by Jay Parini
I slept in stone huts when I could—one came across them now and then—but mostly it was open air around me or a lee of sand. My sandals barely covered the soles of my feet, their straps wearing thin. My clothes turned into clouds, mere threads that traced the lineaments of flesh, however vaguely. But none of this mattered.
Nobody knew where I was.
I barely knew.
And so I prayed, spending an hour or more in devotion each morning after dawn. At night I would talk to God freely, appealing for mercy. I thought about Mary, the mother of Jesus: Ananias had dwelled on stories of her purity and faithfulness. God singled her out, of all the people in history, as a portal through which his radiant power would pour, an intersection where a timeless vertical beam passed through horizontal time. Mary was chosen for this mission of love and would suffer with him as well.
“She is our mother, too,” said Ananias.
I wanted to find her in Jerusalem one day, to speak to her, as I knew she still lived somewhere in the Upper City, an elderly widow. She was looked after by James and his brothers and revered by many in the Way. And when I dreamed of her, I could see my own lost mother, whom I never knew, with her smile of sweet unending compassion, with a maternal heat that could warm me still.
From the little I knew, I guessed that Jesus had been a tiresome child to raise, determined to gain access to his heavenly father, willfully dismissing his earthly one. I could understand his frustrations. He would have felt the spirit at work in his soul, and this would have both thrilled and terrified him.
I had myself been thrilled and terrified. I began to hear voices more frequently now, many of them suspicious. Devils? The Adversary? I decided to ignore them, unless I sensed that Jesus approached again and wished to communicate with me. I felt quite sure that he would, and that my encounter on the Damascus Road had not been singular, an incident that would never occur again. I expected more from the Lord now, and knew I would get it.
But I must be alert, open to every possibility.
As I knew, angels inhabit unlikely forms, often taking you by surprise, such as when I encountered a hermit in a cave where I took shelter from a particularly nasty sandstorm. I had thought myself alone but heard him snoring only a few feet from where I crouched against a wall in meditation. This ill-shapen creature had an angular jaw, a large crooked nose, and blue scars on his face, as if he’d been through many battles. His look unsettled me, but apprehension turned to gratitude when he offered me a drink of water from his skin and food from a satchel of sycamore figs and raisins mixed with walnuts.
He asked about my destination, aware that most of those he met in the desert were in flight. Why else would anyone be here?
When I told him that Mount Sinai was my goal, he brightened, telling me about the communities that lived in caves. I had made the foolish assumption that, given his odd visage and isolation, he must be illiterate or mad, a lost soul. But he spoke with surprising eloquence and seemed aware of the scrolls in their possession. He wondered if I had any interest in what he called “esoteric learning,” and I nodded, although I didn’t like the term. What was esoteric to one inquirer, the fruit of some foreign tree, might be common fare to another, if we took “esoteric” to mean abstruse and possibly profound as opposed to simply rare and perhaps from another tradition.
I asked if he knew of Musa.
“Musa ben-Zakkai!” he said, with a grin.
He introduced himself as Abel-Sittim, which (according to him) meant “meadow of acacia.” He said he was born beside such a meadow, in a remote part of Judea, where his father had been a shepherd. “But that was long ago,” he said, “in the days when stars applauded us.” I didn’t know what he meant, but it didn’t matter. He appeared well-meaning, intelligent, and kind. I didn’t worry he would stab me while I slept or rob me of my few possessions.
The sandstorm made travel impossible, so I spent two days in conversation with this unlikely new acquaintance. Abel-Sittim was a connoisseur of desert survival, and he told me that almost any insect was good to eat, though I should avoid scorpions. One could feast “quite happily,” he said, on rodents and snakes. Lizards tasted “wonderful when roasted over a fire.” As he pointed out, there were locusts everywhere. “They are the gift of God to anyone who hungers, a feast for our pleasure.”
I wondered about dead snakes, having seen any number of them recently.
“You are not a vulture,” he said. “Carrion may kill you.”
Quicksand was another hazard, he explained, and this was especially so for those unfamiliar with desert ways. He said not to panic should I get stuck. “Lift your knees, lie back and paddle to a dry spot. It is only water and sand, and those who drown in these puddles do so from panic.” Dust storms could also prove fatal, he told me while we hid ourselves from a particularly nasty one that whirled about the cave with a massive whining like a thousand jackals. “Storms suck the goodness from the air,” he continued, appreciating my receptive ears. “Get somewhere you can breathe, into a cave or behind a large rock. Avoid dunes, even though you may feel tempted to shelter against them. It never works. The wind carries sand like waves over any crest, and it may prove impossible to extricate yourself. If there is no shelter, sit with your back to the storm, covering your head and face, keeping low to the ground. Put a wet cloth over your nose and mouth, even your eyes, if you have enough water.”
We talked about water. It is the primary subject among desert people, and he mentioned sources I had never imagined. “The speckled cactus plant will be found everywhere, and it’s clever at collecting moisture,” he said. “You can break off its spikes, and suck on them. But be careful, as they’re sharp!” He mentioned several beetles that acted like sponges and could fill the mouth with an “explosion of moisture.” He said to “pay attention to the birds, and the insects. They know where to find water. Follow them.”
The most dangerous element in the desert was the sun, with its lethal radiance. “Walk by night,” he advised. “It’s the first lesson of the wilderness. Daylight is your enemy.”
I knew this but adored the sun and preferred to walk in its rays, although never in the middle of the day.
With so many pitfalls, it might not be easy to make my way to Mount Sinai unscathed. But spring was an especially good time for desert walking. The weather had yet to begin to blister the rocky ledges, and I could make progress in the early-morning hours, moving in the predawn dark as it faded into light and burst to flame. I would sleep through the midday, taking shelter where I could, under a cliff or ledge, in the lee of a dune, under a date palm, or, ideally, in a sycamore grove. One could create a shelter with dead leaves, too, though I didn’t want to spend much of my time creating shady hutches for myself, which I would abandon after only a few hours of rest. The conservation of energy mattered.
When the storm abated, I thanked Abel-Sittim and set off again, following a narrow trace in the desert that he had recommended.
Hours later I saw the oasis he had told me lay ahead. It was bordered by tamarisk, with a flourishing of date palms. Alas, a caravan watered their camels there: never a good sign. I approached the men warily, as desert people jealously guarded sources of water, and one could easily cause offense, which could lead to violence, even death. Nobody in the desert worried about courts of law, so murder was unimportant, simply a reflex. This was a savage world, and you survived by your wits, or didn’t.
I approached a thin, dark man who stood by a camel with its long neck dipping forward toward the water. He knew some Greek, much to my relief, and asked for my destination. I didn’t fully trust him but had a hunch this caravan might help me along a potentially treacherous way, where you could easily be waylaid by thieves or worse. Abel-Sittim had been quite explicit about what dangers lay ahead.
For a sum, Dumuzi—he had given me his name—said I could join the caravan. He stated this with authority
, so I assumed he didn’t have to consult the others. And soon I discovered that nobody objected to my presence. Nor did anyone welcome me. They hardly seemed to see me, though one prune-skinned older man brought me a cup of barley beer one day after we set off. Perhaps I was not as offensive to them as I had thought.
Without reason, I began to trust these rough-hewn men, and the routines of caravan life soothed me, with travel beginning in the middle of the night and continuing through the first part of morning. During the midday hours, they lay in the shade of their tents, sleeping on cushions or under trees when possible. As the sun tilted into evening, they would begin again, pushing ahead on their camels until dark, sleeping for a while, then beginning again. It was as if they had been traveling for centuries and, in a way, they had.
I fell into these rhythms, in the soothing cradle of long-established routines, and found that, like them, I could sleep heavily without notice. Too heavily perhaps, as I woke one day with Dumuzi hovering near. He breathed deeply, rumbling like a cat, watching to see if I would waken. It relieved me to find my coins intact, and from this point on I slept with my pouch under my head for a pillow. I must guard my few possessions, especially this little cache of money, which might provide a lifeline at some point.
Dumuzi and I exchanged a few words each day, though nobody else spoke to me or caught my eye; loneliness didn’t trouble me, however. I savored my independence and worked to bolster my prayer life. Praying (which I could do as I walked or, more easily, before I slept) became a source of nourishment and a place of refuge. I could feel the presence of God flow through the rooms of my mind like the odor of jasmine, those aromatic tiny white flowers that open in the wilderness at night to become low little stars.
When I felt pain, exhaustion, or fear, I told myself that these feelings were just the cracking of a shell that enclosed the truth. It might hurt to break through this shell, but it must be done—just as a chick must shatter its eggshell to emerge.
My Lord, Jesus, I would pray, take everything from me. Fill me. Make me your vessel on this earth, your hands in the world, your voice.
After four weeks of travel, when mostly I walked beside the camels and once or twice rode high on their humps, I found myself in the depths of Arabia, somewhere in the purple foothills near Mount Sinai that Abel-Sittim had described. And one morning, at the outskirts of a village, Dumuzi said, “We arrive for you.” He winked and grinned, ever so briefly, before turning away.
I understood what this meant.
The caravan rested in the shadow of clustering palms, and nobody seemed to notice as I gathered my few things and, as unexpectedly as I had joined them, walked off by myself. One man, posted as a kind of sentry at the edge of their encampment, saw me go. I didn’t trust this fellow, who had a dark semicircular scar on his cheek and one tooth (his only one) that reached over his bottom lip in a most disgusting fashion. I had nodded to him a few times before, without a response; now I glanced at him casually, as if nothing was amiss, and moved ahead steadily, my head down, half expecting a hand on my shoulder.
But I was not their prisoner and nothing happened. I didn’t need to take my leave of the group in any formal manner, as they had largely remained indifferent to my presence. Whether Dumuzi shared any of my payment with them, I could not know. Nor did I care now.
In the village itself, which was much larger than it appeared from a distance, I found the local synagogue, where I spoke with a man who directed me to the house of Milka, a widow only too glad for a paying guest. We sat together in her garden with a cup of wine, and she told me that she had never been to Herod’s Temple in Jerusalem, but hoped one day to make the journey for Passover. Her spiritual hunger impressed me, and I explained that new voices had emerged among our people.
She welcomed my stories about Jesus, whom I carefully described as a “great rabbi.”
I often referred to him as Rabbi Jesus, especially among Jews, telling them that as a boy he had discussed the scriptures with the wise and erudite scholars of the Temple, and his knowledge had amazed them. He seemed to have read and fully absorbed the five books of Moses, the prophetic writings, and the Ketuvim as well—those poetic anthologies of wisdom that included a variety of psalms and proverbs. (As I would learn, Jesus had a special fondness for the prophecies of Daniel.)
Milka knew something of Musa and said that she could get word to him about me. This amazed but didn’t surprise me: Everything in my life felt improbable now. So I made a plan to sit still, often in prayer, waiting for Musa. I might have stayed for several months with Milka and it would not have troubled me, as great happiness flowed in me and her kindness and hospitality pleased me.
But after only a few days, at daybreak, Musa himself stood at the edge of my pallet, waking me with a sharp cough.
“I’ve been expecting you,” he said.
His gold eyes darted around the room, but he was not shifty. The world inside him expanded, growing wider with each breath. His long face was made of putty, caked and cracked by the sun, flaking when he grinned. His nose swelled at the tip, a fist of purple veins. His toes bulged from his sandals, knobs of flesh with black nails, and his hands were yellow with a parchment-like pallor—the large callused hands of a man who had lived rough for most of his life.
“Gather yourself and come,” he said.
Milka stood in the background and looked at me, perhaps a little sadly, putting dried meats into my sack and then touching my forehead with her thumbs as a form of blessing. “I will miss you,” she said. And I would miss her, more than I could ever miss the invisible mother I never knew.
I followed my new master on foot beyond the village into the mountains, drawn into the wake of his long strides. He carried his own food, which he shared: stale bread, nuts, seed cakes, raisins. He said he would take me to a settlement near the holy mountain, where I would meet his friends and fellow Essenes. “They have been expecting you,” he said.
Exactly how that could be the case eluded me. But what did I really know?
We talked of Jesus that evening beside a small fire, and it startled me how much he knew.
“He lived among us for a few years,” Musa told me. “He studied our scriptures. But he knew most of them already by heart. Even the lost songs.” He added: “What a beautiful chant he could lift to the heavens. The stars would gather overhead to listen.”
He referred to the hundreds of psalms in the vein of the Davidic hymns. They were gorgeously framed, mystical, and moving, and I would learn many of them myself and recite them before sleeping or when, in the middle of the night, I woke with terrors: Lord, my master, fill me now and find a place in this world. Lord God Almighty, make me whole and make me hale, a part of your deep and vegetable kingdom, acceptable and lovely in your sight, your own forever.
I was glad that I committed that one to memory, as I never found it again, not in any other scroll.
Musa took a special interest in my education, telling me about the Garden of Twelve Palm Trees, in Bethany. Jesus had gathered his disciples there and taught them the secrets of deep affiliation with God through prayer. He demonstrated before them a form of communion that he perfected among the Essenes, who spent much of their lives deciphering ancient manuscripts, meditating or praying, forging their connection to heaven. “We are the sons and daughters of God,” Musa told me. “Jesus understood that God is presence: I am that I am. This is what God said to Moses. I am the Way, and also the Light.”
Musa unsettled me when he would burst into laughter at odd moments, shaking and even salivating with amusement, as if suddenly aware of some private and quite hilarious joke.
“You have no sense of humor, Paul,” he said one day. “It is your principal defect.”
I objected, but there was a point in his remark, and it was probably true. Humor had never been one of my gifts, and I regretted this. It’s better to laugh than to weep, as l
aughter is a balm for wounds of the heart.
Musa would talk a lot to himself or to God—or possibly the angels. Alone with him, an otherwise empty room felt crowded, with invisible ears and eyes all around. In a cave as I slept beside him during our first night together, I heard strange laughter in the dark.
At his bidding, I soon found myself absorbed in translations of ancient texts from the Chaldeans. “The holy sages of Babylon passed along these revelations. They understood the figures in the constellations. A few of them traveled a great distance to find Jesus the infant, who was born beneath an especially bright star.” This was among many stories that would circulate in various forms in the decades to come, and Luke often extracted them from me. To be frank, I invented variations at will, depending on my mood, although I trusted in God to guide my imagination on the paths of righteousness. I heard many contradictory but often credible and illuminating things about Jesus, and learned to accept them as ornaments, to treasure them, holding them in my hand like fruit from a strange tree.
But not every piece of exotic fruit should be eaten.
“Study the scrolls,” Musa said, “and pray over them. Then we can talk about their meaning.”
These teachings had been handed down over generations, carried by groups of men and women from as far away as the legendary Kush and preserved in dry caves, now treasured and examined by this community.
“Once you absorb our teachings, you will never dream in the same way,” Musa told me.
Musa called Abraham our “true father,” reasoning thus: “He was not a Jew—not in his own mind. God’s commandments came to Moses many years later, as we know. But Abraham was the father of everyone, Jew and gentile, the beloved of God. He worshipped God as the single master of the cosmos.”
This rhymed with my own preference for Abraham over Moses as the true father of mankind, the source of our longings, our dreams, our ideas of justice and redemption. (I had to work very hard not to dislike Moses, whose arrogance worried me.)