The deep, metal pot is covered with tinfoil. Carrots, onions, potatoes, and beef are inside. The key is the meat, in my opinion. The rest of the food is cooked and flavored in the beef’s juices.

My mother cooks pot roast for my family’s Passover Seder meal. The Passover is a Jewish holiday celebrating God freeing the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. It was also Jesus’ last supper with his disciples.

In the Old Testament, the LORD told the ancient Israelites to slaughter a lamb and mark the doorframes of their house with its blood. So when God went through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he would see the blood and “pass over” the doorway.

My family isn’t Jewish, but we celebrate the Passover to remember God’s deliverance and love. My family — my mother, my father, and my brothers — eat the Passover Seder together.

Before we eat, my mother reads a traditional prayer a Jewish hostess would recite.

“Blessed are you, O Lord God, King of the universe, who has kept us alive and sustained us and brought us to this season,” she says. “May our home be consecrated O God, by the light of your countenance shining upon us in the blessing and bringing us peace.”

I walk into the kitchen, my plate open and empty. The pot sits on the oven, and the tinfoil is gone. I heap my plate with carrots, onions, potatoes, beef, and use a ladle to pour the juice on my food.

I wipe butter across the potatoes, meat, and carrots. I eat different combinations of the food, experimenting with it — first, potatoes and carrots, then meat and folds of onion, now just a chunk of tender beef. My fork shreds the meat, and I realize I can easily separate the beef into little strips if I want.

We drink grape juice, which my 9-year-old brother mixed, from wine glasses like water towers.

We eat matzo during the Passover Seder. Matzo is unleavened bread, bread without yeast that looks like big sardine crackers. The Jews eat matzo to remember how their ancestors left Egypt: the ancient Israelites left Egypt in haste and didn’t have time to let their bread rise.

During the Last Supper, Jesus would have blessed matzo, broken it, and given it to his disciples and said, “Take and eat … this is my body.”

Pot roast has a sacredness for me … it’s what my family eats for the Passover meal. During this meal, I’m reminded of God’s mercy and power. It’s like taking communion at church.

I’ve spent 3 years driving back and forth between the metropolis of Columbus and the quiet village of Cedarville for breaks and weekend visits. The route is embedded in my brain like a worn, dirt path tread by bare feet.

I exited 70 and joined I-270, which wraps around Columbus. Columbus is where I spent my formative years — it’s where I learned to pray and read and sing and write.

I-71 holds special significance to me. I use that road when I got to church, camp, and Kent State. I drive under the “Sunbury Delaware” exit sign. The two words triggered a box of memories stored in my brain’s neurons. I regularly attended the Vineyard Church of Delaware County until I left for college.

The Vineyard is a charismatic, nondenominational church — and I attend a Baptist university. I don’t see a contradiction in that. I feel like I’m holding two spheres in opposite hands. The two worlds are compatible for me.

I stopped at the Perrysville exit to use the bathroom at a gas station. I’ve been here with the camp staff, counselors walking around with bags of gummy worms and sweet tea. It’s jarring when a place is stripped of why it’s important to you.

In the summer of 2010, I posted on my Facebook status: “I need a job!” A friend from Cedarville University commented on it and asked, “Do you want to work at camp this summer?”

I remember passing my church exit when I drove to camp the first time. It was almost strange realizing the road lead to somewhere else.

I met my girlfriend at camp. Before we were together, she said didn’t think she would stay close to most of the camp staff.

We were sitting on an old bench at the beach, campers and staff running around in front of us. I knew as her words touched my ears that I wanted to be the exception.

As I passed the camp exit, I felt like I was shooting into uncharted deep-space. This was my second trip to Kent State, and the first one without a GPS. I had printed out directions from Google Maps (which I trust more than MapQuest).
I held the sheet of paper against the steering wheel, glancing at the ink then back at the road. What was the name of the exit? Am I still on I-71?

I would have never gone to Kent State University if I hadn’t met my girlfriend. Kent is farther down I-71 from camp.

The sun had been gone for several hours when I reached Kent. I remember blurting out curse words when I was lost — thick, crude words that felt oddly childish and immature in my mouth.

Without any missed turns, it takes me about 3 hours and 30 minutes to drive from Cedarville to Kent. Thank God for Henry Ford and Saudi Arabian gasoline.

When I arrived in Kent, she said she felt bad that I had to drive almost 4 hours.

I told her, “It’s more than worth it.”

These long, gray bones of asphalt hold my life together. They are animated and colored in the paint of memories. Columbus, Cedarville, Perrysville, Kent … each city and town is a glowing campfire in the map of my life.

The man flicked on a blocky light switch — clunk — and the harsh illumination cut crisp shadows. He beckoned to the boy, and the six-year old scampered across the dirty floor to his father.

The man entered the pen and walked slowly to the ram. He held the syringe to the animal’s neck then pushed the plunger. The ram squirmed and bleated, but the man had a tight grip with his free hand. In a moment, the syringe was empty. Soon, the sedative dropped the ram to its knees.

He knelt down beside the animal. He plunged a larger syringe through the short wool and withdrew blood until the syringe was full. The man repeated this, each time emptying the syringe into a plastic jug. Finally, the jug was full. The man filled the syringe one more time.

“Give me your cup,” the man said.

The boy held out the cup he’d been holding. It was half full of milk. The man squirted the blood into the milk so the mixture now looked like strawberry milk.

The boy lifted the cup to drink, but his father stopped him.

“Remember. The sheep gave his blood so you can become strong. ‘The life of a creature is in the blood.’ And who is the giver of life?”

The boy paused. “God?”

His father nodded. “Go ahead and drink.”

The boy gripped the cup in both hands and tipped the glass up and drank. His Adam’s apple rippled up and down as he drained the cup. He finished his drink and smiled. His father smiled back.

“Let’s go back to the house,” the man said.

Once again, instead of dazzling you with my infinite wisdom and precise prose (sarcasm, of course), I’ll let someone else do that — specifically a blogger I know. This time it’s lauren nicole.

Lauren has a wonderful blog: She speaks truth, and she has a heart for the dignity and strength of women. She’s also interested in photography and web design — and her blog is just gorgeous.

Here’s a link to her site: laurennicolelove.blogspot.com.

Ray Bakke said in A Heart for the City, “I’ve concluded that poverty is not so much the absence of money as the absence of power.”

The absence of power. Being powerless. People caught in poverty generally describe their condition in how it influences them psychologically, not the physical disadvantages. Poor people lose their dignity very quickly.

Relief is common this time of the year. Many people provide gifts for the kids of disadvantaged families.

I heard about this idea recently: the Family Store. Donor families would drop off their gifts at the Gift Shop, and needy parents would buy the gifts for something like 1/10th of the store price.

This is an amazing gift to the parents. The parents get to provide their kids with Christmas gifts and see the excitement on their kid’s little faces as they tear the gifts open. I’ve learned that people in poverty need to be empowered, not continually reminded of their inadequacy.

I’m not trying to guilt-trip you. I’m not trying to display my collegiate wisdom. I still don’t know how I’m going to apply this to my life. My urban ministry professor said it’s hard to give wisely.

Is my giving helping this person? Or is it only making me feel good … quelling that guilt in my belly? Now I have to ask myself these questions.

Here’s a video from Bob Lupton in which he talks about the Family Store idea: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pD2EHX3uf4k.

The psychological disorder called apophenia makes people see patterns in random data. In severe cases, they see the likeness of Jesus in ordinary objects. I think all creative nonfiction writers need a form of apophenia. I need to give significance to the moments of my livfe — I need to see the face of Jesus in the dredges at the bottom of a teapot.

Creative nonfiction is literature, however it differs significantly from other genres. It is very similar to poetry. Poetry is not necessarily fictitious: Some poems can be very autobiographical. It also shares features with fiction: Creative nonfiction and fiction share the same aesthetic forms and techniques (while they differ on content). “… [Scene] will draw on the same techniques as fiction — dialogue, description, point of view, specificity, concrete detail” (Miller and Paola 10).

In Tell It Slant, Brenda Miller wrote: “I love the way writing creative nonfiction allows me to straddle a kind of borderland, one that allows me to discover new aspects of myself and the world, to forge surprising metaphors, to create artistic order out of life’s chaos” (Miller and Paola 2).

Creative nonfiction requires the writer to imbue memory with meaning. In his book Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir, William Zinsser said, “… Memoir writers must manufacture a text, imposing narrative order on a jumble of half-remembered events.” It is the same with creative nonfiction.

As a Christian writer, I believe the world has order and meaning to it. However, this meaning or significance is not always clear to me. There was meaning in the death of my grandmother — even if I don’t see it. I don’t know how the broken pieces fit together, however my belief in significance influences my writing. Creative nonfiction makes sense to me because I believe meaning exists.

As a disciple of Christ, truth is foundational to my writing. I have a sacred trust to protect my readers from falsehood. But memory is faulty. In “If My Brother Asked …,” I wrote: “Is memory like the back of a CD? Something that will amass scratches and stutter and skip as I watch it?”

Obviously, it’s impossible to ensure that memories are reported truthfully down to every detail. Memory is fluid, but this doesn’t excuse blatant fabrication. I’ll tell my reader if I can’t remember what happened … but I’m probably also tell them what I imagine happened.

A newcomer to creative nonfiction might think you are limited to your experiences. This is false. In my Short “Houdini’s Assistant,” I wrote some scenes with me and Harry Houdini, and the legendary magician was dead long before I was born. You are limited by your imagination.

Creative nonfiction is fundamentally tied to scene. “… The widespread notion that nonfiction consists of the writer’s thoughts presented in expository or summarizing way has done little but produce quantities of unreadable nonfiction” (Miller and Paola 10). The goal of a creative nonfiction writer is capturing a moment and drawing it in the reader’s mind. I love story, narrative, and scene, and I love writing creative nonfiction for those reasons. The favorite Shorts I wrote are mostly scene: “Igneous,” “Promenade,” and “Black and Mild.”

When I write creative nonfiction, it’s not all about me — I’m not interesting enough to write an autobiography. For me, creative nonfiction is about the people I know and love: my girlfriend, my father, my brothers. I try to paint a scene in my reader’s mind with words — and then I push the moment to speak beyond itself and touch the eternal.

Works Cited

Miller, Brenda and Susanna Paola. Tell It Slant. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004. Print.

***

The sun was almost directly overhead when they saw another farmhouse. As they drove closer, Darren saw a figure in the middle of the road. He pointed.

“Hey, look.”

Together, the group stared at the figure.

“It could be another crazy,” Bobby said.

Darren nodded. “Yeah.”

He stopped the truck about thirty yards from the figure. By now, they could see it was a man.

Darren twisted in his seat. “Hey Angel, could you grab the shotgun and some ammo?”

He stepped out of the truck, and Angel handed him the shotgun. Darren broke the gun and slid two shells inside. He started walking toward the man.

“Mister!” he called. “Hey, mister!”

The man turned slowly. Sunlight sparked across a metal object held at his side. A machete.

“Hey!” Darren called.

The man started to shamble forward. Darren tightened his hands on his shotgun. The man shifted into an awkward run. His mouth was open.

Darren lifted the shotgun and pointed it at the man. He was ten feet away now.

The man started screaming, one long note rushing from his mouth. The machete raised. Mouth open, screaming.
Darren heard his sister scream behind him, and he fired. The machete man flipped backward, his shirt shredded by buckshot. He hit the ground and lay still.

Darren stared down at the man he had just killed. The man wore a golden ring on his right hand, the same hand he had used to grip the machete.

Angel got out of the car, walked over to the man, and knelt beside him. She gently placed her fingers on the man’s neck.

She shook her head then stood up. “He’s dead.”

“You killed that guy in self-defense, man,” Bobby said. He was staring at the body.

“Get back in the truck,” Darren said.

“But are we going to just leaving him lying there?” Angel asked.

“Yes.”

The group got back into the truck and left the man lying in the road.

Soon, they reached another town. This one didn’t have a police barricade. Darren drove down the main road. The town looked deserted like the last one.

“This is freaking me out,” Bobby muttered.

Up ahead, three crashed vehicles formed a makeshift barrier. Darren stopped his truck and got out. Angel handed him the shotgun.

He walked over to the cars. There weren’t any bodies in the cars, but Darren noticed blood on a shattered car window. He glanced into the car and saw the keys were still in the ignition.

Bobby yelled, “Look out!”

Darren spun around.

A man was running at him from the buildings on the left. He caught a glimpse of a butcher knife in the man’s hand. Darren swung the shotgun up and fired. The man fell, screaming with pain and rage.

“Get back here!” Angel screamed.

Darren saw townspeople converging on him and the truck. He shot another man and broke open his shotgun to reload.

Someone crashed into him and knocked him to the asphalt. He felt fingernails slicing his neck and face.

“Darren!!!” Angel screamed.

She grabbed the handgun and jumped out of the truck. She fired two rounds at a man wielding a baseball bat, and he collapsed.

Bobby swore and jumped out of the truck too.

He ran towards Darren and pulled the crazy man from him. Bobby put the man in a headlock.

Darren scrambled to his feet and started reloading his shotgun.

“A little help?!” Bobby yelled.

The man suddenly broke Bobby’s headlock and tossed him to the ground. The crazy swung his head around and roared at Darren, his eyes bloodshot and gums bleeding. Darren snapped the shotgun closed and shot the crazy in the chest.

“Get back to the truck!” Darren yelled.

Bobby scooped up the first man’s knife and followed him. Darren shot another crazy as they ran to the car. The two men jumped into the truck.

“Go, go, go!” Bobby yelled.

Darren shifted into reverse and stomped on the gas. He pulled back then switched to drive and sped down the town’s main street. They watched for more townspeople but didn’t see any.

Finally, Bobby asked, “Those people back there. Were they, you know … zombies?”

Darren sighed. “I don’t know. But they weren’t dead, and now they are dead. I just know there was something wrong with them.”

“Are you all right, sis?” Darren asked Angel.

His sister nodded. “I’m okay, Dare.”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll get you to a hospital.”

Slowly, the three travelers relaxed. Angel stretched out on the backseat and closed her eyes. They continued driving down the road inside a small capsule of tranquility in a world seemingly gone mad.

***

The road was empty. At first, this didn’t surprise or disturb Darren. They were in the middle of farmland. But as he drove farther, he felt tension knotting his lower back. His hands tightened on the steering wheel.

Ahead, Darren saw a house. He noticed movement outside.

“Looks like we finally found somebody,” he said.

Angel woke up in the backseat.

Darren stopped on the road in front of the house. A man walked down from the porch. He was carrying a baseball bat, but there was no anger in his face. He looked tired.

“Hey, folks,” the man said. “How are ya?”

“Pretty good,” Darren said. “Do you know what’s happening?”

The man shook his head slowly. “No idea. Just what I heard on the radio.”

He walked up to the truck window and motioned toward his empty driveway.

“Some bastards came by and stole my car this morning. I woke up and heard the engine start so I ran outside, but they were already gone. Everyone is going insane.”

The man put his hand on the truck’s hood. “I wouldn’t be so pissed except I really need it right now. You see, my family is sick, and there’s no way to call an ambulance or anything.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I can’t help you,” Darren said.

The man shook his head. “There’s plenty of room in your truck, mister. I can’t tell you how grateful I am … I’ll go get my family.”

Darren shook his head. “You can’t come with us. I’m sorry.”

The man stopped and looked at him. “What do you mean?”

“You can’t come with us.”

The man shook his head. “Are you just going to drive away and leave us?”

Suddenly, he swung his bat back and smashed it into the truck’s headlight. The headlight shattered and tinkled down on the road.

“You can’t leave us!” the man screamed.

Darren grabbed his handgun, popped open his door, stepped out, and aimed the gun at the man in one smooth movement.

“Step away from the truck,” he ordered. “Now!”

The man froze, eyes flickering wildly. He took a small step backward.

Darren motioned the gun at him. “Farther back.”

The man staggered back and dropped the baseball bat. Darren slid back into the truck, eyes still on the man. He shifted the truck out of park and hit the gas.

The man didn’t chase them. He slumped to his knees as the truck pulled away.

Darren drove down the road and every once in a while looking at the rearview mirror.

“We couldn’t have chanced it,” Darren finally said. “It was too dangerous.”

Bobby and Angel didn’t say anything. Angel reached from the backseat and put her hand on his shoulder. She kept it there for a long time.

A few hours later, they saw a police roadblock on the road ahead. A police cruiser was parked at an angle across the road, and behind the blockade was the beginning of a small town. Darren hit the brakes. He could see a tire shredder trap in front of the cruiser.

A police officer stood behind the cruiser.

“What do we do? Just blow around him like Grand Theft Auto? ” Bobby asked.

“No. We talk to him.”

Darren stopped his truck thirty feet from the tire shredder.

The police officer spoke into a megaphone. “Please, get out of the car slowly! What are you doing here?”

Darren turned off his truck and stepped out. Angel and Bobby followed his lead.

“We’re just driving through,” Darren called out. “I’m taking my sister to the hospital. We don’t mean any trouble.”

The officer stared at them for a long time. Finally, he put down the megaphone and walked toward them. As the officer got closer, Darren saw he looked worried. Sweat stained the man’s shirt, and his forehead was scrunched together.

“Hey friends,” the officer said. “Sorry about that. The mayor told us to blockade the entrances to the town. Nobody knows what the hell is happening …”

“Do you think it’s some kind of terrorist attack?” Darren asked.

The officer shrugged his shoulders. “It could be. It’s more than a regular blackout, that’s for sure.”

“Can you let us through? We need to get to the hospital.”

The officer glanced at Angel. “Yeah, I’ll let you through. Let me tell the officer on the other side.”

They all got back into the truck. Darren started up the engine and drove around the tire shredder. As they passed the police cruiser, he saw the officer talking on his radio.

The town looked deserted. There was nobody walking around or driving. All the shops were closed. Darren’s heart rate went up. He rolled through the town at twenty mph. The stillness of the town was disturbing.

When they reached the other side town, the other police officer waved them through. Darren pressed down on the gas, and the truck sped away from the town.

They continued down the asphalt road.

The closest town to Darren’s house was a tiny name on the map. Not many people drove down the road and even less pulled into his driveway. Darren had inherited the farm after his parents died. He was only twenty-four when he started running the farm.

Darren saw a young man step out of a car. He looked over at the passenger seat and saw his sister. Angel smiled at him through the windshield. Darren ran over to the passenger side and embraced his sister. Her skin felt hot against his skin. He put his hands on her shoulders and looked at her.

“How are you feeling, sis?”

Angel smiled.

“I’ve been better,” she admitted.

“Let’s get you inside.”

Angel motioned toward the young man standing by the car. “This is my boyfriend Bobby.”

Bobby extended his hand, and Darren shook it. Darren noticed his hands were soft.

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Bobby said, grinning.

“I haven’t heard about you,” Darren thought.

“Nice to meet you,” Darren said.

Turning to Angel, he took her by the arm and guided her inside. He sat her down on the worn living room couch.
__

Darren woke up in the early morning. He looked over at his alarm clock and saw it was dead. He got up and walked downstairs.

He walked into the living room to check the TV. Bobby lay sprawled on the couch. Darren walked to the TV and turned it on. Nothing. He walked to the closet to find a flashlight. He needed to turn on the generator.

Bobby woke up several hours later. He walked into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes.

“Morning,” Darren said. “The power is out.”

“Did you piss off someone at the electric company?” Bobby asked.

Darren didn’t laugh.

“The whole county lost electricity. They don’t know why.”

He stood up. “I’m going to check on Angel.”

Darren walked upstairs and eased the bedroom door open. “Angel?”

She was awake but still in bed. She smiled at him, but it was weak.

“I don’t feel too good, Dare,” Angel said.

Darren walked over and sat on the side of the bed. He thought she looked pale, and there were bags under her eyes.

“I’ve got a fever, and I threw up last night,” she said. “There was blood in it.”

Darren walked downstairs. He turned on the radio and sat there for a while, frowning into space. Finally, he stood and walked into the living room. Bobby was sitting on the couch.

“Angel needs to go to the hospital,” Darren said.

“Is she really that sick?” Bobby asked. “The guy on the radio said to stay put.”

“She needs medical attention. You can come with me, or you can stay here.”

“Of course, I’m coming. I’m her boyfriend.”

Darren nodded. “I’m going to pack.”

He went upstairs and took down his shotgun and handgun from his bedroom. He cleaned both guns and slid the handgun into his shoulder holster. He stashed the shotgun and the guns’ ammo in the backseat of his truck.

He put some first aid supplies and a few bottle of painkillers in a bag and threw it into the backseat. He packed a big cooler with perishable food and filled a water jug from the tap. He hesitated then put a few bottles of Budweiser in a small cooler. Darren put the food cooler, water jug, and beer cooler in the truck bed.

While Darren was loading up the truck, Bobby came out to watch him.

The boyfriend leaned against the truck. “Don’t you think this is overkill? We’re just taking her to the hospital.”

Darren glanced at him. “The worst thing that can happen is that I look like a paranoid redneck. But I’m not going to be the guy that says, ‘Why didn’t we bring the damn baloney?’”

Bobby laughed.

Darren finished packing, and then he went inside to get Angel. She walked out to the truck without help. He made sure she was comfortable in the backseat. Bobby climbed into passenger seat. Darren started up the engine and pulled out of the driveway. He headed toward the closest hospital.

I walked over to my grandmother’s casket and look down at her. I had seen several dead bodies but always after a mortician had prepared them. At first glance, she looked healthy. But as I looked closely I could see the make-up that unnaturally smoothed her wrinkles.

I told myself that she was gone.

There were pictures of her at the front of the auditorium beside clusters of flowers. Some of them showed her in her twenties. They surprised me.

My dad saw me looking at the pictures.

“She was very pretty when she was younger,” my dad said. His eyes were red. I remember he always called her “mom” even though Grandma was my mom’s mother.

I realized I had a very limited view of my grandmother. I remember Grandma as crinkled like old leather and fragile, especially at the very end of her life. She had been bent over like she was carrying a heavy yoke.

My family knew she was going to die soon — Old Man Death had been standing with her for a long time. Her funeral was also easier for me because I had already experienced the loss in the death of my grandfathers.

During the service, one of the church ladies stood up before us.

“Margaret prayed for her grandkids all the time,” she said. “We were always hearing about what you were doing, where you were going to school.”

This woman I didn’t know looked at me and said, “I want you to know that your grandmother loved you very much.”

I realized Grandma thought about me much more than I thought about her. And I felt guilty. My grandparents had moved to Columbus after the birth of their first grandchild, my brother James.

When my grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, she sold her house and moved into a nursing home. It seemed sacrilegious to sell that house filled with memories — the little single-story home seemed to belong to my grandparents even after it was signed away.

I will carry those memories with me. I remember how the candy tin on the cabinet squeaked when you opened it. The colorful McDonalds plates that Grandma served pancakes on. The painting in the guest bedroom of the praying child, eyes closed peacefully.

My grandma was long gone by the time of the service, and her body would soon be buried in the ground like a seed. She didn’t leave much behind — no land or house. Most of what she left was the blood and DNA sitting in the front pews of her memorial service.