Finding the Lord in your own image, HANK STYLE.

The Fifth Hank Chronicle: How can you find God?

Six months have passed since your dream about the purple room. Six months without your precious chicken, and your Angel Hank. You've sent away for your magic Angel decoder ring and spiritual beakonator (what will they think of next?) and you wait anxiously for your package. Besides, you think, there's just something mysterious and comforting about someone in uniform delivering to your front-door step every day, rain or shine, wind or high waters. Nobody else in your life is that devoted to giving you anything as that mail-person. He's there every day except Sunday. Six out of 7. What else has that devotion to you? Those statistics? Its as close to being a Master of your universe as you are likely to ever feel, you guess. That's something to get excited for, even without the awesome beakonator. Man, you have it good! Now if only you had your chicken. You miss that little Peck!

Its Sunday. For weeks now, you have followed the yellow brick road to Church (another city citation for THAT one; though they don't seem to be in a hurry to paint over your self-made path thanks to the new budget cuts). Its been a downer few months, so you're feeling pretty comfortable in that "Moron's Church", eh, Mormon Church. Besides, they seem to be everywhere. Whats up with coming together? Why do they need to many Wards? Thinking the word 'ward' makes you shutter...and remember those uncomfortable few weeks in the County Psych lock-up after being found wandering the subway carrying a cheese-cloth veil like a toga. You wonder about Hank, and his council to show your faith in work in the open. You've been searching the city for weeks for a Ward with a retractable ceiling. Not one yet! Where DOES that tithing go, again? Orange carpets....so clearly not in flooring--it stands to reason it would go to the ceil---WAIT! What's that before you?! You squint into the Church doors: suit, suit, suit, suit , dress, suit...glowing lightbulb man! Its Hank! Hank's in the house. He's in the Ward. Your heart leaps, your feet lift within your shoes. You want to run (Dash it all, those Mormons are slow chatty folk!) but theres no way through the crowd. Your eyes fixate on your glowing garbed pal and you work your way slowly to the back of the Church. Hank has saved you the whole last pew. Pew? Phew! Hank, where HAVE you been? Sure, he's glowing, but does the guy ever stop for a quick dunk in some holy water? Clearly Angels don't do baptisms for the dead, or the guy might be a bit more FRESH.

"Hank?" You ask, "Where are we, and why are you here?" (You're wishing you had pocketed the $49.95 for the beakonator about now.) He looks at you with that now familiar, "you underachiever; where ARE your brains?" He looks, and then points to the seat next to him (He sits? You wonder! So, has the last election been enough to send even the most eternal Republicans to the other side?!) You sit. The Church is still and quiet and full. There is a man upfront. A suit. A suit with a bobbing head (Mormon part?---Check!) saying something. There are young boys (Don't panic, you think, these boys are HAPPY, and not followed by anyone in a purple robe or Staff--phew! Pant, pant, cleansing breathe!) They are carrying snacks, I mean, offerings. You look at Hank. Has the Angel taken your hearing away? There is no sound around you. You sign to him (Praise that summer sign language requirement!). You say, "What the Heck, Hank?!" He looks at you, and nods those waxy locks. He nods forward.

Your eyes look ahead at the suits and the suits and the suits and then--What's that? You squint ahead above the sea of Mormon parts and see a blue expanse of sky. "The Dome!" You shreak excitedly. This Ward has a retractable ceiling (figures that Hank's been hanging out HERE!)??

"No," Hank says, "That, my friend, is the eye of the Lord." You look up again and see that blue, blue, golden blue sky. It waivers and quivers and seems so wide, and intimate and warm and fresh and cooling to your eyes all at once.

"How can that be?" You ask Hank who is now staring as intently at you, as you are at the ceiling (or where it was). "Am I seeing God? Hank? You can show me God?"

"What do you see?" Hank asks you. You consider this. You consider everything you have ever seen in your life: the back of your first-grade teachers grey standard issue teacher-bob haircut; your parents' 'why would you do that?' frown; that grand grand cheeseburger you had the day after you first met Hank a year ago; your sister's crazy boyfriend's red car careening away from the 'drive and dive' combo Swimpark and motor speedway--what have you ever seen in your life to compare to the bluest eye of the Lord? What do you see??! You begin to sweat. You're throat tightens and your feet sway under the bench nervously. You are looking at the eye of the Lord and are being asked what you see by a messenger of God (oh great, he's going to surely TALK to him, tell him what you say. No pressure here, hun!?). This is clearly the worst day of your life. There is no way to win this. You panic, and try, a shrug.

A shrug? Why did you do THAT? Now Hank is going to think you have more important things to comment on than the eye of Heavenly Father himself. Man!! Could you kick your own rear any harder? Why not just buy a ticket to that Purple Prison yourself? Man! You look down the isle. The little boys with the snacks have passed right by you. Could this moment get any worse? You're fasting inadvertently again, and you have no words for Hank (and, you remember, you're recently out $49.95). Your dental work can't handle another blunder like this. The tooth fairy thinks you are in love with her; which is just WRONG, and your throat seems it will never again allow anything to pass through it again.

You look at Hank. He's still looking at you, like you were looking at that blue blue sky. You check the ceiling again. Its a gray-white texture of drywall and bulb-lights reflecting the sea of Mormon parts and your own panicked pale face. The mirrored affect of the fixtures startle you. What WAS that you were looking at, again, and more importantly, where did it go??

You try for suave. "Whaaaaat's zup?" You think in your most casual that didn't just happen telepathy voice. Hank blinks at you. He looks so peaceful under the part of waxy grey and white lid of hair. He looks at you like you are a piece of a cloud, or a recently baked chocolate cake, or, how you used to look at your fowl-pal Peck. He looks at you like you're a baby bunny. "Foo, Foo?" You shake your head clear again.

"No, really," you say, "What is UP?" Hank is smiling, never breaking is gaze at you. he speaks briefly of the Lord. He says, "Oh Lord." You say, "Ohhh, Lord!" He says, "I never tire of seeing the eye of the Lord."

Then, he is gone. Hank is gone, AGAIN. Way to leave on a punctuation, you think. Way to go, Hank. He's worse than a college poet, you think. But wait! You softly consider in the last pew of a mostly scary LDS Church on a Sunday morning in the last part of Winter in a street you've never been to with an empty belly and a wrinkled suit that you're not sure why you even put on today--your softly consider---Wait!

The sound of the 'Brother in suit' in the front of the Church mumbles loud in your head. The congregation says, "Amen." You say, "Amen." blurry-eyed, the building takes form infront of you. It moves. (The congregents are on the move again, shaking hands, nodding-smiling and making their ways to the corridor outside. )

You push your way outside. Were you there today? You missed so much of the sermon (not to mention snacks) that you are not even sure. Did anyone even notice your attendance (who has the roll-call calling, you wonder! Is it too late to get your name on that list?) Your feet hit hard, the pavement outside 43rd and Plain Streets. You're not sure if you are leaving, or just getting there. You try checking your watch, until you remember that Peck found it fascinating on your cross-country trip last Christmas and had pecked the glass and face right off (That sweet little pecker!) . You look up the street and down. Its as unremarkable as when you walked it an hour ago. The cars pass, the people shuffle the sidewalk away under their lopie strides, and the sky is as gray as it was when you woke up realizing today was going to be day 3 of straight rain.

"Oh Lord," you say. And somewhere, over your shoulder you hear as distinctly as that blue sky was in your eye, Hank saying, "Exactly."

You take a few paces, turn the corner and echo Hank, "Exactly." As you walk home, your steps disappear in the puddled rain. The yellow-bricks sink below the collecting water on the side-walk below your feet. Though it is Sunday, you stop outside your door to check your mailbox. There's no reason not to hope, you figure. Stranger things have happened.