Tractor Beam

"Sacred and ridiculous aren't opposites. Sometimes they share a pew."

"Our intermediate hymn this morning will be number 97, 'Lead, Kindly Light.'"

The announcement rippled through the congregation, hymnbooks emerging from the racks in front of pews. I reached for the one nearest me, its spine softened by years of communal handling, and found the page without needing to check the number.

Sister Crofton's hands found the opening chords, and the congregation rose to sing.

Lead, kindly Light, amid th'encircling gloom, Lead thou me on.

The words settled into me with unexpected weight. I'd sung this hymn dozens of times without really hearing it, but today — after everything I'd just experienced at the sacrament table — the phrase th'encircling gloom felt less like Victorian poetry and more like an accurate description. The night was dark. I was far from home. Not geographically, but in ways I couldn't explain to anyone.

The night is dark, and I am far from home— Lead thou me on.

In the pew directly ahead of us, the Goodwin family had arranged themselves in their usual configuration — Brother and Sister Goodwin on either end, their three children distributed between them in descending order of age and ascending order of chaos. The oldest, a girl of perhaps seven, stood dutifully with her hymnbook open, mouthing words she probably couldn't read. The middle child, a boy of four or five, was engaged in some private negotiation with a small action figure he'd smuggled past parental inspection.

And then there was the youngest. A toddler — two years old, maybe less — perched on Sister Goodwin's hip, facing backward over his mother's shoulder.

Facing directly at us.

Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see the distant scene—one step enough for me.

The toddler's eyes met mine with the unblinking intensity that only very small children can achieve. He had the particular look of someone who had discovered something fascinating and intended to study it thoroughly. His dummy bobbed rhythmically as he worked it, his gaze fixed on my face with scientific concentration.

I looked away, returning my attention to the hymnbook.

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that thou shouldst lead me on.

When I glanced up again, he was still staring. But now he had added a new element to his performance: his small hand had found his mother's earring — a modest gold hoop — and was tugging it with experimental curiosity. Sister Goodwin, absorbed in the hymn, seemed entirely unaware that her earlobe was being used as a plaything.

Charles shifted beside me. I felt rather than saw his attention redirect toward the same scene.

I loved to choose and see my path; but now Lead thou me on.

The toddler released the earring and moved on to his mother's hair, gathering a small fistful and pulling it toward his mouth with the clear intention of tasting it. Sister Goodwin reached back absently and detached the tiny fingers without breaking her focus on the hymn, a manoeuvre so practiced it must have been performed hundreds of times before.

The toddler looked personally affronted by this interference. His face scrunched into an expression of profound betrayal.

Charles's shoulder brushed against mine. A warning.

So long thy power hath blessed me, sure it still will lead me on.

The toddler had recovered from his setback and was now experimenting with his dummy — removing it from his mouth, examining it with scholarly interest, and then attempting to insert it into his mother's ear. Sister Goodwin deflected this assault with the same absent efficiency, gently redirecting the dummy back toward its intended recipient without missing a syllable of the hymn.

I pressed my lips together. Tight.

The toddler, apparently deciding that his mother was no longer a worthy target, turned his attention back to us. He locked eyes with Charles this time, his expression shifting into something that could only be described as challenging. Then, with the deliberate theatricality of a trained performer, he crossed his eyes.

Charles made a sound. Small. Strangled. The kind of noise that happens when laughter tries to escape through a closed throat.

I fixed my gaze on the hymnbook with desperate intensity.

O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till the night is gone.

The toddler was not finished.

He had discovered that by scrunching his face in a particular way, he could make his dummy dance up and down without using his hands. He demonstrated this skill now, his eyes still locked on Charles, his expression one of pure, delighted mischief. The dummy bobbed. His eyebrows waggled. His small nose wrinkled and unwrinkled in rhythmic accompaniment.

Charles's hymnal was shaking. Visibly shaking.

I made the fatal error of looking at him.

His face had gone red with the effort of containment. His jaw was clamped so tight I could see the muscles working. His eyes were watering. He looked like a man experiencing either profound spiritual revelation or a medical emergency.

The laugh rose in my chest like something with physical weight. I fought it back, swallowing hard, trying to transform the sensation into something that might pass for emotion. I was twenty-one years old. An ordained Elder. I had just blessed the sacrament for an entire congregation. I could not — would not — laugh at a toddler pulling faces during a hymn about divine guidance.

And with the morn those angel faces smile, which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.

The toddler chose this precise moment to blow a raspberry.

It wasn't loud — his mother's shoulder muffled most of the sound — but it was unmistakable. A small, wet declaration of toddler triumph, perfectly timed to coincide with the hymn's most reverent phrase.

Charles's shoulders began to shake.

Mine followed immediately.

We stood there, side by side, hymnbooks trembling in our hands, desperately trying to disguise laughter as... what? Coughing? Crying? Profound spiritual experience? I didn't know. I couldn't think. The laugh was building with the unstoppable pressure of something that would not be denied, and the harder I fought it, the worse it became.

The toddler, sensing his victory, grinned around his dummy. A grin of pure, uncomplicated joy. The grin of someone who had found his audience and knew exactly how to work them.

I bit the inside of my cheek. Hard.

Beside me, Charles had stopped pretending to sing altogether. His mouth was clamped shut, his breath coming in small, controlled bursts through his nose. His face had progressed from red to something approaching purple.

Mum noticed.

Of course she noticed. Mothers always noticed. I felt her attention shift toward us from Dad's far side, travelling past Charles to land on me with the precision of a guided missile. I didn't dare look at her directly, but I could sense the weight of her gaze — that particular maternal frequency that communicated displeasure across any distance, through any obstacle.

The hymn was ending. The final notes approaching. Just a few more seconds and we could sit down, compose ourselves, pretend this had never happened.

Lead, kindly Light, amid th'encircling gloom, Lead thou me on.

The congregation held the final note. Sister Crofton's hands lifted from the keys. The sound faded into the particular silence that follows sacred music.

And in that silence, Charles hiccupped.

Just once. A single, involuntary spasm of suppressed laughter escaping through his diaphragm. Quiet enough that only our immediate vicinity would have heard it. Loud enough to undo every shred of composure I'd managed to construct.

I coughed. Violently. Brought my hand to my mouth and coughed again, trying to cover the laugh that was finally, inevitably breaking free. My eyes watered. My shoulders shook. I coughed a third time, selling the performance with everything I had.

The congregation sat. We sat with them — collapsing into the pew with the profound relief of actors leaving a stage.

Charles was bent forward, his face buried in his hands, his shoulders still trembling. To anyone watching, he might have appeared to be praying with particular intensity. Only I knew he was slowly suffocating on suppressed hilarity.

Mum leaned forward. Past Dad. Past the empty space beside him. Her hand found Charles's arm first, her fingers pressing a message into his sleeve. Then she reached further, finding my wrist, and squeezed.

The pressure was brief. Firm. Unmistakable.

I saw everything. We will discuss this later. In detail.

I nodded, not trusting myself to meet her eyes. The toddler had turned back around now, his attention captured by something else — the action figure his brother was wielding, probably, or the hymnbook his sister was returning to its rack. The show was over. His audience had been thoroughly conquered.

Charles straightened slowly, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. He risked a glance at me, his expression carefully neutral but his eyes still bright.

"Sorry," he breathed. Barely a whisper.

"No you're not."

"No," he agreed. "I'm really not."

Mum's glare, when I finally dared to look at her, could have frozen the sacrament water solid. But she said nothing. Bishop Hahn was approaching the pulpit, and whatever she had to say about our behaviour would wait until we were safely in the car and beyond the reach of ecclesiastical witnesses.

I settled back into the pew and tried to compose my face into something appropriate for the talk that was about to begin. My chest still ached with the residue of suppressed laughter. My cheeks hurt from the effort of containment. I felt wrung out, slightly giddy, lighter than I had all morning.

It was ridiculous. Inappropriate. Exactly the kind of behaviour an Elder should have outgrown years ago.

But sitting there in the aftermath — shoulder to shoulder with my brother, both of us still vibrating with shared mischief while Mum silently catalogued our sins for future reckoning — I felt the strange guilt that always followed moments like this.

I'd just blessed the sacrament. Spoken sacred words over sacred emblems. And then I'd spent the intermediate hymn fighting laughter at a toddler pulling faces.

What kind of person did that? What kind of Elder?

The answer, apparently, was me. The same person who could speak prayers he wasn't sure he believed and then lose composure over a two-year-old with a dummy. The contradictions kept piling up, one on top of another, until I wasn't sure which version of myself was the real one.

Charles caught my eye one more time, a flicker of shared understanding passing between us. Then he faced forward, composing himself.

I did the same, though my chest still ached with the residue of suppressed laughter. The lightness was already fading, replaced by the familiar weight of questions I couldn't answer.

The bishop cleared his throat, and I straightened in my seat, preparing to listen. Or at least pretend to.

Bishop Hahn approached the pulpit.

There was something different about his bearing today — a quality of deliberation in his movements that suggested the message he was about to deliver carried particular weight. His scriptures were tucked under one arm, and his expression held that focused intensity of someone who had prepared not just what to say, but how to say it.

Charles shifted beside me, and I felt the subtle recalibration of his posture — shoulders settling back against the pew, arms crossing loosely over his chest. I recognised the stance. It was his "long talk" position, the physical arrangement of someone preparing to endure something that couldn't be escaped but might at least be weathered with strategic comfort.

"Brothers and sisters," Bishop Hahn began, his voice settling over the congregation with warm authority, "I am grateful for the sacred spirit that envelops us on this Sunday morning."

Dad had produced a small notebook from somewhere — the one he always carried, the one where he jotted down thoughts and impressions during talks he found particularly meaningful. The pen was already uncapped, resting against the page in readiness. Mum sat with her hands folded in her lap, her attention fixed on the pulpit with that particular quality of receptiveness she brought to spiritual instruction.

Between them and us, rows of congregation members arranged themselves into listening postures. Brother Evans, three rows ahead, had his scriptures open and was following along with something — cross-referencing, probably, checking Bishop Hahn's citations against the original text. Sister Nguyen was managing a restless toddler with one hand while taking notes with the other, a feat of maternal multitasking I'd witnessed countless times but never ceased to find impressive.

"As we joined our voices in the hymn 'Lead, Kindly Light,'" Bishop Hahn continued, "the words and melody echoed the sentiments of our collective journey — a journey marked by faith, guided by a light that shines even in times of uncertainty."

Charles leaned toward me, his voice dropped to the barest breath. "Bit on the nose, that."

"What?"

"Choosing a hymn about darkness right before talking about uncertainty. Very deliberate."

"That's called thematic consistency."

"That's called heavy-handed." He paused. "Effective, though. I'll give him that."

Mum's hand appeared in my peripheral vision — not reaching toward us, not yet, but repositioning itself in a way that communicated awareness. A warning shot. We both recognised it and fell silent.

"We find ourselves at the crossroads of our faith today," Bishop Hahn continued, "contemplating the theme 'Enduring Faith in Times of Uncertainty.' In a world that often feels tumultuous and unpredictable, the foundation of our faith becomes all the more crucial."

In the pew ahead, the Goodwin toddler — our recent tormentor — had subsided into drowsy stillness against his mother's shoulder. His eyes were half-closed, the dummy working slowly in his mouth, all the mischievous energy of ten minutes ago apparently exhausted by his performance during the hymn. He looked peaceful now. Innocent. The kind of child you'd trust around breakable objects.

Charles followed my gaze. "Tactical nap," he murmured.

"He's just tired."

"He's regrouping. Planning phase two." He shook his head slightly. "Never trust a sleeping toddler. That's when they're most dangerous."

I pressed my lips together, determined not to repeat our earlier near-disaster. The residue of suppressed laughter still sat in my chest, waiting for an excuse to resurface.

Bishop Hahn had moved on to scripture, his voice finding the particular cadence that signalled quotation. "As the apostle Paul declared, 'We walk by faith, not by sight.'"

He paused after the words, letting them settle into the silence. It was a practiced pause — the kind of deliberate beat that speakers learned to deploy for emphasis. I'd sat through enough sacrament meetings to recognise the technique, the way certain phrases were given room to breathe, space to land.

Charles noticed it too. "He's good at that," he whispered. "The pauses. Very theatrical."

"It's not theatrical. It's oratory."

"Same thing, different costume." He shifted in his seat, recrossing his arms. "Do you reckon he practices in the mirror? I would. If I ever had to give a talk. Which I won't, because I plan to be conveniently ill every time they ask."

"That's not how it works."

"It's worked so far."

"You're sixteen. They haven't asked yet."

"And when they do, I'll have a very convincing cough prepared." He demonstrated quietly — a small, theatrical hack into his fist. "See? Sounds terrible. No one would make a sick person give a talk."

"You're ridiculous."

"I'm strategic. There's a difference."

Mum's hand moved again — this time closer to us, her fingers drumming once. The message was clear. We subsided.

Bishop Hahn had progressed to Lehi's family now, the familiar story of prophetic departure and wilderness wandering. It was standard material for a talk about faith in uncertainty — the call to leave everything known, the journey through hostile terrain, the trust required when the destination remained invisible.

"And Lehi, having been warned of the Lord to depart," Bishop Hahn read, "took his family and fled into the wilderness, leaving behind his home, his possessions, everything familiar. He walked forward in faith, trusting in a promise he could not see fulfilled."

I'd heard this story dozens of times. Hundreds, maybe. Seminary lessons and Sunday School classes and sacrament talks just like this one, all circling the same narrative, drawing the same parallels. Trust. Obedience. The willingness to move forward without complete information.

But today, the words snagged on something.

Lehi had received a vision. Direct revelation, unmistakable and clear. He hadn't walked into the wilderness on vague feelings or inherited tradition — he'd walked because God had spoken to him, personally, specifically, leaving no room for doubt about what he was supposed to do.

What would it be like, I wondered, to have that kind of certainty? To know, rather than hope or wish or desperately want to believe? To have the distant scene illuminated, even briefly, before being asked to walk toward it?

"You're thinking too hard."

Charles's whisper cut through my internal drift. I glanced at him.

"What?"

"You've got that look. The one where you're having a whole philosophical crisis inside your head." He raised an eyebrow. "It's just a talk. You don't have to solve anything."

"I wasn't—"

"You were. I can tell." He shrugged slightly. "Mum gets the same look sometimes. During General Conference. Like she's trying to personally answer every question the speaker raises."

I didn't know what to say to that. The observation was uncomfortably accurate.

Bishop Hahn had moved on from Lehi to modern application, drawing connections between ancient wilderness and contemporary challenges. Economic uncertainty. Social upheaval. The various forms of darkness that pressed against ordinary lives in ordinary times.

"We may not be asked to leave our homes and journey into physical wilderness," he said, "but each of us faces our own wilderness experiences. Moments when the path forward is unclear. Times when faith must sustain us in the absence of sight."

In the pew ahead, the Goodwin toddler stirred. His eyes opened slowly, blinking against the chapel's fluorescent light, and for a moment he seemed disoriented — uncertain where he was or how he'd gotten there. Then his gaze found us, and something sparked in his expression.

Recognition. Memory. The recollection of an audience successfully conquered.

He smiled around his dummy. A small, knowing smile.

Charles stiffened beside me. "Oh no."

"Just don't look at him."

"He's looking at me. He's definitely looking at me."

"Then look somewhere else."

"I can't. He's got me locked in. It's like... like a tractor beam."

The toddler's smile widened. His hand rose slowly, deliberately, and he waved — a tiny, theatrical wave, the gesture of a performer acknowledging his public.

Charles made a sound in his throat. Strangled. Desperate.

"Don't," I breathed. "Don't you dare."

"I'm trying. I'm really trying."

Sister Goodwin chose that moment to shift the toddler to her other hip, turning him away from us and toward the front of the chapel. The tractor beam was broken. Charles exhaled in shaky relief.

"That was close," he whispered.

"Too close."

We sat in careful silence for the next several minutes, neither of us daring to look toward the Goodwin pew. Bishop Hahn's voice washed over us — scripture, testimony, the steady accumulation of a message being built toward its conclusion.

And then something shifted.

It was subtle at first. A change in his tone, a different quality in the way he held himself at the pulpit. His shoulders dropped slightly, the formal posture of prepared delivery giving way to something more personal. More vulnerable.

His voice cracked — just slightly, just enough to signal the transition.

"My dearest Brothers and Sisters," he said, and the quality of his attention seemed to change, sweeping across the congregation with new intensity. His eyes moved from face to face, lingering, as if trying to make individual contact with each person in the room.

The chapel had gone very still.

Charles had noticed it too. The performative boredom had vanished from his posture, replaced by something more alert. He sat up straighter, his arms uncrossing, his attention focusing on the pulpit with genuine interest.

"We cannot know everything in this life," Bishop Hahn continued, his voice rougher than before, carrying the weight of emotion he was working to control. "But I feel compelled by the Spirit to share with you my knowledge — my witness — that I know our Saviour lives."

It was the kind of testimony that felt different from the routine declarations that peppered ordinary talks. There was something underneath it. Something that suggested he wasn't just saying words he'd said a thousand times before, but reaching for something that mattered to him personally, specifically, in this moment.

"We are standing on the precipice of a new chapter," he continued. "A divine calling awaits, and as we embark on this journey together, may our faith have endured, shining as a beacon of hope and light for all."

A new chapter.

The phrase hung in the air, refusing to dissolve into the ordinary flow of sacrament meeting language. It felt weighted. Significant. The kind of statement that carried meaning beyond its surface.

I glanced at Charles. He was watching Bishop Hahn with an expression I couldn't quite read — curiosity layered over something that might have been unease.

"What's that about?" he breathed.

"No idea."

"That wasn't normal talk stuff. That was..." He trailed off, searching for the word. "That was an announcement. Or the beginning of one."

I looked toward our parents. Mum's posture had changed — she was leaning forward slightly, her hands no longer folded but pressed flat against her lap, the way she held herself when she was concentrating intently on something. Dad's pen had stopped moving. He was staring at Bishop Hahn with an expression I'd rarely seen on his face.

Not surprise, exactly. More like... confirmation. As if something he'd suspected had just been verified.

Did they know something we didn't? Had there been conversations, meetings, information shared through the channels that didn't include children, even adult children?

I thought about Wednesday night. The basketball game. The fragments of conversation I'd overheard between Bishop Hahn and the grey-haired man in the corridor. Temple presidency. Timeline. Only those who've been specifically invited.

I hadn't understood it then. I still didn't understand it now. But the weight of Bishop Hahn's words suggested that whatever was coming was larger than an ordinary announcement about callings or activities or ward business.

The talk concluded. Bishop Hahn stepped back from the pulpit, his expression still carrying that quality of barely-contained emotion. For a long moment, the chapel remained silent — the particular hush that follows something significant, when a congregation is collectively processing what they've just heard.

Then someone said "Amen."

It rippled through the room, voice after voice joining the affirmation. "Amen." "Amen." Fuller and more resonant than the usual response, carrying a weight that suggested the congregation had felt the significance too, even if they didn't understand it any better than I did.

Charles leaned back in the pew, his shoulders settling against the wood with a soft thump.

"Well," he said quietly. "That was... something."

"Cryptic."

"Very cryptic." He glanced at me, his expression caught somewhere between curiosity and wariness. "I don't trust cryptic. Cryptic usually means someone's about to ask you to do something you don't want to do."

"That's cynical."

"That's experience. Remember when Bishop gave that mysterious talk about 'new opportunities for service'? Two weeks later I was teaching Sunbeams."

"You lasted one week."

"One very long week. Those kids were feral." He shook his head. "My point is, cryptic announcements never mean anything good for people our age."

The bishop had returned to his seat on the stand. The closing hymn was announced — a familiar melody, something about gratitude and humble prayer. The congregation stirred, hymnbooks emerging once more from the racks.

Charles reached for the hymnbook, finding the page without enthusiasm. "More singing," he muttered. "Joy."

"You like singing."

"I like singing in the shower. Alone. Where no one can judge my pitch." He found the correct hymn and held the book where we could both see it. "This is performance. This is public judgment of my vocal abilities."

"No one's judging your vocal abilities."

"Brother Henderson is. He always looks at me during hymns. I can feel him critiquing."

"Brother Henderson is nearly deaf."

"He's deaf and judgmental. The two aren't mutually exclusive."

The opening notes sounded. The congregation began to sing.

Charles sang too — quietly, but with reasonable accuracy. For all his complaints, he had a decent voice. Not exceptional, but solid. The kind of voice that blended well with a congregation, contributing without standing out.

I sang beside him, letting the familiar words carry me through the final minutes of the meeting. The melody was simple, the message straightforward. Gratitude for blessings. Humility before God. The standard themes of closing hymns, designed to send congregations out into the world with appropriate sentiments in their hearts.

But underneath the singing, my mind kept circling back to Bishop Hahn's words.

We are standing on the precipice of a new chapter.

What did it mean? What was coming?

The closing prayer was announced. A sister I didn't recognise stood and made her way to the pulpit — a visitor, maybe, or a new family I hadn't been introduced to. Her voice was soft but clear, offering the standard blessings for safety and guidance and continued faith.

I bowed my head with everyone else, closed my eyes, adopted the posture of reverence. The words washed over me, familiar and formulaic, the closing bracket that marked the end of the formal meeting.

"Amen."

The word released us. The particular rustling of a congregation returning to motion — coats gathered, children collected, the slow migration toward doors and corridors and the next phase of the Sunday block.

Charles stretched, his spine cracking audibly in a way that made the elderly sister in the pew behind us wince. "Right," he said. "Sunday School. My favourite."

"You hate Sunday School."

"I hate it with great enthusiasm. That's basically the same as loving it." He stood, stepping into the aisle and joining the general flow of traffic. "You coming?"

I remained seated for a moment longer, watching the congregation disperse. Families regrouped and headed for their respective classes. Children were handed off between parents. The Goodwin toddler was being carried toward the foyer, his head drooping against his father's shoulder, apparently exhausted by his earlier performance.

Mum and Dad had risen and were speaking with someone — Brother Johnson, it looked like. They hadn't looked toward us, hadn't offered any explanation for the knowing expression I'd seen on Dad's face during Bishop Hahn's talk.

Whatever they knew — if they knew anything — they weren't sharing it yet.

"Jerome." Charles had paused at the end of the pew, waiting. "You're doing that thing again."

"What thing?"

"The brooding thing. The sitting-in-chapel-looking-pensive thing." He tilted his head. "It's unsettling. People will think you're having a spiritual experience."

"Maybe I am."

"Are you?"

I considered the question. Was I? The talk had landed somewhere, certainly. The words about uncertainty and endurance, the cryptic hint of something coming. But spiritual experience seemed too grand a term for the muddle of thoughts currently occupying my head.

"No," I admitted. "Just thinking."

"Dangerous habit." He jerked his head toward the corridor. "Come on. If we're late to class, Sister Morrison will make us answer questions as punishment. And I haven't done the reading."

"You never do the reading."

"I skim the reading. There's a difference." He started walking, then glanced back. "Seriously. Come on. I need you there as a buffer."

I rose from the pew, gathered the hymnbook and returned it to its rack, and followed my brother into the corridor.