Gabriel’s photo of the baptized deputy ran locally Monday morning. My phone started ringing that evening. I’m saying it was Monday, but it could have been Tuesday that the story first appeared. So much has happened since, it’s hard to keep it all straight. All I know is that once the Associated Press picked up the story I became an instant celebrity. I remember Jess saying the photo “sold it.” Editors, he claimed, are always looking for the kind of art that’ll catch a reader’s eye. Anyway, it ran all over the country, and the poor deputy and I became infamous together.

I would have been surprised when one of the main broadcast networks invited me on their morning show, except that a few years earlier a young surfer from here was on the same show and all he did was get bitten by a shark. He wasn’t even the first victim of the season, although maybe that’s what made it a story. I’m no expert on this stuff.

I agreed to come to New York on Thursday to appear Friday morning. They wanted the deputy to come too, but I didn’t even know how to contact him. I referred them to Jess Gabriel and eventually word came back from the chief: “Hell no, he can’t go. Not if he wants to keep his job!”

By Thursday I’d had requests from at least five TV shows and three magazines. I said yes to one of the magazines, a venerable publication headquartered in New York with a liberal, intellectual bent. I agreed to meet with them Friday after the network appearance. I was a little leery because I didn’t want them to mock me as some kind of modern day shaman, or worse yet a southern charlatan. Their contact person asked if I claimed “magical spiritual powers,” and I replied that whatever powers I have “don’t begin with me but simply flow through me.” I had noticed an expectation of some supernatural revelation in all the inquiries, which I suppose started with the way Jess told the story -- he included the appearance of the so-called “dove” above my head.

For me, a deputy feeling the need to open himself to God’s spirit isn’t magical at all. Why should his needs be different from any other human’s? He just happened to get the feeling while he was in uniform on official business. God works in mysterious ways and when it’s time to go to work on you, God goes to work -- even when you are on someone else’s clock.

I’d never been on live television, not even locally. I told myself “an audience is an audience,” but I’ll admit this was different. By the time I walked out to join Krissy Collins under the television lights I was feeling a tightness in my chest. It started with the pre-dawn pickup at my hotel, everyone in a rush, squeezing every second from every minute, pressure building to the very moment Ms. Collins introduced me. In between I endured a lengthy makeup session, followed by an argument with the wardrobe people and the producer. They wanted me to wear this white linen outfit that made me look like some kind of maharishi. “It would hang so nice on your shoulders,” the dresser said.

“No,” I told them, “I’m not a character in a play,” and wore the navy blazer I’d carried in with me.

It turned out I was a character in a play. A victim to be exact. I should have realized they’d try to make me into a David Koresh, Jim Jones or Warren Jeffs. A cult leader. A religious crazy. We like our religious leaders domesticated. No room here for hair-shirt wearing wilderness prophets eating wild honey and locusts down by the Jordan. But then what’s new? That behavior got the Baptist tossed in jail and his head lopped off. No wonder the producer was so evasive, saying only that Ms. Collins thinks it’s such a significant story that she intends to give it as much time as needed. Significant? I thought they’d treat it as a cute human interest piece. I offered background. No, not needed. They had done their research, I was told. That surprised me, but I soon learned they had.

It started out innocently, all smiles and handshakes, and I suppose by most standards I was treated fairly, given a chance to answer. They might have thought it balanced but it was far from neutral. They were the normal people. I was the threat.

Ms. Collins welcomed me and asked if she should call me pastor. I said she could, but Dietrich suited me fine. She observed that I’d had “quite an unusual Sunday” and directed me and the audience to the big monitor above the set. Up flashed the now famous photo of Deputy Jericho rising from the Atlantic, streams of glistening saltwater falling from him, his green uniform soaked, badge gleaming in the sun. His eyes were closed, his face masked in what could only be called complete peace.

“How many of you have seen this picture?” she asked the audience.

Some hands went up while others whistled and clapped.

“I’m not surprised,” she said. “According to the A.P. this photo appeared in more individual papers than any locally produced picture in A.P. history.”

“In it’s history?”

“That’s what they told my producer.”

“It was a remarkable moment,” I said. “I think it shows a lot of news editors understand the significance of what happened.”

“It seems that wasn’t the only thing that happened that day.”

“Meaning …?”

“I don’t remember church being anything like that. A lady could get in trouble for taking her hat off, let alone …”

Was she kidding? I smiled. “We were on the beach.”

Her tone had changed. The prosecution was underway. “As you say, it was a remarkable day. Actually, that wasn’t the only picture. The same photographer shot a whole roll of film and we’ve used it to put together a montage. Would you like to see it? We didn’t give it a name but one of our techs called it ‘the cult celebration’ and it kind of stuck.”

“Cult celebration?” I said, but my words were drowned out by the cheering audience.

The slide show began with shots from beach level early in the service, the few hundred worshippers mostly standing quietly, looking up toward the deck with its three blue canopies and Sheila’s little band. I had my arms in the air quite a bit. I didn’t realize I did that so often. Then came pictures of the fire dance, the men bare-chested and sweaty, the women in their halter tops, dancing toward the sun. Caught in still pictures they all looked ecstatic, even berserk. Behind the photo show they had dubbed in an obscure song, by the psychedelic 60s group King Crimson someone told me later. It was deliberate; they could have used Spirit in the Sky, or even a praise song like I Have Decided to Follow Jesus, anything else … if they wanted to be fair. But they didn’t. They wanted to make a point. Then came the pictures of the crowd on its knees, looking for all the world like it was worshipping me, and finally the people parting, elated, as I strode through them into the ocean for the baptisms. Then finally pictures of the deputy, first looking stern as he tried to read the warrant, and then meekly handing his holster belt to his fellow officers and finally giving himself into my hands and being lowered into the waters. In the background was that woman who’s name I never got, the one who saw the dove, lifting her hands and face to the sky. Her mouth was wide open; if I remember right, she was shouting out, “Praise God!” The whole show ended with the single shot that ran in Jess Gabriel’s paper, and all the others. I wondered what they told Gabriel to get him to hand over the pictures.

But here’s the extraordinary part. They meant for the slide show to humiliate me, but instead it carried a peculiar power. When it ended, when the strains of King Crimson died out, an eerie silence gripped the studio. Everyone had been moved. I felt it. Somehow the passion of that morning came across -- strange but strangely appealing. Ms. Collins’ audience could see why my flock gathers on the beach, and why Deputy Jericho asked to be baptized.

Still, our hostess tried to stick to her plan. “We did a little research and learned that you are not really an ordained pastor, not anymore. You’ve been defrocked, disciplined and removed from the ministry by your denomination. Do you care to tell us why?”

“Not really,” I said. “It was an honest difference of opinion on how best to serve God in a certain situation.”

“It had nothing to do with scantily clad women like the ones we saw in this … what do you call that? It looked like some kind of pagan fertility dance.”

I laughed. This really was becoming humorous. The sins of Koresh and Jeffs by implication. “We were just feeling the presence of the Holy Spirit and imagining what it would look like if it spread through all the world.”

“That’s what that was? The Holy Spirit?”

“Yes, the Holy Spirit. Have you heard of it? It’s part of what most Christians call the Trinity.”

“Of course I’ve heard of the Holy Spirit! I’ll have you know my father is an ordained minister. I grew up in the church.”

“Then you know the story of Pentecost. Onlookers that day accused the faithful of being drunk on new wine but in fact they were drunk with the Spirit. We could use more of that kind of drunkenness, don‘t you agree?”

At that, the audience broke in with a few cheers. They were taking my side. Ms. Collins decided to throw down some red meat.

“Do you know the names David Koresh and Jim Jones? Do you know how many lives were lost? Don’t you realize that they also had cult followers who bowed down to them and then followed to their deaths?”

“We’re not a cult,” I explained firmly, “and no one bows down to me.”

“A picture is worth a thousand words,” she said.

“Not if it’s made to tell a thousand lies.”

“How many are in your cult? Do you claim to be the second coming of Christ?”

“Ms. Collins,” I said gently, reaching out to touch her knee. “I know you thought you had a story here, and I’m willing to believe you thought of this as a public service, not a crass effort to boost your ratings. But we are just simple people trying to live a more spiritual life. And me personally? I have no illusions of being anything but a man.”

She was wobbled but still on her feet. “How did you mesmerize the deputy? We wanted him here today but it’s clear that what you did has put him in jeopardy. How do you get a strong young man to submit to your will and put his career on the line?”

“Apparently, the fruit was ripe.”

“What’s that supposed to mean.”

“I‘m sure you understand ripeness. You weren’t ready, now you are. Jesus called it ‘the year of the Lord’s favor.’ To ignore it would be like ignoring a favor from the godfather. You can’t. When the Spirit comes to you, you either let it in or risk being empty forever. We don’t know how long Deputy Jericho had been filled with hurt. We don’t know how long he yearned for healing. We do know that his need and God’s healing energy met last Sunday morning. He was not mesmerized; he was enlightened. He saw clearly for maybe the first time in his life. He understood this was his moment of ripeness, his year of the Lord. He found himself standing in the current and he took advantage. Deputy Jericho is a hero, not a victim. If he pays a price in his career, that is sad. But many have great careers while walking around wounded inside until the day they die. Because Deputy Jericho took God’s hand, that won’t happen to him. Me? The fruit was ripe; that wasn’t my doing. I just helped harvest it.”

“I see,” she said. You could feel the air leaving her balloon. “I do agree with you on one thing; there’s a lot of wounded people walking around. Half the middle aged women I know are in therapy, and the other half are on anti-depressants. Some are doing both.”

“And that’s a sad situation,” I said. “When God created the world, the default setting for our feelings was joy, not despair. But we’ve been insisting on our right to suffer ever since.”

Her gaze dropped to her lap. “I’ve never admitted this in public and I’m not sure why I’m doing it now,” she said, “but I’m one of those wounded ones. Therapy and prescription meds.”

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I wish someone could set me free from my pain, like you did the deputy?”

“There’s an old saying, ‘wishing doesn’t make it so.’ Have you heard it?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it’s not true.”

“I wish it was that simple.”

“It is.”