I’m at a book show, making my first appearance as Mark McElroy: Author. As part of the event, I offer free five-minute Tarot readings.
Attendees stream past my table. Many glance, see Tarot cards, and scuttle away. Most express curiosity; in the course of four hours, about thirty-two pause for a reading.
A thin young woman with tightly-bound hair lingers on the edge of the crowd. I smile and ask, “Ever had your cards read?”
She hesitates, screwing up her face. “Is this … Christian?”
“I’m a Christian,” I tell her. “Used to be a preacher.”
My comment takes her by surprise. “Really?”
I nod. “In fact, Tarot was created by Christians, in Renaissance Italy, in the fifteenth century.”
“No,” she says. “Christians?“
I deal out a few cards. “Look,” I say. “Here’s a Pope. Here’s the Last Judgment. See this card — the World? In one early deck, this card depicts a pearly white city coming down in glory.”
“The new Jerusalem,” she says.
“Exactly.”
She sits down, intrigued. We deal the cards. She’s drawn to the pictures, relating to them immediately. She shares a personal concern; minutes later, we have three strategies specifically designed to help her take control of her situation.
As she leaves, I ask, “So … was this spooky at all?”
She laughs. “Not spooky in the least. I’d call it … affirming. Yeah, that’s the word for it: affirming.”
As she walks away, it occurs to me how lucky I am to be sitting in the middle of a conference center, dealing out cards and chatting with strangers, instead of sitting in a corporate cube, devoting my time and talent to someone else’s dream.
Jeri and I nodded at the same time …at the same line…thus affirming that this is one of your most “quick-to-grin”, most “yes! – high-fiving” pieces. We would buy the video.