other turns. Then Sheree pointed ahead, on the left. "Is that it?" she asked, knowing already what Bobbi's answer would be.

Sheree pulled up to the kerb, just past the front of the building. "Good ole intuition!" she said. "Never fails. Let's check it out."

She left the keys in the ignition and they climbed out of the van. There did not appear to be either a door or a window at the front of the building, but there was a narrow walkway down one side, between the building and an overgrown hedge. The two women headed down it. When they were halfway along, they came to a small side door. It was ajar.

"Hello! Is anyone there?" Sheree sang out in Japanese. No one answered.

She pushed the door inward and leaned through the opening.

"Come in! Come in!" A slight Japanese woman in her forties motioned for them to come in.

"You like?" she said. "This is for you. Take it." She handed them a heavy shoulder bag. Sheree looked at Bobbi, and Bobbi looked back.

"What's this?" Sheree asked.

"Is gift. For you. You take it. Go." She motioned toward the door through which they had just come in.

Sheree looked inside and her eyes just about popped out. It was full of money. American hundred dollar bills.

"You take it. You go. Hurry," the Japanese woman repeated.

"Yeah, sure. Thank you," Sheree said, and she hurried Bobbi out into the laneway.

"It's money," she whispered loudly to Bobbi as they moved quickly down the narrow walkway. "Lots of it. A gift from the Goddess. It looks like we haven't lost our touch, eh?"

Then, just as they emerged at the front of the building, two Japanese police cars pulled into the drive, and police jumped out of each of them, with their guns drawn. One walked over to Sheree and took the bag from her hand. He peeked inside and then handed it to his assistant.

"Come with us," he said to them both in Japanese.

* * *

"We're in deep shit now," Bobbi said to Sheree when they were finally alone together in the cell. "How're we gonna get out of this? And what's Chaim going to think?"

They had been charged with receiving stolen money, and would be facing court the following Monday. Chaim was due to fly out the next day, and he would wake up in a strange neighbourhood in a strange country.

"We both knew the Spirit was telling us to go there," Sheree said, half as a question. "You did get it too, didn't you?"

"Yeah, sure, I did. But was it really God?"

Police had entered the warehouse from the rear just as the women had entered from the front. The raid was in connection with a drug deal that had taken place there a few minutes earlier. When the woman in the office saw the police coming, she had sent Sheree and Bobbi out with the money in their hands.

They tried meditating, to see if they could get an answer, but, despite hours of listening, they both drew blanks.

"What's wrong? Why can't we get anything?" Bobbi asked. "It's like we've lost contact."

"We have to try harder," Sheree urged. But Bobbi was working on a different theory.

"What if God is trying to humble us?"

"Don't be silly. We just got something wrong. We have to solve this ourselves."

Bobbi wasn't so sure. She started to ask God if their predicament was related to them not submitting to Chaim. There was no response; but there was a peaceful feeling... kind of a confidence about acknowledging Chaim's superior wisdom.

"Look, it's working. I feel right in my heart about doing it Chaim's way," Bobbi said to her stubborn cellmate. But Sheree would not budge.

"You're giving up everything we had for a bunch of churchy propaganda," she said. "What we've started here is a lot bigger than sunday school stories and bible colleges, Bobbi. It's about everyone just walking their own path. It's about listening!"

"But listening to what?" asked Bobbi. "You know, sometimes we hear things that aren't right. Maybe we need to listen to people like Chaim too. Even Chaim's listening to Rayford. Maybe God is talking through them."

"Men! Can't you see it, Bobbi? They try to take over and run the show. It always happens like that."

Just then the rattle of keys turned their attention to the heavy metal door between the holding area and the station proper. It clanked open and a guard entered, followed by Chaim with his trademark grin.

"You do know how to get me acquainted with the streets of Tokyo, don't you!" he said.

"So how did you find us?" Bobbi asked, when they had cleared the formalities and left the station.

"I prayed," Chaim answered. "It is what we do, you know.

"And then I called the police. Thank God, the first station I called happened to be this one, and they knew English," he said as he unlocked the Hi-Ace.

Chaim handed the keys to Sheree. "You drive," he said.

When they were inside, he continued. "It seems your story checked out, so they dropped the charges. But how on earth did you end up in such a wrong place at such a wrong time anyway? I thought you were going into the city to collect mail."

"It's a long story," Sheree said glumly, and Bobbi decided not to add anything further.

That night Bobbi spoke privately with Chaim, but Sheree made no further attempt to communicate deeply before he left.

Chaim's final defence came just before he checked in for his flight to Beijing the next morning.

"Something big is happening," he said. And it's not just happening inside people's heads. Your members are going to want some direction. You can help them if you stay open to all that the Spirit is telling you. Please think about it."

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