Our story begins with a 53 year old man who worked in lower Manhattan, NYC. He was a rough edged character who had spent most of his years working as a machinist. He had the uncanny ability to take the engineer’s dream and the draftsman’s design and literally make them come to life out of the hardened steel that was the stuff of his life’s work. Some would say it was his art. Some would call it a special talent or gift. He just simply called it work. But, the look on his face while working betrayed that certain sense of pride and satisfaction that only a true craftsmen knows. On the floor he was known as “The Man.” His name was Johanne.

The cruelest day that Johanne ever worked was the day he held a crumpled piece of paper in the pocket of his coveralls. A piece of paper that basically said something to the effect of “…due to the economy and lost accounts…LAY-OFF….” That was all Johanne could read of the letter, at least that’s all he could remember.

Work was found. It required a long commute, but the pay was good enough. Johanne became a “Number One” on a maintenance team working in one of Manhattan’s smaller buildings.

Johanne was thankful for the job and spent the early morning train ride quietly praying. No morning passed that he didn’t thank God for his job and the ability to work. Prayer was something that didn’t really enter into Johanne’s life until he was about 29 years old. It had happened on a summer at the Jersey shore. The story is not quite clear, but one day Johanne was alone with the family Bible. That night, on the boardwalk, he paused and said what he thinks was his first prayer.

To be honest, Johanne remained the grizzled, rough and tough man that he had always been. That is, in his appearance and the way he spouted out his words. But something he had read in that family Bible and that prayer had changed him. The words he had read said something like, “Those who cling to worthless idols, forfeit the grace that could be theirs.”

Johanne once said, “God’s grace cuts steel.” He would go on to describe himself as “a raw piece of steel that love was fashioning into its own image and design.”

On one occasion, after apologizing to a neighbor with whom there had been a verbal war, he was heard to have said, as he walked into the house, “By God! I am still steel, but it seems you have shaped me so that I cannot hold to hate and I have to cling to peace….” The family realized he wasn’t exactly talking to them, so they quietly listened as he wandered upstairs still speaking to his unseen friend.

Those words, “I’m still steel, but it seems you have shaped me so that I cannot hold to hate and I have to cling to peace,” would soon be tested with something more than a disagreement with a neighbor over dog poop on the sidewalk.

It was September 11, 2001 and Johanne was quietly working on a deserted floor of the building in Manhattan. Buffing and waxing floors wasn’t exactly in his job description, but that is what he found himself doing — when he heard it, felt it, and soon found himself in the streets running towards it.

He stood in horror as he watched the Twin Towers crumble to the earth below. Two days later he returned home, filthy, exhausted, and looking rather beaten up. He did not wash, but climbed into a bed. A bed which offered him a comfort he could not take and offered him a sleep, he did not get.

No one knows exactly when it happened. Though people say it happened on the train. Johanne was suddenly compelled to pray. And as he prayed he heard the voice of God speak to his heart. “Johanne, go to that great city Kabul, in Afghanistan. There you will find the Taliban, and Bin Laden, and terrorist leaders from all around the world, gathered for a secret and special meeting. Go and cry out against that city and those leaders! Tell them that their wickedness has come up before me. Tell them that I am about to judge them.”

Johanne never made it to work that day. Instead he had stopped by the credit union and then made his way to the port. There he found a Libyan freighter that was heading to South America. He booked passage on the ship and sailed away that day.

Leaning over the railing of the ship he vomited from the overwhelming seasickness that had taken hold of him. But, while he was vomiting he was thinking, “I will not go to ‘that great city Kabul’ and I will not speak out against them. I have known your mercy God, I know what you are like. If I speak to those people, they might just call out to you for mercy, and I want them to pay for what they have done.”

That night the ship ran into an incredible, unexpected storm. The danger was so great that the crew had begun to throw over whatever cargo they could in hopes of saving the ship. In hopes of saving their lives. Times like this will even drive the hardest seaman to prayer. In that storm, all of the men aboard the ship were calling out to whatever deity they believed in or had at least heard about. But Johanne remained in his bunk down below.

Finally, one of the passengers came and called Johanne to the deck. “Pray!” the passenger shouted. “The ship will never survive this storm,” said one of the crew. Certain members of the crew believed that someone’s bad karma had caused this to come upon them. Johanne heard them speaking and speculating about this. He spoke up, “It is my fault.” There was a storm tossed meeting of the minds and Johanne suggested to the captain that it would be best if they threw him overboard.

The captain did not wish to do this, but the crew was intense. “He has no papers, no passport anyway!” was heard among the din of voices. “It’s his fault! He’s made the sea angry!” Finally, after much argument, a mob was formed and Johanne was thrown into the sea.

Splash! under the turbulent waters went the grim and hardened face of a man ready to die. Why not? He could not betray his own country by going to Kabul. He could not let go of his hatred for those terrorists. “I’ll die, they’ll die!” he thought as he sank under the sea.

But, a huge fish came up from deepest regions of the ocean and it captured Johanne in its mouth.

“Great, still no release!” thought Johanne. “My death will be slower this way, but let it come.” And in the fish Johanne waited for his end.

While waiting to die, he began to think of his life. His wife, his kids, the grand baby. He remembered the joy of working, his years with the guys on the factory floor. He remembered singing in church. He remembered his train rides. He remembered God.

He began to tell God that he was sorry for running away, but he felt he had to run away. While he was engaged in this conversation with His maker, he heard his own voice praying some very familiar words, “Those who cling to worthless idols, forfeit the grace that could be theirs.”

It echoed in his mind, “By God! I am steel, but I cannot hold to hate and I am compelled to cling to peace! The peace you have made with me, when I deserved your hate.” He pictured the crucifix in the grade school he had attended. “You got beaten up for me!” he cried, “so that we could have peace between us, the peace I have enjoyed all these years since that day….

But, Johanne could not finish his words, because the fish vomited him up on a strange shore. A shore in the Middle East.

God’s voice spoke to Johanne a second time, “Johanne, go to that great city Kabul, in Afghanistan. There you will find the Taliban, and Bin Laden, and terrorist leaders from all around the world, gathered for a secret and special meeting. Go and cry out against that city and those leaders! Tell them that their wickedness has come up before me. Tell them that I am about to judge them.”

This time Johanne obeyed.

He found his way to the city. He found the meeting just as he had been told. He spoke through interpreters and delivered the message of the Lord. The people, the leaders, it seemed even the animals, listened to Johanne. They said, “We must obey the message we have heard, and possibly the God of Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael, and Jacob will have mercy on us, Quickly everyone, repent!”

>From the greatest to the lowest, everyone dressed as if they were in

mourning and stopped all that they were doing to ask God for mercy.

Johanne walked out of the city. He climbed a hill. Sat down in the hot sun and said, “I knew they would listen, I knew You would have mercy on them, It makes me sick, I’m going to just sit here and die.” He wasn’t kidding.

Johanne sat in the sun for days looking down upon the city. A tree that was nearby grew in such a way that its limbs and leaves came over him and provided some peaceful shade. Johanne seemed to like the shade. Dying was one thing, but the sun was murder.

That night, while Johanne slept, a worm came. These worms began to eat the tree so that it withered and the shade was taken away from Johanne.

When Johanne woke up he became livid. “Those nasty worms, ate my shade!” He was fuming with anger over the loss of this tree when a familiar voice spoke to his heart.

“Johanne, you liked the shade of that tree which you did not plant. It gave you pleasure didn’t it? And now you are angry because it has been destroyed? Now you understand how I feel about the people down there in that city. I made them for my pleasure and to enjoy me as well! And you’re angry about the loss of a tree? Compared to the millions of people in that city? And Johanne if you cannot care about the people, at least think of the animals that would be lost.

This is the story of Jonah and the Whale

http://lanternwaste.topcities.com/msp.htm