Living in a Foreign Language Read Free Page A

across the room like we were bad meat.
    I started stewing. Our publicist had done this on purpose. He was tired of trying to pump life into our fading careers sohe decided to humiliate us in front of the press. To stab us in the back. I mean it’s hard enough being a star, but when there’s nobody there to worship you, it’s damn near impossible.
    And then it occurred to me that this was a situation that would have been fully appreciated by Jesus, whom—via our friend’s channeling—we’d had dinner with the night before. He knew the drill. He’d felt the adulation and then had it taken away. He’d felt the betrayal. I sat there nursing my wounds, identifying with Jesus Christ—and I won’t deny it made me feel a lot better.
    Jesus, by the way, had been totally delightful. This wasn’t the Jesus stuck up there on the cross with that “I died for your sins” look in his eye. This was the young visionary Jesus: charming, soft-spoken, quite funny—not Henny Youngman or anything, but with a nice sense of irony, gave you the feeling that he understood the way of the world. I thought about telling him the one about Moses and Jesus playing golf. I should have; he would have enjoyed it. Bottom line I really liked him. Actually a lot more than our friend who was channeling him. She should maybe think about being him on a more permanent basis.
    We’d arrived at her house with high expectations. Not that we thought we were actually going to meet Christ—we weren’t that far gone—but curious as to how she would try to pull this off. During dinner, she gave us the setup, about how she was as amazed by the phenomenon as we were, that she didn’t understand how it worked—the standard channeling crap.
    But when we got into the session, she got herself out of the way pretty quickly—no theatrics, no fanfare, she just closed her eyes and we all waited a bit. Jill later told me that at this point she felt an energy shift in the room and that itgave her goose bumps. But remember, this is Jill we’re talking about—the goose bump queen. The only thing I could feel was anxiety as to whether this was going to be embarrassing. If Jill is good at sensing energy, I take the prize in being able to pick up flop sweat.
    After a long while, she started to speak—or rather, he started to speak, because it was definitely not her voice.
    â€œPerhaps the best way to start would be for you to ask me something,” said Jesus. He had an accent. Aramaic, I would say—although I wouldn’t know an Aramanian if I tripped over one. But it sounded a little Aramaic to me.
    â€œHow’re you doing?” That was all I could think of to ask.
    â€œVery well, thank you.”
    â€œWe’d like to thank you for . . . being with us tonight” said Jill, always courteous.
    â€œIt is a pleasure.”
    Like I said, he was a very nice guy—easy to talk to, totally nonthreatening.
    â€œDo you come here often?” That was me—a totally stupid thing to say. I was just trying to get the ball rolling, but I realized it came off like I was trying to pick him up at a bar. Everybody—including Jesus—kind of looked away and pretended I hadn’t said it.
    â€œAsk what is in your heart,” he said after a pause.
    â€œCan you tell us where we’ll be next year?” asked Jill. “I mean, will we stay here or move to a new place?”
    He smiled at both of us—a beautiful smile that made us feel approved of.
    â€œYour journey has already begun.”
    This was the perfect thing to say. Jill was beaming. How could he know us so well? I was a little less impressed. I mean our friend who was channeling him knew very well that wewere already on a journey. We had talked to her many times about all the New Age stuff we’d been doing—meditation, tantra, Chinese herbs. So it wouldn’t have been difficult for her