Here is the first chpater of my new book. It is yet untitled. Be warned, I think this is going to be a long book. Don't worry, I am going to finish the other one, but this has been put on my heart and I feel a need to at least get it started. Well With that, here it is. By the way this isn't all of the first chapter, it is just all that I have typed so far. More will come ASAP.
UNTITLED
Chapter 1
“Ray, your soy chai latte is ready,” declared Lynn, the barista at the coffee bar. As the announcement rolled from her lips, she had a thought.
“Two years and I am still making drinks in this place. Wow, it has gone by quick.”
Ray McUne peeked over the top of his thick-rimmed glasses, rose gradually and strolled over to pick up his freshly brewed concoction.
“Thanks, Lynn” he said with a friendly tone in his voice. “You doing ok?” he added.
“Yeah Ray, just a little down today” Lynn answered.
“Anything I can do?” he asked her, searching her eyes for a hint as to what might be troubling her.
“How about a prayer or something?” she only slightly joked.
“As soon as I sit down, you’ll be my first priority” he encouraged her.
“Thanks, Ray” she replied. “I feel better already.”
Ray returned to the comfortable oversized chair from where he came. Sitting down, he realized that he spent a lot of time in this coffee shop. He recognized other “regulars.” He knew several of the baristas by name, some of them, like Lynn, on a personal level. They knew his drink before he even ordered.
Soy chai latte.
It was something that a friend had introduced him to, a sort of spicy tea mixed with vanilla, honey, and milk. Ray had difficulty drinking milk, so he opted for soy. The oriental brew was his regular drink now. Something was soothing about it and allowed him to relax as he went over his notes.
He would arrive every Wednesday around one o’clock in the afternoon. After picking up his hot spicy beverage, he would begin to write and rewrite his message for the upcoming weekend.
Ray sipped his eastern creation while revising the sermon, thinking to himself.
“I’ll need to cut one of the points in order to trim some of the time down.”
Ray was famous for presenting a message that was consistently twenty-seven minutes long. He didn’t really know how he had come to twenty-seven, but it seemed to work for him and the church community at Lakeside.
Ray had helped plant the church just seven years ago, along with his wife and six other couples.
Married for sixteen years, Anne and Ray had two beautiful daughters. McKenzie was almost eleven and Emma was eight. Ray pulled the family picture from his wallet. It was one of those Sears prints with the semi-glossy surface. The corners were bent and worn and there was a slight tear on the bottom edge. He smiled as he admired the photo.
“Time really does fly,” he said not realizing he had spoken the words aloud.
“Sure does,” said a gentleman seated to Ray’s left.
Ray flinched out of his daydream. “Excuse me?” he asked.
“You said that time flies. I just added that it sure does,” replied the kind faced man with graying temples. “Name’s Seth Miller,” continued the stranger.
“Ray McUne,” added Ray. “Nice to meet ya.”
“Same here,” Seth cordially replied. “What do you do, Mr. McUne?” Seth inquired.
“Well,” Ray paused.
He knew what would happen when he revealed his identity as a minister. He would get a string of never ending God questions, and right now, he just wanted to finish his drink and his sermon. But something tugged at him and he let his guard down.
“I’m a minister,” Ray conceded, closing his notebook and putting his pen away.
“Well, what do ya know? A real live preacher!” Seth joked.
“Yeah, what do ya know?” added Ray. He thought he would quickly ask the same question of Seth, hoping to avoid the theology class.
“So Seth, what do you do?” Ray asked.
“Oh me? I’m just a fireman,” Seth answered humbly.
“Just a fireman?!” Ray exclaimed.
“Well yeah, I know. But it ain’t like we rescue babies from burning buildings all day. Honestly, most of the time we just goof around at the station,” Seth admitted.
“And the rest of the time is spent in burning buildings,” laughed Ray.
“So how long have you been a real live hero?” Ray continued, now forgetting about his sermon.
“About ten years, but it feels like I started yesterday,” answered Seth.
“I know what you mean,” Ray thought aloud, then to himself. “I know what you mean.
Ray and Seth shared occupational stories. Some were happy, some were tragic. Seth had excused himself to go to the restroom and Ray didn’t once open his notebook. The sermon was officially on the back burner. He was just finishing his drink when Seth returned. “You were talking about a fire you got called to,” Ray reminded him.
“Yeah, so there I was, blindly searching through the smoke and fire,” Seth continued his story. “The O2 on my tank was low, probably ten, maybe fifteen minutes left. The apartment building’s structure was weakening. You could hear the fire screaming and the building crying,” he explained.
“I was in what seemed like a nursery. Toys and little furniture everywhere. Then the thought struck me. Here I was on the final sweep of the building and I was going to find a dead baby. There was no way a child could have survived all the heat and smoke. I did not want to find a dead baby. That’s the hardest part of this job: dead or dying kids, especially babies,” he said, a strong emotion behind his cloudy blue eyes. “I found the crib and reached inside.”
Ray was on the edge of his seat. He could somewhat relate. He had done several funerals in his fifteen years of ministry and burying a baby is one of the hardest ones. He thought of his girls and how quickly they had grown up.
Seth continued, “So I am feeling around in this crib, hoping for all hope that there is not a baby in it.”
Ray was actually breathing harder as Seth narrated the story. He was troubled.
“Then I felt it, a leg,” Seth said.
“Oh no,” cried Ray his heart thumping in his chest.
Seth continued, “I picked up the body and realized…”
“It was dead?” Ray interrupted.
“Well no, not really. I realized it was never really alive. I had rescued a doll,” Seth laughed.
“Oh thank God,” said Ray, relieved.
They were both laughing hard when Lynn came over to join them.
Lynn wasn’t a complainer; in fact, she was fairly content most of the time. She was just frustrated. She had taken the coffee shop job two years earlier just to help pay for school. Now a graduate with a degree in business management, she felt as if she was just turning her wheels.
“Business management,” she laughed to herself. She had always dreamed of owning her own business someday. Those dreams were quickly fading away though. She had tried to get on staff with several realtors, financial advisors, and marketing firms, but having a Bachelors degree today was like having a high school diploma twenty years ago. You would be ahead of the game, but not by much. So here she was serving drinks to realtors, financial advisors, and marketing execs.
“It’s not so bad,” she tried cheering herself up. “I have made some good friends.” With this, she glanced at Ray.
He felt her stare, looked up, and smiled back. Lynn had become a good friend to both he and Anna. Just a few months earlier, Lynn had sat across from Ray one Wednesday afternoon discussing God, religion, and particularly, Christianity.
The only surviving child from a broken family, Lynn had been raised by her loving, yet bitterly jaded mother, Mary. Despite her namesake, Mary felt anything but, “blessed among women.” In fact, after several church ladies took it upon herself to judge and condemn her for her lifestyle choices, Mary chose to leave the Church altogether. She saw only anger and judgmentalism from the “Christians” in her life and was losing faith in their God. When her oldest child, Christopher, had died of a sudden heart condition at the age of twelve, Mary had had enough. She concluded that no loving, gracious, merciful God would allow such pain and heartache. Alone with her daughter, Mary raised Lynn to question everything and be skeptical of the “religious nuts.”
Now she was twenty-three and Lynn had come to know the same God she was taught to avoid. And her walk with God had started with a cup of coffee.
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