Relatives

The tunnel before him was smaller than the one he was in. He wasn’t going to be able to crawl on his hands and knees. But even when he got down on his stomach and tried to crawl he found his backpack and gear got in the way. When he took off all his gear, he could just get through, but how was he going to get his stuff through? He didn’t want to push it ahead of him, because then he wouldn’t be able to see. So he took a length of rope, tied one end to his foot and the other to his gear, and tried to pull it behind him. That would have worked, but a odd thing happened: he crawled through the opening, and when he was all the way through, somehow he kicked the door, and it slammed shut on the rope, severing it in two. The tunnel was too narrow to turn around and go back. He really wanted his stuff, but his only option was to move forward without it.

The tunnel was tight, but he managed to pull himself along. Then the tunnel started to descend, which made crawling easier, but it got progressively steeper and steeper until Joe had to use all his strength just to keep from sliding out of control. At one point, he started to feel himself slip and he reached out to grab the side of the tunnel, but in doing so he dropped his flashlight. He watched helplessly as it rolled and tumbled down and away. It was sturdy, but eventually it hit the side hard and went out. He was definitely in for it now. He had no light, no food, and no way to climb if the need arose. But he also knew that he couldn’t hold himself here forever, so he began to inch his way down the tunnel into the black unknown. Thirty minutes later he reached the bottom exhausted and cut up. If he hadn’t been so tired, he might have been afraid. One thing at a time. He lay there with his eyes closed and rested.

After a minute Joe realized two things. He wasn’t in a tunnel anymore, and he could see. He got up on his knees and looked around. He was in some kind of a cavern. It was about the size of a basketball court, and the ceiling was just beyond his reach. There was some kind of glow coming off the rocks. That explained why he could see. He stood up and looked around. The cavern was roughly rectangular. Across the expanse he recognized what he most wanted to see in the entire world at that time: water! He went over and saw that a spring was feeding a small pool. He thought for a moment that the water might be poisoned, but he saw plants growing and decided to take a chance. He drank deeply from the water, and then waited. He didn’t die. With new confidence he washed his face and arms, then he thought, “why not?” and dunked his whole head in the water. Then he just lay by the side of the pool and enjoyed the moment. He happened to look over at the plants he’d noticed before. Upon closer examination he discovered they had little red berries on them. They could be poison too for that matter. “Well,” he thought, “I could die of starvation as easily as being poisoned.” So he picked a berry and tasted it. It was sweet and juicy. He picked more and ate them, and then more until he was full.

Now that his basic necessities were satisfied, Joe began to explore the cavern. He walked around the perimeter and eventually he found another stone door. This one was larger than the others. Joe had a thought, and sure enough there was another Bible verse on the door, only this one had both the reference and the passage written out. The reference was, “John 18:38, and it said, “What is truth?” Joe wasn’t sure he could answer that question, but he thought, “I want to know the truth,” so he immediately opened the door. He was not ready for what happened next. He had expected another tunnel, or a room or something like that, but when he opened the door clouds, or mist of some kind billowed out into the room. He could feel the clouds. There was something familiar about them. These reminded him, for some reason, of the clouds that blocked his view on the mountaintop. “This must be the way out,” he thought, “I know the way.” Without another thought he walked through the doorway, but the clouds enveloped him and in an instant he felt horribly, hopelessly lost. He gasped for breath, but no breath came. Where was the door? He groped around in a panic, but nothing. He called out, but it felt like his words just bounced back from dead space. He took a step one way and bumped into a rock wall. He turned and started to move in another direction but his foot caught something and fell; only he fell back into the other room. He couldn’t get that door closed fast enough.

“What happened?” he thought. “That was not at all what I wanted. I thought truth and God went hand in hand. Something was really screwy.” Out loud he asked, “Okay, what does this mean? Where did I go wrong?” He kind of hoped the old man would surprise him and show up, but that didn’t happen. He was apparently going to have to figure this out alone. At some point it occurred to him to wonder why someone would ask the question, “What is truth” and not have that be a good thing. Then he realized that a person might ask that question if they were seeking truth, but then again, they might ask it if they were actually questioning the very nature of truth. In other words, they didn’t believe that absolute truth could be known at all. If that was so, then now the clouds made sense. His getting lost on the summit and his feeling a few moments ago all fit as well. So the way out of this room had to be found somewhere else, but where? He walked the entire perimeter of the room again, but found no more doors. He looked at where the spring fed the pool. Nothing there. Maybe there was a secret panel somewhere like in an Indiana Jones movie. Nothing. For two solid hours he examined every pore and crack in the room. He found nothing. Finally he just fell to the cavern floor discouraged and spent. He lay there on his back looking at nothing in particular, and then his eyes focused on something in the ceiling. He stood up and there it was, the door he’d expected and looked for. In the ceiling…just out of reach. There was writing on the door, it said, “John 8:32 “Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”

Joe looked at the door. Somebody designed that door. There had to be a way through it. It was the lack of randomness that gave him hope. If there was some master plan behind this, then there was a way to make it happen. It reminded him of some of the computer games he had played. His character would be stuck in a room and it seemed like there was no way out. But Joe knew that some clever programmer had made the game, and unless the programmer was just messing with him, there was a way out. So much was true for this door. Joe put his mind to discovering the master plan.

First he tried jumping, but that proved useless. He could almost touch the door, but so what? Even if he could open the door some way, how would he climb up through the opening? Well, one thing at a time. First the door, then the opening. He looked for something to stand on, but there were only a few stones scattered randomly around. It wasn’t until he went to get a drink from the pool that he discovered anything promising. As he bent down over the water he saw a boulder at the bottom of the pool. All right, so he was going to have to get wet. Joe took off all his outer clothing and lowered himself into the water. It was really cold, but he was on a mission. He had to go completely under the water as he bent down and picked up the stone. It was large, but he could just get it up to the ledge. He rolled the stone under the door. He found a way to stand on it, but still the door was just out of reach. He tried jumping, but he almost turned his ankle. That would be no good. Then he remembered an elongated rock he’d seen on his first inspection of the room. After a bit of searching, he found it. This had to be the solution! He went back and stood on the boulder. He stretched and could just touch the door. That was all it took. He heard a noise, and jumped out of the way just in time to watch the door open and one of those ladders hinge down like you use to get in the attic. There it was a perfectly formed stairway. He sat on the bottom step in his underwear, and for the first time in this long ordeal, tears came. The weird thing was he felt happy, even satisfied for the first time in a long time. He sat there until he dried off, then he put on his clothes and started up the stairs.
Questions:

1. What is significant about Joe losing all his stuff?

2. What is the difference between the two doors? What is significant about this difference?

3. How does the title of this chapter relate to this difference?

4. How did Joe come to the conclusion that there had to be some way to open the door in the ceiling? In what way does this relate to our lives?

5. What is significant about the ladder descending from the ceiling?