Sunday Scribblings: A Lesson Learned

Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. No characters are based on real people, whether living or dead. Any resemblance to a real person is pure coincidence.

“I have it,” he declared to the darkness. He sat straight up in his bed as a crazy scientist might. His black hair is disarray. His eyes clouded with deepened sleep. “I knew it would come to me in a dream. These things always do. Like Daniel. Yes, like Daniel. Thank you, Lord."

Thomas tore open the curtains to find it was late afternoon. A small byproduct of his most potent dreams. Sleeping more than 20 hours, that is. He raced around his room unsure what he should do first. Then he sat, naked, at his desk and began to draw. It was thus that he spent the next hour without interruption. Drawing, writing, composing the masterpiece he knew God would bestow on him, a profit.

Since an early age, he had had two separate infatuations. The first was Christianity. A child of Southern Baptist upbringing – in Michigan, no less – his wealthy parents taught him the inerrancy of the Bible, the virgin birth of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, and his imminent return. The world, they taught him was no more than 6000 years old. The stories of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah and his ark, they said, are all true.

With that information Thomas wrought havoc everywhere he went. Always proselytizing, he argued with museum curators, grocery store clerks, and crossing guards. Peers steered clear. Teachers mostly sent him to the office where he spent hours speaking with little old Mrs. McElroy. A religious woman in her own right – Lutheran – Mrs. McElroy entertained Thomas’s notions but disagreed in a kindly manner. The Bible, she explained to him, is an allegory. Wanting to hear nothing of it, Thomas referred to her as the little gray devil.

But Mrs. McElroy lit the spark for Thomas’s other infatuation. Based on one comment that weighed heavily on Thomas’s conscience. “You say God put dinosaur bones in the earth to fool us. Why would he do that?” she asked politely. And he hadn’t been able to answer. Instead he began to pore over archaeology books. And history books.

When that wasn’t enough, he used his parents’ wealth to travel. To deserts where fossils had been found. But he was kicked from most of those digs for arguing. Then to Israel and Greece and Rome. He learned Aramaic, Latin, Greek, Hebrew. All to prove his point. All in vain. He knew he was right, but he had no proof. And that, he was convinced, was what the world needed.

It came to him that day when he sat up in his bed with disheveled hair. A forty something year old man with money to spend had an idea that had lingered in his mind for some time. Since Mrs. McElroy mocked him in the office. What better way to prove the past than with real footage? And that meant time traveling.

He spent the next 25 years building that time machine in an empty warehouse in Flint, Michigan. It wasn’t a time traveling machine, per se, as he couldn’t find a way to do the traveling. Instead, it was – as he called it – a window to the past. By inputting the exact date and coordinates of any time and space, he could witness a replay of the happenings of that time and place.

He first tried a certain day from his youth and saw himself arguing with the little gray devil. Though he deemed her utterly incorrect, he still had fond memories. The proof of concept worked.

Next, he set the coordinates to his own place and the time to the year 5000 B.C. He immediately saw a few trees. Some grass. A few species of animal about which he knew nothing. But that wasn’t the point. The fact that he saw anything was concerning.

He tried another date. December 25, 0000. Bethlehem. He inputted the exact location of the Church of the Nativity. But he saw no manger. No nearby inn in the immediate vicinity. Just a few men meandering through a small village of huts.

He ceased his searching and knelt on the ground in front of his machine. “Lord God” he exclaimed, “why is it that I do not see what should appear?” As his old knees ached with pain, he sought an answer in the depth of his soul. And it came to him.

“Thomas,” he said to himself, “God has shown these images to humble you. And that’s also why God put the dinosaur bones in the ground. To make humanity humble. It all makes sense.” He raised his arms and face to the sky and proclaimed, “Thank you, Lord, for teaching me humility.”