SELFLESS OR SELL OUT?

CHAPTER 8

Thursday, April 17, 1980

GREAT PEACE HAVE THOSE WHO LOVE YOUR LAW (Psalm 119:165)

                        When John McQueen answered the door, he couldn’t speak for a few seconds as he was captivated by Mary Jean’s beauty. Her long red-gold hair was pulled back in a braided ponytail. Her large green-hazel eyes were framed with just a hint of mascara. Her pouty lips had a slight sheen of pale pink lipstick.

            John had never seen her wear any makeup whatsoever. And to most, the subtlety of her beauty enhancers would have gone unnoticed. But John had given careful study to the young woman with whom he was smitten. More and more, right or wrong, he thought of her as angelic.

            This thought troubled his carnal attraction to the young lady that was a fraction of his age. Yet if he could convince her to willingly say ‘I do,’ it would thereby place them in a committed relationship. He could exercise all of the physical desire he felt for her as they attempted the making of offspring using God given biology.

            “Hello, Mary Jean,” he greeted with a pleasant smile, as he covered the nervous unease he felt. “Please come in.”

            “Thank you,” she returned with a shy smile. She ran her tongue lightly over her upper lip, as if she was not used to the beauty enhancing goo that adorned her small mouth. 

            This view gave John a little thrill. For he saw the subtle makeup as an attempt to appear enticing to him. If true, it already seemed to be a better start than their previous date. As he closed the door behind him, he noticed the gaudy red cowboy boots that he knew were not even hers. He hoped and prayed that his next move wasn’t too forward.

            He gently took Mary Jean’s right hand in his left. He noticed her eyes widen a little. The unexpected contact did give her pause as well as a little thrill.  “Mary Jean, I bought you a little gift today. Well, actually my housekeeper, Rosarita, bought it. If you don’t like it, please don’t feel obligated to wear it.”

            “Okay,” Mary Jean replied cautiously, wondering what ‘wear it’ meant.

            John felt himself stiffen. He hoped he wasn’t making a presumptuous mistake. However, he went ahead and called out to his housekeeper, “Hey Rosie?”

            A heavy-set Hispanic woman, around fifty years of age, emerged from the kitchen. With a Spanish accent, she inquired, “Yes John, what can I do for you?”

            Mary Jean immediately picked up that his hired servant called him John, rather than Mr. McQueen or sir. Being on a first name basis with his servants impressed Mary Jean even more that her suitor was a decent man of noble character.

            “I’d like you to meet the young lady I’m entertaining. Rosie, this is Mary Jean. Mary Jean, meet Rosie.”

            Although Rosie offered her hand with a pleasant smile, Mary Jean clearly saw suspicion in the woman’s eyes.

            “Nice to meet you, ma’am,” Mary Jean greeted meekly.

            “Likewise, Miss, is it Patrick?”

            “Yes, yes, it is, but please call me Mary Jean, or just Mary.”

            “Please come with me and I will show you your gift from John.”

            “Yes, Ma’am.”

            “I’ll go get our horses ready, Mary Jean,” John said as Mary Jean trailed after Rosie.

            The two women entered a large bedroom with Victorian décor. It wasn’t overly extravagant but very comfortable looking. She very badly wanted to ask Rosie if this was John’s bedroom. The place were in a little more than a month she very well could enter the path to motherhood.

            “Mr. McQueen had me shop for these today,” Rosie said coolly. “He described your size, so I got three options. You decide which fits best, and it’s yours. What size foot you have?”

            “Nine.”

            Rosie’s eyes roamed down Mary Jean’s body. She noticed the older woman’s eyes fill with scorn as she took in the tight jeans and gaudy boots. Without a word, Rosie left the room. Mary Jean thought this a cue to try on these new clothes. When she was in nothing but her undergarments, Rosie reentered the room carrying a beautiful pair of light brown, leather riding boots.

            Rosie dropped the boots on the floor and dropped her rearend in a chair, watching Mr. McQueen’s date skeptically. Mary Jean felt uncomfortable disrobed in front of her best friend, Sylvia, let alone this strange woman. Mary Jean began to dress quickly.

            “You’re in the full flush of womanhood,” Rosie commented. “I see why John has chosen you out of his many options of women to possibly carry on his name.”

            Not knowing what to say, or even understanding Rosie’s attitude, she ignored Rosie’s comment and remained silent. Once dressed, she looked at herself in a full-length mirror. The tan pants fit like an incredibly soft glove, and the green satin blouse felt silky against her skin.

            “You like?” Rosie asked.

            “Yes, thank you.”

            “Don’t thank me, thank Mr. McQueen.”

            “I will.”

            “I’m sure you will, Miss Patrick,” Rosie responded blandly. “Is there anything else you need, Miss Patrick?”

            “No, thank you… Is it Mrs. or Miss?”

            “Mrs. Rodriguez.”

            “Thank you again, Mrs. Rodriguez.”

            “You’re welcome, Miss Patrick.”

            As Rosie turned to go, Mary Jean called. “Mrs. Rodriguez? I just wanted to say from the last time I ate here. You are a very good cook. I look forward to supper tonight!”

            Rosie turned with a scornful look, and Mary Jean kicked herself for not just remaining silent. But then Rosie smiled, although her eyes remained skeptical. “Thank you, Miss Patrick. I just hope the man I not only work for, but love like a second father, is in a better mood the next day, compared to your last encounter.”

            “That is my hope too. Not only that, my expectation.”

            Rosie eyed her blankly, but as she turned to leave said, “Enjoy your evening.”

            Mary Jean and John had a nice horseback ride. Before going to the bluff that overlooked the river and beyond, John showed Mary Jean some of the side trails. One of them went down to the river, where the water babbled pleasantly over a couple dozen large rocks. There was a bench under a large oak tree where they sat and enjoyed nature’s music.

            “Did you make this bench?” Mary Jean asked.

            “No, my pastor did. He does woodworking as a hobby.”

            “Your pastor and my pastor are old friends.”

            “Yeah, they were both Army Chaplains.”

            This fell right into Mary Jean’s lap. “I understand you were in the Army.”

            “I was, the Army Air Corps, what’s now the Air Force.”

            “When did you join?”

            “Right out of high school in 1937,” John told her. Then glanced at her uneasily as the date of his high school graduation displayed just how much older he was than she.

            “How long were you in?”

            “I was discharged in 1945. I had thought about a career, but after the war, I just wanted out.”

            “You were a fighter pilot?”

            “I was.”

            “Did you see a lot of action?”

            “I did.”

            “What was it like?”

            He crossed his arms. “I’m just very blessed to be here. My guardian angel worked overtime. Well, let’s hit our saddles. I told Rosie we’d be back to the house by six for supper.”

            Rosie cooked Italian as well as she did her own ethnic cuisine. It was the best lasagna Mary Jean had ever tasted. There was also salad, and the softest, tastiest garlic bread ever. Rosie was generous with the garlic. She wondered for the first time if he would kiss her good night. Probably not, but if he did, she would offer her cheek.

            As they began eating, Mary Jean said hesitantly, “Abby told me that it is one of your brother’s birthday today.”

            Mary Jean was relieved to see a sentimental smile spread onto John’s face. John opened up about his two deceased brothers, then asked Mary Jean about her own siblings.

            “Are they as devout as you?” John asked gazing at her fondly, as he rested his chin on his fist.

            “Oh, I don’t know, only God knows that,” she replied humbly. “Speaking of God. There’s one thing I need to know regarding our, um, potential children.”

            “Okay?”

            “I know you said you would go to my church as much as I go to your church.”

            “I plan to honor that.”

            “Good, me too. But I want to make sure you are okay with me teaching our children the whole Bible?”

            John frowned. “Why would I object to that?”

            “Because most religions follow traditions rather than plain Bible teachings. No offence, but yours included.”

            “Is this about the Sabbath?”

            “Yes, among other things… You know, during this period of getting to know each other, would you want to study the Bible with me?”

            “Sure,” he said with a shrug. Then he smiled, thinking that he would straighten out his prospective bride on her miss guided doctrine.

            “How about now?” Mary Jean asked cheerily.

            “Why not?” John said happily. When dinner was consumed, he was concerned that she would want to call it a night. Now he would get to spend more time with this little beauty.

            “Great! Get your Bible and I will go to the car to get mine,” she said perkily.

            Although an elder in his church, a faithful tithe payer, and a regular attendee at Sunday worship, John wasn’t a regular Bible student, or a faithful searcher of the scriptures like the noble Bereans (Acts 17:11). So it took him a minute to locate the inspired Word of God on his bookshelf.

            John burped garlic, and then kicked himself when he agreed to Rosie’s suggestion of an Italian meal. It wasn’t beyond his notice that Rosie put extra garlic on the bread. It also wasn’t beyond his notice that she didn’t approve of him dating a teenager. But she would have to discover for herself that Mary Jean was not your typical teenager.

            John quickly stuck a piece of Wrigley’s double mint gum in his mouth. Unbeknownst to him, Mary Jean was sucking on a few Tictacs when she came back in.

            “Do you want to study at the table or the couch?” John asked.

            “It’s up to you,” Mary Jean said with a shrug.

            John suggested the couch for the study, and she suggested the Sabbath for the topic. He nonchalantly put his arm around his prospective fiancée. But it was short lived as he soon found himself turning from scripture to scripture. Starting with the Ten Commandments in Exodus chapter 20, the one part of the Bible that God wrote with His own finger. In particular, they looked at the fourth commandment found in verses 8-11.

            Deep in John’s subconscious, his sister Abby had planted the seeds of Biblical truth. But they had laid dormant due to John’s pride, stubbornness, and quite frankly his judgmental attitude toward his once wayward sibling.

            Abby was a beatnik in the fifties, a free love hippie in the sixties, and a jazz singer who hung out in clubs for thirty years, smoking, drinking, and sampling drugs. She had one fling after another with both men and women. She never had a romantic relationship last more than a year. She became disloyal to their family church while still a teenager. A denomination passed down from their ancestors. Then seemingly overnight, she suddenly changes her ways and then has the audacity to tell her brother that his religion was misguided.

            However, John was an intelligent man who had a heart that wanted to walk on an upright path. Now as he sat hearing some of the same arguments his sister had put a few years ago, his heart was softening. It helped that he was smitten with the young beauty that was boldly proclaiming the particular doctrine that they were studying.

            But although softening of the heart was occurring, it had become stone in many ways over the years. So in the breaking of the heard deposits, arguments sprang forth. But Mary Jean had a reason for the hope and love that was within her. So every time John had a reproach, she had a ‘thus saith the Lord.’

            “We keep Sunday in honor of the resurrection,” John declared first.

            She asked where that was found in scripture. He couldn’t tell her, so she showed him Malachi 3:6, which says, ‘I am the Lord, I do not change.’

            “But I can tell you in history where a change was attempted,” she told him. “To be honest it was a pretty successful attempt because the vast majority of professed Christians do honor Sunday rather than the real Sabbath which honors our Creator. The counterfeit to the true Sabbath instituted in Genesis 2:2, and 3 really took off in the fourth century when Emperor Constantine made Christianity a legal religion. In the process, much of the pagan beliefs were brought into the church. The most diabolical was aspects of sun worship. In particular, the so-called venerable day of the sun.”

            “Yeah, but keeping Sunday has been a tradition for hundreds, even over a thousand years,” John countered.

            “Jesus said, in vain they do worship Me,” Mary Jean told him. “Teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. (Matthew 15:9) Also, in the last chapter of Isaiah, verse 23, it is declared that in the earth made new after Christ’s second coming, we will still be keeping the Sabbath the Lord instituted. So why would God change it to Sunday only to change it back after the second coming of Christ?”

            Although John’s intellect was being challenged, and his conscience pricked, John declared. “That’s all fine and dandy, Mary Jean, but the bottom line, and I’m used to bottom lines, is that we are not under the law, but under grace.”

            “You’re absolutely right! And our obedience to God needs to stem from love. Love because God is our Creator and our Redeemer. As a matter of fact, the Sabbath is a sign and seal of God’s Creatorship. As opposed to the mark of the beast, which we will get into at a later date, if you want to. Another reason we obey is because of what Jesus did for us on the cross. We love Him because He first loved us (1 John 4:19) and Jesus even said, if you love Me, keep my commandments.” (John 14:15)

             “And to your point about not being under the law but under grace, look at Romans 6:1, and 2. It says what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not!”

            “Okay, fair point,” John conceded. “But when it comes to the Sabbath, a good historian knows the calendar was changed by something like ten days.”

            “True, but the weekly cycle still remained the same. Sunday was still the first day of the week, followed by Monday.”

            “Okay, so have you perfectly obeyed God’s law then?”

            “No,” Mary Jean replied meekly. “But it’s my standard. Jesus kept it perfectly, and He’s my example, our example. He’s also my Advocate when I fail (1 John 2:1). Look at Psalm 19, starting with verse 7. The law of the Lord is perfect converting the soul…”

            Mary Jean began to practically sing the next half dozen verses. When she looked at John, she gave a little start. He bore a resemblance to Clint Eastwood, and just then, it looked like Dirty Harry staring intently at her. But then she noticed him wiping a tear from his eye.

            “I’m unworthy of you,” he said quietly.

            She took hold of his hand, smiled warmly. “Something has occurred to me today. My mother has said that I’m like a middle-aged woman trapped in a teenager’s body. You are definitely not like a typical sixty-year-old. So maybe we are well suited for each other.”

            John almost corrected her by saying that he’s sixty-one but thought better of it. He liked what she said, making him feel better about their huge age difference.

            “If we do end up married, you know it’s gonna raise a lot of eyebrows. People will think you are a gold digger, and I’m a dirty old man.”

            “Let em,” she said with a defiant grin. “They don’t know us if they think that.”

            “You really are serious about marrying me, aren’t you?”

            “I guess I am,” she said with a little smile, and shrug of a shoulder.

            “He leaned in smooth and swift, kissing her for the first time. He noticed that she didn’t kiss him back, and when he pulled away, her eyes looked a little startled. Then she said, “It’s getting late, I better go.”