By Al Speegle, Jr.

The Door has obtained a draft excerpt of Donald Miller's next book, Bark Like a Scab. Miller is, of course, the Portland-based post-modern "emergent church" chronicler of spiritual odysseys and really groovy personal responses to the nature of God and Jesus. When we got this priceless little portion of Bark Like a Scab, we knew somehow that Donald had produced his best work since Blue Like Jazz and had achieved yet another giant leap in his conscious effort to "hold our palms against the wound." But then the manuscript speaks for itself. Shhhh. Listen.

Bark Like a Scab

A tree’s bark grows slowly
through the winters and summers of its life,
each layer has a story unto itself.

I was at the park desperately hitting on God for some answers. They didn’t come.
I lay down, uncomfortable until I pulled some rocks from under my back. I looked up through the tree limbs to the clouds moving quickly across the blue sky. I hadn’t noticed the breeze until I saw the limbs swaying in a tempo conducted by the wind.

Was it Jonah, desperate for an answer as to why he was going through the mess in his life after doing what God had wanted him to? A vine grew over his head, giving him shade from the sun, only to have a worm, a tiny worm in a big world doing what he was destined to do, eat away Jonah’s only comfort.

I picked up a dry branch that had fallen probably years ago. I needed something to do to take my mind off my troubles. Peeling the bark, I wondered if I was trying to hurt something else like I had with so many people. It beat cutting myself like my friend Anne does. Still that thought crossed my mind, the cutting. So here I am, peeling the bark like a scab on a wound reminding me of a friend’s wife now bald before her third chemo.

I pried back a piece of the bark with my thumb, exposing the generations of life it once lived. It was nothing now. Its death and decay, like leaves, would provide nutrients for the tree that gave it birth. Or maybe a feast for the bugs. Whatever, it had lived its purpose, so now what?

That was my life.

I needed to pee. Badly. I looked around. Was I far enough from the street so no one would see?

Surely as soon as I’d unzip my pants a woman police officer would drive up and arrest me for indecent exposure.

Sin and guilt are like that. You want to, but you don’t want to.

I got in my car, drove around to find someplace more private. The other side of the park maybe. Then I saw them. Two Port-o-Lets. Safe, secure. A blessing like Jonah’s vine.

Finally, relief. A load off my mind.

From inside I heard a car pull up, stop. The worm/policewoman here to question my existence? I could hear the other stall door open, the liquid drain from a life’s bladder flowing down into the reservoir of waste. Maybe if I waited long enough they’d finish and leave. She did.

Back into my car, back to my place among the trees, my pen, people who drove by never noticed me sitting here writing.

Jesus did. He knew my hurt … my fears … my doubts. And he loves me anyway. He never drove by without waving.