Behold, I will do something new, Now it will spring forth; Will you not be aware of it? I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, Rivers in the desert. Do not seek the because - in love there is no because, no reason, no explanation... I wear a torn place on my sleeve. It isn't as simple as that.
I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness.
Even so, it is well with my soul.
Behold, a new thing comes like a dove.
The nails in the door glimmer with light and my head is light.
I stop.
I start.
I am back to fishing. Fishing to forget.
I have bit my nails to the quick.
He says to be a shepherd.
I will feed his sheep forever.
Then you do not hate me?
Let us love and sing and wonder.
I grow excited again.
There is no because.
Just a go.
a do.
a believe.
a love.
Yes, I am excited.
The nails drop to the ground.
Surely this man was the son of God!
And the rain begins.
I do not care what the gardener has to say.
I am weeping. And I do not wish to be told to go.
He is speaking and I do not want to listen.
Why? Because they have taken my Lord from me.
There are lilies and sand.
I loved him.
He says my name.
I am altogether with him and my hands find his, the places the nails pierced
He says My God and Your God.
Never again will demons torment me.
Like a lamb
He was silent
Like a child
He did not weep
I am ashamed
I nail the door shut
I weep for him and
wash my hands
Tell me you love me
Take me back to the start
It's not as simple as that.
You're a bad person.
You deserve your lot.
Don't bite the hand that feeds you
rrrip
TODAY YOU WILL BE WITH ME IN PARADISE
amen and amen
i have calmed and quieted my soul
indeed, this is a new thing
The nails fall broken
Love is always a new thing.
We do not understand.
So
show
us
your
grace
We believe
in the name of Love
our Father
who art in heaven
We believe
in It is finished
in the water
and the blood
We believe in Joseph's wasted tomb
We believe in John's death
We believe in Peter's life
We believe in Mary's disgrace
And Pontius Pilate's downfall
We believe in the faith of a thief
Our sleeves are torn
Our hearts are whole
It is as simple as that.
(Isaiah 43:19, Anais Nin's Henry and June, and W.S. Merwin's The Nails provide the epigraph.)
Behold, I will do something new, Now it will spring forth; Will you not be aware of it? I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, Rivers in the desert. Do not seek the because - in love there is no because, no reason, no explanation... I wear a torn place on my sleeve. It isn't as simple as that. A thief
rip
rrrrrip
breath
out
blood
in
my
mouth
in my hands
nails
in my hands
darkpainbloodblackingoutheartbeat
rip
rrrrrip
breath
out
i am not afraid to die
just let me die now
throw me in an unmarked grave like the rest
rest
i need rest
no one will remember my name
to be honest, i'm glad. i'm not a good person
blacking out again
rip
rrrrrip
breath
out
memory and other things i don't need
sound and other things i don't want
beside me another forgotten
forgetful
what am i called again?
a thief?
a murderer?
a man?
there's another one beside me, wetting
me with his
black black black no air
rip
rrrrrip
breath
out
words
words
i have no use for words
why are you speaking
you foolish
what do they call you?
i don't even remember my name
let alone who you are
ogodogodogod letmedienowpleaseletmedie
rip
rrrrrip
breath
out
you are a fool
my brother
you are a fool
do you remember what you did to end up here?
i don't.
yes i do.
i can see the faces
don't you remember too, my brother?
and the one
the one in the center center center i can't
rip
rrrrrip
breath
out
i ask nothing of you
i have nothing i can ask you for
you who chose this
bloodbreathsourwineburningbloodbloodblood
i did not choose it
i do not regret it
what else could have been done me?
i would bow before you
but all i can do is struggle against these
nailsnailsnails
to say
rip
rrrrrip
breath
out
o LORD
remember me
when YOU
enter
YOUR
KINGDOM
for i will never see you again
but you will judge my soul
stretching up trying to
breatheagainstnails
will i ever
see
you
again
.
.
.
out
Paradise finds its existence. (to be continued) (Isaiah 43:19, Anais Nin's Henry and June, and W.S. Merwin's The Nails provide the epigraph.)
Behold, I will do something new, Now it will spring forth; Will you not be aware of it? I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, Rivers in the desert. Do not seek the because - in love there is no because, no reason, no explanation... I wear a torn place on my sleeve. It isn't as simple as that.
John
I weep a lot these days. They'd laugh if they could hear me say that, the men who travelled with me in the desert. "Really now, John?" They'd say, pounding nails for the tents into ground. "You, a weeping man? Where's the repent and fire business?"
Or maybe not. They had been there too, the first time I really wept before men.
My mother, when she was alive, would look at me with those sad brown eyes, turned golden by sun and by age and say, "John what is wrong?" I can't even count how many times she'd said that while I was growing up, because I did not weep. My mother was special that way. She always knew things. She saw things that others shut their eyes to, like how I never wept.
I miss mother, I think, with tears in my eyes. My father too. I think of them often these days, now that I see.
I remember being a much younger man and my father telling me about the child I was born to herald. He said love a lot, with his cloudy voice. "Father, I'm a man." I'd say. "Not some simpering magician, a prophet, Father. A prophet's passion must leave no room for silly love."
He wept at that.
For a long time, while I fought Herod among the lions in the desert, I told myself the same thing. I'd pound in the nails for my tent and say, "God is just."
I met the child, you know. The one my father used to tell me about, the Christ. He came to me as I shouted and my heart grew full of fire as I stood in the river, wet with the Jordan and with teh sweat of righteous anger.
Oh no, Lord. I am unworthy to even untie your sandals.
I all of a sudden understood my parents in that moment. All of a sudden, my eyes were full of tears and I knew what was wrong with me when my mother asked. It was the same thing that my father had tried to ask me.
What is love?
Look how far I've come. I'm not sure if it is blood or tears running down my face. Far cry from the voice crying in the wilderness, I'm reduced to counting nails in the prison door, counting time by the shadows of the sun and times my enemy has asked me who I am now. What I am now.
My insides are being eaten away and my enemy exults and what do I do? I weep.
I weep for Herod and for the hungry fire of my enemy eating with pain at his soul.
I weep for the girl who dances while she asks for my death as a game and the way that she will one day weep in bitterness because her childhood has been stolen in fear.
I weep for my disciples, who laugh and preach and sing the psalms, but who will fall to pieces like a jar when I am gone. They just don't know. Please God, they don't know what they're doing.
Mostly, I weep for the child. My father was right. Love isn't what I thought it was. What love is this? He is my friend.
And I tremble as I think this.
I know him.
I weep.
I am just a voice, Child. I am yours, save me.
Somewhere, I think he weeps too, and there is glory in his tears.
My enemy is trembling now. I can see the devouring fire in his belly and I choose to stand and laugh amidst my tears.
This is called love, my enemy.
A dove alights.
I hear my Savior say, Thy strength indeed is small.
My head, my head
Tears fail not.
A nail falls like a pin dropping
And
i
with
it
Love is a new thing. (to be continued) (Isaiah 43:19, Anais Nin's Henry and June, and W.S. Merwin's The Nails provide the epigraph.)
but i am, like a girl in a red cloak, not afraid of the darkness
for i will hug the wolves and throw down my heart to
die to live)
because that is joy
i will not fear
i would rather dance
than twirl away my responsibilities
and forget the wolves in sadness
and draw wet sackcloth in my mind
Friday, October 26, 2012
Do not believe your heart (It lies) Trust not your eyes (For you, sweet child, are blind) The world crumbles like stale bread And you are made of dust Not wisdom So do not weep And do not mourn Though the hearse drives over your boots And your lover spits acid at you, saying, You never loved me and I hate you for your falsehood You must smile and soldier You must be quite all right Though everything be wrong and you Forget everything in tears Two things you can believe The silent stars And Me.
I was born like a Cyclops
My eye, overlarge and weepy,
focuses and rolls
and if I can't remember where
to look too like a snake
I when I forget change from
Polyphemus to Medusa
and my one eye will burn to stone
And my hair will poison
you with its fragrance
Because I'm Nobody and Nobody
remembers where the siren's song leads
Maybe the man who built the dove's boat
He was so full of faith and salt
So by faith and salt and rainbows and a broken mirror
My one eye opens
And the serpents vomit up their applesauce
And I see a great laughing
Skyful star
And all of a sudden
I'm very meek weak hopeful
That my eye will never open again
And my heart will be all more like a
Nobody
...Oh, beloved Bathsheba. Do not leave me here, alone with the moon. I love you, my dear, oh, I love you...
God, how I miss you.
I'm very alone here, Abba. When I saw her bathing on the roof, I loved her. She loved me, too, God, I know she did. We were beautiful together, admit it. She was sad and she was lonely, and I was scared and I was misunderstood. I was so afraid to lose her. You've taken me away so many times from the ones I love. I was afraid you would do it again, God, that once again, you'd cast me away from the ones I love. I loved them, God. I promise I did.
I think that was why I snatched her up the way I did, I just didn't want to lose her, the way I lost all the others I loved most. I know, I know, it was wrong of me to be so afraid.
I wasn't trying to hurt her, the pretty, weeping girl that night. I wasn't trying to hurt you either, I swear it. Oh, how I didn't want to give her up. I miss her, my beloved Bathsheba. It wasn't her fault, of course, the dark way I loved her, the way my love turned to murder.
Oh, God, I can't even think about that. My heart will break all over again and I think I had just salvaged enough of it to say I'm sorry. I am. I'm so so sorry.
How you must despise me. My family does. My whole kingdom does. I despise myself, most of all my bitter-stained heart.
I'm alone with the moon again. I'm a mass of contradictions, you know - the king after God's heart and the one who killed for a bitter love.
Give me my harp, my dear, I need to sing a short song. Or maybe it will be a long one.
You're my beloved now, the real one, you who never left me alone with the outside darkness (saying I'm sorry and then trying to forget over and over). You've kept my hands gathered, and for the last time, taken hyssop and ground it into my heart, into my eyes, into my hands.
I'm aflame now, and I'm weeping and there is resurrection. My heart died when we parted, you and I, and I buried it when I said goodbye to her, but now, create in me a clean heart, a new one, O God, and resurrect - renew - a right spirit within me. Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love.
Because, I'm sorry isn't going to work when you're alone with the moon. Because, a broken and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
Thanks be to God. Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
My child, now let us look at a marvel...
What a peculiar little chimaera
See her long hair as wild and dark as moss
Beloved eyes one green and one purple
She is so very small, but with
A large voice singing songs
Oh, my child, cover your ears and
stuff beeswax into them
For the little white lady
with harp-voice wings
With a green serpent wound down her waist
She's quite something
Look at her, wet smiling and air weeping
A warning, that's what we call her
Because we can not be both
Air and water
Much less an earth and a spirit
There can be no candle in the underworld
No worms in love with doves
Salt in a fresh spring
Do not marvel at me, my child
But as I change
You may love me
[that's a question]
Once upon a time, there was a little worm-girl. She lived in the quietest part of a garden, under hte shade of a wild-haired tulip.
There was not one thing special about this worm. She was not important, she was not talented, she was not (certainly not!) pretty. The easiest way to describe her is a Nobody among Nobodies.
The grown-up worms knew her to be a simple-hearted little thing with no big aspirations and no big exceptional traits, but a big heart - big for a worm, that is. The boy worms were blinded by her blindness and usually mistook her for a ladybug. Ladybugs are good at listening, but are usually too prim and proper to be friends.
Maybe they were right. She was a very blind worm, and not very important at all. Either way, she listened a lot, and she loved to listen. But she still couldn't see and maybe that was her biggest fault.
One day, she was squalling about in the shade of the garden. It was so bright and hot and her skin hurt. She, in her ungainly worm fashion, squinted her forehead where her eyes would have been and squirmed uncomfortably away. She thought about the sun and the other worms and the tulips and suddenly wished she weren't blind even though she'd know how ugly she was.
"Hello, girl."
She froze. She knew that voice. It was a bird, one of the bright winged creatures who are as full of light as they are of air and beauty. They also eat worms. "Hello, bird." She said. She flails side to side, trying to face him as best as one can with no face.
"Don't trouble yourself," he said softly. He hopped around to face her. "Are you alright, girl?"
She can't remember the last time she was alright.And she knew birds. They tried to be kind, but they're so beautiful, so undeniably better, that they end up devouring poor worms like her. "What do you want from me?" She said.
He waits a long time to answer. When he does, his voice is soft as warm poppy petals. "Just... just to love you." he says quietly. "To be friends. You've always been kind."
Not to wild birds. "Thanks, but not really. I'm not kind." she says, worming her tail awkwardly backward.
"Yes, you are. You've always listened and cared and asked and been kind to me. I-" he hesitates. "Don't you remember how kind you are to me?"
"I do not know you." What a sorry thing to say. "I'm sorry, but I don't."
"That's okay." he says, and he's not quite disappointed. "I think we are friends."
"Okay."
"I think," he hesitates again. "I think I, maybe, love you." It sounds like a question.
She didn't answer, because birds can't really love worms, not really. They may care, they may be merciful or even kind, possibly sweet, but never ever can they really love worms. Where would they live?
She wishes she could have seen how he looked when he said it though.
He did keep coming back, the bird boy, every day. They did nothing together. She couldn't really fly with him, and there was nothing that she would like him to see about her home. So they lazed. They listened. They sat. They talked. They were together.
"Tell me about seeing," She said. They're sitting in the sunshine. Her tail is would around his talons.
"It's amazing." His breath and his wings are against her back. She sighs, because it's good to be together and alive together. "The world is very bright." he continues.
"Okay."
"I see things as they seem, I think. It's not like what you do, dear."
"Okay."
He stirs a little. "I love you."
Before she can talk herself out of the glimpse of light she just had, she says, "I love you too."
Oh no! She is blind. She is a blind ugly worm. She can not love him. He can not love her, but even less can she love him. "No! No, I can not love you." She gulps down a pocket of tears. "I am a worm and you are a bird."
"You don't understand. Love isn't like that."
"A bird can not love a worm, my dear. Where would they live?" She says, and the world is very very dark again.
A blink of light. "We are each other. Not a bird, nor a worm. We are who we are."
A blink of tears. "No, you can't do that. Don't become a worm for me."
His wings move. "I've always been a worm. It was you who first called me a bird."
All of a sudden, she remembers who he is and why he knew they were friends. But she knew him, once a long time ago, not as the bird that he is, but as one of the other wailing worms. She had listened to him.
"But I feel your wings." She says, stubbornly. "You are more than you think you are. How could you be a worm?"
He smiles. "Sometimes love goes by many names. Sometimes, its best name is blindness."
Love is neither sight nor blindness.
"No." She says. "Love's name is not blindness. Love is what is real, it is a realization. You are a bird. My blindness gave love realization."
"Do you not feel your wings?" he says softly. "My sight will realize your reality, too."
She is not a worm. He is not a bird. They are real and the in between of wings and worms is where they live.
Once upon a time, there was a little bird. All of white, she dressed herself in the morning and the songs of half-forgotten cemeteries, all crying out. She was a very young little bird, her downy feathers not quite finding flight. That didn’t stop her from believing that the sky could not contain her joy.
“I only know that when you play with Thelma, you always get the worst of it. That is why I say, be careful.” said Mother.
The little white bird flew along the lines of the trees. She crossed them like barbed wire and landed among the wild yellow lilies. Each one grasped at her with their feline paws and, among them, she knew she had a home. But the joy of the sky was still uncontainable, and something inside of her cried out that there had to be more than this. The lilies wiped their mouths with their sleeves and turned to devour another bite of her tail.
And Max, the king of all wild things, was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all. And from all across the world, Max smelled good things to eat, and so he gave up being king of where the wild things are. But the wild things cried, “Oh, please don’t go! We’ll eat you up! We love you so!” But Max said, “No.” And he climbed aboard his private boat…
White birds are harder to chew than wolves are
You are not a hen. You are not a kitten. You are not a cow. You are not a car, or a plane, or a Snort. You are a bird, and you are my mother.
The white bird couldn’t escape the gnawing grip of the tiger lilies. Her wings, now clipped by their maws, were tainted red by their bloodstained teeth. Her tail was caught among the green leaves. No one could see her any longer. But reality set in and the traps were broken. The sunrise gobbled up the night and she didn’t want to leave the warm embrace of the bloodied flowers…
Once upon a time, there was a princess – “Was the princess you? - and she fell in love – “Was it hard to do?” - it was very easy! “Was he strong and handsome? “Was he big and tall?” There’s no one like him, anywhere at all…
“I know who you are,” the man said, “for I made you. I built the tower and set it in motion. I planted the meadow, put fish in the ocean. I’ve seen you fall down in the mud and the goo. I’ve seen all you’ve done and all you will do. Here’s what you look like. Here’s how I see you. Put this in your pack and you’ll find it will free you from all of the pictures and all of the lies that others make up just to cut down your size.”
Suffocated by the words of the flowers and the desire of the skies, the white bird died…
And Max sailed back through a day, and in and out of weeks, and almost over a year to his very own room, where he found his supper waiting for him
And it was still hot.
Wings fly on. Beating in her chest. Maybe it’s her muscles straining to fly. Maybe her heartbeat. Only wild things love me, She sings. Until the sun Eats her up In his enthusiasm to see her And the joy of the sky Embraces a White hand.
{Featuring selections from A Bargain for Frances, by Russel Hoban Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak Are You My Mother?, by P.D. Eastman The Disney classic, Snow White A Snoodle’s Tale, by Phil Vischer Original piece, “White Bird” by Catey Yuen}
While listening to some soundtracks a few afternoons ago...
Sam: JI-JI! It's Pretty and the Beast!
That made me smile. I love "Pretty" and the Beast. I spent some time reading the original translation the other day (for a speech. Shh!) and it's simply fantastic. I always thought it was about how Beast learns to overcome his selfishness... I've been looking at Beauty's perspective a little more now.
Have you ever loved a monster? I have. All I wanted was to return to my family, my trunkfuls of dresses from my days of splendor, my comfort zone, even to those who found me to be loathed. It's easier to find a familiar monster than try to determine the princes from the beasts.
But, by some author's idea of excitement, we too are captured by fate and we have to be around the Beasts of our life.
For me, I know that it's easy to slip into this idea of hiding up in the prison, mocking the bars and cursing my 'captor'. It's easy to suffer in this martyred stance of Why me? I didn't do anything wrong... and never even see the Beast.
"Tell me, Beauty, do you not find me very ugly?"
"I can not tell a lie... but I believe you are very good-natured."
I thought about this for a long time. I do believe that this compliment, stilted though it may be, was the first that the Beast had received in all the years since his transformation. And, like the human heart, the thing he most desired was to be lovely, or more appropriately, lovable.
Too often, I've passed over the ugliness, the pain, the imprisonment, without even stopping to mutter a brief, "But I believe you are very good-natured."
The fact is, we are surrounded by good-natured monsters who are waiting to hear that they are loved.
The fact is, we are not so beautiful ourselves.
The fact is, souls are lovely.
"But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God's word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ." 2 Corinthians 2:14-17
I'm sitting in the back of time
An insignificant half-life, hidden
Clothed by my illusions of thought
Protected by hiding under feeling
I can't even remember what I've lost, I
Don't know the name - overwhelm -
Is the purpose of darkness to overwhelm?
I feel empty inside most of the time
I want love! How desperately I
Want someone to love me. Is good hidden?
No one wants - I cut off feeling -
Me, has heaven given a thought?
I cover myself with him, I thought
Perhaps this stench of death will overwhelm
My own. If I hide my own feeling
Of fear will it work most of the time?
Behind the dead one I remain hidden
That's what I wanted right? I -
I believe - but not like that - I
Like to be alive, but not as much as I thought
Ah, so long as death is hidden
Why does sadness seem to overwhelm?
It seems to control me, consume my time
Why so [un]vulnerable? Where is feeling?
I think I used to indulge my feeling
I'm not sure that that wasn't good. I
Pretended at pain to pass the time
And my mind was my reality, my thought
Truth, true to form, would overwhelm
The recesses of my soul are hidden
But now light will reveal the hidden
I'm not stone any more, but feeling
Can darkness truly overwhelm
My heart behind this dead body? I
Am going to leave behind this filmy thought
This disguise I'd almost kept for all time
You are not hidden - You are my time -
Removed my stone thought - now living feeling
This is me: I am. You overwhelm.
(That's the poem, or something close to it, that's been bouncing around my head since The Great Divorce. It still doesn't make sense to me, but I do love that story. -C)
She sits with her back to the bitter wind
The quiet cries of the pale in her hand
The little bird’s trusting muffled song
From within the shifting of his wings
Makes silent rufflings in the shadows
In the bird’s hushed-gentle throat.
The girl looks down and clears her throat.
As her mother follows the wayward wind
Into the paths of darkness, painful shadows
With her destiny in the palm of her hand
And, soaring on a devil’s wings
Distorts the girl’s pure playful song.
The little girl wishes she could sing a song
Like the bird’s, but the dust pains her throat
Instead, she holds the bird’s steady wings
Keeping him from flying into the wind
Stubborn, she holds bird and mother in hand,
She will not let them cross the shadows.
For a moment, she heard the silent shadows
Speak, and their words were the words of a song
That treasure held in conniving hand
Is a knife pushed down magician’s throat
But treasure thrown to the wiles of the wind
Is treasure that will grow bold white wings.
And if the treasure has strong white wings
Then it will call out creatures of the shadows
Who praise the glory of the wind
Whose ears will hail no sudden song
That rises from a sainted throat
But hopeful whisperings of moon at hand
The girl raises her freckled hand
And, arbitrarily, bird tests his wings
A joyful song in the girl’s one throat
As her mother glides in hidden shadows
And both join in the bird’s free song
They see now beauty in the free wind.
The girl holds the shadows like clay in her hand
And the gifted wings fly like the song
In her brave throat and float above the forgetful wind.
I wrote this poem for a contest, but I didn't like it in context enough to submit it as my entry. I wrote a better one that will be my entry. This one is just a pretty thought. I hope you enjoy it. Echoes in ink, C.
"How strange that the Lord should wait until the day before Sabbath for his curtain to tear!" Zechariah made a buzzing sound in his throat. Since the cough had taken hold, his humming had grown steadily weaker.
Judah reached up to take the curtain from the old priest. The temple had stood, solid, since the days of Zerubbabel, and the curtain, as a general rule, had been no exception. It had certainly been strange for the curtain to tear from top to bottom on the stormiest day Galilee had seen since Judah could remember, indeed, the day before the Sabbath.
"Why do you think the Lord chose last Friday for the curtain to tear?" Judah asked, a grin quirking the corners of his mouth. He handed the torn curtain to a Levite who stood nearby to attend to it.
Zechariah smiled more broadly, a laugh gurgling in his throat, his full brown beard twitching. "Who knows? The Lord works in mysterious ways, my boy."
Judah laughed too. Though he was supposed to be too old for playing, this was still his favorite game. Growing up in the temple had not been easy, but Judah had found hope and happiness in his favorite priest, a man who was like his father. They had played the game they played now every day for years, asking questions of each other about the God they both served. Why do you think God chose to use a boy to slay the giant, Zechariah?
He still remembered the answer to that one. Zechariah had replied that boys are weak, boys are clumsy and small, and God wanted his people to know that He had won the victory, not little David.
Judah looked up to Zechariah, still standing on the ladder, staring up at the blanket which was to temporarily replace the curtain. Judah thought if Zechariah tried, he could pierce the woolen blanket with his fierce glance and see the Lord's place.
But Zechariah would never blaspheme like that.
Reminded of their old game, Judah said, "Zechariah? Why do we have a curtain before the Holy of Holies?"
The priest heaved his bulk off the ladder and sat down on the floor next to Judah. "You know the answer, don't you?"
True, Judah knew the answer. God was too holy for the ordinary people. Only the High Priest was allowed behind the curtain.
"But why the High Priest only? Why couldn't the ordinary people go through some sort of ritual to pass behind the curtain and make their own offerings to the Lord?" Judah said. A thread brushed past him. He caught it in his hand and stared into its forgiving fibers.
"God ordained for it to be the High Priest. He has been necessarily purified."
Here came the second phase of the game - trying to see how much they could get the other to prove before he said, 'It's the Lord's mystery," which was always the end to their game.
"The Weeping Prophet says the heart is desperately wicked. All hearts. Not just the ordinary people and the sinners."
"The Lord also says he will create in us a pure heart."
Judah frowned at the thread. "Why would God make it so that the ordinary people can't know him?"
"He is holy, my son."
Judah looked up. "Does he not love us, Zechariah?"
Zechariah looked away for a long time, and for a moment, Judah thought their game had ended sadly. It was quiet, the only sound the wailing of a crowd of mourners outside the temple.
"Oh yes." Zechariah said, startling Judah out of the silence. "He loves us very much. Where does it say that, my son?"
"In the Torah."
"Yes."
"How could he love us if he is never with us?" Judah said, quietly.
Zechariah looked away again. "It's the Lord's mystery."
---
Judah sat outside, on the street. It was stiflingly warm, sticky, and his shirt was sticking to him, not at all pleasantly.
In the distance, the call of a peacock, mimicking the mourners who still stood outside.
Women. So many women in this crowd. They were moving past him now. Good. He couldn't stand the sound of their hopeless, ululating cries. They made his skin crawl.
It was so warm, so lulling and warm. He felt himself begin to relax into waxy half-slumber.
But someone was shouting, breaking him from his very comfortable dream.
"He is alive!"
A female voice, happy. He opened one eye, recognized her as a woman he had seen in the temple on occasion. An older lady, respectable, quiet.
It seemed to him that something was unfortunate about her, but he couldn't quite place it.
"He's alive!"
Who's alive, woman? and would you be quiet? I'm trying to rest.
He felt like saying it, but he didn't.
"Jesus is alive!" Something about that name stuck with him.
Oh. That was the unfortunate thing, wasn't it? Her name was Mary. She was the one with the maniac blasphemer prophet as her son.
Alive? He couldn't be alive. Wasn't he the one who had died, the day of the storm?
The day the curtain tore?
He had listened the man speak once. He had called himself the good shepherd. He was a carpenter, this Jesus, but he called himself a shepherd. What did that make Judah? A sheep?
The thought had struck him as funny when he first heard it. Now, it seemed vaguely familiar, and faintly disturbing. What was it the prophet Isaiah said?
We all...
we all like sheep...
We all like sheep have gone astray; each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
Who is the He in this verse, Zechariah?
It's the Lord's mystery.
"The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep."
Judah could hear that voice, that perfect voice, in his mind still.
But I don't understand. You are a carpenter, not a shepherd. And you're dead.
"Jesus is alive!" The woman's shouts mingled with the mourners.
We all like sheep.
Judah heard something, but couldn't seem to place it. We all like sheep have gone astray.
Maybe he was the good shepherd. He had laid his life down. And his mother seemed to think he had returned.
The Lord has laid on him the iniquities of us all.
More unidentifiable sound.
The iniquities of us all.
Judah remembered the lightning, the thunder around him, cowering, as the curtain tore. Unreasonably loud, that thunder. And the words, over and over, soundless and screaming, in his mind and above him like the thunder itself, It is finished.
And it was. The good shepherd had laid down his life for his sheep, he inexplicably understood. Because the Lord had laid on Him, that shepherd, the iniquities of us all.
The sound he could not hear shrieked in his ears.
He had killed the Lord of hosts. He had been the one the weeping prophet, Isaiah the prophet, and all the others had spoken of. It was his iniquities, it was his pain.
That was his criminal death that the Lord had paid.
Oh, Lord. Oh, Lord. I am afraid.
Why so afraid?
I love you. You know that, don't you? I love you. Where do you find that, little Judah?
The Torah.
That's right. And I have a question for your game now, little Judah. Why did I choose Friday for the curtain to tear?
It is the Lord's mystery.
No mystery is hidden with me, little Judah. How can I love you if I am never with you? I do not dwell in the Holy of Holies, behind a forbidding curtain. I am among you. You are my people. I am your God. I love you. I will always be with you. How can it be otherwise, dear little one? I dwelt with you as Christ the Savior. Now I dwell with you as your friend, your lover, your king, your Messiah. I am with you, to the very end of the age.
Who are you, Lord?
I am Jesus.
Judah could still hear the sound in his mind, and now Jesus' words showed him what it was. The curtain was torn in two. The path to God was open.
And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness, he called Night.
It was now about the sixth hour and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, while the sun's light failed. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two.
For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.
I, Jesus... am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star. The Spirit and the Bride say, "Come." And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.
It is so dark out here, Father. It's so cold, and chill, and I am frightened. The stars even hide their light. I cannot break this blackness, this perfect, pure blackness.
Father, I am afraid.
Why is the night here? Is it not daytime? Why, Father?
These torrents of rain cover me. They are in my hair and my eyes, and the scream - the pained, pained scream - fills my ears and my heart. Who is crying out, Father? And why is he anguished?
Then the wailing begins. I cannot tell where it begins from. Perhaps the man in the center of the three? The wail is unbroken, unadulterated pain. The man arches his back, trying, trying so hard to...
To breathe, I think. Below him, the woman is wailing too. Their screams harmonize together in cacophony with the screaming. I think it is the wind.
I am afraid, Father.
Above the shout of rain and wind and tears, I can hear just one thing.
Small gasp. Small gasp.
The man in the center is making the noise. He tears his hands on the spires and raises himself up.
"Father! Into your hands I commit my spirit. It is finished."
It is.
The wind is louder. The rain pounds harder on my face, my outstretched hands.
I'm crying. And I don't know why.
It is finished.
That is why. It's done here. The suffering, finally over. The pain, finally done.
But his life is ended. Cut short.
The darkness plunges even blacker. And then I realize.
