My One Hundred Adventures Read Online Free PDF Page A

I should take you on my healing sessions, then.”
    I must look completely blank, because she explains to me that she uses her hands to move people’s energies and unblock them.
    â€œOf course, not everyone is receptive,” she says.
    I would guess not. I try to imagine telling Maya or Max or Hershel, Sit still, your energy is going to be unblocked.
    â€œWell then, come with me. I have to deliver Bibles this afternoon and I will drop in on Mrs. McCarthy. She has asked me for a healing session. Of course, she calls it
laying on of hands
because that’s what the old-timers used to call it. She’s in an old folks’ home outside of town. We can drop in on her and spend the rest of the day delivering the Bibles in that direction, because I haven’t been out that way yet.”
    The missionary movement within our church sends every congregation boxes of Bibles to distribute. Every week Nellie tries to rope in anyone she can to help. But as much as people seem to like Nellie Phipps, you know what Sunday is, it’s a day with a lot of potential for naps.
    â€œI ought to ask my mother,” I say, getting into Nellie’s car.
    â€œWhen are you people going to get you a phone out there?” she asks as we drive to the parking lot closest to our beach.
    â€œOh gosh, Miss Phipps, I dunno,” I say. My mother has five mouths to feed.
    â€œYou run on, now. I don’t want to get sand in my Sunday shoes,” she says. “And tell your mother you don’t know if you’ll be home for dinner or not. It’s time-consuming to get your energies flowing again. You stopped them when you didn’t pray for Mrs. Nasters but we’ll release them with this positive work.”
    I run over the hot sand and find my mother digging some clams for dinner. I tell her I’ll be gone all day and maybe won’t come home until after dinner because I am going to distribute Bibles with Nellie Phipps. At this my mother straightens up and wipes her hands on her skirt and says, “Well, how in heaven did you get yourself roped into that?”
    â€œI don’t know,” I lie. Nellie Phipps wants me to explain how I need to unblock my negative energies to let the positive energies flow and that Bible delivering is one step, but I know what will fly with my mother and what won’t.
    â€œWell, if you said you would I guess you’d better, though it’s a shame to waste such a lovely day.”
    â€œI know,” I say. “I just got stuck.”
    My mother nods.
    I am interested in seeing Nellie do this stuff with her hands. This sounds miraculous to me. I just don’t really want to deliver Bibles. Forcing anyone to read anything doesn’t sit right with me. I run back along the beach looking out to sea, praying to be distracted by whales. If I see whales, I think, it means my energy is fine and I don’t have to bother with Nellie Phipps and her Bibles, but I don’t see whales. I decide that this isn’t conclusive. It may just mean that God isn’t into the obvious.
    I get in the car and Nellie and I drive right out of town, the boxes of Bibles slamming around in the back of the station wagon, which doesn’t have very good springs, and so we and the Bibles bounce along the country roads, giving new meaning to the expression “Bible thumping.” I don’t share this with Nellie.
    We stop at the old people’s home first and I trail along shyly behind Nellie. She goes right up to Mrs. McCarthy’s room.
    â€œReverend Phipps!” says Mrs. McCarthy from her bed. She is white, her skin pale with age and illness, her hair snowy and fluffy; her sheets are white, her nightgown is white. I imagine when she dies, she just melds further into this whiteness and then disappears. There is no need to bury her. It is a very clean death.
    No one pays any attention to me. They are chatting as I stand there thinking about Mrs. McCarthy’s