Man of Tarsus (Saul)

[Taya Robbins]

Taya Robbins wheeled her white Toyota hatchback into the parking lot of the Lafayette Community Center, an old, squarish sandstone building nestled in at the edge of a few acres of drought-parched parkland. Opening her driver's side door was like looking into an oven blast. The July heat had arrived with a vengeance, plastering the feline mutant's fur against her body like a parka, and even though she was lightly clad in a tank top and shorts, the best she could do was rush across the parking lot and hope the center's lobby was air-conditioned.

She pushed her way through the front double doors and into the marginally cooler lobby with a sigh of relief. It took her a moment to realize only half the lights were on inside, since her vision in the dark was well above the human average - that probably meant she and her interview subject had the place to themselves for now. The lobby was sparsely furnished with bulletin boards, potted plants, and a folding table stocked with brochures on local attractions and activities.

Taya picked up one on the corner titled "The Church of the Humble: A Community of Spiritual Renewal for Los Angeles' Afflicted Youth." She'd just begun to leaf through it when her swiveling ears picked up something moving in one of the meeting rooms off the main lobby.

"Mr. Nielsen?" she called, her voice echoing off the plaster and tile, and she cinched up her messenger bag on her shoulder and took a few steps toward the source of the sound. "It's Taya Robbins, from the Daily Bruin - are you there?"

She rocked on her long, animalian heels and fiddled idly with the brochure against her paw-pad as she waited for a response.

[Saul Nielsen]

One of the meeting room door's swung inward and Saul stepped into view to greet Taya with a smile. He wore khaki shorts and a pale blue polo-shirt that was unbuttoned at the collar.

“Taya, it's good to see you. After what happened at the courthouse, I wasn't sure you'd be able to make down here.”

The events of the so-called Stanley Mosk Mutant Riots were being aired on a semi-permanent loop on a number of local news channels. Although the press had been attendance at the courthouse rally, it was footage taken by protesters themselves – shaky clips recorded on smart-phones – that got the most air-time, giving blurred and frantic glimpses into the throng of bodies that had transformed so suddenly from a peaceful gathering into all-out brawl.

The group from the Lafayette Community Center had been able to avoid becoming entangled in the day's confusion, but Saul hadn't known whether Taya had been so fortunate. In spite of her obvious fatigue, it didn't appear that she was injured in any way.

With a thin smile, Saul pushed the door to the meeting room back open and nodded inside, where a large round table was surrounded by empty seats. A water cooler bubbled in one corner, whilst in the other an electric fan turned its face from side to side, not quite dispelling the humidity from the air.

“You look like you could use some water. Why don't you take a seat?”

[Taya Robbins]

"Oh, water would be excellent, thanks!"

Taya eased her messenger bag onto the edge of the table and loped off to the water cooler to pour herself a cup, which she quickly drained, and then she poured herself another and brought it back with her.

"Yeah, that was unbelievable," she said, laying her ears down in dismay. "Now, what I heard was those riot cops who caused so much trouble, they weren't even LAPD, they were some other government agency. And I don't know who authorized that, but... this is... totally not what I came here to talk about, sorry. So!"

Taya scooted back a chair and... Ergh. There was no hole in the back to accommodate her tail. She sat down a little forward from the back and folded her tail to the side.

"Believe it or not, this is the first time I've ever come across a spiritual support group specifically for mutants."

[Saul Nielsen]

After fetching himself a cup of water, Saul drew out a chair and gave the meeting room a quick glance. The bare walls were dotted with grease marks where wads of blu-tack had previously held posters in place. Only the wall behind Taya wasn't empty, dominated as it was by a well-used white-board whose surface would never be entirely blank but instead lined with the faded impressions of past brainstorms. A cup of marker pens - red, blue and green - sat in the middle of the table. Saul spotted one without a cap and, frowning faintly, sat forward to click the lid into place. As he sat back, he nodded across the table at Taya.

“You know, I'm not surprised to hear that. I think we might be one of a kind, here.”

[Taya Robbins]

"One of a kind - that just goes hand-in-hand with mutants, doesn't it?" Taya said with a toothy grin as she fished around in her messenger bag. She pulled out a notebook, a pair of pencils, and well-used iPod.

"I hope you don't mind if I record our interview? Okay, great." After a few button taps, she set the iPod on the table between them. "I'm talking with Saul Nielsen, the founder of the Church of the Humble at the Lafayette Community Center, July third, two thousand nine. So, tell me a bit about yourself, Mr. Nielsen. Where are you from, how did you get here?"

[Saul Nielsen]

“Well, my family is from Salt Lake City. Up until my sophomore year in college, my biggest concern was whether or not we'd beat BYU in the Holy War,” he began, with a sheepish smile. “At the time, there wasn't a lot of open dialogue about mutation and mutants in our community. I'll freely admit that I was one of the people who flat-out ignored the issue, didn't even want to think about it – and that was where the Lord intervened.”

Sitting back in his chair, Saul laid his hands on the table. “He opened my eyes to my own ignorance, and the truth: that I was a mutant too. In all likelihood, my mutation being what it is, I could have carried on as I was and no one around me would have been the wiser – but it felt like to do so would have been to go against the Divine plan that had been set in motion for me. You see, I looked around me and saw that there was no one – not in Salt Lake City, Utah or anywhere in the nation – who was addressing the question that was burning in my mind.”

Punctuating his question by tapping his index finger against the tabletop, Saul asked: “What implication do these mutations have for our faith? What does the Lord want us to learn from this new chapter in mankind's history?”

[Taya Robbins]

Taya had learned that some people were more at ease with interviews than others, and it was a rare and captivating experience to speak with a natural. Maybe it was his background in preaching and working with youth, but there was an earnestness and spontaneity to Saul's speech that didn't detract at all from his poise. Taya quickly found herself drawn in.

She almost forgot to prompt him again when he finished. "So how do you begin to address those questions?" she asked. "I mean, as far as I know, mutants aren't really mentioned in the Bible."

[Saul Nielsen]

“It struck me that, although we think of mutation as a relatively recent phenomenon, there have always been men and women capable of things... beyond human understanding. I don't mean to say that simply because they were capable of extraordinary things that they were mutants, but I do think that there is something to be learned from looking at how they came to terms with their own strengths and weaknesses.”

Saul paused, smiling as if he were recalling a fond memory.

“It was a verse from Philippians that caught my eye first: You should have the same attitude toward one another that Christ Jesus had, who though he existed in the form of God did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking on the form of a slave, by looking like other men, and by sharing in human nature.”

[Taya Robbins]

Taya finished her scrawl on the notepad and lightly tapped her pen with her clawtip. "So is that where the name, 'The Church of the Humble' comes from?"