Songs of Ascent

Only Sleeping

2012-01-26T08:29:00.000-08:00

He held her hand in both of his own. It was cold and unmoving, and the blood in her veins was as still as a frozen stream. He kissed her fingers, and whispered in her ear. “Little girl, it’s time to get up.”

She blinked, and yawned, and scratched her hair, and spoke in the singing whine of a child in the morning. “I’m hungry!”

A communal gasp sucked the oxygen from the room, and ten hands covered five gaping mouths. Jesus laughed. “Well, get the girl something to eat!”

Her parents, to put it succinctly, just couldn’t get over it, and they smothered her with kisses and tears.

John stood by and watched it all with a thoughtful furrow on his brow. He approached Jesus quietly, with his youthful sense of decorum, and looked at him with his all-too-serious eyes.

“Master,” he said, ”She… She wasn’t sleeping. She was…” and he took an awkward breath, “…not breathing. She was dead. I mean… Everyone here will need to be ritually cleansed. You were holding her hand. Her parents were hanging all over her. We’ve all been in contact with a dead body, Lord. We’re all going to need to go to the temple for cleansing.”

Jesus held John’s eyes as he placed his hands on the young man’s shoulders. “John, no one here is unclean. I told you: She was only sleeping.”

23rd, 25th

2011-12-25T19:00:00.000-08:00

He lay at peace in the grass, the warmth of his mother beside him. He closed his eyes and let the last, ruddy light of the day play upon his eyelids. The grass was cool, and the sun was warm. He had had his fill today, skipping until he could hardly stand, splashing himself silly in the stream, running himself dry in the endless meadow.

She had watched him at play all day, and her own heart sang with his. She put her mouth to his ear, and told him she loved him in a voice soft and tender.

He felt her voice at his ear, and he smiled inside, but he tried not to show it. He opened his eyes with a lazy squint to the sun in the west. It was crouching low behind the hills, and he felt something in his spirit humming in tune with those last red rays. That sun and that sky were up to something, and tonight that sun was setting with a secret. He heard it speak, its voice still and not unlike his mother’s.

The stars have a surprise for you tonight.

I know, he said, and laid his head on the cool earth.

The shepherd stood nearby, crook in hand, gazing at the same sun. He, too, felt the strange, quiet hum in his heart, thrumming in harmony with that setting sun. And he could almost hear it speak, but he turned his eyes to the sleeping lamb and its mother resting at his feet. He wondered what dreams they may be having, what thoughts were at play in their spirits. The air was different tonight, toying with the thought of a breeze, gusting gently with a whim. It seemed to invite such wistful thinking. He closed his eyes and let the air tug gently at his clothes, his hand gripped and resting on the crook that had belonged to his father. He couldn’t hear the sun the way the lamb at his feet could, but he also somehow knew. A secret was in the air, and that setting sun knew more than she was telling.

The Forty-first Day

2011-11-07T11:05:00.000-08:00

The morning came, and the sun bleached the hills and the distant city in a white and holy light. He raised his head from his pillowing forearm, put a hand to his waking eyes and rubbed the grit from their corners. The air was bright and clean and filled his lungs with a vigour he had not felt in forty days. He stood to his feet and stretched out his arms, yawned and coughed and stepped out into the glorious presence of day. His eyes came to rest on the city in the sun, glistening white and waking, and he loved her.

Hunger reappeared in his belly. He placed his hand to his stomach and felt it tremble and growl. As he took a step toward the mountain path, he glanced at the ground. He saw something crisp and white across the path. It looked as if it had risen up from the ground itself in the night, and he bent low to inspect it.

“What is it?”

He reached out and broke a thin, crispy piece from the sparse grass in which it lay. He sniffed it, and placed it on his tongue.

“What is it,” he said, and smiled.

He sat down there on the path, and had breakfast for the first time in forty-one days.

First Communion

2011-09-06T21:34:00.000-07:00

He stroked his beard absently, and looked around the room. It was small, and dimly lit, but full with people and warm with light. Several sat at the table with him, several more were seated about the floor, others gathered against the walls. Conversations were quiet, with some muted bursts of amiable laughter. There was some sniffling, too. A crooked smile, a hand on a shoulder, an embrace. He felt the ease of camaraderie and companionship playing in tension with a feeling of expectation. This was not just a casual gathering of friends. The future was waiting outside their door, and no one was sure how to greet him. Great pain had come, had taught them to expect more of it, but great hope had been born, too, and the future was a captivating and shivering thought. He thought of Moses, and of Joshua. Like the second great leader of the People of God, these people were waiting for his first charge of leadership. He sighed at the thought.

He knew almost everyone there by name, and as he scanned the room a hundred stories came to mind. Simon, the leper, or rather, the former leper, stood locked in an embrace with a former blind man; laughing or crying, he couldn’t tell. Either way, it was a good hug. He could see in his memory Jesus kissing the blind man’s eyes, holding the leper’s hands. He recalled the way they looked at him, the way they held on to him. He prayed for so pure a devotion as theirs.

In the corner stood one of several Marys. She smiled casually, incidentally, with the person with whom she was conversing, and he felt a sweet stab of joy in his throat. Her eyes were so clear, so full to the brim with life. He remembered those eyes when he had first seen them, shadowed with demons and shame. That the woman he first met, such a short time ago, was the same woman he saw now was an overwhelming and joyous incongruity. She still bore her scars, still walked with a metaphorical limp — but she walked, and sometimes danced.

She was speaking with a round, stout man who looked thoughtfully at the lady standing above him. Peter tended to forget just how short Zacchaeus really was. The little man they had found tree climbing had become a close friend of the band of disciples, offering food, lodging, and an exuberant hospitality. Of course, there were times when that zeal was quite tiring to the people around him. Earlier that very evening, Peter had sent him on an errand for bread just to have a moment of peace. But it was good and right that the tax collector stood with them now. He seemed taller than the man they’d seen in the tree.

Another tax collector sat two places down from him, on his left. When Matthew asked him to pass the salt, Peter felt a tide rise in his eyes. He laughed inside at the memory of the drunk he’d first met. He remembered the tax collector, desperately lonely and physically sick, leaving his booth, dribbling vomit down his beard, crying in the arms of Jesus. This, of course, brought to mind his own tearful, blubbering, first encounter with his friend and saviour, and as tears fell, he passed the salt. Matthew smiled. He knew what Peter's eyes said.

He felt a familiar hand on his shoulder. Andrew sat by his left side. Andrew, the brother who had cared for him and stood by him more closely than anyone. He had felt that same hand on his shoulder on many a drunken night. He’d felt it at the death of his wife. He’d felt it the day he met Jesus. He’d felt it in four hundred and ninety different moments of unexpected grace. He placed his own hand on Andrew’s shoulder, and squeezed it tight, for it contained every ‘Thank-you’ he had never spoken. Andrew returned the squeeze.

Two places to his right sat the poet. John, so young and tender, had been the bravest of them all. He, of all the men, had stood with their friend in his darkest hour. At first, this had served only to remind Peter of his own failure: abandoning his closest friend in his time of greatest need. But healing, again, had come to him in the embrace of the rabbi, and Peter would forever feel only the deepest admiration for the youngest apostle. By that same strong grace, John had become the child of a strange adoption to the woman who sat between them.

He watched her eyes. They, like his own, seemed to be drinking in the sweetness of the room and the memory of grace, and the soft lines of age on the crests of her cheeks were like beams of moonlight. If anyone there could claim to have deserved Jesus’s grace, it was she, but she never behaved that way. She never asserted herself on him. She simply knew him best, as only a mom could, and in that had a curious authority. Those graceful eyes met Peter’s, and they so looked like her son’s that he felt a strange kind of electricity. He had never noticed till now how alike their eyes were, and he felt as if his friend’s strength and vigorous grace were flowing to him now. And grace, for years now, made the fisherman weep.

Our deepest joys are strange things, and they behave much the same as our deepest griefs. They come upon us unexpectedly, washing over us in unstoppable waves, turning and tossing us until their work is complete, and we are left panting on the sand, the taste of salt on our lips, wondering what just happened. Peter felt this joy overtake him in this way, and he had much experience in the matters of waves. He sat now as a man turned up on the shore, and as he looked down he saw with new eyes. He looked at what lay on the table before him, and smiled at Zacchaeus’s bread. He remembered when his brother brought a small boy’s lunch to Jesus, and how it fed thousands. He remembered something his friend had told the crowds about bread after that miracle. And he knew his first his first charge. He cleared his throat, and spoke to the room full of friends.

“That last night,” he said, “we shared a meal together, just like we’ve done here.” The room was quiet, and listening. “That was the night Judas betrayed him, the night I abandoned him, the night he washed our feet. It was the night we sang and prayed together, too. And it was the night he gave himself to us.”

Peter’s fingers hovered over the round, flat loaf that lay before him. He uttered a silent prayer. O God, make me clean. Make me worthy. He took it up in his calloused hands, and continued. “I remember him taking bread, breaking it, and giving it to his friends.”

The bread was soft, and it broke apart easily while he spoke. He began to hand the pieces to his right and to his left. Each hand took a piece of the bread, and held it in its palm, waiting. “He took that bread, and lifted it up to heaven, like this.” His voice became low, and holy. “He said, ‘Take this, each one of you, and eat it. This is my body, which will be given up for you.’ “

Peter stared at the piece in his hands, and whispered. He is with us. He’s here. He paused in the silence, and a sea of eyes stared at the Bread which they held in their hands. He smiled. “Eat.”

He placed it on his tongue and closed his eyes. He swallowed hard as tears fell freely. He opened his eyes and stared for a moment at the cup of wine that sat before him. He remembered the wedding. He remembered the water. He remembered a lamb. He raised the cup and spoke. “He gave us wine, too. ‘This is the cup of my blood,’ he said, ‘the blood of the new and eternal covenant. It will be shed for you, for all, so that sins may be forgiven. Do this to remember me.’ “

He put the cup to his lips, and drank. The flavour swirled upon his tongue, and he tasted its full range, its sweetness and bitterness. He drank deeply, and it warmed his throat as he drank. He realized a small trail was running from the corner of his mouth into his beard. He wiped it with the back of his hand, and kissed it away. He turned to the woman on his right, and held the cup before her. “This is the blood of Christ,” he said.

“May it be as you say,” she replied, and drank. She passed the cup to her right.

He looked once more around the room, from Simon to Matthew, from Zacchaeus to John, from Mary to Mary, as each one drank. He saw stories of sacrifice, of bodies broken, of blood poured out; each story foretelling and remembering and singing of this One Story. They were the soil, broken and tilled for a harvest of an everlasting friendship. They were the fruit of this humble and holy vine, crushed and consumed for the warming of the heart and the gladdening of the mind. They were the offering, poured out on the altar of God. He prayed in silence the greatest of all prayers: Thank-you.

—

How good it is, how pleasant, where the people dwell as one!

Like precious ointment on the head, running down the beard,

Upon the beard of Aaron, upon the collar of his robe.

Like the dew of Hermon coming down upon the mountains of Zion.

There the Lord has lavished blessings,

Life forevermore.

Quoting Deuteronomy to the Devil, Part Three

2011-08-12T00:34:00.000-07:00

The night sky shone with a million stars, and the city below it added to the number ten thousand of its own. He shivered, pulled his knees close to his chest and watched the distant windows glow with a warm, orange light, flickering with quiet life. Each window was a story, a chapter, a verse, in the telling of Jerusalem’s tale. The city on the hill lay arrayed with these stories, these jewels, and he watched her with longing.

He could hear his breath as he sat at the mouth of his cave. The mountain on which he now sat was only one of a great multitude that rolled across the countryside, and it sang now the same song with the great chorus of hills. Insects, small and hidden, cricked and chirruped their night sounds. A dark breeze rolled and sighed through the nooks and caves of the hillside, and these sounds together created a deep and holy silence.

He was tired, exhausted, perhaps more physically weary than he would be for years to come, but this night was not for sleeping. He was meant to meet someone here, and he waited, eyes fixed on the glimmering city. He remembered a psalm, and it silently played on his lips.

There was a rustling of brush, a flapping of wings unseen, and then, a presence. Invisible, quiet, but there. He felt it sitting next to him. He could hear its voice in his ear, close and still, even and smooth as stone.

beautiful isn’t it?

“Yes,” he said softly.

i love to watch them at night. i can see them better.

“I know.”

A cloud drifted close. He could almost hear it touching the mountain.

you love them.

“Yes.”

He rubbed his face, cleared his eyes, stroked his beard.

how much do you love them?

He let the crickets answer.

you can have them, if you want them. they are a burden to me. every one of them.

He clasped his hands to his ankles. The breeze ran through his sleeves. He steadied his gaze.

i want to show you something. will you let me?

He sighed. “Yes.”

There was another flapping of wings, and he felt the wind rush past his ears. He was still staring at the same city, but he seemed also to be looking past it, looking into its very soul, as indeed a city must have one, and he saw it with overwhelming clarity. It moved and breathed as a living thing, pulsing and breathing, its people the blood in its veins, their work the air in its lungs, their sins the shame in its dreams.

He saw farther and deeper. He saw all of Israel, and beyond.

He saw people.

He saw a boy crouched over a brown puddle, his face as grimy as the water’s. He felt the boy’s stomach rumble. He felt the boy tighten the rope around his waist. He felt the hungered barely abated. He saw a king at table. He felt the fullness in the king’s belly as he ate still more. The boy clenched his stomach against another pang of hunger; the king doubled over and vomited on the floor, an obscene pool on gilded stone.

He saw a father, calloused hands covering tired eyes, drunk with despair because he failed to feed his family. He felt the fear in his mind, felt the tears burn his eyes. And he saw the man for whom this father toiled, indulging his daughter with another soon-forgotten gift.

He saw a woman– no, a girl– bent low before an old man. He saw the man’s face writhe with pleasure. He saw him mash the money into her face, spit on her, and leave. He saw the girl washing herself, and felt the shame dwelling in the pit of her innermost place.

He saw more.

A man impaled on a sword.

A child holding his dead mother’s hand.

He saw a flag. A nation. A kingdom.

And he saw the lines of power and impotence that connected them all.

He felt – yes, he knew – every trail of selfishness between the two fathers, every flayed and bleeding bond from the shamed girl to the old man, every cord of greed and want that joined the starving boy with the gluttonous king. He saw the terrible and fragile web that joined them all. And in this, he saw every kingdom that ever was and ever would be. He felt within himself a desire beyond anything he had yet felt. He wanted to feed the child at the table of the king. He wanted the old man to feel the girl’s foot upon his neck. The desire to set all these things right, to make right every wrong, to take control, to tear apart the web with one effortless sweep of his right hand, was almost overwhelming. He felt a hunger greater than the need for bread, a yearning greater than the want of glory. With his whole being, he ached for justice.

Again the voice came to him.

their suffering is no pleasure to me. they have given me power, but i can hand it over to whomever i choose. i can give you all of this. the power to remake it as you want it to be. i know it burdens you. i can see your tears.

He opened his eyes to the night. Jerusalem lay still before him, its lights diminishing, its people sleeping.

the way to justice is not as you think it is. it need not be so slow in coming.

He saw how easy it could be.

you came to bring justice to the earth, did you not? be their king.

He saw the eyes of the boy, of the father, of the girl. They pleaded to him.

will you bring justice by obscurity? will you right these wrongs by living as a beggar? do something! be the king they are pleading for!

He was taken again to the kingdoms of the world. He saw the starving boy laying lifeless on the ground. He saw the girl, now a woman of thirty-five, taking yet another man to her bed. He saw the drunken father alone and weeping in a filthy room. He saw the eyes of the weeping orphan, still holding his mother, and he saw the soldier cut off his hand.

The voice of the unseen one seemed to weep. o justice, come quickly…

He could see himself as king. He saw the poor fed, and the wealthy reduced to tears. He saw peace. He saw the greatest kingdom the world had yet seen. And one thing more. He saw this great kingdom, a kingdom of the world, built upon a spider’s web. He saw, as clearly as the moon above, what such a kingdom would require of him: He was kneeling before the one who lived within that web. He was bent low before the drooling maw of the spider. And he heard at last the words behind the words; he heard with perfect clarity the demands of his tempter:

all these i shall give to you, if you prostrate yourself and worship me.

He stood, and his voice peeled like thunder into the night wind. “Away from me, Satan! It is written: The Lord, your God, shall you worship and him alone shall you serve!”

The presence was gone, and holiness returned to the sacred night. He sighed deeply, and tears ran down his cheeks, through his beard, onto the collar of his robe.

He remembered again the Psalm he had begun, and spoke it low and secretly into the night.

Jerusalem… The mountains surround her, and the Lord surrounds his people,

both now and forever.

The sceptre of the wicked will not prevail in the land given to the just,

lest the just themselves turn their hands to evil.

Do good, Lord, to the good, to those who are upright of heart.

But those who turn aside to crooked ways may the Lord send down with the wicked.

Peace upon Israel.

He lay down, closed his eyes, and slept as a man at the doorstep of God.

Quoting Deuteronomy to the Devil, Part Two

2011-07-21T23:14:00.001-07:00

Forty days is a very long time. A fortieth night was still to come.

He stood now on the parapet of the temple, his arms resting on the ledge of the high walkway that stood overlooking the courts. He had been drawn here from the desert, but he had not yet left the wilderness.

To anyone passing by, he looked like a beggar; people gave him ample space when they passed. He had cleansed himself in the mikveh as he entered, but his clothes were still tattered and unkempt, his hair and beard tangled despite his attempts to groom them, his skin drawn and windburned.

The world seemed to be at once distant and in strange clarity in this state, as if he could see just an inch beyond earth and flesh and bone. He gazed down at the bustle below him, and at the Holy of Holies above. It loomed large and silent and shining in the midday sun, and it seemed to stand over the people like a beneficent king, blessing them with arms open wide. Perhaps Herod had meant this temple for his own glory, but its beauty transcended human achievement, and its white marble walls seemed to gleam with the sunlight of heaven itself.

He remembered coming here as a boy and seeing it for the first time. He had been enraptured by its beauty, by its feeling of immensity. But it was something more than its physical power which stirred his sense of wonder, something which stirred him now even more deeply than it had then. It was the palpable presence of God. He felt it as certainly as the warmth and light of the sun on his chest. He could almost taste it in the air and on his tongue, like an electrical storm, but sweeter: like electricity and sugar.

When he was a boy, he had lingered here for three days, basking in this presence. Yes, the Lord was present everywhere, but he was here, too. Somehow, he was more here; like a man is more completely present when resting in his own home. Truly this was his Father’s house, his Father’s home. Truly he rested here. And now this home was full of guests: sons and daughters that walked busily about in the presence of God, unaware of the holiness that surrounded them.

As he watched these people now, his heart began to break for them, these sons and daughters. An old man standing silently at prayer, his lips moving with the words of a psalmist. A mother holding the hand of her son, the way his own mother had held his. Even the sly, middle-aged business man hawking his doves seemed to call out to him in some unutterable language of love and need.

He was exhausted. He was hungry. And he loved them. He loved them and hungered for them more than he now hungered for bread. He tasted salt upon his lips, and realized that tears were running down his face. He wept for them, these sons and daughters; these sheep without a shepherd.

Into his thoughts came a picture. A shepherd’s staff was in his hand, and the people were gathered at his feet, content, at peace, secure.

if you are the son of god, show them who you really are. let them see a miracle. let them see you in glory.

Another picture came to his mind, of falling from where he stood, of being caught in the invisible arms of a thousand attending angels, of being lifted to the heights of the Holy of Holies, sharing in its glory, absorbing its glory, reveling in his sonship.

give them a sign. throw yourself down, and stand upon the temple! it is written, ‘he will command his angels concerning you’. ‘with their hands they will support you lest you dash your foot against a stone’. if you really are his son, if he truly loves you, your father will catch you! and they will see! if you are the son of god, then don’t prove it by your power, as with the stones. that was wrong. of course that was wrong. prove it by your father’s power. just let yourself fall. for the love of them, show them your father’s power. show them that the father loves you!

The tracks of his tears had dried on his cheeks. He could see it so clearly, and something in him longed for this, to revel in his Father’s love in the presence of his people, to show them just how much the Father loved him. But he remembered Deuteronomy. He remembered Moses. He remembered water from a rock. That, too, was right. But Moses had been wrong. He had doubted the Father’s patience for his people. He had doubted the Father’s love. For that, the servant of God had not lived to enter the Promised Land.

He could feel now what was wrong with this picture of glory. Indeed, he would be lifted up before these sons and daughters. Indeed he would draw them to himself. Indeed his Father would affirm his love for his Son. But it would not be in a display of the Father’s power. It would be in a display of the Son’s restraint, his humility. In this, in him, the Father would be well pleased. In this the Father would glory.

He spoke now, from the depth of his spirit through his ragged throat. “Again it is written: ‘You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test, as you did at Massah.’ ”

His arms trembled under his weight. He turned from the ledge. He began to walk, and his parched lips, like the old man’s below him, moved in a silent prayer.

“For the Lord your God, who is with you, is a fervent lover.”

Everything.

2011-06-13T13:31:00.000-07:00

The young man hung his head and walked away. The teacher’s words had hit him hard, and he had the dazed look of a man who had the wind knocked out of him.

Judas held his steady, studying gaze on the wealthy young man. Silence hung in the air around them. Everyone was surprised at the teacher’s words, though of course, surprising words had become surprisingly common. They were what had drawn each of these disciples and friends, Judas included, to the teacher in the first place.

As the young man’s footsteps faded, Jesus turned to his friends and spoke quietly, with the faintest trace of disappointment. “How hard it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God.”

“Weren’t you a bit hard on him?” Thomas asked.

Jesus nodded. “It’s hard, kids. So very, very difficult, for people who trust in wealth to enter into the reign of God. It’s easier for a camel to squeeze into the eye of a needle than for a rich man to come under God’s kingship.”

Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek. Whatever the language, however somber the situation, the rabbi rarely resisted a good pun, and almost never resisted a bad one. James and John exchanged glances and smiles. Judas squinted thoughtfully. Thomas was confused.

“Wait,” Thomas said. “Do you mean ‘camel’, like the horse with humps, or did you mean ‘rope’?” He mimed a rope with his hands, and elongated the similar sounding words with great care.

“You really know how to ruin a good joke,” James sighed. “If you get either one through a needle’s eye, Thomas, let me know.”

Thomas ignored his comment. “Teacher… Wealth comes from God, doesn’t it? If a wealthy person can’t come into the Kingdom… Well… Then who can be saved?”

Judas held his gaze on Thomas, his face earnest and furrowed and waiting. Though his friends often rolled their eyes at Thomas’s questions and his general struggle with literalism, they were grateful that he was willing to ask. It spared the rest of them the embarrassment.

“In human terms, yes, this is impossible.” replied Jesus. “But not with God. Everything is possible with God.”

Peter spoke up, timidly, but with some measure of pride. “But look at us, Lord… I mean, I know we’re not rich, but we left everything to follow you.”

Judas, again, was glad that someone else had spoken what he himself was thinking.

Jesus smiled.

“Frankly, kids, there is no one who has left house and home, or brothers or sisters, or mother and father, or even children or farms for my sake, and for the sake of this gospel, but that he’ll receive a hundred times as much, here and now. Look at what we have gained by having nothing: Houses, homes, brothers and sisters, and moms and kids and farms. All these things are ours,” he smiled, “because we don’t own them. And, yes, persecutions and hardships, too. But in the age to come, eternal life.”

Jesus still had his eyes on the despondent dandy, and sighed. “But many who are first now will be last, and the last ones first.”

Judas turned to watch the rich young man, now a distant shape against the sand and the ancient walls of the nearby city, and felt the slightest glow of pride within his chest. He had given up all these things to follow Jesus. House and home. Even the prospect of having his own family was something he was willing to set aside to see this Kingdom come. And it was true, what they had gained. People had opened their homes, mothers had fed them and fathers had blessed them and children had followed them. And then, in the age to come, when his people were free...

This camel’s through, he thought. I’ve given everything for him.

His fingers played absently at the moneybag hanging from his belt.

Everything.

The Real World.

2011-06-08T07:54:00.000-07:00

He would get little sleep tonight. His thoughts were agitated. He was seething as he lay silently under the stars. The others lay scattered around the smoldering fire, Thomas in arm’s reach to his left, Andrew to his right, but he was as distant from them as the wan moon.

How nice for him. How nice for him to slow down and take his time while we have work to do. How does he think this little band of followers keeps going? Not once has he ever even acknowledged what I do to keep these morons fed. “Render unto Ceasar!” he says. “Consider the birds!” he says. Meanwhile I’m working myself dry to keep enough in the moneybag to keep us from starving. “I’m in no hurry,” he says. That’s just the problem, you idiot. People are suffering. Your people. Our people. And he talks about love. What does he know about love? What does he know about suffering? Yeah, let’s all just love one another. We’ll make a nice little family where we sit around and pat each other on the back and just loooove one another. Meanwhile there are people starving. Meanwhile there are people being crucified for speaking out against this government. Yes, I’ll just drop everything and make sure little Peter’s feelings aren’t hurt while a family goes hungry tonight. I’ll go have a little fellowship and get to know little Matthias while Roman soldiers beat a man to an inch of his life just for being a Jew. “Love one another.” God, what an idiot. He has no idea what love is. He has no idea about the real world.

He would get very little sleep tonight. There was just too much to think about.

Building Something Beautiful

2011-06-04T11:06:00.000-07:00

“I remember being in my dad’s workshop. I wanted to make a box for my mother. Something to keep her jewelry in. I was very little, and it was years before I realized she’d never even worn any jewelry, but in my mind she sparkled, so I suppose it made sense to me. In any case, I was very determined.

"So I asked my Dad if he would help me make one. I was so eager to get it made. The second he’d square off a corner on a little piece of wood, I’d slap it in place and ask for a nail. But he would slow me down at every step. And every time I thought we were finished, there would be another little detail to take care of. I remember him saying, ‘Slow down, son. We’re not in a hurry.’ He took my hand and ran it across the flat of the wood, and I saw that it needed a little more sanding. So he’d take my hand and show me how to sand more finely. Then I’d see that a corner wasn’t quite true. He’d crouch down next to me, with his breath on my cheek, and help me line it up just so. Eventually, I stopped just trying to finish the thing. I started to enjoy the rhythm of creating it. And that’s what it was. It was… creation. You’d never guess the work that goes into creating something so simple. But I began to notice these little things for myself, and I began to take pleasure in refining them. I remember my Dad so well, saying it in that low old voice of his, ‘Slow and sure, son. Take your time. Steady, slow and sure. We’re building something beautiful here.’ ”

The sound of twelve men in silence is a rare thing, but here it was. The fire popped an ascending spark into the dark sky.

“I’m in no hurry to build this Kingdom, my friends. Time is fleeting, but it’s only time. My Dad in heaven gives it to us as water from a stream, and we receive it so, to refresh us. And we build his Kingdom the way my earthly father helped me build that little box. Slowly. Sure, but slowly. We take care of the details. We love one another. We’re building something beautiful here.”

More silence.

Thomas spoke up. “Did she like it? The box?”

Jesus smiled. “It’s still sitting on her mantle. Empty, as far as I know, but still sitting on her mantle.”

The Mountain

2011-05-25T13:56:00.001-07:00

He was dreaming of food when he was awakened by the terrifying and beatific presence of God. He would remember this detail later, wishing he had been dreaming of something more profound. But he was dreaming of a delicious cut of lamb, lavishly seasoned and roasted to perfection.

Jesus had asked these three friends to climb a mountain with him. They had come here to pray. Peter, recently so renamed, understood why the other two had been asked to come. John, though young, was intelligent and quiet, asking questions and pondering them with furrowed brow. His brother James was a natural leader, an initiative taker. He imagined that these two would be the ones at this saviour’s side when the revolution came, when this Christ he had so recently confessed finally became the King.

Peter, however, only felt awkward when asked to take charge. He stammered when he spoke in front of people, and usually knew that what he had to say probably wasn’t of much worth. So confident when in command of a two-man fishing boat, his heart raced like a rabbit at the thought of leading anything beyond a fishing expedition. He admitted few fears, but this one was vast and wide, and covered the expanse of his internal landscape.

Even the climb seemed to underscore his unworthiness. The brothers were always several paces ahead of the lumbering, breathless Peter. Even James, who was not exactly a thin young man, darted easily up the path. But Peter indeed was the Boulder, and it was a difficult thing to push a boulder uphill. The trees lining the trail became crutches as he slowly pulled himself up the ascent. He was quietly grateful, if more than a little embarrassed, that Jesus chose to walk beside him at his own pace.

“You can go on ahead,” Peter had said. “I’ll catch up.”

“I don’t mind,” Jesus smiled. “I want to walk with you.”

It took a full day to reach the summit, and by the time they had arrived, Peter’s lungs were gulping for life at the thin air. They had come here to pray, and his first gasping prayer was perhaps his most earnest: “Oh God… Oh... Lord… Oh God…”

He collapsed onto a rock in the shade of a spruce, hands on his knees, trying to catch his illusive breath while the brothers took in the impressive panorama. Jesus came and stood next to him, then squatted on his haunches beside him.

“How are you?” Jesus asked.

Simon looked at him, his eyes kind but sardonic. “It’s a lovely mountain,” he said. “Thanks for inviting me.” He attempted a smile.

Jesus put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m glad you’re here.”

When Peter had at last found his breath, he stood and walked with Jesus to the vista point where James and John stood. He drew a deep breath. The crisp air of autumn, though thin, felt good in his nostrils. He had never before been up this high, and he imagined that maybe this was what Adam’s first breath from the mouth of God felt like.

The four of them stood in silence, and took in the view of the outlying countryside. Here and there, mottled among the towns, they saw small wooden shelters in place for this week of Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles. Peter thought of his people, in ages past, led by Moses through the wilderness, their shelters set beside a mountain not unlike this one. His mind went to Moses and his own ascent of that mountain. I hope he was in better shape than I am.

Here they stood and recited the psalms together. More precisely, Jesus and James and John recited the psalms. Peter recited what he could remember, letting the other three fill in the gaps. He was never good at memorization.

“From the rising of the sun to its setting, let the name of the Lord be praised.”

He liked that line, for the same sun burned quietly at the edge of the western horizon. He remembered that line.

Peter slept deeply that night, and dreamt of food.

---

He awoke with that cold first breath of Adam. His heart was racing, and all he could see was light. Light beyond light. A spectrum of colours and hues which he knew should be beyond his vision. It was all around, penetrating and giving a quality of phosphorescence to even the motes of dust in the air before him.

His first thought was that he had awakened within another dream, but with the light came a solidity of form that betrayed any illusion of a dream. He looked around him, and saw James and John sitting upright from their mats, looking as confused and alarmed as he himself was. There was a place within him that felt relieved at that.

The light was everywhere.

But the light had a source, and his eyes quickly found it. What his eyes then beheld was something he would never thereafter be able to adequately describe. Jesus, the one he had confessed as the Christ just days before, the one who had forever changed him with the giving of a new name, the one who walked so patiently with him up this mountain, was shining with light as if he were the sun itself. His robes were white, whiter than any cloth he had yet seen. Whiter than any soap could ever bleach ‘em, Peter thought distantly.

His eyes did not adjust to this new sense of sight so much as his mind adjusted to it. When it did, he saw with more clarity than he ever had or ever would again. There was Jesus, the Christ, standing within what seemed to be a softly glowing ring, an emerald rainbow.

Peter fell upon his hands, and seemed to feel the earth humming beneath him. No, not humming. Trembling. Alive. Quaking as he himself was, as a man before unspeakable holiness. He had felt some taste of this before, that day on the beach, when this same Christ had held him and let him weep. Now, the earth itself seemed to shake before this man.

There were two others in the center of the virescent ring with him, and he knew without question precisely who they were. It was proclaimed from their very spirits and even in the solidity of their form, forms as tangible as his own and perhaps more intrinsically real. Moses stood on the Messiah’s left, his hand in subservience but tenderness upon the Christ’s arm. Elijah stood to his right, as fierce and focused as John the Baptizer. Peter could hear the three speaking together of a coming deliverance, of a paschal sacrifice, of exodus.

And suddenly Peter felt himself overcome with longing and joy and tears. This, all of this, was good. Indescribably, wonderfully good, and it seemed to him that it should go on forever. His soul cried out for this to be eternal, for his soul saw something here of Sinai, of Mamre, of Eden.

The shelters of wood and cloth came to his mind, with images of a holy mountain and announcements about deliverance and a kingdom of priests, and he saw those two figures turning as if to leave, as if being relieved of a long-borne duty. But he wanted them to stay. To remain here with them forever. Before he knew he was talking aloud, he heard himself speaking.

“My rabbi… My Lord… It’s good that we’re here! If you want, I’ll make three shelters here! I can make one for you! And one for Moses, and one for Eli…” His voice faltered into a whisper. “...jah.”

A light now came. His hands, his whole body, quavered with the earth beneath him as this mantle of light descended from the very fabric of the sky. It was a cloud made of light, and it surrounded them completely. I’m inside of lightning, he thought, and he tried to shield his eyes. With the cloud came a voice. It met his ears with the resonance of thunder and the timbre of a song. He wept at the sound of it, though he didn’t know he was weeping. He remembered Moses again. He remembered his receiving of the law upon the mountain.

The voice, so unlike anything he had heard before, encompassing all the sounds of the natural earth, spoke as the blast of a thousand shofars, and as a whisper in his ear.

“This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”

Peter now fell prostrate, splayed upon the ground and weeping. He could hear James to his right and John to his left, shivering and whimpering beside him. All of this, he knew, was beyond what any human should ever have seen, and he wept with joy and fear upon the trembling earth.

A hand touched his shoulder, and there was only silence.

A voice, soft and human, spoke above him.

“Rise, and do not be afraid.”

Peter, his face smeared with tears and dust, lifted his eyes, and saw only Jesus.

Old Nets

2011-04-08T02:41:00.000-07:00

The nets were old, almost as old as the boat they sat in, and the boat seemed to hum a grandfatherly song as it rocked and creaked in the shallows. John set a young hand on the greying wood of the mast, felt its smooth, worn grains and cracks beneath his fingers, and pondered a strange day. A strange and beautiful day. And it was only a few hours past noon.

It had begun with a sermon from the seashore. That in itself was not terribly unusual, but the crowd grew large enough that the rabbi had preached from a boat. It was a sermon that stayed with him. It was a strange sermon about a kingdom, and repentance, and there had been something about not having to worry about tomorrow.

He considered this as he watched the other hired men gathered at the shore. They were sorting through a haul of fish that rivaled anything John had seen taken in by a fleet of fishing boats, let alone the two meager vessels that made up this struggling company. The haul was miraculous indeed, but it was probably as much a miracle that the ancient boats had made it back without sinking. Zebedee’s sons, John and James, had been in partnership with the other brothers, Simon and Andrew, for some time now. Their struggling businesses had found one another like two cripples with complimenting handicaps, each helping the other to walk just a little farther.

The simpler days of a man building a boat and taking some nets to make a living lay dead in the ground with their dear old granddad, whose boat they now sat in. Low yields of fish and constant boat repairs were hurting them. Taxes and tariffs were killing them.

And so, the partnering of James and John with Andrew and Simon was a tenuous and somewhat strained relationship, but a necessary one. Andrew was reliable enough, and had some keen business sense that had been a great help to Zebedee and his sons, but his brother was another matter. Simon was a decent fellow, most often. Reliable to a point, until he needed a drink, and an affable fellow until he had one. After that he was nothing less than an ornery, disagreeable sonuvabitch. But to be in business with Andrew was to be in business with Simon. Thus they had survived a difficult few seasons, and thus they hoped to survive a few more.

“John, this one’s tangled to hell.”

James, John’s older brother by four years, handed John the mess of a net. He was never good with such intricate endeavors as detangling. His hands were adept at casting and pulling and hauling, but they, like the rest of him, were a little too pudgy for finer work. He set himself instead to what he thought was the simpler work of repairing frayed nets.

John felt a swell of gratefulness for that frayed net, and the strange intuition of the itinerant rabbi. The old nets, like the creaking boats, had held together. Miracle number three, John thought, and remembered that line about not worrying about tomorrow.

He looked upon the scene around him, from the bustling shore to the boat in which he stood. His brother sat across from him, already completely occupied with his net. Behind James, his back turned to them and his face to the sea, was his father, ever-present, though often quiet. It was easy to forget he was there sometimes, and John realized he had just now, in fact, done this. Zebedee’s head, grey-rimmed and bald, was bowed, his hands engaged in an unseen task. It somehow gave him a certain look of holiness, as though he was in the midst of a deep prayer. John smiled to himself at this, as his father, though faithfully religious, was far from holy.

He returned his eyes to the task at hand, and sighed deeply at the tangled mess of his net. This would take a while. Somewhere in the center of those tangles he saw some movement, and realized there was one last musht tangled up in the center of it all. He suddenly felt queazy.

Sometimes, a thought seems to come from the pit of a man’s stomach, a truth that rises up from the place of his appetite, and it’s too true for a stomach to handle. For John, it was the thought, the truth, of that feebly flopping fish in the center of the net:

That’s me.

John was still a young man, just nineteen years old. He had had grand thoughts about how his life would be. But with each compromise of practicality, of necessity, a net had been drawn more tightly around him, and the dreams of youth had slowly but inevitably been given over to the realities of staving off poverty. Zebedee and his sons were not yet poor, but this had only remained so with great effort.

These thoughts entangled him, until he heard a terrible wail and moan rising from the beach. He looked up to find the fourth miracle of the day. He was almost getting used to these miracles, but what he saw now was something on par with the parting of the Red Sea. Simon, their friend and partner in the fishing business, their friend because there was no word for someone who you simply didn’t want for an enemy, was wiping snot from his dripping nose and wailing in the arms of the rabbi. Simon, who had knocked precisely four teeth from three mouths at the tavern a few nights ago, was crying like a toddler.

“James.” He elbowed his older brother and pointed. “Look.”

“Hooooly…” James trailed off. “What is going on there?”

“I don’t know,” John responded in a kind of wonder. “He’s not drunk. At least he wasn’t ten minutes ago.”

On Simon’s third drifting moan, their father turned and looked as well. His lips parted and his brows furrowed. “What in the hell?” he said.

Simon and the teacher stood, Zebedee and sons unabashedly staring at the scene. The teacher’s hands were on Simon’s shoulders, and he seemed to be telling him something of great importance. They embraced, and the teacher and the fisherman began walking along the shore toward James and John and their father. Simon was recovering in sniffs and sharp breaths. They drew near, and the teacher, Jesus, gave them a wave. It was a wave less childlike, though no less innocent, than the one they’d gotten from him while they were out on the lake earlier that day.

They were, indeed, both bemused and amazed by the man. He had preached that morning about repentance and a kingdom, and his words had stayed with John like a new song. Something about his words, and the man himself, was like an invitation. Even his exuberant wave was an invitation to joy, and even now he couldn’t help returning it with a smile. He and James waved back.

“Why don’t you come, too?” the teacher called.

John’s heart leaped into his throat and began to pound madly, though he didn’t know why. But his heart knew, and it was pouncing like a dog at the door when its master is near.

“Us?” John called.

“Yes, both of you. Come with us.”

“Come where?” James asked.

“To follow me,” Jesus said simply. “To be my disciples.”

John laughed. “Are you serious?”

“Of course. You’re both good fisherman. Follow me, and you’ll be catching people.”

It sounded like a feeble joke, but John’s heart knew it wasn’t, and that heart was still thrashing at the door.

John looked at the tangled net at his feet, the fish in the center of it now gasping for its last breaths. He looked from the net to his brother, who stared back with a look of alarm on his face. He looked from his brother to his father, who was now standing there with his hands on his hips, sweat dripping from the dome of his pate. His father, the quiet man, held his eyes with a squint.

“You should go. Both of you.”

John thought he knew his father well. This surprised him. Miracle number five.

“But the… the fish, the business…,” John stammered.

His father dismissed this with a wave. “You think I didn’t hear his sermon this morning? You think I didn’t see the looks on your faces while you listened?”

John and his brother were silent.

Their father lifted his hand toward the fish on the shore. “I think we got enough to see me through for a while. I can hire an extra hand or two. I know you, John, and I know there’s more to your soul than a fisherman’s son. There’s some kind of light in there that’s more than I can reckon.” He turned his eyes to James, the elder. “You need this, too, James. You’re a good son. But there’s something greater in you that you haven’t found yet. I think you can find it with this man. I’d be proud to have the both of you go with him.”

James opened his mouth to speak, but couldn’t find a word. John couldn’t either.

“I love you, boys. Go on.”

James and John shared a look that said everything it needed to say. John took his knife from his belt, began to slash a line through the middle of the tangled mess at his feet, and in a moment the net was tangled no more. He reached in and his hands found the fish, barely alive as it was. He drew it from its confinement, and tossed it gasping into the open water. It darted away with surprising speed.

The day was strange and beautiful, and the nets were old.

Deeper Waters, Part Two

2011-03-23T22:10:00.001-07:00

The three of them sat silently with their faces to the lake’s cold breeze. The sun was approaching its full height, and shadows were scant. The sound of the sail in the wind played counterpoint to the waves lapping on the ship’s prow. Another boat lapped along not far away. It belonged to his friends, partners in the struggling business. They had also had a fruitless night. When Simon had told them they were going out one more time with the teacher, they shrugged in a Why not fashion and headed out beside them.

The teacher was gazing out into the water now, like a boy on a boat for the very first time, waving a grand Hello to the other boat. Simon couldn’t help but smile at the oddly innocent look of wonder on his face. This is the man who took a shot to the face and preached a sermon about it, he thought, and shook his head.

“You haven’t done much fishing before have you?”

Jesus turned his attention to Simon. “Only from the shore. My cousin and I used to use a hook and line when we were little. Never used nets before.”

Despite his best efforts, Simon couldn’t help beginning to like this man. And he still kept glancing at that welt under his eye.

“Would you like to try it?” asked Simon.

“Really?”

“Of course!”

“Yes! I’d love to!”

“Well, rabbi, you just tell us where to throw them, then.”

The preacher peered over the side of the boat. “Here. I think this is deep enough.”

“Very good. We’ll drop them here then. Just watch me first, and then you can have a go yourself.”

Andrew and Simon stood to take down the sail and retrieved their nets, each automatically turning to “his” side of the boat. Simon tied one end of the rope to his right hand, and gathered it in loops in his left.

“Like so. See? And then, one fluid throw like this…”

Simon turned at the waist and threw the net out upon the sea in a surprisingly graceful motion. Andrew did the same, and the nets fell with an almost simultaneous splish. There was a momentary circular grid on the water as the nets descended slowly from the surface.

“Got it?” Simon asked, turning his head to the rabbi.

The rabbi was truly entranced by the fisherman’s skill. He chuckled. “We’ll see!”

Simon smiled again, and pulled in the empty net. “Are you right-handed or left?”

“Uh… Both.”

Simon raised his eyebrows to his brother. Andrew shrugged and smirked.

“Right for this, I think,” said the preacher.

Simon proceeded to tie the end of the rope around the rabbi’s left hand and helped him loop it in his right.

“All right. Now, one nice swing and release. Go ahead.”

The rabbi turned at the waist, swung out, and released… too soon. The net fell impossibly close to the boat in a half-moon shape, and he began to laugh. “Perhaps I’ll leave the fishing to you,” he said.

Simon noticed there was not a shred of embarrassment in his voice. He admired that. “And I’ll leave the preaching to you.”

Simon, as he regathered the rope and net, watched the preacher carefully. “I noticed that scratch under your eye,” he said.

“I know,” said the rabbi.

Andrew turned and looked from Simon to the rabbi. He had not, until now, been as observant. But there it was: a thin, red comma beneath the teacher’s right eye.

Simon cast the net again, and again watched the grid disappear into the calm waters. “What you said this morning about, how did you put it? ‘Turning the other cheek’? You really did that, didn’t you? I mean, that wasn’t just some kind of illustration, was it?”

“Only inasmuch as the illustration is real.”

The fisherman appreciated that there were no attempts to dismiss the accusation for the sake of false humility.

Jesus spoke quietly.

“Strength isn’t always what you think it is, Simon.”

Simon had no response. He held the net’s rope thoughtfully and silently. He knew they weren’t going to be catching any fish today, especially at this time of the day and in this spot, but he was glad to be out in the boat with this preacher.

Suddenly his hand was burning. The rope was disappearing into the lake. An astonished cuss filled his mouth as he quickly grabbed it with both hands.

“Andrew! Help me here!”

But the rabbi was there before Andrew could secure his own net and respond, and Jesus was pulling with all his strength alongside his new shipmate. Simon’s disbelieving eyes grew wide as the bulging net drew closer to the surface.

“My God!” Andrew stood staring at the two of them, his own rope held dumbly in his hands. He was nearly pulled overboard when his own rope ran away from him with an unexpected zhip. His eyes grew wide and his language limited with stupefaction. “Net… Fish!”

Simon and the teacher were still attempting to pull their own net aboard, but as it began to break the surface and take on more weight, Simon could tell the old nets wouldn’t hold. More hands were needed. He called across to his partners in the other boat, waving his free hand frantically.

“Hey! Hey! We need your help! You won’t believe this!”

Andrew also called out. “Fish!”

---

By the time the fraying (but somehow still holding) nets were drawn, the three men sat with flopping tilapia up to their knees. Their boat, and their partner’s boat, were resting dangerously low in the water, and water lapped over the edges onto the squirming fish.

Simon sat incredulously staring at the black-eyed rabbi. Never in his life, nor in the lives of anyone he knew for that matter, had he ever seen such a haul of fish. It had been a difficult season, and in one haul, they had caught more than they had all year. This wasn’t just a good catch. It was a life saver.

He knew this was no coincidence. He wasn’t a brilliant man, but he knew a miracle when he saw one, and he knew that this man, somehow, had been in charge of it. He realized he was staring, and turned his gaze from the preacher to the shore. It was approaching quickly now.

There were astonished gasps, and many things declared “Holy” when the fishermen on the shore saw the haul. Simon, who would ordinarily have been laughing and hooting with the rest of them as they began the work of sorting, worked silently. He set his eyes on the rabbi. The teacher was throwing himself into the work of sorting the hundreds of fish that had been caught, right alongside the rest of the men. He was sharing a laugh with Andrew. Simon, however, was grappling hard against the tears that fought their way to the corners of his eyes. His heart was held firmly in his throat, fighting as it was to escape his mouth in a bawl.

His thoughts seemed to be swirling in disconnected memories and feelings, but they were all connected, somehow. They were connected with the rabbi he had disregarded just a few hours ago. In fact, he seemed to be at the very center of them. The pain of losing Adah, even the joy of finding her in the first place, was strung like a net and a rope from that preacher, and Simon was caught in the center of it.

It was something about the ease with which he seemed to invite friendship that reminded him of these things, of her. There was something holy about it. That was it. That was the connection. Holiness. That was the net, and the preacher had cast it as gracefully as Simon tossed his own fraying net.

Here he saw Adah’s smile for what it was, and what it always had been: Pure. Undefiled. Holy. Every moment of tenderness glowed in his memory with this holiness. The water trickling from her nose when she’d burst out laughing, cup to her lips, at that first embarrassing meal with the family. Her hands as they worked at an everyday task. Her eyes when she said something as common as a casual good-bye. Sacred.

Then he remembered himself. He remembered every cruel word he’d spoken since her death. Every “shut the hell up” he’d said to his brother, a brother whose love for him had only been surpassed, and just barely, by Adah. He saw himself drunk at the tavern, fists blazing, each blow to a stranger’s face a testament to his own weakness. He saw himself for what he was: Defiled. Hateful. Broken. Sinful.

Yet here he was, counting fish, in the presence of Love itself, and a thought came to him as a swelling tide: This is the holiest man I ever met.

He stood, his hands visibly trembling, and approached the rabbi. His legs began to quaver and he fell to his knees, fish still flopping at his feet. Tears broke upon his cheeks, pouring down upon his beard like oil. Jesus knelt with him, and held him. Simon’s heart, at long last, escaped his throat, and it wept and wailed in the teacher’s arms.

“Please,” Simon sobbed, “Please leave me, Lord! I’m a sinful man! I’m a wretch. I’m nothing. I don’t know why you came here, I don’t know why you even said hello to me, but please, go!”

Jesus spoke quietly in his ear. “No.”

Another wave of tears came over the whimpering fisherman.

“I see it all, Simon. I see who you are. I see who you’ve chosen to be.”

Simon’s eyes cleared for a moment, and he found himself staring into the eyes of Jesus.

“I see you, Simon. You were meant for more than this. More than being in bar fights or even fishing for musht. There are deeper waters than these.”

Simon’s heart beat loudly in his ears. He felt it thrumming in his chest, until his grief seemed to give way to something else. He felt hope and fear swimming in circles within him. He was afraid, for the second time today, that he just might do anything this man asked of him.

“Don’t be afraid,” said Jesus. “Follow me, and I will make you a fisher of men.”

Simon wasn’t sure what this meant, but he knew it was true. After all, he’d just been caught.

He left everything, and followed Jesus.

Deeper Waters, Part One

2011-03-17T01:48:00.000-07:00

It had been a long, frustrating night. His own reflection in the water seemed to mock him, and he washed his nets in a sneering silence. The sands shifted around Simon’s feet with each movement, and he let them slowly become entrapped as he worked. It felt good to be locked in like that, and the sand was cool. The shallows of the sea lapped at his knees. The sun had risen now, but remained diffused and hidden in morning cloud. Its light was pale and yellow.

He had always prided himself on knowing how and where to detect the shoals of fish, knowing where they sought out the warm currents in the cool waters, and his pride had been insulted with each empty net. In the hull of the boat, now resting in the shallows, was an empty bottle. The ratio had been two or three swigs for each fishless net. This was below average for such a night, and his brother, who had spent the long night watching him take those swigs, was thankful that a hangover wasn’t worsening an already sour mood.

As the morning burned on and the sun rose above the haze, however, his mood did sour. What did the souring was the crowd of people gathering at the shore. Most of these people had camped there last night in anticipation of seeing a popular personality, an itinerant preacher that was amassing quite a little following. He’d heard of him, heard stories about him, knew he was a cousin to the big-bearded baptizer his little brother had lately become enthralled with. But he had given him little thought beyond a passing interest. People always had to have a celebrity to idolize, a preacher to follow, a politician to worship. This man seemed to be all three. Ultimately, though, he was just another famous name, and his time would pass.

Simon lifted his head from his work on the net, and saw the man the crowd was gathered to see. He did his best to make sure the preacher knew he couldn’t care less, and continued working on his nets with his back to the preacher as he addressed the crowd.

Andrew, however, was enthralled. He stood staring, his nets absently hanging in his hands. Simon was determined to make up for his brother’s lack of detachment with his own unswerving aloofness.

He heard the preaching stop for a moment, and heard footsteps sloshing in the water behind him. He continued to feign ignorance, studiously minding a knot, until he felt a tap on his shoulder. He rose from his knot and turned with a sigh, unlocking his feet from the manacles of the sand.

“Yes?” he said. “Can I help you?” Help was exactly what he was hoping not to give.

“Hello. Yes, you can. There are a lot of people crowding around here, and I think it would be easier for everyone to hear me if I could address them from your boat. Perhaps you could put it out just a little and I can preach from there?” He pointed to his right.

Simon huffed. His little brother had sauntered over now, obviously eager to offer assistance.

“Of course!” said Andrew. “That would be fine!” He ignored the look of death Simon shot him.

Simon stared down the preacher for a moment, still pretending not to know who he was. “What’s your name?”

“I am Jesus,” he said.

“Jesus, I am Simon.”

“Simon. You’re a good man,” smiled Jesus.

Simon harrumphed, and gave the slightest smirk. “Come with me.”

Andrew scampered along next to the rabbi Jesus, as the three made their way to the boat.

“Been fishing?” asked Jesus.

“All night,” answered Andrew.

“Catch anything?”

“Didn’t catch anything but a buzz,” Simon said with a sigh. He always loved that line.

“Sorry to hear that,” said the rabbi.

Simon and Jesus climbed into the boat. Andrew gave it a push and hopped aboard as it drifted from the sands. Simon’s tired but able arms rowed the boat into place as Jesus stood with one hand on the mast.

“Is this all right...?” Simon asked, intoning inwardly, “...your Majesty?”

“Perfect,” Jesus said with a smile. He sat down to address the crowd as Simon dropped anchor.

As the preacher sat down to address the crowd, Simon noted a small scratch below the rabbi’s left eye. Probably a parchment cut from studying his Torah too closely, he thought.

The preacher started to preach, and Simon allowed his tired thoughts to drift upon the water. Rabbis, no matter how famous, consistently bored him.

His eyes were following a lone fish, which seemed to taunt him with the flick of its tail, when a phrase caught his attention.

“If your neighbour strikes you on your right cheek, don’t retaliate.”

Simon sniggered. Another milquetoast rabbi telling men not to be men. Just what we need.

Jesus turned to Simon. “Help me for a moment, would you?” He motioned for Simon to stand as he himself stood.

Simon was caught off guard, but tentatively came to his feet. The boat rocked a little with his weight.

“If your neighbour strikes you on your right cheek,” the rabbi turned and whispered an instruction to Simon. “Backhand me.”

Simon was taken aback with the instruction. But with a nod from the rabbi, he feigned a slap across his face. The crowd chuckled uneasily at the sight of the human boulder bullying the slim teacher.

“Don’t retaliate,” he said to the crowd. “Turn to him your left cheek, also.” He faced Simon squarely, and offered the other half of his face.

Simon held up a fist as if to strike him. That’s when he noticed again that scratch under the preacher’s eye. It wasn’t just a scratch. There was some swelling. A welt. It was not so noticeable that the crowds of people could see it, but once he realized it was there, there was no mistaking it for what it was.

This man had a black eye.

Simon’s fist dropped. His jaw dropped along with it.

This rabbi wasn’t giving this advice as an abstract idea. He had actually done this. Recently. Probably within the last twenty-four hours. He had been slapped across the face, looked a man in the eye, and offered him a free shot, without retaliation.

Simon’s head began to swim with scenarios in which a kindly rabbi could invite such abuse. He stood there, his mouth still agape, when the preacher addressed him again.

“Thanks. You can sit down again.”

Simon came to himself and sat down. More scenes of a kindly rabbi facing down a slap in the face and punch in the eye came tumbling into his brain. With each scene, he felt a sense of awe for this little rabbi. He remembered himself in the tavern the other night. He remembered the black eyes he himself had administered to several patrons, and he remembered how such altercations usually began. They began with his strength, his respect, or his honour being questioned. His response of a swift fist was meant to ensure that his strength was displayed without delay. But here was a show of strength, of respect, of honour, that didn’t raise a fist. Rather, it raised his head.

Simon listened, enraptured, to the rest of the sermon. He couldn’t take his eyes off that black eye. This was a man who had no lack of strength. He was a man who was strong enough to offer his face to a pummeling and walk away the victor. That black eye was a mark of authority that surpassed every tassel or gold-encrusted trinket worn by the highest of priests. When the rabbi was finished, Simon sat still, cocooned in himself and his thoughts.

“Thank-you.”

Simon snapped back to the world around him. “Huh?”

“Thank-you,” the bruised man said.

“Oh. Yes. That’s alright.”

“Didn’t catch anything last night, eh?”

“No,” Simon said, slowly coming back to himself. “Didn’t catch anything but a bu… Nothing.” His eyes were still trained upon the rabbi’s welt.

The rabbi smiled. “Would you do me one more favour?”

Simon eyed him with a strange feeling in his gut. He had a bad feeling his heart would have trouble saying No to whatever this black-eyed teacher would ask of him.

The rabbi Jesus held him in an easy but unrelenting gaze. “Put out into deeper waters. Lower your nets for a catch.”

Simon smirked. A great preacher this man may be, but a fisherman he was not. “Sir, we’ve been working hard all night and caught absolutely nothing. They’re just not out there today.”

The rabbi simply grinned as if he’d been fishing his whole life. Simon grunted, and looked again at that black eye. His suspicions were correct. He couldn’t say No to that black eye.

“For you,” he said, pointing wryly at the preacher. “We’ll lower the nets and see what we can find.”

He drew up the anchor. “Come on, Andrew,” he said, “we’re going out for one more catch... for the preacher.”

Mending

2011-03-08T00:20:00.001-08:00

“Ah, shit! Another tear! Dammit!”

Simon watched the hard-earned haul of fish disappear into the water as he attempted to pull them in, his powerful hands now powerless to gather in the multitude pouring out of the tattered net.

“I swear to God if the old man doesn’t get us some decent nets I’m gonna quit! Dammit!”

“You know, you should have quit about fifteen times by now,” his brother said from behind him.

“Oh, shut the hell up, Andrew.” Simon threw the frayed net, and four straggling fish, into the hull of the old boat and sat with an audible thud. His back was to his younger sibling, and Andrew watched his silently fuming brother. Simon’s large frame always seemed a little larger when he was angry, with his hands resting childishly on his hips. The wind tossed his dark hair about, giving to Andrew the apropos effect of his brother’s head being engulfed in a kind of black flame.

The voyage back to the shallows was a silent one. When the water was waist-high, Simon threw himself out of the boat, and stomped and splashed his way up the beach, the dark flame unextinguished by the water.

Andrew, still seated in the hull, had once again been left to clean up Simon’s mess. He smiled sardonically and rowed in until he reached the soft thud of the shore. He hopped out and pulled the boat partway into the sand. Reaching inside, he carefully pulled out the net, and stood for a moment, watching the four fish take their last useless gasps. He carried the net to the beach and sat, thoughtlessly fingering the frayed cords. He did all of this silently and without complaint.

He was used to his brother’s rants. They came often and furiously, especially when he’d been especially venturesome at the tavern the night before, and was nursing a low- to- mid-grade headache. Last night’s excursion to the tavern had been particularly venturesome, and had ended with a black eye for just about everyone but Simon, though he was definitely nursing his wrist today. Andrew was fairly certain Simon’s headache was no mid-grade ordeal. It was a throbbing, blinding penance inflicted on him by a body that was sick of being mistreated.

Andrew was patient with his brother, perhaps to a fault. Though he was long past the age when the younger idolizes the older, Simon still held a place of honour in Andrew’s mind, like an heir to a throne. Although the “throne” in this case was a struggling business and a leaky boat. Besides that, Andrew was fairly certain that when the time came for Simon to ascend, he would gladly abdicate, and Andrew had some ideas about how to rescue the faltering kingdom. The first idea involved spending significantly less of the earnings on alcohol.

But there was another, stronger reason Andrew was patient with his brother. Her name was Adah. She had been perhaps the most beautiful woman Andrew had ever known. She and Simon would have been married 25 years today.

He remembered the first meal he had eaten with Adah as a member of their family. He was still quite young, no more than twelve, and it seemed to him that Simon had married into royalty. He remembered Simon making a terrible joke, and Adah spitting her water through her nose. She was very embarrassed, but kept laughing through her apologies with an ease that was completely endearing. To a twelve year old little brother-in-law, she had become a legend: a gorgeous woman who blew water out her nose and laughed like an angel. Perhaps she was a goddess.

Over the years, he heard much more of that laugh. It was a fee and boundless and always betrayed her attempts at stifling it or being polite. Sometimes she hid it behind her hand, but this only brought attention to her laughing, green eyes. Her joy, so often, had been a perfect foil for Simon’s temper.

When she died, however, that joy did not become the stuff of consoling memories for Simon. Rather, the lack of it became a constant reminder of all that he had lost.

Her death had been tragic, and unexpected, though slow and painful. Such a disease rarely came to one as young and vital as she, but it had come nonetheless, and Simon became a widower at the age of thirty-five. Simon had always been prone to moodiness and a simmering vexation, but it had been tempered nicely by his wife’s ease. With her death, his capricious nature was tainted with something that turned it from an almost laughable quirk into something truly destructive. Bitterness had taken hold of Simon somewhere deep in his blood, and, like the disease that took Adah from him, it grew with an alarming intensity. Over the years he seemed to become an ill caricature of his worst traits.

Most distressing to Andrew was how Simon had lost his faith in God. He had lost his faith, though not his belief. He lost his faith the way a man loses faith in a friend who betrays him. In such a relationship, the two may see one another from time to time, perhaps even exchange hellos and pleasantries, but the friendship is dead, lost forever to a dreadful silence. To Simon, God was a faithless friend. He went to synagogue and said hello, shaking God’s hand from a distance and a look in his eye that said, “Never again.”

Now, Simon had once again exploded over a matter which shouldn’t have mattered at all. Andrew, lean and and still youthful despite the crows feet creeping into the corners of his eyes, watched his older brother, large and older than he should have been, stomp up the beach toward home. He knew that the night would bring another adventure at the tavern. He knew that he, Andrew, would need to watch over his brother, that he would have to remove Simon before he repeated the previous night’s story, or was tossed out by the management. He knew that Simon would very likely take a swing at his little brother, and that by the time Andrew had brought him stumbling to his bed, Simon would be crying in his arms like a baby.

“I miss her so god damn much!” he would weep.

“I know,” Andrew would say. “Get some sleep.”

Andrew thought of all of this in the space of a few seconds. He sighed, and slapped his knees in a kind of concluding rite to his moment of contemplation. Inspecting the worn twine of the torn net more closely, and certainly with much clearer vision than his brother, he quietly set himself to the steady work of mending.

Who Do You Say That I Am?

2011-02-28T07:21:00.000-08:00

“But you. Who do you say that I am?”

Simon’s eyes had been studying the ground at his feet. Until now the conversation had been distant and abstract to him. He had little care for the masses’ political or religious theories of who this man was. He could not care less if people thought that Elijah or Jeremiah had risen from their metaphorical graves or that John the Baptist had found his head again. This man, before anything else, was simply the closest friend he ever had. He also knew he was much more than a good friend to a boozing fisherman. He was something more, something distinct, something exceptional.

They played a part, but the miracles hadn’t proven this to him. It wasn’t the sermons he gave, or the crowds of people who pushed and screamed just to get a handful of his cloak. It was something much more elemental. It was how he held the withered hand of a man worth nothing, how he held it as if he’d made the man himself. It was how he’d looked at that mess of a woman he’d met at the well, and spoken to her as if she were his own daughter. It was how he had looked into Simon’s own eyes, that first day they met, and said with unnerving simplicity, “Follow me.”

It was written in his eyes. It was murmured beneath his every action. It was palpable in an unearthly love, frightening in its boundlessness. Being near him was like standing at the foot of a mountain, like staring down from the edge of a cliff.

Who do you say that I am?

The question hung in silence in the air around them. They were sure of who the crowds thought he was, but who was he to them? A symbol of the coming revolution? An escape from an average life? A means to an end?

Who do you say that I am?

Simon’s gaze kept hold of the ground as he broke the silence, his imposing frame still as a boulder, his voice small and simple. “You are the Christ,” he said. “The Son of the Living God.” When he raised his eyes to meet the Master’s, gravity stole tears from his eyelids.

Jesus held Simon’s eyes with his own, and smiled. He placed his hands on Simon’s shoulders.

“Bless you, Simon son of Jonah. Flesh and blood hasn’t revealed this to you. All these things that you can see and touch haven’t shown you this. My heavenly Father has. He’s whispered it in your ear and you’ve heard him speak.”

Water brimmed in the Messiah’s eyes. He had often spoken of a kingdom. Here, in the circle of his closest friends, someone finally understood its rule.

There were mutterings arising, whispered thoughts about who would be the right-hand-man when the revolution happened. Soon there would be open arguing. Simon never bothered with them. He never thought himself worthy of such lofty positions anyway. He was just a man with a chip on his shoulder the size of Mount Sinai, who was letting love carve it into something beautiful. Somehow this wreck of a working man understood that at the heart of this Kingdom was a King, the heart of that King was Love, and this Love was standing before him. A man changed as Simon was would remember that, now and forever.

Jesus, standing almost an inch shorter than this human mountain, smiled up at him.

“So I say this to you, my dear, close friend: I’ve been calling you The Boulder...”

Simon smirked abashedly. Jesus squeezed his shoulder.

“...but this isn’t just a nickname. It’s your true name. You are Peter, the Rock, the Boulder, and on this Rock I will build my community of love, my people of the Kingdom.”

Peter did not look away.

“The kingdom of darkness and death shall never be able to withstand it, Peter. You will storm its gates with love, and those gates will fall beneath your feet.

“I trust you, Peter. I trust you as Pharaoh trusted Joseph. When the time comes, I’ll hand you my signet ring and entrust you with the keys to Heaven’s Kingdom. Whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will have been loosed in heaven.”

Peter shuddered a little, like a man before a mountain, like a man at the edge of a cliff.

I Lift My Eyes to the Hills.

2011-02-21T02:24:00.000-08:00

He fell for a third time. His friend fell with him.

He tasted the dirt upon his blood-stained lips, and used all his strength to try to bring himself to his hands and knees. But the cross upon his back was too heavy, and he fell to his face and tasted the dirt once again.

It’s lighter than I expected, he had thought when it was first placed upon his shoulders. But its heaviness had grown with each step, and doubled with each fall. He felt it crushing the breath out of him, and tears of defeat ran from his eyes. A voice came to him from somewhere else, but somewhere close. It seemed to the voice a friend whispering in his ear.

It’s alright, it said. Just let it end here. You’ve done enough.

The idea was more tempting than anything he’d yet faced. But a deeper voice rose up from within him. No, it said. This will be worth it. Keep going.

A prayer moved almost silently upon his lips. “Father, help me. Please help me keep walking.”

The weight upon his back shifted, and was lifted from him. It felt to him as great a miracle as any he had performed. The man beside him, forced into service as he was, the man who had been walking with him for some time now, had lifted the cross. Jesus looked to his right at the friend who was a stranger just a short time before. The man’s eyes met his, and gave him a nod that said, “I have this. Try again.”

Sand dug into his bloodied elbows and knees as he slowly raised himself up. In a moment, he was back on his trembling feet. He set his face like flint upon his destination, gave his friend a nod, and they began, slowly, to walk together.

His legs burned with strain at each step, as though his calves were made of lead. He paused as his left foot stopped upon a wide, smooth stone. He felt his heel shake involuntarily as he placed weight upon it to lift his right foot. His companion sensed his struggle, and strained himself to take more of the weight, his arms trembling with tension. The weight of the load was lightened.

“Come on,” his friend said. “We can do this.”

It was the first the man had spoken to him.

“What is… your name?” Jesus asked through gasping breaths.

“Simon,” the man said.

A smile broke through Jesus’s bloodied face. “I know… a Simon. At least… he used to be.” Something close to a laugh escaped his throat.

“I’m sure he’s a good man,” said Simon as he carefully took another step forward.

“He is. But he doesn’t… know it yet.” He looked up toward the top of the hill. “It looks… much higher… from down here,” he said.

His head pounded with pain. He felt dizziness descend in spirals from the top of his head. He willed his leg to move forward, and felt himself on the brink of another tumble.

Simon steadied him, and spoke something familiar. “I lift my eyes to the hills… From where will my help come?”

It took a moment to realize he was reciting something. Jesus met Simon’s steady green eyes for a long moment. He spoke in response through his pain. “My help comes from the Lord… the maker of heaven and earth.” His voice was as torn as the rest of him.

“God will not allow your foot to slip,” said Simon, again lifting as much as he could of the weight of the wood from his friend’s shoulder. “Your guardian does not sleep.” He took another step forward.

Jesus’s left heel again began to shake violently as exhaustion threatened to take him again. “Truly…” he said, his voice a coarse whisper, “the guardian of Israel… never slumbers nor sleeps.”

Together, they took several more steps in silence. Simon took one more, and paused. He laughed. “I… can never remember… the next verse!” he confessed.

Jesus smiled weakly. “The Lord is your guardian.”

“The Lord is your guardian,” Simon recovered. “The Lord is your shade at your right hand.”

At this, they both seemed to notice the striking heat of the nearly noonday sun. It beat upon them in a steady beam, burning itself into their skin like a cattle brand.

“The sun cannot harm you by day,” continued Jesus, through something like a smile. “nor the moon by night.”

They kept walking, creeping up the crest of the hill, as Simon began to speak the final words of the psalm. “The Lord will guard you from all evil… will always guard your life.” They came to the top. Tears washed tracks through the dust on Simon’s face, as his left hand moved from the beam of wood to his friend’s shoulder.

Jesus set his eyes upon Simon’s. “The Lord will guard your coming and going… both now and forever.”

This, indeed, was a promise.

The cross fell from their shoulders to the sand with a thud, covering them for a moment in a cloud of dust. Jesus remembered the cloud that had met him not so long ago, on another hilltop, one that had been easier to climb. His friend, the other Simon, had wanted to stay there. One day, he would. But that was later, after this hill, after this climb.

The cloud passed, and he did not fall. Trembling, he knelt upon his knee, and kissed the cross that lay before him. He felt again his friend’s hand upon his shoulder. He lifted a hand to the one resting there. He looked into the face of his companion.

“Thank-you,” he said. “Thank-you.”

Simon’s green eyes shone out to him.

“It is my honour,” he said, “to walk beside you.”

Stripes.

2011-02-09T23:39:00.000-08:00

His children were still asleep when he left for work this morning. He kissed his little boy in the early light, pressed his lips to his little girl’s sandy hair, and said, “I love you” in a whisper no louder than the morning breeze.

His wife, even more beautiful in the faint morning light than she always was, took his hands in hers and kissed him by the front door.

“Have a good day,” she told him.

“As long as I have you to come home to,” he told her.

He kissed her one more time, and opened the front door. The air that greeted him was crisp and cool, and he took a deep breath. He began the long walk to work, amid the busyness of the city’s streets. The front-door shops seemed to rub their eyes and yawn and stretch to welcome the day. Food sizzled over open fires as the two-table restaurants opened for breakfast. He breathed deeply of the smell of frying eggs.

A street dog scampered alongside him, and he nodded a hello. The dog stayed with him for a full block, before finding a more interesting scent in a small pile by the roadside. He nodded good-bye, and he lifted his eyes to a sight that pleased him every morning.

She stood at the front door of her shop, which was also the front door of her home, sweeping yesterday’s dust from her steps.

“Good morning.” His voice was pleasant, but the smile in his mouth didn’t quite reach his lips. It didn’t go with the uniform.

“Good morning.”

She paused as he walked by, resting her hand on the broom handle. She couldn’t help but let her eyes linger as he walked by. That uniform looked great.

He arrived at work and let the captive smile go free to greet his coworkers. He enjoyed his work, stressful as it could be, because he liked the men he worked with. They could count on each other. They were a family. He knew that was a rare gift, and said a prayer of thanks every day. He and his coworkers always shared a joke and a laugh with each other as they went about the business of their day. It was one way of coping with “The Element”.

“The Element,” he called them. As in, “The unseemly element”. The riffraff.

And he dealt with society’s most unseemly Elements, in a long succession, every day. Their faces, though many, seemed to take on one, generic face. Dirty, suspicious, and afraid. He administered his role to them equitably, though, and even with some pleasure

He approached the stone wall where his tools hung awaiting his able hands. The handle was cleaned meticulously every night (a thoroughly relaxing experience), and he enjoyed the sheen of the shining leather in the morning sunlight. He lifted it from the wall and approached the small, open-air, walled area he liked to call “The Workshop.”

A man sat at a desk, pen in hand, ready to give instruction. The Element stood in the open area, looking as it usually did: tired, dirty, and to him, quite guilty. This one looked particularly bedraggled, and he chuckled a little to the man at the desk.

“He looks like he’s been through it already!” he said. “What can we do for him?”

“Forty minus one.” the man at the desk said blandly.

“Forty minus one.” he repeated.

He smiled, and set about his work.

Annunciation

2011-01-31T22:53:00.001-08:00

She sat beneath a blossoming almond tree as the wind blew soft, white petals all around her. She loved to do this, she once told her mother, because it felt as if God was giving her kisses. She closed her eyes, pulled an unruly ringlet of hair behind her ear, and laid her head against the tree trunk. The day was fading into the west, and settling into her memory.

Her thoughts were a dance of questions and observances. Though she was young (tomorrow would be her fifteenth birthday), it never seemed any age quite suited her. Her mother had long noticed this, and often called her “Little Grandma.” She seemed to take in the world in a mysterious way, eyes wide as a little girl, thoughts deep as a prophetess. Her mother liked to watch her at her prayers at night, praying for just about every person she’d met that day. “Bless Mom and Dad. Bless Elizabeth. Bless the mean looking man at the market. Bless the lady who sold me flowers…” And on it would go.

Today, though, her thoughts went inward. She had practically been raised in the temple, and, until recently, she thought she knew her calling to serve inside it. She was sure. But being an only child in a culture that favoured male progeny could complicate matters that she thought had been settled. A husband would be good for her, her parents told her. He would care for her, watch over her, guard her.

He seemed a good enough man, a man she knew she could perhaps even love in some way. But from as long as she could remember, she had been told she was the handmaid, the spouse, of the Lord. Part of her could not help but feel she was betraying her First Love.

I know what I am called to. I know it. I feel it. How can I be wed when…. A bird lit upon the ground just a short distance away. It was plain as a sparrow but for a striking blue stripe upon its breast. It nipped lightly at the ground, looked up, and gave a chirrup. It caught her eye, cocked its head in a kind of base thoughtfulness, and fluttered away. And she found herself at peace.

Common, she thought, but not ordinary.

She gazed upon the purpling sky, and her thoughts were carried to the faces she had seen today: the beggar at the city gate with whom she had shared a smile, the little barefoot boy she’d heard singing to himself while he played with a stick in a mud puddle, her mother singing quietly through her work, her father resting from his work for a moment and wiping sweat from his brow. Her mind’s eye drifted through these moments, and secret prayers began to float from silently moving lips as the diminishing sun placed its last warm rays upon her cheeks.

Falling almond petals fell lightly upon her open hands. A june bug droned somewhere in the tree above her. Wheels turned and creaked on a mule-drawn cart across the road. She closed her eyes and felt as though she were in the presence of Love Itself, and that each of her prayers, and her questions, would be answered in time.

When she opened her eyes to see an angel, standing before the setting sun, she was surprised, but somehow not alarmed.

"Hello, Mary, Graceful One.”

He was no less tangible than the tree against her back, but of no more weight than the almond blossom on her cheek. His robes were white, but seemed to swirl with light, as if what her eyes perceived as white was actually the thriving, vital presence of all colour. His skin was tan and vibrant, and like his robes, it seemed to be alive with light. His eyes were a kind and verdant green, and when he spoke, his voice was like a song.

“The Lord is with you, Mary. He is proud of you. You are,” he smiled, “highly favoured.”

She drew a breath. Her cheeks reddened. She was a simple girl, and humility accepts praise with caution. Her thoughts began to race with half-formed questions and unknown meanings. A greeting like this would either come with a great task or a foreboding announcement.

"Don't be afraid,” he said, and his eyes smiled. “I have good news for you, Little Grandma. You are going to have a son. And you will name him ‘Jesus’.”

She took a breath.

"He will be great,” he continued. He took a knee and placed a weightless, comforting hand upon her shoulder.   “And he will be called Son of the Most High God. Yahweh God will give him the throne of David, his father. He will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will have no end.”

Mary took another breath.

The angel smiled. “It’s a lot to take in, isn’t it?”

Mary nodded. Hesitated.

“I believe you,” she whispered. “but… how will this be? I am consecrated. I’m a virgin. I can’t break that promise.”

The angel seemed to revel in her question. "This will not be the son of any man, Mary. The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and God's power will overshadow you. So the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. This may seem impossible, but just look at your cousin Elizabeth. She has conceived a son as well, old as she is. The one they called barren is in her sixth month of pregnancy, because nothing…” his smile widened with joy, “Nothing is impossible for God.”

He was became silent, like an advisor to a monarch waiting for a reply.

Streams ran down her face. Her life, her heart, her calling, seemed to coalesce in this moment. The angel’s words seemed to pierce through to her heart like a sword, and nothing had ever felt so right. She wiped the tears away with a smile and a sniffle, took another deep breath, and spoke.

"I am the Lord's servant,” she said. “May it be done as you have said."

The angel bowed, and was gone.

The petal of an almond blossom fell upon her lips.

Consolation

2011-01-12T13:05:00.001-08:00

“May I talk to you?”

She spoke quietly, her eyes mindful of a small embarrassment, her frail hand upon his elbow.

“Hannah. Yes. Come with me.”

He returned her softly spoken tone in kind. He put a strong, old arm around her shoulder and led her to a quiet corner of the busy temple.

“What is it?”

No one took notice of her, but her self-consciousness lingered.

“Well, it’s… It’s been a difficult couple of months for Noah and me.” Her nervousness gave her a plaintive smile.

“I know.” he said.

Noah, her adult son, waited a short distance away. He appeared to be counting something no one else could see. He was nearly thirty years old, but his mind had remained somewhere in his tenth year. Hannah was seldom seen without him in tow, holding his hand, caring for each detail of his necessarily ordered life. She had steadfastly dedicated herself to his care, and, though most people assumed she was a widow, she had never married Noah’s father. He’d left her crying before he’d even known he was a father. Her penance was love, and she was glad of it.

“You know I love this community, I love to be here with Noah. I always try to give what I can.”

“I know.” he said again. He knew well the path this talk was taking.

“I want to give my offering, but I… I can’t afford any of the doves they’re selling.” Her voice quavered as she smiled again. “It’s important to me, and I...”

“I know, Hannah.” His voice was even, and warm. “It’s alright. I can get a turtle dove for you. Don’t worry about it.”

“Thank-you.” Her face flickered between smiles and persistent tears. “Thank-you so much.”

He watched her join her son, watched her take Noah’s hand, and watched her kiss him on the cheek. She tiptoed and put her forehead against his.

“I love you, Noah.”

“I love you, Mom!”

And the two walked on.

This was not the first time he had provided for Hannah, neither was this the first Hannah. For years now, he had seen people like Hannah struggle to get by, to live day after day, year after year, faithful to their families, their church, their God, all the while living in poverty, under a system that crushed hope.

He had earned a reputation as a friend of the poor, a teacher and a man of God quite unlike any other. His knowledge of the scripture was unparalleled, having translated much of it from Hebrew. Yet, for all his knowledge, he radiated humility and grace like a gently burning candle. People were drawn to the inviting quiet of that flame.

Tonight, he sat on his bed and ran his fingers through his grey hair and sighed. Pages from the writings of Isaiah lay next to him. His fascination with the prophet had persisted for many years, and he had nearly memorized the entire book. He knew it, quite literally, by heart. That heart was drawn to Isaiah’s words like a song. Isaiah spoke of the oppressed and the forgotten, of promise and redemption, of hope and freedom. He closed his eyes and the words of the prophet came quietly to his mind.

Comfort, give comfort to my people. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem.

He saw Hannah gently kissing Noah’s cheek.

“Come, Lord.” he whispered. “Save us. Comfort your people. We need a Saviour.”

He saw Hannah walking next to her son, her hand upon his shoulder.

He sniffed, wiped the corners of his eyes, and ran his hand across his beard. He became aware of the profound silence around him. He noticed the sound of the flickering flame struggling against the candle’s wax. Another phrase from Isaiah crept into his mind.

The virgin shall be with child, and bear a son, and shall call him Immanuel.

He recalled how many days it had taken him to translate that line, so deceiving in its simplicity, and wondered again if he’d gotten the words just right.

You did. You will see him while you live on this earth. I promise this.

The voice did not come from anywhere but inside him, but it was so undeniably other that he instinctively looked around, searching for its source. There was no one in the room, but he was not alone. A shade of green, barely perceptible but apparent nonetheless, lingered like a rainbow’s mist, and everything seemed to be faintly glowing. He could hear his heart beating within him, and the words seemed to repeat with each soft thud in his chest.

I promise this.

The flame regained its strength. The glow disappeared. Quietly, he wept.

---

His favourite act of his priestly duties were the baby dedications. When he held a child, he looked into his eyes, searching for something. Often it seemed a voice had whispered into his ear, and he smiled as if a secret had been revealed.

All Seated on the Ground

2010-12-24T13:06:00.000-08:00

On the outskirts of town, the crackle of a modest campfire could be heard from a distance, indistinct words mingling with short outbreaks of muted laughter, carried across the hills by a calming night wind. Working men’s hands stretched out towards the fire, elbows resting on knees, eyes gazing at the inviting flame, lingering smiles on lined faces.

The fire invited warmth, and the small circle of four enjoyed each other’s company. Conversation alternated from the mysteries of life to the mysteries of a good lunch, with moments of gaseous laughter in between.

Jake stroked his beard absently, his round face a picture of contentment. With a touch of ache, and a touch of whimsy, in his heart, he took a deep breath of the night air. But the breeze shifted and instead he took in a lungful of smoke. Coughing and laughing, he waved his hands in front of his face, the smoke stinging his eyes with tears. His friends looked on and seasoned the night with another healthy smattering of laughs.

He hacked himself dry, and wiped the tears from his cheeks.

“Daaaah!” he said with a wheezy chuckle that shook his big frame. “Oooh… Shaaah!”

Another round of laughs. Jake could easily keep a laugh going with his supplementary curse words. It was an old joke with these men, but one that seemed to improve with age. He wiped his face with one more chuckle, glancing around the circle at these men who knew him like no one else. Jake’s soul could use a good, strong laugh right now, and the levity in this circle had been earned in heartbreak.

Jake’s wife was not living with him at the moment. She had the girls, Deborah and Sarah, with her. Sometimes the other guys saw Jake bite his bottom lip while he worked. They knew this meant he was missing those lovely brown eyes. Michael sat next to Jake now, and had noticed the familiar lip bite several times through the evening.

Michael was Jake’s closest friend, and had been with him in his darkest moments. He seldom offered a solution, but he always offered a shoulder. He was with Jake now, as he struggled to earn his wife’s forgiveness and make his family a family again.

Michael was older than Jake by two years, and shorter than Jake by two inches. Slow to speak, it seemed that words formed somewhere in Michael’s dimples a few seconds before he spoke them, and Jake could usually predict the mood of the words if not the words themselves.

Jake was the first person Michael told when he found out he would be a father, and Jake was with Michael when little Gabriel was born. That night they smoked their lungs dry and drank bad wine. Michael went to Jake when, sixteen years later, little Gabriel stormed out of the house, cursing his father and making an oath never to see him again. They drank bad wine that night, too.

Michael took a cursory glance around the hills at the animals they were minding and reached for the jug. David beat him to it and with a wry little smile, took a deep, warming swig of the mixed concoction.

David, thin on top and thin in the middle, had been a widower for almost as long as he’d been a father. When he spoke of his little girl, who was married now and expecting David’s first grandchild, his eyes became thin slots of joy. When he spoke of his wife, those eyes were wide and thoughtful, and it seemed he had married her yesterday morning. When he spoke of her death, they were distant, and it seemed she had died last night. The wound left by her absence was a tear, a laceration, that had never healed.

But he knew how to tell a good joke badly, and he laughed twice as often as he cried. “I own this town, you know,” he would often joke. “I got royal blood and someday I’m gonna clean up this city!”

Dave licked his lips and placed the jug in Michael’s waiting hands. Mike took a large gulp and set it next to the kid of the group, a young man they simply called Turtle. Turtle lifted the jug nearly to his lips, but didn’t take a drink.

Turtle was slow. Young for his age. He began working with these men two years ago, when his father gave him the scar above his right eye. He told his son never to come back, and Turtle, though crushed inside, obliged. He felt no bitterness to his father, he was too simple for that. He simply felt sadness.

Turtle, simple as he was, had begun to make something of his own life. He wasn’t sure what a man was supposed to be, but he knew it wasn’t what his father was. Somewhere, though, in the company of these broken men, he had begun to form a picture of fatherhood, of masculinity, of friendship. Recently he had even found a young woman with far-off green eyes and wispy brown hair who seemed to him to be God’s messenger on earth. Her name was Zoe, and to him she was Life itself.

“She’s really pretty, huh?” blurted Turtle, absently holding the jug in his hands.

He liked to talk about her with his friends. Whatever the actual topic of conversation was at the moment seldom mattered. When he got to thinking about her, he went to a place far away, and talking about her was an invitation to join him there.

“She sure is, Turtle. Very pretty,” said Jake with a knowing look to the others.

“I know, huh,” said Turtle, smiling.

Silence came upon the four friends again as they stared into the fire. The flames crackled from orange to yellow, with sparks of green and blue near the bark of the firewood. A lamb brayed here and there to accentuate the tranquility of the moment. If a stranger passed by in the night, he would have seen four good old boys sitting by a fire.

David sighed deeply.

Michael coughed quietly.

The fire crackled.

An angel stood within the fire, and said, “Hello.”

The men jumped, falling to their backs as if hit by a blast. David scrambled backward on his hands and elbows. Jake screamed girlishly. Turtle didn’t move. Michel ran several feet in just seconds before turning around to see the figure.

It was smiling, and stood as tall as a fig tree. It was a fiery green, flickering with flame, highlighted in orange and white. Though the men were scattered, the angel seemed to gaze on each one of them individually. His eyes looked into their own, reading their stories in a moment. Mighty dread pounded in their ears and fear struck their limbs numb. Their impending death seemed apparent.

“Don’t be afraid,” the angel said.

But Turtle had stained himself, just a little.

The angel’s voice was both deep and light, like the rushing of mighty waters and the babbling of a brook.

“I bring you good news, of great joy, which will be for people of all time, everywhere.”

“Oh God,” said Michael.

“Tonight, just over there in David’s town,” and the angel held out a flaming hand and outstretched finger, “a Saviour has been born, who is the Anointed One, the Lord.”

“Wow.” said Turtle, who startled easily, but accepted things with remarkable speed. “Can we see him?”

“Yes!” The angel smiled as if sharing an inside joke. “This is how you’ll find him. He’ll be wrapped in swaddling bands, and laying in a feeding trough.”

The absurdity of a newborn in a feeding trough didn’t strike the men until much later, as at the moment they were talking to a flaming angel.

The angel now seemed to hunker down on his haunches, as if he were about to reveal a wonderful secret. Later, when David told the story, he swore the angel whispered, “Watch this!”

A curtain opened. Until that moment, they had been unaware of its presence, but it drew away from them just the same. What was revealed was perhaps the greatest spectacle ever seen by human eyes.

The shepherds rose slowly to their feet, mouths agape, eyes transfixed upon the quiet hills surrounding the little town of Bethlehem. Tears rolled down Jake’s cheeks. Michael’s legs shook visibly. Standing upon the hills, as far as their new eyes could see, were angels. Thousands upon thousands, millions, more than could be counted, line upon line, arrayed in the swirling, perfect order of nature itself.

An emerald glow rose from the ground to the sky, illuminating each strange, angelic creature from within. Which were cherubim and which were seraphim they didn’t know, but there were figures of flame, like the one in their campfire, and beasts with strange faces, and men and women with enormous eagle’s wings, and creatures that eluded all description.

The campfire angel stood to his feet again, and bellowed with a voice as big as the sea:

“Glory to God in the highest!”

The angelic horde shouted back with the sound of a million trumpet blasts: “And on earth peace! Good will towards men!”

Again the angel shouted, even louder, and the earth itself thrummed with his voice:

“GLORY TO GOD IN THE HIGHEST!”

The legions of beings called in return, deeper than thunder and higher than music.

“AND ON EARTH PEACE! GOOD WILL TO MEN ON WHOM HIS FAVOUR RESTS!”

And in an instant, they were gone. The curtains closed. The campfire angel disappearing with, what Dave would later claim to be, a wink.

The four men stood there, in the silent hills, the night air whisping across their faces.

Turtle giggled. Jake chuckled. David laughed. Michael burst out in a howl.

They laughed all the way into town.

Mercy's Place

2010-12-13T19:22:00.000-08:00

An aged dog, tethered to a stake in the ground and forgotten, listless and languid in the afternoon sun. He sat there as such, rubbing his whiskers and watching the shadows grow. He had been here for a very long time, and could remain for an age to come.

Thirty-nine years ago, he was 24. He thought he was an adult then. He was mistaken.

He took for himself a girl. She was old enough to excite him, and young enough to love him. He thought he was in love, too, or something close to it. He was in heat. When he discovered that he’d impregnated her, the air around him became palpable, pressing the life from his lungs.

He deserted her, and ran for the big city. He hoped he would be lost in the crowd. His first night in town was spent at a brothel, where he began the evening laughing in the company of strangers. He fell asleep weeping in the arms of a prostitute.

Between drinks, he looked for work in the new town, finding it at a small cabinet making company on the south side. When, on his second day, he arrived for work a strong morning wake-up on his breath, he was able to hide his condition from his boss. He could not hide it from the blade he was carrying or the steps he was attempting to descend.

His injuries were extensive, but with his money spent entirely on forgetting the mother and child he’d abandoned, he had little interest in medical care. It didn’t take long for him to lose the use of his legs. His right hand, infected from a deep gash and lack of proper bandaging, was not much better.

The proximity of his injury to his act of abandonment was not lost on him. He was guilty. He was punished. He wandered the streets, and haunted the jails, hobbling as he could on crutches, or shuffling along on his calloused knees.

It wasn’t long before he found the community pool. It was a popular place to be for those who were going nowhere. Tramps and beggars, cripples and creeps. They congregated here. For the disabled, it was a place to be among people who understood. For the drunks, it was a place free from judgement. Upright citizens often called upon the authorities to “clean up” the place, but seldom to any avail.

It was known as Mercy’s Place, a name held in irony by the upright, but not by the residents. It was a mercy to be among people that didn’t mind what you were, or why you were there. It was a grace to be free among the fettered, without shame.

It also helped that these were thought to be miracle spring waters.

“Watch for the water when it woozshes,” a friend told him. “If it moves a certain way, like, ‘wooozsh’ like that, it’s an angel jumping in the water. If you’re the first one in when it woozshes, you’ll be healed. My friend knew a guy who lost a foot. He got in the water when it woozshed, he got his foot back. Cuz God loves us, huh?”

A good tale for the simple-minded, he thought. God become superstition. On the rare occasion when it looked like an angel was troubling the water, he sat and watched the lucky one jump in. He never did see any limbs grow back, but the rumour persisted.

In the back of his mind, however, never close enough to confess it in words, he believed something of the story. He would sit on his mat, legs useless and slumped beneath him, staring at the spring, the sun sparkling upon the waters. The thought, the feeling, always persisted, that there was something to his friend’s words. Maybe not the part about angel jumping in, or even about getting healed, but something.

“If I ever make it in, I’ll know…”

His mind would again travel to the child he never met, whose birthday he never even knew. He thought of the mother, nursing a newborn alone. It was always this way in his mind. The child always an infant, always out of focus. The mother always alone. Neither child nor mother aged a day in 39 years. Their place was as stationary as his seat on his mat.

And there he sat, forever held in place by the weight of a burdened mind and a heavy heart.

He was an old man now, and old beyond his years. His legs withered sticks, his hand a fist so gnarled it was practically a club. These days, however, he sat closer to the pool than he used to sit. On the rare occasion that the spring waters woozshed, he shambled as quickly as he could to reach the edge. It was always the same, though, with the old man left wheezing and breathless while the quicker man splashed in the angel’s wake.

From time to time, some well-meaning souls came down to Mercy’s Place, offering a meal or clothing, sometimes even a little conversation. Today was such a day, though not on the typical day of the week. He ate a simple, mildly tasty meal, as a volunteer sidled up to sit with him.

“Hello,” said the volunteer.

“Hello. You’re not supposed to be doing this today, you know.”

“Some people think that.”

The old invalid gave him a wry look. “ ‘Some people?’”

“Don’t worry about it,” the man said, and changed the subject. “Are you from around here?”

“Nope. Been here a long time, though.”

“How long?”

“Almost forty years,” he said, his eyes occupied with the space around him.

“Wow. You’ve been here by the pool all that time?”

“Pretty near. I like it here,” and he took a sloppy bite of his lunch.

“It’s nice,” the volunteer confessed, taking in the sunshine on the water. “I’ve heard that the water here is good for you.”

“That’s what I hear.”

“You must know about the angel jumping in?”

“Yeah. That’s why we’re all here. Everybody’s waiting for a miracle.”

“Do you think it’s true?”

“I don’t know. Heard plenty of stories. But I’ve been here a long time and I’ve never seen it for myself.”

“Hm. But do you think it’s true?”

“I don’t know. I suppose it would be nice for it to be true. Angels taking a swim in the water and all that. It would mean that maybe God is actually watching out for us. Maybe it means he likes us.”

“Do you think he likes you?”

“I don’t honestly know. I’ve done some pretty unforgivable shit in my time. It’s why I am the way I am. I wasn’t born this way, you know. I don’t have a palsy.”

“What happened?”

“Well sometimes you’re lame because that’s how life is,” he said. “And sometimes you’re lame because you made a terrible, sinful mistake, and that’s how life is, too.”

“You think you made a mistake?”

“Bad. I’m still paying for it. These legs, this hand, payment to God. I suppose I’ll be staying right here until I die.”

“Do you want to be healed?”

To the surprise of both, the old man began to cry. “Young sir, more than anything. You know I sit right next to that damn pool every day, just waiting for that angel to jump in. Isn’t that stupid? But every time it happens, it’s when I’m too far away. I don’t have anybody to carry me, and while I’m trying to drag my bony ass down there, somebody else always gets in first.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Oh, it’s nonsense,” the old man sniffed. “I just… I just want it to be true. I think if I got in there, and I was… Well it would mean… It would mean I was forgiven.”

The man put his left hand on the cripple’s shoulder, his right upon the shriveled hand, and looked him in the eye.

“Get up,” he said. “Take your mat and go home.”

The old man sniffed again. “What?”

The volunteer stood.

“Stand up. Take this old mat, and walk.”

He twitched his right hand. He stared at it. He stretched it out.

“Oh… God.” He stared at the volunteer. “You can’t…”

“I can. Stand up.”

The old man looked up at him. He shook his head, tears filling the crevices of his beleaguered face. “You… You don’t have to do this… I don’t…”

“I know. I want to do this.” He offered his hand. The old man took it, and as he did he felt in his feet a sensation he had missed for nearly forty years: strength. It flowed into his calves and thighs, and before his thoughts could catch up to him, he was standing, and sniffling in the arms of a lunchtime missionary.

The missionary turned him around. “Go ahead,” he said. “Walk.”

He did. Not with the trepidatious steps of a newborn, but the easy gait of a man waking after a long nap. He walked to the edge of the pool, looked back at the volunteer, and shared a smile. He walked back into the embrace of the man who made him walk.

“Thank-you,” he said.

“You’re welcome,” replied the man. “Don’t forget your mat.”

Sunlight

2010-12-07T11:47:00.003-08:00

Well, to be honest, I’ve never seen my parents. It’s not that they left me, it’s just that I was born blind! I’m sorry! I’m kidding. I mean, yes, I was born blind. But in fact, I love my parents very much. They live on the west side. I try to visit them at least a few days a week. Let them know I’m okay and so forth. I’ve lived with them on and off, but I don’t like feeling like i’m a burden on anybody, so I try not to disrupt their lives too much.

Anyway, I love them and I’m glad that they never treated me like a curse. Some folks tend to think that if you have a kid with something wrong with him, like being blind for instance, that there must be something wrong with you. Pardon the expression but that’s bull crap if you ask me. Well, unless it’s because my parents were less than married when they had me, but I don’t think so. Well, actually, they were married when they had me, if you want to know the truth. Just not so much when they... um... made me. Ha! Either way, I don’t think they were being punished. They always loved me as if I was a blessing and I’m grateful for that.

As far as begging, I honestly don’t know how long I’ve been begging. I’m not trying to make you feel bad or anything, I just can’t remember. It doesn’t bother me that you asked. It is what it is, you know? I hear a lot of people going by, and a lot of them are in this big rush and going places and so forth. I don’t need to worry about that. Where have I got to go? The only time I have to go anywhere is when I have to GO, y’know? Ha! I’m just kidding. No, but, I do have to go sometimes, right, and I’ve got a spot so don’t worry about it!

My parents didn’t make me go beg. I just knew I needed to. And like I said, it’s not that bad. And blind people tend to make more than your cripples and such. I know, right! I think it’s because people just feel worse for a blind person. Ask somebody what they’d do if they lost a leg or an arm, and they’ll say they could get by. But ask them what they’d do if they went blind. That’s when they start sighing a little more and saying things like, “Boy, you know, I just don’t know. That would be awful,” and so forth.

Well it’s really not awful. I was born this way. I don’t miss seeing. I mean, do you miss being able to, I don’t know, touch sound? Ha. I know, it’s weird. But really, that’s what it’s like. Actually, I notice a lot of things other people seem to miss out on.

Like what? Wow, um, let me see... Birds, of course. There’s a lot of different birds around here. But, actually, my favourites are the pigeons. I know! I know nobody likes them, but I think they’re great. I love to listen to them coo. That’s the most incredible sound. I’ve probably been pooped on more than a few times on the corner here, but I still like them!

I love the sound of certain bugs, too. There are these things, I don’t know what they’re called, but they make the most amazing humming sound in the summer. I love it. You get that going along with the pigeons cooing, it’s just amazing.

Oh, and the sun. I love the sun. I think if there’s one thing that would make me wish I could see, it would be the sun. I think if I could see, I’d probably go blind from staring at it! Ha! Isn’t that supposed to be bad? Staring at the sun? I don’t know. But I love the fact that I can feel it, even though it’s not, like, a thing, you know? Like the wind, but more mysterious. You can’t touch it, but you can feel it. That’s so crazy! Sometimes when I’m sitting here holding out my hands, honestly, I don’t even care if anyone drops any money in them. I’m just holding the sun there. A nice cup of sun! Ha!

So, yeah, I guess it would be nice to see, if you want to know the truth. I’d like to know what light is.

Maybe someday. On the other side of the door, you know? Yeah. That’d be nice.

Son of David

2010-12-03T22:06:00.000-08:00

His throat was raw with screaming. He had reached a point of frenzy and fear that sent his mind whirling with desperation. His sightless eyes spilled tears as he called out again and again. His moment was passing away, and with it, all hope for healing.

He clamored through the crowd, the masses of people pressing and surging around him like a rushing river. When he finally fell to the ground, he wailed so loudly the sound seemed to form a momentary circle of silence around him. His ear popped with a sudden thud as someone kicked him. “Shut up!” came a voice, but his tenacity was as complete as his blindness.

He had lived in darkness almost all of his long life. He remembered sight faintly, but he did remember, and on many days this seemed to be less a blessing than a curse.

When he concentrated, instinctively closing his eyes to do so, he could see colour, and shape, and distance, as through tempered glass, and darkly. He recalled the mottled shade of a bird’s wing (a sparrow?), and the sky reflected in water. But mostly he remembered the shape of his father’s face, and the colour of his eyes. His mother died when he was very young, and even when he had sight her image had already faded. But his father’s eyes were deep and strong, and it seemed to him that all colours were possessed of the blue of them.

He remembered the light brown tones of parchment in twilight. He remembered his fingers running the page as he read aloud to his father, stumbling on a word here and there, his father smiling and helping him sound it out.

He remembered going to temple with his father. Though the people and the altar were obscured in the shadowy fog of his mind’s eye, he remembered the touch of his father’s hand in his own, and his father’s hand upon his back as they knelt together to pray. He remembered the whisper in his ear, close enough to feel his breath, as his father hinted insight into the scripture reading.

It was in this way that he remembered a promise. He remembered a saviour. He remembered a whisper.

“David’s son.”

He thought of that whisper every time he heard a scripture about the promised Hero. The Hero would come from David’s line, his truest son. Even now, not having heard a proper scripture reading in many years, he would hear, and feel, that whisper again.

“David’s son.”

He remembered other whispers. These were the words that escaped his father’s lips when he prayed in private, his sleeping son wide awake and listening from his bed.

“O God, we are in desperate need. Please, please help us, dear Provider. Come to us, dear Saviour.”

But the son of David was a long way off, and the young son of Timaeus had hunger pangs. When his father became ill, the boy had already begun begging to keep them both fed. His blindness was not yet even complete, though he would play his eyes wildly for a more complete affect, and for more coins from sympathetic passersby.

It seemed, now, in his memory, that his eyesight and his father died on the same day.

For unnumbered years, the son held what was left of his father’s image as to life itself. But he was losing the strength of his youth. Time pulled the blind man slowly, relentlessly, away from his father’s embrace, the distance between them growing ever greater, the blue of his father’s eyes ever fading into darkness.

But today, there was hope. A man was working miracles, and he was coming close by. He remembered a line from Isaiah, and he remembered his father’s whisper.

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.”

“David’s son”

He screamed again, his voice like a desperate animal. “JESUS! JESUS, SON OF DAVID! HELP ME! HELP ME!”

He sat there, shaking and weeping, and still he called out. But now, all that came from his throat was a kind of silent braying.

“David’s son... Help me.”

---

There was a voice next to his ear, and a hand on his shoulder.

“He wants to see you.”

Stone Number Five

2010-11-15T11:05:00.000-08:00

He crouched down by the water, watching the small brook rush upon the stones. He dipped his left hand in and let the deep coolness play upon his fingers for a moment. He reached for a stone, small and dark, and brought it forth.

He studied it as he patted his hand dry against his thigh. The stone was dark gray, mottled with black specks and the slightest twinge of red. He bounced it in his hand two or three times. Heavy enough. The right size. Pretty, too. He reached for his bag and placed the rock in the well-worn leather pouch.

He’d always loved collecting rocks. He liked to choose just the right ones, for shape or size, or simply for that certain something that just seemed... right. A diamond, a ruby, these things meant very little to him. But a nice rock. That was something special. Sometimes, he liked to use his knife to etch a message into its surface.

Again he dipped his hand into the water, and this time pulled out a small but heavy red stone, black veins coursing through it, and smooth from the rhythms of the river. He turned it in his hands for a moment, inspecting it with furrowed brow. A little small, but this, too, he placed in his satchel.

Twice more he pulled stones from the river, and placed them in his pack.

Again, he knelt down and pulled one more stone from the brook. This one was squarish, but smooth. From his belt, he pulled out a sling. It was made of tightly wound wool, worn and stained with time and a thousand stones. He put the squarish rock in its small, curved leather pouch, held both ends of the sling in his strong left hand, and whirled it at his side.

Across the wadi was a tree. Its branches dead with age, it was gray and had a large knot just below the fork of its decaying branches. The sling spun at his side, until he carefully raised it above his head, and took aim. The sound of the whistling cord filled his ears until, with a grunt and squint, he let go, sending the stone flying.

He missed.

Crap.

Lord, I’m gonna need to do better than that.

He picked up another stone, placed it in the sling’s satchel, and took aim once again, his brows curled with concentration.

For Israel, and for the name of our God.

The stone flew, straight and true, hitting the tree across the river with a thok, missing its target by inches.

“Better,” he sighed, “but bad.”

For a third time, he dipped his hand in the river, and placed a stone in the sling. He breathed deeply.

Lord, I know you can do this. I know that I can’t without you.

The whirling sling sung above his head, and after a moment, he let fly the stone. He watched it spiral and soar above the water, praying as it flew.

The stone hit the knot, and stayed there.

He scampered across the shallow waters to inspect what he could hardly believe. He ran his fingers across the embedded stone, his lips parted in awe.

“This is good,” he whispered. “This is very good.”

He pried the stone from the bark, inspecting it, almost expecting to discover something in the stone that held a secret. He placed it in his satchel.

“Five stones,” he smiled. “A good number.”

I See You

2010-11-02T17:19:00.001-07:00

He sat under the tree, the pages of scripture resting in his hands. His eyes, however, were gazing upward, and traveling from the branches, ripe with figs, to the open sky. Wisps of white floated above him, playing with the sunlight as they passed.

A small bird called out as it lit upon a branch nearby in a flutter of tiny wings. She rested there a moment, long enough to cock a studious glance at the bearded young man. His eyes met hers, and she called out a verse. She paused, and in another flutter she rose again. He watched her swoop and rise and disappear behind the building beyond the small, green field his fig tree called home.

His eyes came to rest once again at the open page before him.

The Lord appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre...

Abraham. Our father. The one who left his country, his family, his home to venture out into the great unknown.

He thought of his own town. The dirty, nothing, little city he called home. He could count the number of streets on two hands, but somehow, he felt lost there. Life beyond its walls did not seem impossible, but close enough to impossible to seem unreachable. To where could he fly if he did leave? The dirty, nothing little town next door?

His heart felt anchored, chained, to everything familiar. Family, expectations, and the weight of a life without vision. To leave it all would require a call as deep and dramatic as that of Father Abraham. But God was not appearing in the great trees of Cana, with angels making impractical announcements that made a person laugh with hope and disbelief.

He thought of Abraham, of flight and of freedom and of angels, and a stab of jealousy for the ancient father ran through him. His hand was wiping away the water at the corners of his eyes when his heart leaped into his throat. A great flurry of feathers landed above his head.

“God! You scared me to death!” he said.

The culprit, a haggard, grey pigeon with pink eyes, preened his wings and stared back. He cooed a raspy hello, and in another flurry of whining wings, he was in the air and winging west and south toward Nazareth.

“You’re headed in the wrong direction, my friend,” he muttered.

He sighed, glancing down once again at the page before him, and his eyes came to rest at the words of the angel.

Is anything too hard for the Lord?

“Maybe this is.”

For a moment, all was silence as he stared upon the story on the page. And for a moment, he thought he heard a silent voice somewhere in the stillness.

I see you.

Missing.

2010-09-16T22:11:00.000-07:00

“I’m sure he’ll come back.” The boy placed a consoling hand on the older man’s shoulder.

“I know... I know...” The old man, getting older before his time, wiped his eyes with the backs of his hands. “Thank-you. I didn’t mean to trouble you with my problems.”

“I’m hired help. You didn’t say what I couldn’t help with.” The boy of fifteen smiled back. He, too, seemed older before his time.

The old man feebly smiled, but the playful kindness of the boy seemed to strike a deeper well of tears. He reached for the boy and held on to him, shaking with grief, his face buried in the boy’s chest.

“I miss him so much! I’m so scared for him!” His voice was hoarse with grief, and a lifetime of digging in the dirt. “I just want him home! I don’t care about how he left. I just want him home!”

The boy held him in his arms for a long time, until at last the shaking subsided into exhausted gasps and sniffs. The boy looked carefully into the old man’s eyes, and held his gaze for a moment before he spoke.

“I look forward to meeting him.”

The boy had been working for the old man for three weeks now. He had heard from another hired hand that one of the old man’s children had ran off. It had been an unhappy departure. The young son had spoken a cruel word, thrown an obscene gesture, and walked away. The old man was heartbroken.

This other boy, this good boy with a large family and a limited income, had been in search of work. The old man, realizing he could not take up the work his wayward son had been doing, hired him with few words and a firm handshake.

Now, three weeks later, an unexpected friendship had slowly been forming between the boy and the old farmer. The old man admired the boy’s combination of hard work and a ready smile. The boy admired the old man’s kind face, and friendly eyes. He had also recognized the grief behind those eyes.

The old man never spoke harshly of his youngest son, but when he did speak of him, it was with the decisive, clipped sentences of a man keeping a world of pain at bay. Instead, he turned his words to his older son, and set upon him words of praise and adulation.

“He’s a good man, my son,” he would say as he watched the young man at work in the field. “He’ll do well with the place when I’m gone. He’s up before me every morning, and usually comes in an hour after me at night. He’s a hard worker.”

The boy would nod, and wonder when the old man would finally break.

Tonight, he decided, he would ask about the son that wasn’t there.

Twilight was gathering upon the fields as the boy had come to collect his daily wage. The old man stood in the pale sunlight and handed him his humble pay. The boy had asked with refreshing candor.

“Sir, what happened with your son?”

A look of pained relief had come over the old man’s face. No one had dared bring up the subject with him, and it had been wounding him so to keep it unsaid. With a deep sigh, he had told the boy everything.

Now, as the tears dried and the first star of the evening shone above them, the two sat in a silent communion.

---

Nine months and two pay raises later, the boy was still at work. Each day, he hoped he would lose his job to a returning son. He watched the old man from the field, and noted how often he would gaze down the road, looking at nothing, watching for someone.

---

It was about three in the afternoon on a Thursday when he heard the old man shriek. The boy had been digging a post hole, and when he turned to see what had happened, he saw the old man running like a mad man down the lane. He knew even before he saw the distant figure what the old man was running toward: a reunion.

The boy set aside his shovel and walked, awestruck, in the direction of the running old man. What he saw would stay with him for the rest of his life.

A young man, not much older than he, was ambling slowly up the road toward the farm. His clothes were dirty, and he looked exhausted. When he caught sight of his running father, he simply collapsed to his knees, and shook his head. It was that head shaking that would always stay in the boy’s memory: the weary son’s hands cupping his mouth and nose in disbelief, overwhelmed and hardly believing a father would run to a son such as he.

But he did run, and swept down upon the son like a crashing wave, the folds of his robes enveloping him in an ocean of mercy.

The boy came as close as he dared, stopping far enough away to hear only the bedraggled son’s responses to whatever words of grace his father was speaking as he held him.

“Please, Dad, I can’t.... I don’t want... I’m sorry... I’m sorry...”

But soon all words were gone, and there was only a father and his son in silent embrace.

A moment later, the old man called for the hired hand that stood at a distance behind him, that hired hand that had come to be something more.

“Jesus! Jesus, come here! It’s alright, come here.” he called.

The boy came forward, smiling humbly, but not shyly.

“I want you to meet my son Caleb.” said the old man. “Caleb, this is Jesus. He’s one of the hired hands here. My best.”

“It’s good to meet you.” Jesus said.

Caleb greeted him. “You too.”

“So you see why I can’t take you on as a hired hand, son. I’d have to fire this replacement here. Now, Jesus, I need you to get a couple of things for me....”`

The three of them walked toward the house, the father, the son, and the hired hand.

The Party

2010-09-02T17:39:00.001-07:00

Miriam sat at a table with two other party goers, her powder-blue eyes glancing about the room as she took another sip of wine. She was ordinarily quite at home at a dinner gathering, but tonight she felt quite awkward and more than a little out of place. The party was abuzz with people from all over her small town, but there were few she had ever met.

She recognized the man with the scraggly beard who was currently slapping his legs and barking a loud, toothless laugh. In fact, she’d even spoken to him several times, usually having told him, “No. I have no change.”

She also recognized the lady who was often found sitting by the bread vendor at the market, holding her small child in her lap and looking pathetic. Her hand always outstretched and her eyes upturned. Tonight she still held her child, but she was bouncing the giggling boy on her knee, clapping in time with the music.

She had not, to her knowledge, seen the man with one leg before. She couldn’t help but stare. He was a marvelous dancer.

At first she had wondered why any of these people had been invited to such an occasion. Soon, she began to wonder why she had.

Her eyes came back to the two men seated with her. They were friendly enough, in a common sort of way, and the younger of the two was the host of the celebration. They had introduced themselves, though the older man’s name left her head almost as soon as she’d heard it.

She felt obligated to attempt some small talk, and had to raise her voice to uncomfortable levels to pierce the din of the room.

“So how do you two know each other? How did you... um... meet?” she asked, hoping she hadn’t yelled.

“I was drunk, off my ass, on the street. He helped me out.” the older man yelled.

“Oh!” said Miriam.

“He had tried to ride it home.” interjected the younger man. He began laughing as he added, “Sarah was not happy!”

“Who’s Sarah?” Miriam asked with a confused smile.

“His ass,” the young man replied.

“Oh!”

“You still had the tether around your hand,” continued the young man, “and I think Sarah had dragged you about fifty feet before you even noticed you’d fallen off!”

Miriam giggled. She hated when she giggled. It rarely meant that she was actually amused, and more often than not it meant that she didn’t know what to say or how to respond.

“God, I was a mess,” said the old man. “I think I’d pissed myself, too.”

“Yes, Ben, you did,” said the young man, raising his eyebrows and remembering a certain scent.

“Some things never change!” laughed the old fellow.

Another round of laughs broke out between them, and Miriam tittered nervously. She was relieved, though, that the young man had mentioned his friend’s name. She thought she’d try to move the conversation into a more comfortable subject matter.

“So what do you do, Ben?” she asked.

“I’m a dung collector,” said Ben with a smile.

“Oh!”

This was not a more comfortable subject matter. She was sure she could feel the precise shade of red on her face. “Is that... How is that for you?”

“It’s the shittiest job around,” said Ben seriously.

“Oh.”

And Ben laughed. “But business is always booming!” He set forth on what was, apparently, a standard set of dung-related witticisms. They were designed to put off, or put at ease, anyone who asked about his profession. Miriam was not put at ease. She giggled and tittered and felt like crying.

Ben calmed himself from his personal laugh-fest. “Jesus, how long has it been since that night?”

“Almost two years,” Jesus said.

“Two years! My God. Seems like longer.” He placed a hand on Jesus’s shoulder. Jesus folded his hands around his cup of wine, and looked over at his friend.

“This here is a very special young man,” said Ben, suddenly addressing Miriam with an unexpected air of formality. “I can honestly say I’ve never met anyone like him.”

“Oh?” said Miriam.

“I’ve known a lot of people, but not a one of them has ever been my friend.” Ben looked at the young man with eyes as deep as a clear, blue lake. “He is my best friend, ever.”

Miriam was silent and, somehow, finally began to feel comfortable. “That’s wonderful,” she said. “God bless you, young man. You have a good heart.”

Jesus smiled. “Thank-you, ma’am.”

Miriam smiled back. “I think you’ll go far in life with an attitude like that. Happy birthday.”

Ben slapped him on the back and raised his cup. “Happy twenty-first, Jesus. Thanks for inviting us. I’m just sorry I don’t have anything to give you.”

“Don’t worry, Ben. I have my reward.” he said as he waved away the apology. “Just don’t piss yourself.”

“I don’t make promises I can’t keep.” said Ben.

Miriam laughed.

One Thing You Lack

2010-08-27T16:01:00.001-07:00

The young man didn’t have everything, but he could obtain much of it on credit.

He was a good guy. He wasn’t snobbish with his relative wealth, and it was just that: relative, in both senses of the term. He had inherited a healthy chunk of wealth from his father, but he was not what anyone would consider “very wealthy”. He was, as he sometimes put it, “comfortable.” So he wore his wealth like a comfy coat, modestly and naturally.

He was devout, closing his eyes and silently moving his lips as the priest led services. He gave a healthy tithe, often going well beyond the minimal 10 percent. He was pretty sure these factors had something to do with his continued “blessing”.

He was relatively happy, as well. Relatively. As yet unmarried, though there was a possibility or two. He enjoyed his community, and he loved a good party, though he was never found with a headache or a churning stomach in the morning. Usually the next morning he held on to a lingering smile from a good time well had.

Most nights he went to sleep content with how things were, and he slept deeply.

That is, most nights. Lately, he felt he’d been ever-so-slightly troubled by a distant, unformed thought. He was still quick to smile and welcome a friend, but there was often found a thoughtful furrow upon his brow.

That distant thought soon became the faintest whisper, and it came to him as he lay in bed, a candle still smoldering beside him. He would close his eyes and strain to hear it, but it was still out of reach, barely a decibel below what his ears could hear.

But the feeling, the whisper, persisted. It was there now when he woke. It was there at his parties. It was even there at church. He found himself staring into the sky, as if he might be able to hear the words in the whisper if he could just concentrate hard enough.

Today was a Thursday. It was late in the afternoon, and he had just waved good-bye to a friend and business partner. The marketplace bustled with people as he began a leisurely walk home. He bought a flavoured drink from a smiling girl, and sat for a moment on a step to enjoy it.

A beggar sat on the ground across from him, between a fruit stand and a basket maker, his thin and aged hand outstretched as it had been for years now. Someone placed a coin in his palm, and though the person was gone too quickly to see it, the frail old man pressed his hands together and raised them to his forehead, bowing in thanks for the small kindness.

He took the last sips of his drink as he continued watching the old man. He stood, paused for a moment, and walked home.

The meal prepared for him that evening was filling and delicious. He sat, satisfied, closing his eyes for a moment to whisper a thank-you, and for the first time, he heard something with form.

His eyes shot open, and he heard it echo in his mind.

one thing you lack

---

He didn’t sleep well that night. The phrase reverberated in his head in concert with the yelping hound across the street. He rose in the morning, bleary-eyed and disturbed by a dream he couldn’t remember.

The phrase came back to him with every action, with every transaction. There was urgency in the phrase, as if his very soul depended on it, but there was no tangible direction.

It pestered him as he walked through the market. It came to him as he sat at a restaurant for lunch. Later, as he stood in the stable in the evening light, he heard the phrase again. A young camel nuzzled at his hand as he fed her a date, her lips tickling his palms.

“Have I been kind to you, girl?” he asked.

The camel said nothing, but raised her head and turned an eye toward him.

He gently scratched behind the camel’s ear, and whispered to God, “What do you want me to do?” The camel overheard, and responded with a deep, croaking, “Maaaaah!”

“I know,” he said. “One thing I lack.”

---

He decided to see the Teacher.

He watched him from a distance. People were gathered all around him, many of them working class types, many others much less than working class. He even recognized the old man from the market, smiling toothlessly as Jesus shook his fragile hand.

He thought about going home. He thought that perhaps he could speak to the Teacher when there was not so much of a crowd, or at least when the uglier element had departed.

one thing you lack

He didn’t go home.

He pressed forward through the crowd, and soon found himself just a few feet away from the rabbi Jesus, shoulder to shoulder with the other admirers. He glanced to his left. The woman there smelled bad. He cautioned a glance at his other shoulder. The man on his right looked mean. The teacher, in the crowd, stood smiling and shaking a filthy hand.

How does he love these people? He knew immediately that he should feel guilty for such a thought, but he couldn’t help it. These people were definitely not in his circle of friends and acquaintances. He didn’t dislike them, exactly, but he did like them better from a greater distance.

The phrase was with him with every thump in his anxious chest, and it drove him on to brave the unseemly element.

one thing you lack one thing you lack ONE THING YOU LACK

Finally, he found the courage to throw his hand forward in a desperate greeting, but somehow, he found that he had fallen at the Teacher’s feet.

Jesus looked down at him, then knelt, and looked him in the eye.

“Can I help you?” the Teacher said, placing a hand on the young man’s shoulder.

“Good Teacher, I’m desperate. Please tell me, what do I have to do? I mean, to have life? I mean, real, enduring life? What am I missing?”

“You call me good.” said the teacher. “Why do you call me good?”

The young man looked confused. “I... Because... you are. You’re here with these people. They love you. It takes a special kind of person to...”

“Only God is good, my friend. We just get to share in it.”

Jesus stood, lifting the young man gently as he rose.

“So how... How do I do that?” the young man asked.

“You know the commandments. Don’t commit adultery. Don’t murder. Don’t steal. Don’t lie. Don’t defraud anyone. Honour your father and mother.”

“I’ve kept all these commandments all my life!” the young man said, exasperated. “All of them! I tithe! I try to be good to people! What am I doing wrong? What am I missing?”

Jesus looked at him, and loved him.

“One thing you lack,” he said, his voice as even as a narrow road. “Go, sell all your possessions, and give them to the poor. Then you’ll have life.”

The young man stood there, staring at him, shocked and silent.

“Are you serious?”

Jesus smiled. “You do that, and you will have more treasure in the Kingdom of God than you’ve ever had before. Then come, follow me.”

The furrow came back to the young man’s brow. He felt like his stomach had been pulled out of him, and his heart now sank into the empty cavity. He turned, and saw the faces of the other people following Jesus. There was perhaps a full set of teeth for every three people. That one was obviously a prostitute. That one looked like he had just stuck a knife in someone. That one smelled like dead fish and booze.

“You know where to find me.” Jesus said.

The young man walked away, his face weighted with thought, his heart defeated.

“One thing you lack,” he’d said. “One thing you lack.”

---

He stood, his bundle of money heavy in his hand, staring at the old beggar.

God he thought, this is impossible. And his camel brayed behind him.

Welcomed

2010-07-28T09:17:00.001-07:00

The others sat at a distance, chatting quietly, stealing glances at the two of them. The two sat huddled by the breakfast fire, the morning sun warming up to the day. He glanced upon the face of his friend, who was looking out upon the sea. Haunting guilt lingered like a shadow in his chest, and when his friend looked him in the eyes, he quickly cast them down at the sand. His friend’s gaze, however, remained.

The fire cracked, and the waves cast a hush upon the shore.

“Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” Jesus said.

Peter’s eyes shifted from the sand to the fire and down again. It had been a long time since his friend had called him that. He’d gotten used to his nickname. He only dared a brief look into his friend’s eyes. “You mean more than the others? More than these fish? More than my old life?”

Jesus was silent, and answered his question.

“Yes, Lord. Yes,” Peter said. “You know I love you.”

“Feed my lambs.” said Jesus. “They’ll need a shepherd. I want it to be you.”

Peter protested. “Oh, Jesus. Thank-you, but, I couldn’t do that. I think you want someone like John.”

“No, Peter. I want you.”

Peter kept his eyes everywhere but upon his friend. “I really couldn’t. I’m just not equipped.”

“Simon, son of John, do you love me?”

“Yes! You know I do! I just...”

“Tend my sheep.”

Simon Peter, the son of John, looked to his friend. “Jesus... Please. You don’t want me for this. I can’t! Please!”

Jesus spoke again. “Look at me, Peter.”

Peter felt like gravity itself fought against his gaze, and strained to raise his eyes.

Jesus placed a hand on his shoulder. “Simon, son of John, do you love me?”

The surf broke upon the beach as the tears broke from his eyes. “You know everything!” he cried. “You know I love you!”

“Do you know you love me?”

Peter was silent, but for his sniffling nose and the stifled grunts of a sob.

“I denied you! I denied you!” he wept. “I’m sorry! I’m no better than him. I’m so sorry! I don’t want you to love me like this. Please!”

Jesus held the weeping man. “Too late, Peter. You’ve welcomed me three times.”

Betrayed, Abandoned

2010-07-27T09:38:00.001-07:00

The weight of his betrayal was crushing him.

He had been the one who had felt abandoned, forced into the background of friendship by the others. He thought he could force his hand, and somehow return himself to his place of honour at his friend’s side. He thought his friend would finally rise up, finally fight back and show his strength. He didn’t.

The moment after he kissed his friend’s cheek, he knew it wasn’t going to go that way.

Despair was now a strangely comforting blanket he wrapped tightly around himself. He walked out into the night, numb, and cold, the thirty silver coins shaking in the purse held by his trembling hand.

---

The weight of his friend’s betrayal sunk his heart like ballast. Forgiveness was here, waiting, if he would only come and receive it. He hung there, high above the gawking crowd who had gathered for the execution, and searched each face for the face of his friend.

If only he would come, I could tell him.

---

His betrayal might have gone unnoticed, had a rooster not crowed. He might have justified it to himself, told himself he was only trying to lay low so that he could be near. The rooster told him otherwise. Clear and shrill, it sang the coarse and cutting song. Denial. Betrayal. It stole the breath from his throat, and he ran away, and wept bitterly.

---

If only he would only come, I could tell him.

He looked upon the faces of the ones gathered here before him, like the sheep and the goats awaiting their judgement. He saw the faces of his friends in his mind’s eye, and loved them. He saw the faces of his accusers, of the ones who had condemned him. An ocean of broken people broke upon his heart, each one condemned to death by a billion separate judges. Peter and Judas stood out.

“Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing.”

If only they would come, I could tell them.

---

He looked upon the field below him, standing on the branch of the lone tree which he had climbed. The rope scratched his neck, and his hand played at it without thought. He stood carefully upon the limb, steadying himself by another branch. The grass is tall, he thought absently. It’ll be a long time before anyone finds me.

He pronounced himself Judge of his own soul, and found it guilty, punishable by death. He stepped out from the limb, and the weight of his guilt doubled gravity.

I Came for the Sick

2010-07-09T15:34:00.000-07:00

He could hardly stand the loneliness. It seemed to come over him like an overwhelming, shadowy hand, death-like in its silence and terrifying in its completeness. His chest would begin to constrict as his heart raced out of control. He would try to breathe, until his attack subsided, and then he would pray for sleep to come quickly. A stiff drink or three helped to answer his prayers.

The morning brought a routine, and a day with enough busyness to keep the loneliness at bay. Each day he sat at his desk, a morning snifter safely in his hardening belly, and each day he would count. There was safety in numbers, but each night it was the same.

Alone.

Alone.

A sleep-inducing drunk.

Alone.

For years now, despair had been forming like a parasite, consuming him from within. Each night, it fed upon him in the moments before sleep came. It brought someone to his mind for him to hate, or to lament, or both. He thought of his father, and wept. He thought of his father, and raged.

Sleep.

Wake.

Work.

Alone.

His illness began to come upon him in his working hours, and panic would shoot up from the pit of his stomach like a geyser. To quell it required a quick drink, just enough to keep from throwing up, and he could return to his numbers.

Today he sat at his desk, counting his money in a dull buzz. He had counted it twice already, but it was an unusually slow day and he needed to keep his hands moving. He heard the familiar squeak of turning wheels, the bray of an ox, and the shuffle of feet.

He raised his eyes to see a group approaching, mostly on foot. They looked dirty, but who didn’t around here? He counted sixteen, eleven men and five women. Several were laughing together. They looked happy. He hated them.

The man in the lead approached his desk.

“How many are in your group?” Levi asked.

“Uh... fifteen?”

“Sixteen,” Levi corrected, and scribbled down the number.

“Sixteen, then,” the man said.

“How many oxen?”

The man looked back. “Unless you have an extra under your desk, just that one. Right there.”

“How many axles on the cart?”

“Just one.”

“Destination?”

“This lovely town of yours right here, actually.”

Somewhere, a dog barked.

“Reason for your trip?” Levi asked.

“The Kingdom of God is at hand.”

Levi looked up from his paper. “Excuse me?”

“The Kingdom of God is at hand. Isn’t that great?” he smiled.

Levi paused for a long moment to assess the stranger. He expected to see eyes lit with lunacy, but instead saw something entirely different. These eyes were unnervingly sane. If he had seen such things as compassion or ferocity before, he might have called it one of these. Instead, he had only an unnamed feeling of love and danger. He felt something rising up within him that felt like hope and fear and longing, and repressed a particularly acidic belch.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Jesus, from Nazareth.” the stranger answered.

The geyser in his stomach lurched upward again, but this time he couldn’t keep it down. A golden-brown stream erupted from his mouth and onto his desk, covering the money he had recently counted in an acrid breakfast.

Levi looked up at the stranger, Jesus.

“So you’ve heard of me?” Jesus said.

A strange and unexpected sound came out of Levi’s mouth, something between a whimper, a laugh, and a sob. His vomit ran down his chin and covered his quivering hands. He looked up into the face of this Jesus. He was smiling, though he was taking no delight in Levi’s humiliation. His eyebrows formed little ‘u’s of sincerity. The ‘u’s were too much. He lost all control, or perhaps unexpectedly let go of it. Levi began to weep, and snort, and blubber like a child.

“I’m sick!” said Levi. “I’m... so... sick!!” And he began to wail.

Jesus’s friends stood at a distance, their sixteen faces a row of stunned silence. The ox brayed.

Jesus came around the desk, and sat beside him. He placed one hand upon his shoulder, and the other one into the vomit-covered hand of the weeping toll collector. Levi looked up at his unexpected consoler. This Jesus was still smiling, but there were tears in his eyes, too.

“Follow me,” Jesus said. “I’ll help you get better.”

Levi, shaking, sniffing, dripping, got up, and followed.

Steps

2010-07-05T21:23:00.000-07:00

God orders our steps, not in a march but in a dance.

Roses

2010-06-26T15:06:00.000-07:00

Everything came washing over her, not in an instant, but in an ever flowing moment. Images of every secret kept and shame concealed came rushing over her in a torrent of grace. There was pain in the reliving, but also release. Her tears rolled on, and as she wept her tears became a rushing river which engulfed her seven times.

She saw herself in a new dress, a girl of eleven. Her hair was dark and long, and spilled gracefully upon her shoulders. She had a small jar of scented oil, which she dolloped behind her ears, and took a deep breath of the fragrance. It was sweet, and deep, and made her think of roses. She sang to herself, until she saw the opening of the door, and watched her father enter the room.

She felt his hand on her thigh. She saw the closing of the door. She felt the tickling of the tears streaming back upon her face and onto her earlobes, where the perfume lay, still filling the room with its scent.

She saw her father entering her room again and again, closing the door. She felt his hand upon her shoulder, holding her in place. She saw his eyes across the table as they dined with affluent friends, eyes that told her this was a secret she could never speak of. She saw the closing of the door.

She saw the face of the first boy that looked at her the same way her father did, and the closing of another door. She saw the second, and even the third, but the rest took on just one face: her father’s.

She saw the money shining in a pile next to her bed, the first time she took charge and made them pay. It had shimmered dully in candlelight, almost pretty. But it bore a seed of shame deep within her. This is all I’m worth, she thought. It’s all that I am. Soon there were no candles; only back alleys and roach-infested corners, and the face of her father, and somehow, the closing of a door.

For years without number, and days without end, there was the closing of a door.

Until him. One day, as barren as any other, there was a new face, and he looked her in the eyes from across the street. He smiled, only as a gift, with no expectation. She did not smile back, but she held that smile he’d given her somewhere in the corner of her heart. Many men smiled at her before, but it had always cost her something. This one was free.

As she now recalled it, she could almost hear the rusted hinges creaking open as he spoke to her the second time she’d seen him. Through her present tears, she laughed for just a moment at the memory of his first words to her.

“Hi. Would you like to join us for lunch?”

An invitation. An open door.

She had made some excuse not to join them, but she never forgot the invitation. She saw him many times since then, and it was always the same. He asked her every time, with that wide, open smile, “Would you like to join us?” It was a doorway into something big, and it was always open. What lay on the other side of it was immense, and spacious, and terrifying.

Today, he had been walking past her corner again, and paused to find her.

“Hi, Helen! How are you?”

She smiled. “Not too bad. Better since you’re here.”

“We’re having dinner at my friend’s house. Do you want to come?”

“No,” she said. “I need to work.”

“Well it’s just up here, to the left. Do you know Simon?”

She wanted to laugh out loud for just how well she knew Simon, but only said, “Yeah... I think so.”

“We’re having dinner there. You’re welcome to join us.”

“Thanks. I’ll think about it.”

She watched him walk away, and waved a good-bye. Somewhere inside her, she knew that he himself was that doorway into something grand. It still scared her to death. But this day, this barren, ordinary day, she would walk through it.

An hour later, she was knocking on Simon’s door.

“Come in!” Jesus said, before the owner of the house had a chance to speak.

The door opened, and a beautiful girl with long, dark hair stood quivering in the frame. In her hand she held a small jar of scented oil. She saw him, and he smiled, and she broke.

She ran to his feet, and wept upon them a stream of unbounded love. The spirit of humility had been slowly killing the spirit of shame for a some time now. Tonight, it had finished the deed. For the first time, she felt she could be forgiven. For the first time, she believed she could forgive.

She took the jar of perfume, and poured it upon his feet, and kissed them. She tenderly dried his feet with her hair, which fell like a mantle upon them.

“Your sins have been forgiven,” he whispered.

“I know,” she said, and smiled. “Thank-you.”

“You’re worth more than you know.” 

She smiled again. “I’m starting to believe that.”

“Your faith has saved you, Helen. There’s an open door. Walk on in peace.”

She closed her eyes, and took a deep breath of freedom. It was sweet, and deep, and made her think of roses.

The Other Cheek

2010-06-16T11:01:00.000-07:00

“You will not do this.”

His face was set like flint. The girl was on the ground behind him, her mother gathering her in her arms, the two of them quickly and fearfully backing away.

The Attacker drew his eyes upon the man now standing between he and his prey, and moved closer.

“I will do what pleases me. Get out of my way.”

The Man Between did not move. He was at least two inches shorter, and gazed upward toward the Attacker. He spoke the words again.

“You will not do this.”

The back of the Attacker’s hand met his face swiftly, and with great strength. A ring caught him just below his right eye, and his cheek was instantly emblazoned with a thin slash of blood. He felt rage, both alien and immediate, welling up within him as he righted himself to face the Attacker.

Once more, he drew the Attacker’s sight to his own. The Man Between looked into his eyes with alarming intensity. He seemed to be searching for something behind them. In a moment, there was a look of recognition. He found what he was looking for.

“If it pleases you, you may strike me again, child. But place it on this cheek.” He held a finger to the left side of his beard.

Instantly he felt the blinding strike of the attacker’s fist. He righted himself again, his mouth filling with blood, his teeth throbbing. For the third time, he drew the Attacker’s eyes to his own.

“It pleases me.” the Attacker said, spat in his face, and walked away.