A Letter to a Young Christian

Dear Brother,

In your last letter to me, you asked how the process of sanctification that Dante proposes in his Divine Comedy compares to the Biblical process of sanctification. This letter is my attempt to answer that question.

First off, Dante believes that we are sanctified in Purgatory by acts of penance. In Purgatory IX.94-102, Dante the Pilgrim has arrived at the gates of Purgatory proper. Leading up to the gates are three steps, each of a different color: the first is polished white marble, like a looking glass; the second is black, crumbling and cracking; and the third is blood red. These steps represent the three stages of repentance. The white step, which is polished like a mirror, represents self-inspection, searching for the sin in your life. The second step, the rough black one, represents contrition for sin. Finally, the third step, which “appeared to be of flaming porphyry,” represents penance and Christ’s blood that covers our sin.[1]

Self-inspection, the first step in repentance, is a biblical concept. However, blindness to sin is one of the Enemy’s greatest weapons against us. If you were to ask a non-Christian whether he or she were a good person, ninety-nine percent of the time he would say yes. He is blind to his sin. It is only through the power of the Holy Spirit working in us that the scales over our eyes can be removed.

King David is a poignant example of this. After he committed both the sins of murder and adultery, he thought he had done nothing wrong. It was not until the prophet Nathan, moved by the Spirit of God, came to him and showed him his sin that David realized that what he had done was sinful.[2]

This leads us to Dante's second step: contrition for the sin. Once God revealed David’s sin to him, David changed immediately, as evidenced in Psalms 51, where he confessed his sin and plead with God to reveal any other sins to him: “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me of my sin! For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me…Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”[3]

A vital part of overcoming strongholds of sin is confession: first, confession to God, and second, confession to a good friend or mentor. “For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret.”[4] Now, don’t think I am advocating the Catholics’ practice of confession to a priest so that he will absolve you of the sin by telling you to say so many Hail Marys—God alone has the power to absolve you of sin, and He did that on the Cross once for all.

No, I am only saying that it is incredibly beneficial to confess your sin to a Christian friend. "Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed."[5] Your friends cannot cleanse you of sin any more than a turtle can, but they can keep you accountable. If you know that someone is going to be asking you if you gave in to temptation when you see them next, you are much more likely to resist that temptation. As humans, we hate having to tell people that we failed, which makes accountability partners invaluable in the process of sanctification.

And now we come to the third step, the blood-red step of penance. Let me first clear something up: the Catholic idea of penance, or doing good things to blot out the bad, is unbiblical. While it is true that in the Old Testament the Jews were required under the Law to give payment to those harmed by their sins, this act did not cleanse them of the sin. They were cleansed of the sin by offering sacrifices to God. These sacrifices were only temporary, however, so God sent Christ as the sacrificial lamb to cover our sins once for all. You don’t have to say fifty prayers, or buy absolution slips, or work at a homeless shelter. As a Christian, you are already righteous in the sight of God. 

You were purged of the blemish of sin by Christ’s blood. Therefore, there is no need for such place as Purgatory. The very second you die your soul will go straight to heaven.

You have asked what the purpose of sanctification is. As Ephesians 2:8-9 says, it is by grace we have been saved through faith, and “it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”[6] If we have been saved already, then why do we still struggle with sin?

Dante’s examples of penance in Purgatory are not quite in line with the Bible. He believed that we were sanctified by the removal of sin, which was accomplished by the removal of temptation. For example, Purgatory XIII.70-72 shows the penance of the Avaricious, saying, “[T]he eyelids of these shades (the Avaricious) had been sewn shut with iron threads, like falcons newly caught, whose eyes we stitch to tame their restlessness.”

With their eyes sewn shut, the shades of the avaricious could no longer look at what others had, and therefore could not commit the sin of avarice. I don’t want you to stitch your eyes closed the next time you want something that someone else has. The absolute removal of temptation is not only impossible, but goes against God's will. James says that it is through the withstanding of temptation that we are made more holy.[7]

There is a difference between justification and sanctification. The moment you believe that Christ is the Savior of the world and the Lord of your life, you are justified, or made righteous. However, sanctification only begins when you are justified. It is a process that is continually ongoing until the day you are taken to His arms and glorified. Like Paul says in Romans 6, we should not go on sinning “so that grace may abound.”[8] On the contrary, “all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death…in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”[9] We are called to live holy lives that bring glory to God.

Contrary to what numerous televangelists and pastors may tell you, life is not supposed to be peachy after you have accepted Christ. Christ himself said that "In the world [we] will have tribulation."[10] Christians struggle just as much if not more so than those outside the church. But the beauty of it is that, unlike those who do not believe in Christ, we have been given the power to overcome temptation. Jesus doesn't stop by saying that we will have tribulation; in the same verse, he gives us a message of hope: "but take heart; I have overcome the world." God didn’t leave us to fend for ourselves. Instead, in His infinite love for us, He provided His Holy Spirit to help us through those trials of many kinds, and gave us a promise that we will never be tempted beyond what we can bear.[11] We have hope.

However, this does not mean that it will be easy to overcome sin. The Holy Spirit is not like the Tooth Fairy; you don’t pull your sin out of your heart, stick it under your pillow, and find a fat wad of instant holiness in its place when you wake up. Sanctification is a life-long process, and a difficult one.

We don’t have to fight the Enemy alone. God has sent us the Holy Spirit to help us. Christ said, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”[12] In times of trial, the Holy Spirit will empower you with “the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.”[13]

It’s going to be hard. You’ll stumble, fall, break down, but don’t ever give up. You’re not alone. Even Paul, author of over half of the New Testament, struggled with sin. “I do not understand my own actions,” he said. “For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate…I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.”[14] But don’t be discouraged. In the very next verse, Paul says, “Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.”[15] Never think that because you struggle with sin, you are not a Christian. “You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”[16] The struggle with sin just shows that you are human.

Two of the most important things you can do to undo patterns of sin in your life are prayer and staying in God’s Word. Because we are Christians, we have been given a desire to do good and to please God. In his book The Pursuit of Holiness, Jerry Bridges says, “The Holy Spirit creates this desire, not only by showing us our sins, but also by showing us God’s standard of holiness. He does this through the Scriptures…Even though His standard may seem far beyond us, we recognize and respond to that which is holy, righteous, and good.”[17]

We also need to read Scripture to defend ourselves against temptation. “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”[18] When Christ was tempted by the Devil in the wilderness[19], he overcame the temptation with Scripture.

Humans have an incredible knack for rationalizing our actions, even if we know that the actions are wrong. “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure; who can understand it?”[20] Satan has had since the beginning of time to learn our human tendencies, and he uses them to his advantage. Satan is crafty. He "prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour."[21] He will even try to rationalize things by using Scripture, like he did with Jesus in Matthew 4. God’s Word will never contradict His Will, however, and the passages that the Enemy uses are taken out of context. They may seem reasonable, but they are not. But how can you tell whether or not the Scripture is from Satan if you are never in the true Word and cannot test it? Once again, our minds must be renewed so that we may discern the will of God.

In Paradise I.131-135, after their ascension to the sphere of the Sun, Beatrice explains to Dante that “God’s creature, even though impelled toward the true goal, having the power to swerve, may sometimes go astray along his course; and just as fire can be seen as falling down from a cloud, so too man’s primal drive, twisted by false desire, may bring him down.”[22]

But Beatrice doesn’t stop there. After having been sanctified through Purgatory, she tells Dante not to be surprised that he is now in Heaven. “You should, in all truth, be no more amazed at your flight up than at the sight of water that rushes down a mountain to its base. If you, free as you are of every weight, had stayed below, then that would be as strange as living flame on earth remaining still.”[23]

The trials of this world are our Purgatory, and life is our journey through it. Recall Paul’s words in Ephesians 5:25-27: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.” When we die, the process of sanctification is completed with our glorification and we are brought in to the presence of God. Though we fight with sin now, a day is coming where we will fight no longer. And what a beautiful day that will be!

As I finish up this letter, I can think of no better way to end it than Paul did in his own letter to the Thessalonians. “Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”[24]

Works Cited

Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy: Paradise. Translated by Mark Musa. Penguin Books, New York, NY, 1986.

Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy: Purgatory. Translated by Mark Musa. Penguin Books, New York, NY, 1986.

Bridges, Jerry. The Pursuit of Holiness. NavPress, Colorado Springs, CO, 1978.

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Good News Publishers, Wheaton, IL, 2001.

---

[1] Purgatory, p. 99

[2] 2 Samuel 11:1-12:15

[3] Psalms 51:2-3, 10

[4] 1 Corinthians 7:10

[5] James 5:16

[6] Ephesians 2:8-9

[7] James 1:2-4

[8] Romans 6:1

[9] Romans 6:3-4

[10] John 16:33

[11] 1 Corinthians 10:13

[12] John 14:26

[13] Ephesians 6:17

[14] Romans 7:15, 19

[15] Romans 7:20

[16] 1 Cor 6:1

[17] The Pursuit of Holiness, p. 77

[18] Romans 12:2

[19] Matthew 4:1-11

[20] Jeremiah 17:9

[21] 1 Peter 5:8

[22] Paradise, p. 5

[23] Paradise, p. 5

[24] 1 Thessalonians 5:23

Mary Did You Know--Cee Lo Green

Seeing From the Valley: Peace on Earth

Check this article out. My friend wrote it (and wrote it quite well) in light of the shooting last Friday in Connecticut.

Seeing From the Valley: Peace on Earth: Peace on earth? . . . while evil runs rampant in the streets and lives contentedly in the homes? While everything good, or true, or beautiful...

A Flash of Fiction #2

"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

Luck of the Draw

I wanted a lot of things for Christmas, but cancer definitely wasn’t one of them.

Of course, we don’t know if it’s cancer yet. The test results should come back soon. Right now, Mom and I are waiting by the fire. Waiting for Dad to get home. Waiting for Doctor Cardif to call with the test results.

The fire pops, bringing me back to the now. Mom’s crocheting a beanie when she looks up at me.

“Drink your hot chocolate, Lawrence. I put peppermint sprinkles in it.”

“I don’t want any, Mom. I don't feel well.”

I'm not well. Not well at all. I know she thinks it, but she’d never say it. Instead, she tries to smile. “Oh, Lawrence. You’re fine. Drink your hot chocolate.”

“No. I don’t feel well.”

She gives up and goes back to crocheting. I don’t know why she’d make a beanie. I never wear hats. Dad doesn't, either. He says long hair's the best hat there is.

She looks up again. She’s the one who really doesn’t look well. Are those tears in the corners of her eyes? I give in and pick up my mug.

The hot chocolate warms my chest. I rub the marshmallow foam from my top lip and fake a smile. She smiles back. It’s a better smile.

“Why don't we play North Carolina Rummy while we wait?” I ask. It’s her favorite game. Only a month ago we'd play it every night. Something normal right now would be nice.

“Oh, I’d love that, Lawrence. I’ll get the cards.” She sets her needles and yarn down on the fireplace and gets up.

She comes back, cards in hand, and places them on a tray in between us. After she sits down again, she deals out the cards, making sure the deck and discard pile are lined up perfectly.

“All right, Lawrence. First round is two sets of three.” A smile, a real smile, lights up her face. It makes her look a lot younger. Less scared.

I sip my hot chocolate and pick up my cards. They’re terrible, which is really saying something for a round one hand. I don’t even have two of the same card.

A quote, a favorite of my dad's, pushes its way into my mind. “It’s not the cards you’re dealt, it’s how you play your hand.”

I grin at Mom. “I guess I have to draw.”

I draw a five. Now I have two fives.

A Flash of Fiction #1

This is a Flash Fiction short story I wrote for my fiction writing class. Since it's flash fiction, it's supposed to be really short. Our word cap was 450 words. And, this was the first time I tried my hand at writing something so short, so I hope it works. 

Enjoy!

Smile!

            Photography seems to be all that I'm good at. I've had a camera strap around my neck since I was nine and going out into the woods with my dad. Animals and landscapes always were his thing. My favorite subjects are people, especially children. They're so unique and innocent it's hard not to love them.

But this girl, Ms. Halle Hackey, is a completely different story. The four-year-old won’t stand still. She just wants to roll around in the grass. I even tried bribing her with a sucker. She ate the sucker, threw the stick down, and kept rolling.

I glance to my left. Mrs. Hackey is glaring at me.

“I’m not paying you to take pictures of my grass,” she says. “Or to rot Halle’s teeth. Get me a good picture, and I’ll get you your money.” Apparently, her usual photographer was suddenly sick and she needed someone to cover for him. I don't know if I'll be able to make her happy. She’s one of those strict businesswomen that need everything just right. Especially pictures of their children.

I turn back to Halle. “Hey, Halle, remember that balloon animal I promised you if you were good?” I ask, and her ears perk up. She stands.

“Ok, Halle. Could you smile for a second?”

She flashes a pretty smile, then switches to one of those smirks kids are great at. I snap a few photos. It's better than grass.

“Where’s my balloon?”

"I need a pretty smile first, please, Halle." I demonstrate with a grin of my own.

She flops back down and copies her mother’s glare.

“Look, Halle,” I say. “A distraction!”

Halle spins around on her bottom, looking for it. “Where is it? I can’t see it!”

The shutter on my camera clicks repeatedly. I’m trying not to laugh. Even Mrs. Hackey cracked a smile. I honestly didn’t think that would work. I'll have to try it again sometime.

Halle's getting impatient. “Where is it?”

A convenient butterfly flits by. I point to it. “Right there.”

Halle calms down and smirks at me. “That’s not a distraction. That’s a butterfly.”

“Oh,” I say.

Her interest now caught by the butterfly, Halle sticks out her finger. The insect settles on it. It must have been attracted to the sugar left over from her sucker.

A Christmas Story

This is a paper I wrote for Composition 2 last year. It seemed rather appropriate for this time of year. :)
Oh, and here's a music video to make your ears happy whilst your eyes are reading:

The Winter Night Lights

         Light poured into the garage as the door from the laundry room swung open, dispelling the shadows brought on by nightfall. Three boys piled into the family's black Yukon XL, clutching fuzzy blankets and thermoses full of hot chocolate. A fourth child, a little girl in Christmasy pajamas, was gently buckled into her carseat by her mother. Excited whispers could be heard from the back as the parents sat down in the front seats, whispers of the traditional drive along the river and the lights to come. The garage door opened, and the car slowly pulled out of the driveway into the dark alley and headed downtown.

            Ten minutes later, the black vehicle, full of warmth, mirth and quiet murmurs, was driving down West First Street. Suddenly, one of the boys pointed out the window at a huge, light-bulb Santa Claus sitting on the roof of the post office. "Look! Santa's showing us where to go!" His outburst woke his youngest sibling, who had been lulled to sleep by the whisperings of her brothers and the darkness of her surroundings. Father just chuckled and nodded his head in acknowledgment and turned the wheel to follow Santa's directions.

            After turning once, Father repeated the action a few more times until they came to the beginning of the city’s beautiful light display. Toy soldiers saluted them from their right. Trees of all sizes and species lined the drive, their branches arrayed with a myriad of bright colors, the first of many that were to follow.

            A quarter of a mile later, Father eased the brake down until they came to a stop in front of the booth that was the official entrance. Greeters, wrapped in smiles and heavy coats, met them with joyous expressions of “Merry Christmas!” A brief exchange followed, in which Father gave the greeters a donation to help fund next year’s display and was rewarded with six candy canes. Passing the striped sweets to Mother, who gave four to the children, Father slowly pulled forward and under the bridge.

            There it was! The children’s favorite part of the tour—the light tunnel! Bands of radiant, spinning color, a semi-circle of luminance, surrounding them for sixty feet. They stared out the windows, pretending that they just turned on the car’s hyperdrive and were now careening through space. Hands stretched out before them, the goys clutched at imaginary controls and zigzagged through asteroid belts at unnatural speeds.

            Breaking out of the strip of spatial debris, the family’s attention was drawn to the various greeting cards that were popping out of the darkness, illuminated by large lights at their bases. Families, businesses, churches—they all had erected wooden signs portraying various Christmas scenes and professing good wishes to all passers-by.

            The spectacle unfolded on the opposite riverbank. Flashing frogs hopped around on lily pads. A white bird perched in a pear tree, marking the beginning of the display’s main theme. 

            They saw a golden cage adorned with red ribbon, containing two doves. Three hens sat on the Eiffel Tower. Next, four more birds rested their feet on a bright red telephone. Five golden rings floated on a ribbon. Six white geese had ensconced themselves upon large mounds of golden eggs.

            Further on, a beautiful nativity interrupted the display’s glowing illustration of that well-known Christmas song. A shepherd approached the stable from the left, leading his flock. Trees of light surrounded the humble birthplace of the world’s Savior. Inside, Mary and Joseph knelt by the small manger that contained the child, the Son of God, as the Magi arrived from the right. An angel watched over the scene, guarding the sleeping babe.           

            Alas, the car must move on. Ahead, multiple large red poinsettias gleamed, their numbers doubled by the reflection on the water. Half a dozen reindeer dozed underneath pine trees. Suddenly, the little girl squealed and pointed out the left window at a magnificent sparkling fountain by one of the city’s parks.

            Turning their attention back to the riverbank, the eyes of the viewers fell on the next gift from the song: seven swans splashing about in a spray of luminous water. Twenty yards later, eight milkmaids carried pails and milked cows by a barn. Nine ladies, dressed in gowns of flashing light, flitted around a courtyard.

             Sipping one of the last ounces of his hot cocoa, the middle boy indicated the ten pipers piping. Next to the pipers, eleven lords were hurdling over a fence. They were nearing the end!

            However, there was still one thing left. At the close of the river route, Mother pointed out the final gift: the twelve drummers. This last installment caused the car to erupt in the final strain of the song. “On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…”

            During the drive home, the car’s warm atmosphere and the late hour quickly lulled the children to sleep, despite the hot chocolate they had been drinking. After pulling into the garage, Father got out and gently woke the boys. Mother carefully removed the little girl from her seat and tucked her in bed. The boys soon followed suite. Quite content, the children returned to the glorious realm of dreams. It had been a wonderful winter evening. 

FWW Story 2

Bullfrogs and Butterflies

Jimmy hopped down the stairs to breakfast, bouncing his hand on the mahogany railing. Pancake and peanut butter smells floated through the air, and saliva started forming in his mouth. Suddenly he stopped, three steps from the bottom of the staircase, and his grin disappeared. Is today really Saturday? No, it couldn’t be. He counted on his fingers. Oh, no.

He jumped over the three remaining steps and slid on the hardwood floor into the kitchen. Standing by the griddle was his mother, singing while she flipped pancakes. On the counter lay a knife, and by the knife was the jar of peanut butter, but Jimmy didn’t really care about breakfast right now. “Mom, is today really Saturday?”

His mother flipped two pancakes onto a plate and winked. “Oh, good morning. You haven’t given me my morning hug yet.” Setting the plate by the peanut butter, she squeezed him to her chest. “And yes, it is Saturday.”

Jimmy slumped through his mother’s arms to the floor. “Mom, why’d you have to invite her over?”

“I’ve told you. Her mom’s going to be busy looking for a job all day, and she needed someone to watch her.”

“No, I mean, why did you have to sign up to take care of her? Someone else at church could have done it.”

His mother frowned. “I’m not arguing with you about this right now, Jimmy Alan Andrews. Eat your pancakes. Amanda will be here in thirty minutes.” Then she smiled. “And, if you’re nice to her, I’ll take you to Chuck-E-Cheese’s for dinner.”

Jimmy picked himself up off the floor and grabbed his pancakes and covered them in peanut butter. He allowed himself to enjoy his routine Saturday breakfast, but was careful to stay in a bad enough mood to be sure his mom knew he wasn’t happy with her.

The next thirty minutes spent waiting were interminable, and yet they went faster than the day he and Brendan went fishing without telling their parents. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Amanda, it was more that she was—well, a she. According to his friends, he wasn’t supposed to play with girls, and here he was, having one over to his house. In preparation, he had spent the entire week being mean to her, just so the other guys at school wouldn’t get the wrong idea about him. Amanda was still nice to him.

“Girls,” he scoffed.                                                         

At exactly ten o’clock a car pulled up in front of their house, and fifteen seconds later—Jimmy counted—the doorbell rang.

“Answer the door, would you, Jimmie?” his mother called from her bedroom.

Jimmy braced himself. He still couldn’t believe his mom was doing this to him. Wasn’t she a kid once, too? He thought about not answering the door. Maybe she’d leave. But then he’d be sure to get a spanking. So, full of misgivings, he opened the door.

There was Amanda, showing off her two missing teeth. Her blonde hair shone more golden with the morning sunlight behind it.

“Bonjour, mon ami,” she said. “That’s how French people say hi.” She was still grinning as she bounced past him and dropped her backpack onto the couch. “So, what do you wanna do?”

Run away, Jimmy thought. But then he remembered the promise of Chuck-E-Cheese’s. “I don’t know. Mom says I have to be nice to you ‘cause you’re the guest, so what do you wanna do?”

She pulled two dolls from her bag and shoved one into his hand. Its long red hair was messily tucked into a black beret, a scarf was wrapped around its neck, and it wore a plaid skirt and black pea coat. “That’s Jackie,” Amanda said. “Mine’s Susan. They usually don’t get along very well, but since you’re playing with us, maybe Jackie’ll behave. She’s usually the mean one.”

Staring in disbelief at Jackie, Jimmy imagined what the others would say if they saw him now.

“Do you have a French-y room we can play in?” Amanda asked.

“Um, ‘French-y’?” Jimmy said.

“You know, French-y.”

That helped. Jimmy led Amanda to a large room at the back of the house. No lights had been turned on, but the drapes over the long row of windows had been pulled back, filling the room with sunbeams.

Jimmy squeezed the doll in his hand as he swept his arm around the room. “This is my play room. But you can’t touch my LEGOs. Or my marble run.”

Amanda didn’t seem to notice the “you can’t” comments. She stood in the middle of the room and spun slowly, scrutinizing every toy and chair and shelf. Then, with a satisfied grin, she said, “This is great. Very Frenchy. And I just love the drapes. And the French doors.”

Jimmy said, “Or my planes.”

Once again, Amanda didn’t seem to notice. “Ok, first we need a house. If you’ll get some blankets, I’ll pull the chairs together.”

Reluctantly, yet glad to get away from her for a bit, Jimmy went off in search of the blankets. It didn’t take him very long to find them, but after doing so he ran to his room and waited several minutes.

When he finally walked back into the play room, Amanda had pulled the chairs into a huge rectangle, with the wall with all the windows as one side. She had made the roof by pulling the long drapes over the backs of the chairs. Pillows from the couches served as a sort of fence.

“There you are,” she said. “I got tired of waiting, so I just made do with those lovely drapes. And I put it by the windows so we wouldn’t have to worry about it being all dark inside.”

Jimmy’s jaw fell with his blankets. “You’re smart,” he said. “I didn’t think girls knew how to make forts. Or houses.”

Amanda just laughed. “It can be our fort-house. We can make beds with those blankets.”

“Nuh-uh,” Jimmy said. “Boys don’t play house.”

Just then his mother, laundry basket on her hip, poked her head through the door. “Jimmy,” she said. Then she left.

Jimmy understood her perfectly. Turning back to Amanda, he said, “All right. I’ll play.”

When Mrs. Andrews came in with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches two hours later, they were making beds and decorating their house with toys. Amanda had convinced Jimmy to help her cut flowers out of construction paper and scatter them to make a garden, and Jimmy had even let Amanda help him build a new marble run around the pillow fence, complete with LEGO and model plane guards.

When the house was satisfactory and the sandwiches had been eaten, Jimmy forgot his abhorrence of girls enough to hold out his hand for a high-five.

Amanda smacked it without hesitation. “Il est si parfaite,” she sighed.

“What?” Jimmy asked.

“That’s French for ‘it’s so perfect.’ ”

“Oh. Why do you talk in French?”

“I’m practicing for when I go visit my daddy in France,” she replied. “When he called last month he said I could come stay with him when I learn it. We didn’t get to talk very long because he and Caroline were about to go to dinner. But he promised he’d take me to all the fancy restaurants.”

“Oh.”

Amanda ducked into their house and came back out with Jackie and Susan. Handing Jackie to Jimmy, she grinned and said, “You can be Dad. I’ll be Mom. And Jackie and Susan will be our kids.”

Jimmy wasn’t terribly sure about this, but he decided he might as well try, so he followed Amanda into the house and plopped down on the floor next to her.

She began calling him “Jimmy dear” almost immediately. This Jimmy could tolerate. When Amanda began to suggest that he call her “Mon ange,” however (“It’s French and so very sweet!”), that was where he drew the line. He wasn’t sure what it meant, and while it sounded “French,” it didn’t sound at all manly.

“No,” he finally said. “I’m not calling you that.”

“But, Jimmy dear,” she said. “It makes it more perfect. It’s what Daddy calls Caroline.”

“I don’t care.”

“Come on, Jimmy dear. Please?”

“No. And quit calling me that, or I won’t play with you.”

“Jimmy dear—”

“No! I’m leaving.” Jimmy stormed out of their house, knocking part of their wall over as he did, and fled to his room. He tried to slam the door, but it bounced off a ball he had left in the doorway and swung back open. Amanda was left, crying, with a broken house.

It took Amanda a while before she had built up the courage to go get him. Wrapping Jackie and Susan up in her arms, she tiptoed to his door and peeked in. He was on his bed, reading. He must have discovered last Sunday’s funnies, because he was grinning.

“Jimmy?” she said.

His smile flipped upside down. That wasn’t what it was supposed to do. “What,” he said. It wasn’t really a question.

“Do you want to come back to the house? You don’t have to call me mon ange. It’s okay.”

He faced the wall and kept reading. “No.”

“I brought Jackie for you.”

“I don’t want Jackie.”

Amanda turned back around the corner and slumped against the wall. She stared at Jackie for a bit, then threw her down the hall. “Why do you have to be so mean? Susan, why do you put up with her?”

An idea popped into her head. Amanda scurried over to Jackie, picked her up, and continued down the hall to the kitchen.

Jimmy was happy now. He hadn’t seen Amanda in almost thirty minutes, but he didn’t care where she was. His mom was busy scrapbooking in her room, and as long as she didn’t see Amanda, she’d have no reason not to take him to Chuck-E-Cheese’s later.

Jimmy thought about his comic books. The only girls in Spider-Man and X-Men were either the ones that needed to be saved or the ones with superpowers of their own. They didn’t make the hero play house with them. If anything, they helped the hero fight bad guys. Jimmy liked those girls much better.

A delicious, familiar smell had been drifting in through his half-open door for quite a while when Amanda bounced into the room. She was holding a tray.

“I’ve brought you something,” she said. “Your mom told me it was your favorite.”

Wait, Jimmy thought. Mom saw her? Oh drat. The thought that he may not get Chuck-E’s after all popped into his head, but it was quickly forgotten when he looked over the high rim of the tray. On the tray were two plates, and on each plate was an ice cream sandwich. But not just any two ice cream sandwiches—these were homemade, a special kind made from a scoop of peppermint ice cream between two chocolate chip cookies. They were heaven on earth.

Seeing the changed look on Jimmy’s face, Amanda grinned. “Mrs. Andrews helped me make them. I thought we could go back and eat them in our house. Do you wanna come?”

Jimmy wanted to yell, “Of course!” but he restrained himself. He thought he should still be mad at her. But then again, she had ice cream sandwiches.

“Yes,” he said calmly, then ran past her back into the play room.

He shoved the chair that he had knocked over earlier back into place and readjusted the blanket to cover it. He had only just crawled inside when Amanda came in, giggling. “Here’s the sandwiches,” she said. “Could you hold them while I come in, please? Thanks.”

Now, if two ice cream sandwiches are put in the ring against two six year olds, the six year olds will emerge victorious every time. On this particular occasion, the sandwiches didn’t last five minutes, despite both children’s desire to savor each bite and chew twenty times.

Amanda licked the drips of ice cream off her fingers while Jimmy slurped the drops off his. Amanda started giggling again. Jimmy frowned and pulled his fingers out of his mouth. “Ok,” he said, wiping off his fingers on his shorts. “What’s next?”

“What do you want to play?”

Superheroes. That’s what he wanted to play. But Amanda was a girl. They never want to do boy things. “Not house.”

“I’m tired of playing house, too,” Amanda said. She smiled mischievously. “How about superheroes?”

Jimmy blinked. Did she really say that? “Um, sure. But I only have one cape.”

Amanda thought for a moment. “I can wrap a blanket around my shoulders. Will that work?”

“Yeah.” Jimmy was actually starting to get excited now. “And we can be a team. Like the X-Men.”

“And Jackie and Susan can be the bystanders that we have to save,” Amanda said. She, too, was getting excited. Thanks for the suggestion, Mrs. Andrews.

“All right,” Jimmy said as he clambered out of their house and ran to a box by the opposite wall. Pulling out a black cloth cape with the initials “J.A.A” stylishly embroidered on the back, he fastened it around his neck. Amanda chose a soft red blanket from the pile on the floor and wrapped it around her shoulders several times until it was more of a poncho than anything else. The extra foot of blanket pooled on the floor around her feet.

They spent the next few minutes deciding on names and powers. Jimmy, a.k.a. Super Alan, went with the classic superpowers—flight, super strength, and super speed—while Amanda selected less physical abilities, such as control of fire and water.

“I’ll be Mandy Magie, a French magician,” she said. “So…what do we do now?”

“All right, Mandy,” Jimmy said. “The good people of Andrewsville have been captured by the robot aliens. We have to get them back. Come!”

With that, he charged outside, his cape flapping wildly. Pulling her blanket above her ankles, Amanda ran out the door after him.

It was six o’clock, three hours after they had begun their rescue mission, when Jimmy and Amanda triumphantly returned to the play room and collapsed inside their house—or their headquarters, as it was now called. Jimmie turned to the two dolls and said, “Now remember, kids, never try to fight an alien invasion on your own. That’s a job for superheroes like us.”

Amanda broke into fits of laughter, and Jimmy joined her. They were still chuckling when Mrs. Andrews came in.

“Jimmy?” she called. “Amanda?”

The two heroes crawled out of their HQ side by side. “Yes, ma’am?” Jimmy asked.

“I just got off the phone with Amanda’s mom,” Mrs. Andrews said. “Something came up and she’s on her way to get a last-minute job interview. She said she won’t be able to come pick up Amanda until eight.” She looked at her son. “I was thinking Amanda could come with us to Chuck-E-Cheese’s.”

“Oh, we never get to go there,” Amanda said. “Can I really come?”

Jimmy looked over at her, then turned back to his mom. He grinned.