A Complete Offering

My hands stayed on the steering wheel of my parked car. I didn’t realize how hard I was gripping it until I saw what I should’ve felt: the inner structure of my hands, the bones and veins protruding out in thick creases. It was the third Monday in February, nothing worth gripping hands over—not the weather, not the failed resolutions. Even so, I couldn’t shake off the feeling that I had to pray before clocking into work. I remained in the seat of my car like a duckling cozied up to its mother. 

I closed my eyes and leaned forward a little, the seat belt tightening across my chest in a way that was barely comfortable. My hands partially released from the steering wheel. I whispered the Scripture that came to my mind as I prayed. In moments of reverent pause, I breathed in sharply and fell into the weight of my seat more. My hands eventually gripped the wheel again. When I neared the end of my prayer, I peered through my eyes, slowly opening them as I cleared my throat. Comforted by the privacy of these tinted windows, I blinked and ended the prayer. 

“In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, I pray. Amen.”

A chime sounded from the car as I opened the door. I unbuckled my seatbelt and reached behind the seat for my briefcase. When the handle was secure in my hands, I stepped onto the pavement, grabbed the keys from my overcoat pocket, and locked the doors by the press of a button. I stood there in the parking lot to place the necklace badge, which was in my briefcase pocket, over my head.

“Fin-land!”

I turned around to what sounded like Presley’s voice. A middle-aged man with his golden hair in a ponytail was coming my way. My guess was correct.

“There you go again calling me the name of a country I’ve been to once,” I said with a hard dimple on my cheek.

“Summer of ’06. Remember that?” He stopped walking once he was a few steps away and tucked his hands in his pockets. I blinked at his mossy green eyes and almost laughed at the memory that immediately came to my mind. We were fresh out of college back then, still wanting, still dreaming, still manifesting. If my memory holds true, we were on vacation somewhere, a planned-out stay at a tropical place. Puerto Rico. I remember the fanning flamboyant trees and the fast-paced Spanish, the latter of which I used to know intimately.

Presley motioned for me to keep walking, so I turned around and stepped with him toward the office. We had to clock in soon.

“How can I ever forget?” I coughed a little and said, just loud enough to be heard, “I mean, you only bring it up once a week.” Presley blew a raspberry.

“‘If I ever go overseas for a project, I must’ve made it.’ Your exact words, Finland.”

I shrugged his comments aside. We walked up the concrete steps to the pathway into the office, surrounded by a low-cut lawn partially covered in leftover snow. The grass was boldly green even in these Buffalo winters.

I broke into a brief jog to get to the door. After scanning my badge, I swung the door open and kept it still by my fingertips, albeit I was eager to let go once Presley crossed over into the building.

“What’s next?” he said from behind me. His hand took the weight of the door, so I put both of mine on my briefcase. I paused and kept walking. Presley must’ve caught on to my hesitation because he walked up to me and gently turned me around from the shoulder. “What’s really stopping you from producing your own work again?” I averted my eyes to the metal door handles and checked my watch.

“Ah, I’m running late,” I said in a hurry. Facing the other way, I nodded at our security personnel and started speed walking, maneuvering past wooden tables and misplaced chairs. When I heard the elevator ding and saw it open just ahead, I knew I couldn’t miss the window.

“That’s a first,” Presley said loudly behind me. I shook my head and bolted for the elevator. I could feel the stares from people around me, hushed coworkers who kept quiet when I was around them. I managed to wedge my foot between the elevator doors to prevent them from closing. They opened back up to no other guest but me.

“Wait!” someone shouted from afar. As if knowing my scarcity of time, the elevator doors started closing in. At the last second, I rapidly pressed the “open” button and held my hand over the sensors to keep the doors from closing. A woman I didn’t know stormed inside.

“What floor?” I asked.

“Sixteen,” she said breathlessly. I nodded and pressed my floor afterwards, floor 17. The red LED display flashed awake and counted from “1” as the elevator went up. By the sound of it, the woman was still catching her breath. I stepped back from the button panel and glanced at her as she leaned back into the wall with a clipboard over her chest. Some of her curly hair stuck to her face which she eventually noticed, flicking the strands off to the side. I didn’t know what to say, how to offer help, if it was my place to say anything to her. When the elevator stopped at her floor, she breathed out a thank you and darted out of the elevator. I stayed in my corner and watched the doors close again.

Once the elevator resumed its rise, I straightened my posture and stepped toward the doors. They opened to unveil exactly what I expected: folders scattered across the floor, a paper plane flying across the room, memes plastered as posters on walls. Catching a whiff of coffee and liquor, I walked out of the elevator and jolted at the peal of laughter coming from around the corner. I stepped over the pieces of paper, eventually deciding to pick them up and set them aside on a nearby table. I tugged my briefcase closer. The conference room was a straight shot. The attendees already in the room watched me with hawk eyes, the kind of stare that encouraged my feet to dash and work harder to close the distance between the room and me. I tried with all my might not to forgo professionalism in my walk of a quickened pace, but in that moment, appearances faded from my mind. I barged through the clear doors and apologized as I settled down on a leather chair. I almost fell over backwards by how loosely the chair caught my weight. After all these years, I still had not gotten used to it.

“All right,” Jason said with new wrinkles near his eyes and dimples on his cheeks. He’s the head of the company, the boss’s boss. “Now that everyone is in attendance…” Knowing gazes lingered on me, I felt the area around my forehead spike up in temperature and break out with a single drop of sweat. I refused to remove my stare from the table. “We can announce the good news. Amelia?”

Amelia was a tall woman who still chose to wear heels sometimes. She, with her long, brown hair that appeared to have never been trimmed, stood from her chair and pushed her glasses farther up her nose. They were thick glasses, and I wondered why she chose those frames. “Yes, we have reached our Creative Minds fundraiser five years ahead of our goal.” Amelia announced. Gasps and low chatter filled the room. “I know, I know. We barely opened the donation pool! Well, somebody carried the news down the right grapevine because an anonymous donor got us to our goal with their sole donation. That means we can begin reeling in pitches for project ideas starting now!” Most people participated in the round of applause, and one person even delivered a talented whistle. Impressed but not quite as moved, I brought my hands together for two claps. “Now.” Amelia swung her hair back and pursed her lips. “The original idea was to outsource a project from within the local community to empower underrepresented and underfunded Buffalo producers. However, it was the donor’s explicit wish to keep the pool within the company, a hand-picked crew which includes…” Squinting her eyes and mouthing something, she pointed at the people in the room as if counting off. “All of you!” I couldn’t exactly keep a straight face from news like that. All that could be heard now was the low hum coming from the AC. Jason stepped closer to Amelia at the center of the room and rubbed his hands together.

“Any ideas?” he asked.

I had plenty of ideas. I’ve been waiting for an opportunity like this for a long, long time. Leaning my head back against the chair’s support, I couldn’t help but daydream about finally, maybe, shooting a big-time film, one with special effects and good actors. When someone started speaking, I lowered my chin and looked at the speaker. One by one, fellow producers shared their dreams. These were people I had worked with, to some capacity, for the past five years or so. They all received nods of understanding and curious inquiry. When a silence invited the next speaker, I choked on the words to say. My mouth opened, but no words came out. I immediately shut it to not embarrass myself. A name flooded my mind and refused any substitute. I couldn’t avoid its pervasive nature, and I was running out of time to say anything at all.

Jason nodded and began to face Ameila. My shut lips quivered at the cusp of finally saying something.

“Jesus!” The name exploded from my mouth. The vocal reactions from the others were mixed with confusion and concern. “I meant, w-what if we did a Jesus campaign?” Crooked looks watched me; Jason raised his eyebrows. “It’s just a conversation about Jesus.” Man, why can’t I stop saying “Jesus?!” I looked around at familiar faces that estranged me. Blinking twice while doing a double take, Amelia stepped forward in my direction. 

“Are you recommending we proselytize?” she asked. An uproar sprung across the room.

“Why is religion even being brought to the table?”

“Nobody cares about your Jesus.”

“What we need is a campaign spreading the message from Muhammad.”

One producer raised her hand and took the floor as everyone else calmed down. 

“What if,” she said, “we highlight the indigenous religions of the land. We hear so much about these major religions, but what about those that don’t have the loudest voices, whose people aren’t here in the room?”

A lot of humming came about after that statement. How did we get here? I extended my arms apart on the armrests because I felt a new sweat coming on. I wiped my eyebrows.

“Yes,” Amelia said, nodding. “Yes, this would be a great follow-up to the city’s efforts in recognizing and honoring the indigenous peoples still here today. Thank you for an excellent pitch, Francesca.”

I was trapped. My intention wasn’t to undermine the indigenous peoples here, but that’s how I’d appear, an inconsiderate, insensitive voice. I brought my hands to my stomach as I pushed my chair back. I excused myself from the room, got up, and left for the water fountain with my briefcase tight in hand. I slammed my wrist against the wide button and gulped down the cool water that ran across my lips and over my tongue. I straightened up at the sound of approaching footsteps. At the corner of my eye, I saw Jason. I wiped my mouth and cleared my throat.

“Look,” he said, almost whispering. “I’m a Christian too, but now’s not the time, here’s not the place.”

“Why’s that?” I asked. “Are you just a Christian at church on Sundays?”

“Excuse me? Ridley, where is this energy coming from?” Jason’s eyebrows furrowed, and he placed his hands on his hips. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. He continued. “You were so quiet all these years. I understand you’re passionate now but think down the road. People are going to start seeing you differently. And this…idea of yours isn’t something the company can really do, not in the long-term anyway. We aren’t Christian media. This is entertainment—thrillers, true-crime documentaries, dramas. Where’s the Gospel in any of that?”

The Gospel was all the above.

I looked at Jason, at the way his large, gentle eyes scanned mine for answers, and drew my briefcase closer to my body.

“Okay, so the company won’t fund my project. I’ll just have to do it on my own.”

“You can’t be serious.”

I clenched my jaw.

“I have enough PTO to film and edit. It’s not going to be a feature-length film, but I’m going to have something.”
 “We’ve got to process your PTO requests and—ah, Ridley, seriously, think this through.”

“I thought about it.” 

I walked off to the elevator and pressed the down button as soon as I could reach it. The doors opened for me immediately. I walked in and slammed my thumb against the ground floor button over and over until the doors started closing. Jason stepped into view with a conflicted frown. The doors closed completely, shutting the office away. There was no turning back.

***

I leaned against my car with my gaze toward the sky. I had finished praying some time ago but figured I should stay in this moment a little while longer. Once an airplane entered and left my view, I bent down to grab my shoulder-mounted camera and set it on my right side. It was the same one I was given some years ago, the exact camera I used in Finland. I had a lavalier mic and release forms in my pockets. I was all set to go out and reach people. 

The parking lot didn’t look like the right place to do it, so, imagining where to go, I wandered around the city. I bypassed a few people on the street without saying anything to them. They were either too busy on their phones to notice me or wide-eyed about the camera. I repositioned the camera on my shoulder and thought about when I would have the courage to approach someone. In theory, everyone I saw was approachable. It was bright and blue on this day, cold enough for mittens or scarves but not both. 

A woman in a pink suit walked out of a revolving door from across the street. Like most people, she was on her phone. I didn’t want to waste another opportunity to start talking to someone, so I decided this pink-suited woman would be the first person I talk to. I rushed over to the crosswalk just as the pedestrian signal flashed and looked to my left and right at the stopped cars. I slowed down my pace once I made it to the other side of the street and was within earshot of the woman.

“Miss,” I said. “Miss!” She turned around with an open mouth and squinted eyes. Her hair was in braids that went over her shoulders, and she had beautiful, flawless skin like the dark brown of tiger eye gemstones. “Do you have a few minutes?”

She tapped her phone against her hand a few times. 

“Depends. Who are you?”

“I’m Ridley from…uh, I’m a producer and I’m working on a short documentary. Is it okay if I ask you a few questions?”

She nodded along.

“Sure.”

I hid my celebration of getting my first interviewee in the twinkle of my eye.

“Let me hand you a mic. Hold on.” I reached in my pocket for the lav and handed it to her. She held the box in one hand and the microphone piece in another. 

“Where do I put it?” she asked as she looked over her clothes for a place to clip.

“Try by the collar. Before we begin, I need your consent to film. I have the release form.” I reached my free hand in my other pocket and got out all five wrinkled release forms I had printed. The woman took one. “The pen is in my breast pocket.” I leaned forward so that she could take it. She ironed out some of the wrinkles of the paper before reading and ultimately signing it. She handed me the pen so I could place it back into my shirt pocket. Then, I grabbed the form, placing it on top of the others in my hand, and read her name.

“All right, Kira,” I said. I shuffled the forms together, using my chest since I only had one free hand, and shoved them into my pocket. I flipped the side screen within the camera out to see the capture. Everything checked out; I was officially in business. “Have you accepted Jesus as Lord?”

She looked into the camera. Her lips moved from side to side.

“Uh, I used to go to church when I was little, so…yeah. Does this have to do with the church?”

“I’m doing this project independently.”

“I’m not part of the church anymore,” She said while swiping on her phone. “So, I don’t think I’m the right person for this. And I gotta go anyway.” She reached for her mic.

“Wait, what led you astray?” I couldn’t give up so easily. We were just getting started. “Did you really know Jesus back then?”

She breathed out quickly and blinked. 

“I got baptized and used to go to church every Sunday. I’m sure I’ve sat down in the pews over a hundred times, so, please, spare me the salvation rhetoric.” 

She unfastened the mic and tossed it to me. I caught it with my free hand, barely balancing the camera, just as her phone rang with an incoming call.

“Salvation is indeed free, but have you denied yourself and picked up your cross?” I asked, quickly pressing my lips together, embarrassed in a way because of Kira’s piercing stare. She had put her phone to her collar bone. I continued. “Following Jesus will cost you your life. If nothing has changed since, as you said, you accepted Him as Lord, then something’s wrong. If you’re caught up in the same way of living as before you were saved, you haven’t known God. And Jesus hasn’t known you. There was no relationship.” Kira answered the phone and turned around, whipping her braids behind her and toward me, but I kept talking. “Don’t you see? It’s not about how many times you went to church or even the amount of Scripture you memorized. God looks at the heart and knows if what you do is merely out of routine or because you adore Him. Turn completely to Him from wherever you are, Kira. Transformation awaits you. Seek first the Kingdom!” Kira turned to me without saying anything. After a deep breath, she put her phone to her ear and walked away, occasionally looking back at me a few times. I stood there on the sidewalk forgetting where I was for a moment. My hands were shaking, and my heart was a percussion beating thunderously.

I clutched the mic in my hand, surprised to remember it was there. People were everywhere, infinite opportunities for conversations. I took some time to breathe before heading toward the park since it was close by, and on my way there, I saw what looked like a couple coming my way.

“Excuse me, can you spare a few minutes?” I asked them.

They shook their heads at me with half-smiles. A runner was behind them, so I asked him too. 

“Sorry man, I need to keep the burn,” he said amid heavy breathing. 

“You can jog in place. I just want to talk for a little bit.”

Now jogging without going anywhere, the man pressed his lips into paper-thin slits. I handed him the same lav from before. I asked him to just hold the microphone to his mouth since I saw his shirt was sweaty and handed him the same release form as Kira. I motioned forward for him to grab the pen from my shirt. 

“The name’s Mark Panagos,” he said while signing. “Go ahead and post this on all the feeds.” He handed me the paper and my pen. I gave the pen back so that he could place it in my shirt pocket. I stowed the crumbled forms away as quickly as I could and adjusted the camera. 

“Okay, Mark. My name is Ridley. Let’s talk about Jesus.” 

His head leaned to the side just as he paused from jogging.

“Hold on, what is this?” 

“I’m doing an independent project in which I go around and just talk about Jesus with people.”

“How thrilling.” He gave me the kind of look that told me not to take him seriously. He resumed jogging in place.

“Have you accepted Jesus into your life?”

He shook his head.

“I don’t need to. I’m tapped into the universe as is, via my meditations and yoga routine. All the religion just gets in the way and complicates our connection to the divine in us.”

I looked at the display to realign the camera angle.

“Tell me more about this ‘divine in us.’’”

He shrugged his shoulders. 

“I don’t know. It’s just, like, a spiritual experience, getting out of your mind and into your body. That’s when you’re really tapped in.”

“Okay. So you don’t know the qualities of what it is you are worshipping.”

“I didn’t say that. And ‘worship’ is a strong word choice. It’s just hard to explain, but you know what I mean, right? Haven’t you done yoga before?”

“I admit, I used to. We can agree that meditation and yoga are spiritual experiences,” I said. I closed my left eye and focused on the capture. Mark was smiling. “And that’s precisely why I got out of it.” Satisfied with the recording angle, I paused and opened my left eye again. “By dying on the cross and resurrecting on the third day with all power in His hands, Jesus, God in flesh, made way for us all to personally know Him. I don’t have to guess His nature. As the Creator of everything, He is holy—set apart from all creation. ”

Mark slowed down his jog and looked to the ground. His gaze eventually met the camera again.

“If this God you are talking about is so great and holy,”Mark said, looking around the park. The limbs of nearby trees bent from the wind. Giddy and full of laughter, some children were playing tag in the distance. “Where is He?” Mark continued. “Where has He been all my life?”

“God’s been here all along. His fingerprints are everywhere. He’s not a genie bringing to life our every wish or a figment of imagination, powerless and fully comprehensible to the human mind. His thoughts aren’t my thoughts, nor are His ways my ways. I have sinned and fallen short of glory, but years ago I learned of salvation and remained on this path ever since. You too can be saved. Repent, turning to Him from anything contrary to His Word, and be baptized.”

He stopped jogging altogether and looked into the camera with a raised eyebrow.

“You are going way too far with this. You talk as if I was struggling with something, but I’m fine! Life’s great. I can’t complain, and I’m at peace with my life’s choices. All this you talk about is your truth, and that’s okay. But I have my own truth, my own conceptions of the universe, and I’m content with what I believe in.”

I nodded.

“You think that what I’m doing here is trying to convert you?”

He showed off his white teeth and began jogging in place again.

“Am I wrong?”

“I’m a mere messenger of the Good News. The Word of God never returns to Him void. Therefore, what I speak to you now will accomplish His work, and if it is in the Lord’s will, which it is that all may be saved through Jesus, His only Son, may He open your ears to this very conversation so that you may know who your Creator is.”

“Okay, okay I get it,” he said with wide eyes. “You really love Jesus.” 

I flipped the screen back into the camera and pointed it down and away.

“I love Him because He first loved me.”

Mark chuckled.

“Right. Well, I did my part.” He offered the mic back, but I held out my hand for a brief comment. 

“I don’t carry an inaccessible revelation. Everything I told you can be confirmed by the Bible, the Word of God. I don’t speak out of human authority but by what I’m led to say by the Holy Spirit, which the Lord freely gives to those who ask and believe in Him”

With a pained look on his face, Mark motioned to jog away, so I pointed at the mic he was still holding for him to hand it over.

“It’s Ridley, right? Next time, tone down the religion. We could’ve had a great conversation about our beliefs, but then, you kept talking about your faith as if it was the only one of truth. You kept on going and going. It’s like I wasn’t even talking to the real you but only the shadow of a human.”

Shrugging, he threw the mic at me and jogged off. I couldn’t catch it with my hand, so it bounced off my chest and landed on the concrete sidewalk. Remaining cautious of the camera on my shoulder, I bent down to pick it up. 

I had a fuzzy feeling at the back of my throat when I stood up again. I wasn’t nauseous or anything, but I still felt I needed to go back to my car immediately. I began walking the way there. I dismounted the camera from my shoulder and held it tightly with both hands. Then, I was sprinting like my life depended on each step closer to the parking lot, each pounding foot on the concrete. Nearby people were blurred and out of focus. I ignored the outbursts and gasps from those concerned about my great speed dashing around the city.

When I finally made it back to the parking lot, I slowed down and breathed deeply. I unlocked my car and placed the camera in the backseat. I got in the driver’s seat and situated myself on the cushion, recoiling at the apparent sweat on my back and over my forehead. I combed my hair with my hands while looking at the rearview mirror. My heart almost jumped outside of my chest. I hadn’t run like that in ages. I changed the angle of the mirror to see the camera. The interviews didn’t exactly go as planned. This project, as it turns out, was much more difficult than I had anticipated. No one was easy, and I don’t know if I said the right words or represented God’s kingdom like I should’ve. 

My hands were on the steering wheel, but I wasn’t going anywhere. I whimpered and gritted my teeth in fear that Jason was right. I should’ve kept quiet like I’ve been doing all these years. Why today? I closed my eyes and gripped the steering wheel as hard as I could. 

“You’re gripping that seat quite strongly,” someone at my church had told me. This incident happened a few weeks ago. The woman was new or at least not someone I recognized. That day, as it turned out, was the only day I had seen her. I had released the hold I had on the wooden frame of the seat and apologized. 

“You’re holding onto something big,” she had said, scooting closer to me from farther down the row. The church service had ended some time ago, and most people were already out of the sanctuary. “You’ve got to give that to God or else it will consume you. I…I feel like it has everything to do with the work you do. Pray about it, okay? He wants to use you. He’s been waiting patiently for your ‘yes.’”

I relaxed my hands on the steering wheel, cranked up the car, and drove out of the lot. I had no set destination, and, for the moment, it didn’t matter. I kept the radio silent. Desperate for the answers to my own questions, I prayed out loud for the Lord to speak to me and give me directions. I didn’t hear a whisper or feel any sort of sensation. As I drove, I switched lanes and turned around to new streets. I prayed over and over for a Word from Him, careful not to pray for a sign because that prayer was for those with unbelief. I knew God was real. My foot pressed harder against the pedal as I entered the freeway. I adjusted the rearview mirror for the eleventh time. Signs prohibiting U-turns stood along the edges of the road, but I had done my turning. I had turned from my wicked ways, been humbled, and prayed. Scripture said, then, God would hear me. Was God hearing me? With tear-filled eyes, a runny nose, and quaking hands almost free from the wheel, I waited for the Lord’s yes.