“For assuredly, I say unto you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there, and it will move;’ and nothing will be impossible for you.” Matthew 17:20
The Parable of the Mustard Seed
NATALIE’S PRAYER
“I learned to lie at an early age. Around the age of nine.”
“That’s your first recollection of being poor?” the reporter asked.
“Even little girls have pride, Roger,” I said.
“Christmas was the worst. As my friends rattled on about everything they got; I had reached the age in the Sixties where a paint by number set, or a watch necklace was the rage. So I lied. I was humiliated. What made it the hardest is that we lived in a middle class neighborhood. Nobody was rich, but they at least had the basics. But my father gambled our basics away.
“We weren’t poor, per se, but I only had one of everything: one dress, one pair of pants, that sort of thing. I remember my closet never had much of anything in it, just the one-other-thing I wasn’t wearing.
“Then one day, a remarkable thing happened. I didn’t know it then, but I know it now. I saw my mother sitting at her Queen Anne desk. On the desk was a black telephone and one of those metal address directories and a pile of bills. She had on a flowery mumu dress with plastic flip flops on her feet. We used to call them thongs. I don’t remember what I said to her, all I remember was her anger for bothering her. She screamed for me to get out, and to get away from her.”
“That’s horrible,” Roger interrupted.
“The next thing I knew, I was sitting on the front porch not being successful at holding back tears, when my father’s car rolled into our one-lane driveway with the one-car garage in the back of the house. Natalie, what’s wrong, why are you crying? he asked and sat down next to me, a cigarette burning between his fingers. I rubbed ice cubes on my eyes, I told him. Lying again, it was a habit. Why don’t you go do something, my father said rubbing my back. Go play, and take Joanie with you.”
“Your father sounds like he was sweet to you, unlike your mother,” Roger said.
“Did you ever read, ‘A Tree Grows In Brooklyn?'” I asked him.
“Yes, yes, I have,” Roger said. “But the father was an alcoholic, not a gambler.”
“Right, but it’s the same thing. You love your father with all your heart; he’s your hero. But you suffer because he lacks something. He lacks something in his life and you suffer. Everyone suffers, but you forgive him.
“So, I did what he told me: I grabbed Joanie from her playpen, plopped her in the metal stroller and headed out to the park across the street. Some neighhor kids were playing baseball and I sat down on the grass to watch them from afar. And then I let the tears flow. My mother’s cold words drove me to despair. It wasn’t the first time. I sobbed, grieving openly in front of my baby sister. Joanie offered me her pacifier and it coaxed a laugh from me along with more tears. I felt her soft skin as I kissed her dimpled cheeks; it comforted me.
“I sat there with Joanie on that warm summer day with my one pair of shorts on and my only one button-down Sears blue blouse, and I did something that I had never done before. I prayed. I prayed to God for the first time. I had prayed the rosary before, but this was different. Without judging it, I boldly rushed into the presence of God and poured my heart out to him. I didn’t need a priest or a nun or a rosary. Innocently, naively, I prayed a prayer only a child could pray, and I asked God if a man would please come to our front door, ring the doorbell, and hand my mother a million dollars in a white envelope.”
“Ha! You mean the old television show, ‘The Millionaire!'”
“Yes. Then all would be well. And we would be a happy family. I pleaded with God, one more time; I had asked him for it again, and I was not the least bit ashamed. I didn’t even have to lie. My mother needed a million dollars and that was all there was to it. And I knew as well as I knew the clouds hung in the sky that God had heard me. And then I strolled Joanie over to where my friends were and parked her under a tree safe from fly balls nearby, and played out-fielder like I didn’t have a care in the world.”
“Did God give your mother the million dollars?” Roger asked.
“No, but I’ve made a success of my life, in spite of my small beginnings.”
“Well, you certainly have,” chuckled Roger. “But what does a childish prayer you prayed at nine years old have to do with your success as a novelist?”
“Because my faith, as small as it was, set the standard for the rest of my life. God didn’t give me what I asked for. He gave me more. He gave me the keys to the Kingdom.”