3. Dive
STEVEN CURTIS CHAPMAN
3
DIVE
“Uncle Kota?” Theo raised his hand, wiggling his body in his seat. His curly head of dark hair bounced with the movement.
“What is it, buddy?”
“If Jesus is, like… the greatest superhero of all time… and, like… God is His dad, right?” He scratched his little nose, his other hand still raised high despite being called on to speak. Dakota nodded and let his nephew continue. “Then, like… why would He let His son suffer so much? And, like… why wouldn’t Jesus just save Himself? He’s stronger than anyone, right?”
Dakota chuckled. The kid always had good Sunday school questions. “Great question, Theo. We know that we aren’t superheroes, right?”
The class nodded, enraptured. For now.
“We couldn’t save ourselves. But since Jesus is God, He is the only one who could die for our sins and forgive us completely. He had to die… and chose to… so that we might be saved, follow Him, and bring glory to His name.” Dakota smiled, feeling foolishly confident about his answer.
Another hand popped up. Its owner began speaking without a second thought. “But how is Jesus God’s son and God? That doesn’t make sense.”
“Because…” Theo jumped up, excited. “It's like this three in one thing. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Right, Kota?” He proudly looked back at Dakota, who wanted to wrap the kid up in a giant hug and then gently encourage him to save all his questions for family time—when he wouldn’t have to answer a crowd of kids.
“Right, buddy.”
“But, I don’t get it…” one kid shouted at the back of the room. “They’re alllllll,” he held out the word dramatically, “one person? I don’t think so. That’s impossible.”
“Yeah, and…” another kid said, jumping into the, now, group discussion, “why doesn’t God just snap His fingers and stop everyone from doin’ bad stuff? If He has the Holy Spirit and Jesus to back him up, don’t ya think He could do it?”
“And why did He make the tree with the good and bad and all the fruit on it?” another chimed.
Suddenly the entire room erupted with valid but overwhelming questions, ranging from the root of sin to asking for a bathroom break.
Dakota sighed deeply, running a hand along the back of his neck and feeling the alarming amount of sweat that had accumulated in the past two minutes. “Well, this really got away from me.”
He frowned at an unsympathetic, and unusually silent, Ginny, who’d yet to speak to him directly that morning—locked in some sort of sister solidarity after Dominoes Night. He knew he’d have to apologize to Sadie for his behavior the night before. Dakota’s brothers-in-law had been adamant about that particular point in the hours-long pep talk they’d given him. But he’d not anticipated groveling to all three of his sisters, as well.
Ginny’s crossed arms and smug smile told him he would, in fact, need to grovel, and until then, he’d find no aid from her.
“Alright, alright, y’all.” Dakota held his hand out over the small crowd of elementary-aged heads. “I’m gonna need y’all to settle down.”
Miraculously—like Moses parting the Red Sea—the room fell quiet and suddenly every be-hind returned to its seat. Complete obedience. Was that all it took?
A throat cleared, and he then noticed every eye wasn’t, in fact, trained on him but on his sister, at his back. He glanced over his shoulder at Ginny, who was now standing, and found an unimpressed expression looking back at him. “Y’all, Mr. Dakota is never gonna be brave enough to come back and help in here if ya overwhelm him with all the tough questions he just can’t answer.”
Dakota wanted to argue in defense of his knowledge but decided against it. He could explain the complicated intricacies of Trinitarianism and the roots of sin the next time he volunteered in elementary Sunday school. Maybe. But probably not. But the point was that he could.
“How about we just answer one question before we leave?” he courageously offered. “And then… well… the rest you can ask your folks on your own time.”
All hands shot into the air.
The kids keeping their bottoms plastered to their seats and lips pressed together was no small miracle, in and of itself.
Without hesitation, Ginny called on little Jenny Brewington, who had spent most of the Sunday school hour whipping her head back and forth so that the beads in her hair would tap together. She’d nearly taken an eye out of the kid beside her during coloring time.
“Jenny,” Ginny said, smiling with far more affection at the girl than she’d shown her brother that day. “What’s your question, girlfriend?”
Jenny stood, commanding the room, and then took the time to adjust her hair and dress before walking to the front of the class like she owned the place. She pulled out an ancient tri-folded board and opened it. Dakota thought he saw a puff of dust float into the air at the simple jostling. He didn’t even know that board existed. Had it been there all along?
Unbothered, Jenny grabbed three felt men off of the board. “The Trinity works like this, y’all… My daddy said it’s that there are three Whos and one What. Who is God the Father?” She placed one felt man down on the green felt board. “He is Himself. Then ya have the Holy Spirit.” She put another felt man stacked on top of the first. “He is Himself, too. And then Jesus is Himself.” The Jesus felt person was placed on the top of the others. Jenny turned to the class, those braided beads tapping together as she swung her head around, and brushed her hands off like she’d been doing all the dirty work. “And what are they? They are all God in one. But also all separate. Three Whos and one What.”
When she stepped back from the board and returned to her seat, the class remained quiet, completely entranced with Jenny’s explanation. A knock at the door sounded, and Jenny’s mama slipped her head in.
“Hey, y’all. Are ya finished up? I’m here to pick up Jenny.”
Jenny jumped from her seat, skipped over to the door, and said, “I’m ready, Mama. I just finished up teachin’ Mr. Dakota about the Trinity, so we can go now.” Before fully leaving the room, sweet little Jenny turned her braided head so fast Dakota swore she’d suffer from whiplash and said, “If y’all need anything else, just give me a holler.”
Ginny snickered and stood to usher out the rest of the kids and greet the parents trickling in to gather them. When Caroline and Griffin came for Theo, Caroline greeted Ginny with a hug and Theo with a smacking kiss on his cheek but barely glanced in Dakota’s direction.
“Are you ignoring me, too?” Dakota asked, shaking Griffin’s hand and patting him on the back when Griffin pulled him in for a hug.
“Nah. I think you’ve learned your lesson. And you know your sisters… They’ve gotta make ya really work for it.” Griffin tilted his head, one brow raised suspiciously. “You have learned your lesson, right? You apologized?”
“You know I haven't. I haven’t even seen Sadie since last night. She was gone by the time I was finished listenin’ to my brothers-in-law givin’ me a lesson in…”
“How to tell a girl you love her…” Griffin interrupted, grinning.
Dakota rolled his eyes.
“How to ask a gal to go steady...”
Dakota shoved his brother in the shoulder and then wanted to all out tackle him when Griffin barely staggered. “I think it was… why telling friends your personal business is a colossal mistake you’ll regret forever.”
Griffin chuckled again and rubbed his beard. “Alright, alright. I hear ya.” He put his hand on Dakota’s shoulder, pulling him a little closer and lowering his voice. “But you plan to apologize and to… ya know… talk to her, right? Just like we talked about.”
“Yeah. Of course…”
“Of course, what?” Caroline peeped into their private conversation. “Of course you made Sadie feel terrible last night and should bring her flowers immediately?”
“And…” Ginny bounced in, suddenly very chatty and friendly again as she threw her elbow into Dakota’s gut, knocking the wind out of him. “You plan to give her chocolates. The kind with caramel in the middle.”
“And poetry!” Georgia shouted over the heads of the others.
Dakota lurched, suddenly surrounded by all of his siblings and their spouses. “Where did you all come from? Good gracious!” He glared at Georgia. “And I am not writing poetry.”
“But you are buying the chocolates and the flowers, though, right?” Lake asked, an annoying, tilted smirk plastered across his face. He had an arm wrapped around Georgia’s shoulder, pulling her in tight, and kept nodding his head in tandem with his eyebrows. Like Dakota needed the reminder of how Lake had won Georgia over with a whole host of random Christmas gifts and brown-nosing a few years before. It had worked but was bewildering all the same.
Lake added. “A little schmoozing, especially in your case, couldn’t hurt anything at all. I don’t know about poetry, though. Can you write poetry?”
“He writes beautiful poetry,” Ginny sang.
Dakota ground his teeth. “I don’t write poetry.”
“Anymore,” Caroline interrupted, and Dakota’s sisters collapsed into giggles.
“Oh, y’all, we gotta quit!” Georgia fanned her face, tears streaming down her bright pink cheeks. “I think I’m really gonna pee this time!”
“You always have to pee,” Dakota hissed.
Griffin nudged Dakota, pulling his attention away from the outspoken women who crowded his life. “We’ll leave ya be, but we just wanted to make sure you were good. That you’ve got a plan and, ya know… that you’re gonna make things right. The sooner you make amends, the better.”
Did Dakota plan to talk to Sadie? Yes. He would absolutely apologize and make peace. But the extent of that conversation would begin and end with an apology. And, yes, probably flowers. But otherwise, reconciliation only. Period.
There would be no going steady with Sadie Mills. He’d told Lake and Griffin as much. He would not confess his feelings—not that he had real feelings for her to begin with. And there would certainly be zero declarations of love.
Had he thought of her like that before?
Yes.
For a single millisecond of a moment… in the beginning. When Dakota had walked into Good Start Coffee one day to meet the shop’s newest employee, and instead found a woman so effervescent in her every movement, he felt he might float away just watching her. It didn’t matter what Sadie was doing—frothing milk, taking orders on the tablet, laughing with customers or his sisters—she was vibrant and beautiful and, after a single conversation, completely unavailable to him.
Now, Sadie was the fly near his ear, constantly buzzing around, reminding him of her presence. Like when she insisted on hanging lights outside Good Start every year for Christmas in the most precarious of places and called on him to help. Or when she always—always—put him on the schedule to work the first shift New Year’s Day just to enjoy watching him struggle through after a late night before. Not to mention the way she made easy conversation with everyone she met at the shop, on the street, and at their church, Living Hope.
On Sunday mornings, Dakota often wished he could glue his eyes shut to avoid watching Sadie worship, hands and face lifted to the sky in abandon, swaying and dancing like she really and truly wasn’t thinking about a soul in the room. Or every time she took a personal day off, and he was forced to wonder where she was, what she was filling her time with, or who she was filling her time with. And the dress—that dress she’d worn to Georgia and Lake’s wedding—a soft, gray material that seemed to glide so gently over her skin he’d had to dance with her. Had to feel it for himself.
Like a moth to a flame, he was hopelessly drawn to her. Sadie was a bright red lollipop being held out in front of him. And Dakota desperately wanted that sucker, but it—she—was always out of reach.
Up until the night before when Lake and Griffin called him out for his behavior, Dakota hadn’t admitted his something like feelings to anyone. Then one outburst and ill-fated Dominoes Night later, and he’d confessed his attraction to his brothers and the subsequent rejection Sadie had given him.
No real explanation. Not that she owed him one to begin with. Just a simple, “I don’t wanna ruin what I’ve got goin’ on.” With a shrug of her shoulders and pity written across her face, Dakota’s fate was sealed. Of course he’d pursued her again. Two more times. But Sadie had been clear, and he would respect her wishes. Even if every moment in her presence reminded him of the sting of that rejection.
Despite everything, he didn’t know why Sadie got to him so badly. Why he couldn’t just let things go or why, as Griffin so eloquently put it, Dakota really wanted to pull her pigtails. Sadie had easily wiggled under his skin like a splinter in his fingertip, and now he couldn’t quite get her out. She was always there, needling and making her presence known.
She was a beautiful, beguiling, unattainable irritation.
One he would present with flowers. But definitely not poetry.