by Mary Quijano
************
I flop back on my bed and stare at the ceiling, shaking my head. Mother may have won that round; none the less, I think it will be some time before I am allowed to leave the house again.
A Time to Sow
It has been about 3 months since I killed Rabbi Akiva. They held an investigation, but there was no sign of violence, so his death was reluctantly ascribed to natural causes. No one had actually seen me enter or leave his house - or at least no one who was willing to come forth and say they had - so the matter was officially dropped.
Even so, through the winter I have kept to the house, helping mother with canning and cleaning, and of course with baby James.
He no longer looks like a hairy worm; as a matter of fact he is quite adorable, especially when he laughs and holds out his arms for me to pick him up. I carry him with me everywhere, and talk to him constantly, telling him everything I see and what the meaning of each thing is, what miracle is disguised inside, what truth revealed. He listens with a look of amazement in his wide brown eyes, pink cherub lips agape as if he is taking it all in and truly understands. It is then, even with him less than 6 months old, that I decide he will be my first disciple. My heart feels bound to him with a touching joy I cannot name or even describe, but I know I would fight a lion to protect him if I had to.
Winter is time for planting, so I reluctantly leave my brother in my mother's care this morning and go out into the fields with my father to prepare the soil for this year's crop of wheat.
"Yeshua, get the mule," he tells me that first day, as he grabs the yoke and harnesses from the shed.
As it turns out, Sheba is unwilling to leave her warm bed of hay in the little stall next to our barn to venture out into the early morning chill, and despite pulling and tugging on the rope I've placed around her neck, I am still too small to get my will done by force alone. I hear father call my name impatiently from the other side of the yard.
"Yeshua, hurry with that animal: What is taking you so long?"
"Okay, Sheba, enough playing mule. Get up and get going!" I order sternly.
Immediately the animal jumps to her feet and all but drags me airborne in her rush to get out of the stall.
"Well, that's more like it," I mutter, scrambling to keep up with her.
We tie Sheba to the plow, and then father shows me how to hold the two long wooden arms steady as she pulls the plowshare forward; while he goes in front to remove stones and deadfall from the track. Together we follow her back and forth across our land all that day and the next two as well, turning the damp soil into furrows and working the hard ground until it is soft enough to provide a gentle bed for our new plantings.
By the fourth day he is satisfied.
"There," he says, picking up a handful of the loose loam. "Feel that soil, son. This is the way the seedlings need the ground if they are to take root and grow. Now we plant!"
Father shows me how deep to push in the seeds, how far apart to spread them.
"You got it, son?" he asks.
"I got it father: I can do this."
Okay, here's your bag of seeds. Be careful not to drop any, and plant them just as I showed you. You should have enough to do about eight or ten rows if you're careful."
He leaves me there to plant my rows while he does the rest of the large field. He doesn't notice me spit into the handful of seeds he's given me, but I smile as I do it, knowing what a surprise is in store when it comes time to reap our harvest in the fall.
Mary
I am so happy we can go to Passover this year after missing it the past two seasons. Only Joseph went last year, as the baby was too young for such a journey. But I need to talk to Elizabeth about Yeshua and Joseph, and how to handle it all; the drama is so much more than I can bear sometimes. He is a fine and wonderful boy, respectful and hard working. But he is also like an alien species, knowing and understanding things I cannot grasp, nay cannot even dream of. I see him gazing out at the world through those luminous brown eyes, and I wonder what he sees there that I don't. I love him just as any mother loves the child she has carried in her womb and nursed at her breasts, yet at the same time I look at him in awe, and just a little fear, when I realize who he truly is.
I tell Elizabeth all this that first evening, after Joseph, Yeshua and John leave to take the lamb to the temple for sacrifice. Joseph didn't want to take Yeshua with him and, truth told, Yeshua didn't want to go either, as he hates the idea of killing; but I insisted on the pretext that it was his duty to learn and accept the practice. Actually I just wanted to talk to Elizabeth out of anyone's hearing. She understood that without my saying a word, and made John go along with the other two, knowing that if John went then Yeshua wouldn't mind so much.
After I pour my heart out about my concerns regarding Yeshua's powers, and about Joseph's attitude towards the boy, how he mistrusts him so much that he won't let him out of his sight these days, Elizabeth has little to offer other than her love, her understanding, and a cup of strong sweet tea.
"No one has ever borne such a burden as this before you, Mary; nor will anyone ever again be called to do so. There is no history to fall back on for guidance, no precedence to learn from. But just know that if God has entrusted you with the care and raising of his only Son - that is, with His own divine Self in a human body - then He knows you will do what is right. Trust His judgment in choosing you for the task, child, without fear, for is God ever wrong?"
Joseph
It is not until the last day of our visit, when Zechariah - finally finished with his exhausting duties at the temple - is able to sit down and talk with me. We go out for a stroll in the little village on the outskirts of Jerusalem while Mary and Elizabeth are busy packing up our wagon for the trek home the next morning.
I tell the priest about the incident with Rabbi Akiva, how Yeshua struck him dead without remorse after the man slapped him.
"I've kept him at home ever since, Zechariah, as I fear his power and question his ability to control it or discern when to use it. He's still so young, I'm not sure he fully knows what he is doing sometimes."
"But he is the Son of God," Zechariah says thoughtfully. "Surely he is aware of right and wrong."
"I just don't know; I would hope so, but who am I to know or judge his idea of right and wrong? The problem is, I still have to contend with public opinion, I still have to make a living in the village, and I can't if we are shunned due to Yeshua's behavior. People don't know and aren't ready to accept that it is God they see and not a demon-possessed child."
"Then you are wise to keep him at home for now," Zechariah nods. "Keep him occupied, away from the public eye. Teach him carpentry, why don't you? And don't worry about his education so much. If God the father wants him to learn about letters, the Torah, or any other precepts of our faith, He will make this happen in its own time.
The Carpenter's Son
With planting done and the subsequent daily weeding left in the hands of my mother, father says it is time for me to learn a trade so that I can be of some practical benefit to the family. He brings me every day to his shop, and teaches me how to work the wood into plows and yokes, doorways, beams and sometimes rough-hewn tables or chairs, shaping and smoothing until my arms feel so heavy they want to fall from my shoulders.
I like working with the wood, though. I like the smell of its dust and sap, the beauty of the lines and warps and colors woven through it, the way I can take a piece which is coarse and unfinished, hidden under the rough bark, and bring out its inner promise, its purpose and grace.
Luckily for us there is still plenty of work.
Despite the scandal over the death of Rabbi Akiva, rumors and gossip can only continue so long before dying of inertia on the lips of those who love disgrace as much as vultures love dead meat: Even for gossip mongers the endless repetition of the same fact and fantasy eventually gets boring.
Besides, people needed their plows and yokes, and my father is the only c
arpenter in town.
I soon discover that, although hard working and with many years of experience, my father is not as good a carpenter as he might wish to be. Used to making the rough implements of the field, where measurements need not be particularly precise, he lacks a certain talent for the refinements of craft required by furniture-making, which he is occasionally hired to do. Today he is all in a turmoil because one of the beams he cut for a bed ordered by the richest man in town is too short and he has no more lumber of that type to replace it.
"Why are you so upset father," I ask him innocently, though I know full well what he is worried about.
"I have no wood from which to cut another beam, Yeshua, and this one is too short. If I cut the other one down to match, then the bed will be too short."
He sits down on his bench and puts his head in his hands, shaking it woefully. "Ananias will think I'm an idiot!"
I smile. "Father, put the two beams on the bench, so that their ends are even on the side next to you."
"Why?"
"Just do it; trust me."
He shrugs, gets up and lays the beams side by side as I have told him."
I go to the other end of the planks and take hold of the shorter one. I look up at my father, wink playfully, and begin to pull, stretching the wood out until it is of equal length with the other.
"There," I say; "how's that?"
Father walks around and around the beams, his mouth open in amazement. I can't help the grin that widens my cheeks, seeing his astonishment at my little trick, happy that I have pleased him. Then, surprising me, he picks me up in his arms and swings me around, kissing my cheek over and over while shouting for joy.
"Thank you God for giving me this wonderful boy!" He cries out to heaven.
I'm just relieved to have finally satisfied my earthly father so well; and equally amazed that he is this ecstatic over such a simple thing. Now that I know the secret to pleasing him, I intend to do it whenever I get the chance.
Today I am helping father make a dining table: It appears his reputation as a craftsman is growing, now that the legs on his chairs do not wobble and milk spilled on his counters tops does not run off more readily from one side than another. I have just accomplished this necessity once again, making the table legs exactly the same length bit by bit until the drop of water we place in the center goes neither to left nor right, when I hear my mother scream.
Father and I rush from the workroom to see my mother out in the garden, holding baby James in her arms. His body is twitching in violent spasms, and foam is coming from his mouth.
"He was bit by a viper!" She cries in anguish, pointing. "There!"
I see the snake still coiled beneath the grape vine, its golden eyes glinting at me wickedly, as if daring me to intercede with the fate it has levied.
At once I grab my baby brother from mother's arms, and blow the breath of life upon his hand where the puncture marks still ooze pale venom. Instantly baby James stops his convulsions and begins to cry lustily.
"You're okay, little brother," I smile down at him, tears filling my eyes. "And he won't ever hurt you again." As I say this the viper bursts into flames and perishes instantly.
After, I feel shaken in a way I've never felt before. What if I hadn't been there? What if I'd lost this dear little brother of mine? Is this what it's like to be human? To love with such strong attachment, with such need?
I go off into the garden to think about this, and to ask my Father in heaven about it.
"Father," I say, looking up into the fleeting clouds that race ahead of the wind across the airy sea of blue; "Why do I feel such terror at the thought of losing my brother, when in my deepest heart I know this is all just illusion, that death is no more real than turning a page in a book?"
But He has no answer for me today, just the pain and fear that wraps around my heart like an icy fist.
"Is this what it feels like to be Man, then? Is this pain they bear, my lesson?"
I think back on the time the boy Zeno died, how his mother wailed and held him to her breast, the terrible look in her eyes; and suddenly I understand, I feel it so deeply that tears pour from my eyes like a depthless wellspring. The sorrow is almost too great to bear.
"Oh Father, is it really true? Is this how they feel every time death appears? Is this what I am to awaken them from, this endless and inescapable horror to which every man is born and must consent, just to play the game of life in this world?"
I am too young to bear such a burden, and throw myself face down upon the dirt, weeping until I fall asleep.
Joseph
I find him lying there in the garden between the rows of onions and chard, his face stained with mud and tears, eyes closed, mouth slack, asleep in the dust of the field.
He looks so small, so young and innocent, just a boy not yet nine years of age. Yet God. God he is.
I shake my head. Today he saved my little boy James, saved his life as if there were nothing to it, an everyday thing, like picking up a dropped shoe or washing a cup. What innocence, and what power. It's like he takes it for granted, this power, and so have I been, letting him fix my carpentry mistakes, as if doing so were just an ordinary run of the mill chore any boy does for his father.
But this is God, living with me, calling me father, calling Mary mother.
It hits me like a fist in the stomach, doubling me over.
Yeshua is God.
We should be bowing before him with our foreheads in the dirt, yet he honors us, does his chores, feeds the chickens, plows the field....
I shake my head again, tears dropping from my eyes as I pick my boy up and carry him to the house.
"I'm sorry," I say, over and over and over again. "I'm so sorry."
The Dead Child Restored
It's late spring, the days longer, warmer, and full of promise: The corn and wheat are growing taller every day, and father says it looks to be a bountiful crop. I smile at that, knowing he still has no idea how bountiful I intend it to be.
The time of cold and dark has passed, along with the illnesses that winter seems to bring each year. That is why it is all the more shocking when the small crowd appears in our yard one morning, calling out to my mother and father in the most urgent way.
"Mary! Joseph! Please come out, bring Yeshua," the women cry, as the few men with them stand stoically silent, their hats in their hands looking down.
Mother looks over at father uncertainly, then both look at me. I shrug: I have no idea what the people want. Father picks up little James in his arms, as mother takes my hand and we walk out onto the porch as a family.
"What is it?" father calls out to the townspeople. "What do you want with our son?"
"It is Abijah, son of Josiah and Shelah, he has died in the night of fever! The mother cannot be comforted, and we fear she will bring harm to herself to end her suffering," the eldest of the women cries out.
"We know your son has wrought miracles...." another suggests.
"So we come to ask his help," the last finishes, falling to her knees in the dirt of the yard and bowing her head in submission.
I step forward, away from my mother's grasp. "You believe I can heal? You believe I can bring the dead back to life?"
"I believe this, yes," The kneeling woman answers without hesitation, nodding violently. "You can, of that I am sure. But will you?"
"Take me to them now," I say, grasping the woman's hand in mine and pulling her to her feet. "I will do what I can."
As we enter the darkened cottage there comes the sound of great anguish, a cry tearing from the very soul of the mother in her private hell as she leans over a wooden crib, cradling the body of her dead baby in her arms. Her sorrow is so great and palpable, it threatens to drag me down there with her.
I hurry to the cradle, push her aside so that her pain cannot reach me, and lay my hand upon the tiny child's still chest. He is already cold, lips tinged a dark blue, and I offer a silent prayer to my Father that I am n
ot too late this time.
"Little one," I say out loud; "Do not die. Live, rise up, and be with thy mother again, for she misses you greatly. Can't you see how much she loves you?"
Immediately the infant opens his eyes, looks up at me in wide-eyed recognition, and laughs out loud.
I put my hand on the mother, who is still weeping, uncertain what her own eyes are telling her.
"You should pick him up and nurse him, for your milk will give him strength to fully recover," I tell her. "And when you have doubts, remember me and what I have done for you here today."
As I turn to make my way through the crowd, those who had witnessed my work reach out to touch me as I pass, and I hear some of them say that I must be a god or an angel of God to work such miracles.
I'm not sure how I feel about that: I know it's not my time yet to do what I was sent for; But on the other hand, it feels nice to be spoken well of for a change, to be liked and admired rather than hated and feared.
The Harvest
My cousin John has come back with us from Shavu'ot, and I am so excited I babble all the way home, pointing out this sight and that as if I have forgotten he's come to visit us once before, or even that he's been in the world at all before this moment. But he just looks at me and grins, shaking his head of long shaggy locks, as happy as I am that we have this time with each other. His father has said he can spend the whole summer with us, learning carpentry from my father and helping us bring in the harvest. The wheat should be ready within a week or two, the corn not until just before our fall pilgrimage for Sukkot. Between those times of heavy work, we will learn carpentry, go fishing, play games with the village children, and just do what best friends do best, be together.
John
Yeshua has taken me out to see his "special" rows of wheat. I'm not sure what is so special about them, as they look pretty much like the wheat in the rest of the field, but he says "Just wait, John, just wait until harvest time, then you'll see what I mean."
He is so odd, my cousin, but in such a wonderful way. Every time I see him, every time he speaks, my heart beats faster in my chest with a strange excitement. Mother has told me we are both special, Yesu and I, chosen by God for some divine purpose yet to be revealed. I don't know anything about that, what it might be, not even an inkling. I think Yeshua might, and I have the urge to ask him, but I'm not sure I should.
Right now, however, we are content to just be boys, friends having fun. I remember the last time I visited him, how we made the clay birds and he brought them to life. I ask him if he can still do that.
"Of course I can," he grins, looking at me as if I must be crazy to even ask: "That and much more now! I was only four years old back then!"
"Prove it," I say, with a cocky smile.
"What would you like me to do, John? What do you want to see?"
I think and think, trying to imagine what would be wondrous, impossible.
"Can you make day into night?" I ask finally, thinking that will stump him.
Instantly the sky begins to darken. I look up, and see shape moving slowly across the face of the sun, like a mouth consuming a piece of flatbread. I gasp, staring into the brilliant glare.
"Don't look directly at it," he warns, pulling my face away with his hands. Just watch the shadow on the ground.
Slowly the sun disappears inch by inch, and the day grows into twilight and then eventide. I hear shouts of alarm from the village, the crowing of roosters. Bats appear out of nowhere, hunting prey.
"How did you do it, Yeshua?" I whisper, awestruck.
"It's just an eclipse. It'll go away in a minute or two, don't worry," he reassures me.
"An eclipse? I've heard of those I think: Something to do with the sun and moon, a shadow?"
"Perfectly natural," he nods.
"But not when it happens at your command," I say.
Me again
The wheat grass is now as tall as my shoulder, golden shafts with heavy heads that droop tiredly under their own weight. It is time to begin the harvest. Father gives John and I each a long sickle, sharpened to a razor edge with the whetting stone the night before. Mother has one too, but James is still too young to be trusted with such a dangerous implement. We each carry small buckets of water along with our cutting blades as we tromp out toward the fields in the early morning light of late May. It promises to be a warm day, and father says it's best to get as much done as we can while it is still cool.
At the first row he demonstrates how to harvest, grabbing a handful of wheat in his left hand and swinging the sickle with his right to cut the plants at nearly ground level. I've done this with him twice before, so it's not totally new to me, but this is John's first harvest, so he watches intently.
Father cuts another handful, and shows us how to lay that one on top of the first bunch, careful to keep all the heads pointed in the same direction.
"Now you," he nods at John, and John proceeds to cut a couple of handfuls and lay them neatly on the pile.
"Good John. Okay, Yeshua, your turn," he says.
I do my best, and it's not as bad as I feared, although father has to go back and straighten my pile a bit.
Now he picks up the entire bunch, which is about as thick as his upper arm, and binds it with a twine made of wheat stems, twisting them around each other to hold the bundle firm.
"You got it?" He asks us?
"Yes sir," we both nod.
"Okay, you and John can work the rows you planted," he tells me; "while your mother and I work the big field."
John and I make a contest of it, each of us picking an adjacent row and racing along to see who can cut the fastest. By noon he is already starting his third row, while I am barely halfway through my second, when father and mother approach.
"Not bad," father says, looking at how much we'd got done. "We'll make a farmer of you yet, John. Now come on, it's time for a little supper and rest from the heat, then we'll come back to stack the sheaves we've cut today so they can cure."
We finish my ten rows of wheat by the next day, but still have two more days of work in the big field with father before the entire harvest is done.
While the grain cures in the field to harden, John and I spend time in father's woodshop making flails for the threshing, then practicing their use. More than once do we rap ourselves on the head with the tail before getting the hang of it, leaving us with bruises and much laughter. Days more are spent in the process of threshing and winnowing our harvest to separate the straw and chaff from the actual grains of wheat, but when we are finally done I have my great surprise for father revealed.
My ten rows of wheat has produced more cors of grain than his forty, a crop so abundant he has to count it three times before believing it is true.
"Father in heaven, we are rich, rich!!" he cries. "We can barter what we don't need for that which we do, that and then some."
No father," I say; "I want to give my extra wheat to the poor in the village who have no wheat of their own for bread."
His expression is a mixture of emotions, and I almost laugh aloud as they work their way through his tanned and careworn face. He looks like a disappointed child for a moment, lips drawn down and eyes sad; then that is replaced by a flood of embarrassment, as he turns his face away, ashamed of his greed. This much he admits to us.
"Of course, Yeshua. I am shamed I didn't think of that first myself. God's gifts should be shared with others as abundantly as he shares them with us."
Joseph
Today I am taking the extra wheat to those poor in our village that will benefit from the gift. Yeshua, Mary and I talked this out last night, gently arguing back and forth until we had worked out the ten families most in need, and how much each should receive.
Yeshua asks me if I will go alone, as he wants no praise for what he calls his "Father's generosity." But I tell him I need help to carry the bags of grain from the wagon, and when he suggests I take John instead I remind him that his absence from the
chore will be more suspicious than his presence, although I do agree to give all credit to God for the abundant harvest and leave any mention of the boy out of it.
The villagers, however, are not that naive: Never have I managed to grow more than just enough wheat to sustain the needs of my own family, let alone an excess sufficient to support ten additional families. Nor are they short on memory; they have had ample evidence of Yeshua's powers in the past to see his hand at work here. Wise looks pass between husband and wife, glances at Yeshua when he turns to walk back to the cart.
"Thank him for us, Joseph," whispers one of the more bold among these.
"Thank our Father in heaven from whence all things come," I respond. But he knows.
King Yeshua
After the distribution of the grain, I suddenly find I have more friends than I know what to do with; village children sent by grateful parents, no doubt, seeking my companionship when all I truly want to do is spend time with John while he is still here.
One day a group of us boys are playing tag in the village square when we decide to go up the hill above the village to sit under the huge spreading tree at the top, in order to get relief from the midday sun. As we tromp together up the long dusty hill, we are simply a group of like-minded boys, off for a little diversion. But when we reach the patch of shaded grass under the tree, the other boys suddenly remove their shirts and spread them on the ground in a pile, insisting that I sit upon my "throne."
"What are you doing?" I cry, as two of the eldest push me down onto the shirts.
One, the bully Zebe, produces a wreath made of woven wheat stalks, which he places on my head. "Long live the king of wheat!" he cries, grinning. The rest echo his words: "Long live the king!" They yell, raising their hands in salute.
I smile with embarrassment as I accept the crown, but then notice John looking at me with a certain reserve in his eyes, as if he thinks I might believe in my own grandiosity.
"This is silly," I protest, seeing the look I am getting from John. I try to rise, but rough hands push me back down again.
"Come Yeshua, let us have our game," they say. "We have it all worked out. It's just in good fun."
I shrug in acquiescence, not wanting to alienate these new-found friends; then one by one the two in charge, Elias and Zebe, drag the younger boys in front of me and order them to get down on their knees and bow before the king.
I now see what they are doing, see the inherent mockery beneath the "fun"; and I am thinking how to get out of this gracefully when suddenly another boy, Enos, comes running up the hill to where we sit, screaming out my name.
"Yeshua, Yeshua, come quickly; my half-brother Simon was taking eggs from a partridge nest just over the hill, when he was bitten by a serpent. You must save him!"
I jump to my feet, all thoughts of getting even with those bedeviling me displaced by the urgency of the situation. I hurry after Enos: Those who were teasing me follow quick at my heels.
When we get to where the stricken boy lies he is already deathly still, the partridge eggs spilled around him like a minor constellation: I send the other boys to find the snake that bit him.
"Why?" They ask. "Just fix him...if you can!"
"Don't ask why, just find it and bring it to me," I order in a voice that allows no further argument.
A moment later the snake is located and caught. When Zebe hands it to me, I look into its slitted eyes and say: "Viper, take back your poison!" Then I put its mouth to the wound on Simon's hand, and the viper sucks back in the venom from the wound."
"Thank you," I tell the snake; "but like evil words and deeds, your poison can never be fully retracted, so now you must reap what you sow."
With my curse, the serpent explodes and dies, as Simon awakens at that very instant from his near death state and sits up, fully recovered.
I look over meaningfully at Zebe, at Josiah, then at the other boys who had been seeking to ridicule me through their game.
They lower their gaze and back carefully away.
"That was interesting," says John once they are gone.
"It was, wasn't it," I agree.
"So Yeshua, how do you feel about the way the other boys were treating you in their little game?"
"I'm not sure," I answer honestly. "I thought at first they were being nice, but I know it was wrong. They tried to make out that it was just in fun, but then I saw it was insincere and mean, based on jealousy I think."
"Is that the only reason it was wrong?" he perseveres.
"What are you trying to say, John?" I retort, feeling a little defensive for no reason I can name.
"The devil would have you like the adulation, have you believe that it is you doing these things, not God."
But I am God, I think to myself. Yet I see where he is going with this, see the truth in what he says. It's a two-edged sword, this existence of mine. I am, and yet I am not, God.
On the afternoon before we are to leave on the Sukkot pilgrimage, returning John to his home, I decide it is time to show him who I truly am, and who he is. We are out at our favorite spot, sitting by the stream near my cottage under a large elm tree, idly tossing pebbles into the water.
"I want to show you something John," I say.
"Okay, what?" he says, tilting his head at me.
I reach over to take his hand, and instantly we leave this world.
"What place is this?" he cries out in alarm, for there is nothing but light surrounding us, no bodies, no structures, nothing but our sense of being.
"It's No place," I answer.
"What do you mean no place?! Where am I?!"
I can hear an edge of panic in his voice, so I answer with one of calmness and reason.
"No-where. It's not a place, John: You have not moved from one illusion to another, but stepped outside of the world of illusion altogether, into the reality from whence you came and where you truly dwell. The other world is simply your ongoing dream. Now you are awake."
"But I don't understand, what do you mean illusion? What do you mean it's just a dream? God created the world we live in, the stars in the heaven, the waters below, the fish, the fowl, everything! The Torah tells us this is so! Nowhere does it say that it's all a dream!"
"God created the idea of the world, and then He created you, Man. You make His idea into your reality; you bring what you believe to be reality into existence in your mind, fashioned out of God's pre-existent concepts. But none of it actually exists anywhere but in your mind. There is no material world, only the idea of a material world, only the idea of cause and effect, of matter and energy interacting, of past present and future."
John
I look for me, but I see nothing. Not a finger, not a toe, not a hair of me left. Nor anything of my world that I can recognize: There is no up, no down, no in or out, no then or now or later; just this complete disconnection from everything, that and the all-consuming light.
"Where am I," I cry again to that Yeshua I can no longer see. "Where am I? I don't see me anymore, I don't feel me anymore!"
"This place," Yeshua answers as a silent voice in my mind: "This is infinity, this is eternity: This place is what we are, not where we are, not even who we are."
That answer chills me: I feel like I am losing my identity, losing everything I know of self: I feel like I must be dying."
I'm afraid, Yeshua," I tell him." I'm afraid to not be anymore. Please, take me back, return me to the world I know. Even if it is just a dream, let me keep dreaming for now."
Yeshua
I sigh, and we are back on the bank of the stream near my home, under an ordinary tree, in our ordinary bodies, "alive."
John looks around him as if to be sure everything is there, looks down at his body, inspecting his hands, his feet. Then he gives me a long, strange look, and hurries off down the slope to our cottage.
This is not going to be easy, I realize.