The Innocence Mission Befriended Badman 2003

hoving my cracked hands into my coat pockets, I shuffled forward in the newly fallen snow. At that moment, the fragile, faintly New England voice of Karen Peris blew past my ears, hardly audible. It was there for just a moment. The words were barely formed before it was wisped away like the snow flakes dissolving on the concrete beneath my boot. I listened close: “Deep in my sleeves, Pockets down where I always reach, you are there.” The caressing strum and a shaking piano cried with her and I shoved my hands deeper.

When I awoke the next morning, newly frosted Minnesota snow hung for life on the branches outside my window; it decorated the grass with white patches like footprints and I thought of a line from Befriended: “The snow is here. The light is bright.” I turned my clock around and threw the covers back over my head.

That evening as I threw the window open, the phone rang. My only sister spoke of nothing and asked me everything. Not expounding on what I have nothing to expound upon, she suspected the worst: unhappiness, relationship troubles, loneliness, school problems, faith problems and so on. Her tone took on that of worried compassion. I retired to stare out the window at a couple wrestling in the snow. I could hear through the receiver her thoughts, Karen Peris’ words: “Today is winter Sunday. We wear out our heavy coats. The soul of my brother is pure, though he doesn’t think so.” My sister repeated my name, failing to awaken me from my reverie.

After a lengthy admonishment from my composition teacher, one which aimed to castigate me for an innocent slip of tongue, the life of a secluded writer overwhelmed me and I brought myself back into the world of closed-eye kisses, softhearted caresses and Caulfield innocence-yearning; that of Catholic husband and wife duo Don and Karen Peris, the chief musical love-makers. They neither pluck nor pull the ventricles, but softly rub, cleansing them of obstructions. I placed my hand over my chest, and held the downward stair railing. Just a piano and “I have asked to be. Oh, I have asked to be. Out of the swing of the sea. Where the green swell is in the havens dumb. And no storms come” came through. I had heard this before. “Heaven--Haven: A Nun Takes The Veil” by Victorian poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. Don’t ask where I had heard it before because I couldn’t even tell you. The dark stairway seemed no darker, but my heart had softened.

I’ll beat you to it. This is precious, maudlin and docile to the point of tear-inducing anger. Yes, but when listening to these liturgical, faith inspired melodies of sorrow, yearning, joy and fear, all the sins of the sect that I neither belong to nor understand melt away. And as this warm cup of chamomile steams down my throat, only getting better, song-to-song, listen-to-listen, I dig my hands deeper in my pockets--and despite being raised an Evangelical Protestant who was taught to pray to God for miracles, not his charred messengers--I cry out, “Oh, St. Joan, absolve me.”