The Lonely Life of the Miracle Worker

As the time passed since my Eighth birthday the sharp memories darned fuzzy edges and now as I place these words down on paper I can’t tell you for sure if Jesus really performed any of those miracles. He made the coin come out of my ear, but did he really turn water into milk or did we all just drink water with the cake that day? It does not matter now that I am older and Jesus is no longer with us. Well, no longer physically with us, Jesus will always be near by, guiding and encouraging me as life offers up its challenges. I do know that after my birthday party he refused to perform any more miracles.

Jesus said people placed the phenomenon of religion above the message. People were easy caught up in the spectacle of the show, and a miracle, a physical manifestation of God’s enormous powers, was the ultimate performance. People focused on these great occurrences while religion evaded their everyday life. God was not about miracles in extraordinary times; God was the way you lived your life in ordinary time. God was love, and love did not have physical boundaries.

Despite his refusal to perform miracles, word quickly spread around school that Jesus could execute wondrous feats and soon everybody was coming up to him and asking him to solve their problems.

Jimmy Sullivan, a third grader in my class, wanted to do well on a test. Jesus told him to study for exactly two hours and his wish would come true. The next day Jimmy got the first B of his life and attributed it to divine intervention on my brother’s part.

Jesus tried to explain that it was not a miracle, rather Jimmy’s effort. But everybody knew Jimmy and there was no way anybody would ever believe that Jimmy earned a B without either cheating or the work of God. It had to be a miracle and the myth of my brother, now labeled the miracle worker, became greater. If Jesus could help Jimmy get a B then he could provide most anybody else with an A.

The next day George Suttle broke the most important pencil in the entire world. It was a football pencil with the silver and blue stars of the Dallas Cowboys strung with footballs along the shaft. His father told people that it had been given to him my Tom Landry and that Tony Dorsett made the notches in its side as he nervously awaited the start of his first Super bowl. The pencil even came with a statement of authenticity signed by a real dentist. Many witnesses believed that George broke the pencil on purpose just so Jesus could fix it.

George brought the pencil to my brother and asked him to put it back together. Jesus refused and George was grounded by his father for the rest of the year. All the students began talking about how God could not fix a pencil. There were many theories circulated but the most popular included lead being to God like kryptonite was to Superman.

Jesus was now in kindergarten and struggling to make the large curves while drawing threes and esses. He told me that he also had trouble concentrating on learning rhyming words. He thought flower rhymed with favor. I told him that in a way it did. Eventually, however, he had to respond to all the inquiries regarding his godly nature. He told the other schoolchildren that we were all capable of making each other happy and that was the greatest miracle of all. All human beings were able to achieve divinity in their own life. The children looked on blankly. That’s not what they wanted to hear.

The second graders wouldn’t have it and their discontent soon infected the rest of the students. They demanded to see healings. They wanted to see water turned into Kool-Aid. They spent most of the lunch hour searching for a leper just so Jesus could heal him. Unfortunately, there were no lepers at Our Lady of Perpetual Pain Grade School. They settled for a fourth grader with a pimple but Jesus refused to touch it.

Everything kind of came to a head when Sally brought to Jesus the second grade’s pet guinea pig, Lazarus. Jesus knew that this was a test. Lazarus was sick and now, rather than sit on her belly and squeak, she merely lay on her side and panted. Sally asked Jesus to heal Lazarus and he said that he couldn’t. Jesus was refusing more than delivering good grades and mending a broken pencil; this was a guinea pig’s life. Still, he did nothing.

Lazarus died the next day.

Sally called Jesus a false savior and reported him to the Principal saying that Jesus had killed the class's guinea pig by failing to save it. My brother was called to the Principal’s office and under questioning explained that “allowing something to occur was not the same as causing it. Nature must be allowed its freedom.” He further stated that the guinea pig was still well and alive just not in the form that Sally desired. Confused by this second argument, the Principal sent Jesus back to the kindergarten class to learn to color within the lines.

The Principal of our school was a big man with nervous rosy cheeks. He laughed when he was flustered and often made statements that really did not make any sense. The second graders demanded retribution and Ned, the Principal, did not know how to give it to them. One thing was certain; Ned could not let any false saviors into the kindergarten class, especially if they were going to refuse to resurrect guinea pigs. Ned laughed and squeaked, much like the hamster when it was alive, then called a big meeting with our parents to discuss the possible suspension of Jesus for calling himself the Son of God.

Mom refused to attend the meeting and sent a letter in her place. In the letter, she stated the Principal was being ridiculous and obviously did not understand scripture. According to the Bible we are all the children of God and given that Jesus was male that made him the son of God.

Ned wrote a letter in response stating that capitalization was important. For clerical reasons he needed to know if Jesus was “the son of God or the Son of God.” Mom then wrote a second letter stating that Jesus was both, as we all are. She wrote that “rather than focusing on the grammatical nature of my Son maybe you should try keeping your Wife away from the Bottle. Tell me Ned, how important is bold lettering?” She concluded the letter with a postscript that said she would be bringing a pound cake to the next parent-teachers’ conference.

God was not pleased with the meeting and his first inclination was to destroy the school with a flood and start over again but that would have been the Old Testament God. My father felt that he had matured and to prove it, he chose to meet the Principal face to face.

God really had no other option than to meet with Ned since Dad was the first grade teacher and Jesus was going to be in his class next year. As far as God was concerned, his son had done nothing wrong by refusing to perform miracles and the threatened suspension seemed unfair.

After the meeting I sat on God's lap and he told me all about it. Gold told Principal Ned, "Many of the children at this school refuse to perform miracles everyday. Tell me, when was the last time that Galloway kid performed a miracle? He can't even write his name; he forms the G backwards and the two L's meet in the middle to make an H. Why don't you suspend him?" God told me that he concluded Jesus' defense by telling the Principal that he thought the other children were unfairly crucifying his son and made a motion for the complete dismissal of all charges.

The Principal told Dad that he thought “crucifying” was a pretty big word given the situation. Dad next told Ned that they were both adults and should be allowed to use big words. He explained that his son had never said that he was a savior and that it was the other children who referred to him in that way. Dad added that Jesus would confine his miracles to the house and hopefully mainly to producing grocery items of superior quality such as gallons of milk and Fruit Loops.

The principal did not know how to respond to this last statement, so he squeaked and sent my father back to the first grade.

God exited the meeting feeling quite satisfied that he had left the school’s head administrator in a greater state of confusion then the one that he was in upon his arrival.

Ned, however, had not yet washed his hands of the matter.