This is what I find in my e-mail this morning, this note from ChristianLendersUSA, “a leading mortgage refinancing site” that wants to help “find the right lending partner for Christians of any credit history, in accordance with biblical standards.” And this the morning after my wife Judy leaves me, packs up her clothes and the good TV and drives off in my F150 to go stay with her folks for a bit. You don’t have the sense God gave geese, Judy says to me, but I know a sign from Jesus when I see it.

We don’t own much, I know that too, but we have this house that my father left me when he died a few years ago. Paid off years ago, and then mortgaged and mortgaged again due to our money troubles, what with being laid off from Firestone six months back because a few pansy-asses cried about their tires blowing out. Don’t even have credit cards anymore—can’t get any. When I bought my truck, I had to buy it in cash, from the Stombaugh’s estate sale when the old man finally went boots-up.

So this, this seems right. Jesus wants me to refinance, and Jesus knows something about lending. Moneychangers or something. Pushed over some tables. Didn’t like the way things were run, so he took it to ‘em. Maybe that’s what these guys are doing, these ChristianLendersUSA people. Taking it to ‘em. What would Jesus do? He’d refinance, that’s what.

It’s not like Judy wants the finer things. She wants new towels. She wants to buy name-brands from the grocery. She wants to be able to walk into Wal-Mart and not have to worry about counting pennies. Me, I want to give her that, and that’s not all. I want my financial sins to be forgiven. I want to accept the right lending agency into my heart. I want to be saved.

Next >>>

Teague Bohlen teaches fiction at the University of Colorado at Denver, where he also serves as co-editor for the arts and literary magazine Copper Nickel. His fiction has been seen most recently in Pindeldyboz, and his first novel The Pull of the Earth was just released in late 2006.