Christ's Journal Part 16

I agreed: I agreed for several reasons: one reason was my desire to send my disciples to remote places, villages, towns.

"Our work is to be carried out among our countrymen while governments interfere."

"We love you...we had nothing to do with the crucifixion," Euodia blurted out.

Love, love after crucifixion is a brilliant but black enigma: it proffers and denies. We know that love helps us forget pain; however I ask myself whether it is evil to forget evil. But I can think of resurrection as a form of love, a love beyond supplication. I take that step and realize that immortality is another form of love.

Desert air pushed in as we finished our meal and we soon felt chilled. I wanted to shed my fatigue by reading but we discussed visiting the spring at Neby. I suggested we leave early if it did not rain during the night and bog the paths. At Neby I wanted to work out a plan for James, Peter and Matthew, if James joined us. When government cruelty diminishes I want Peter to preach in Rome.

In my bedroom I read Ecclesiastes-drowsing at times, aware of my familiar pallet, the good pillow, the candles. I was able to dismiss the imminence of departure. I put it away like a sh.e.l.l under sea gra.s.s.

Ecclesiastes meant more to me than weeks ago as I read and re-read pa.s.sages.

Rain woke me during the night-a pleasant shower smelling like spring.

So, we would walk to Neby another day. Here I would be able to go on reading Ecclesiastes and Peter's copy of the Psalms. When I told Peter that Clibus had found the Ecclesiastes scroll on a trip to the upper Nile they were astonished. They had never seen so ancient a scroll.

Peter's

Sivan 5

Judas is dead. He took his own life. His body was found by the daughter of Pontius Pilate. Since he was one of us we have buried him; at his grave a downpour struck us and drove us to a shelter. In a few moments the earth was flooded. I can't recall such rain and thunder.

Judas, born in Gamala, vineyard proprietor, dead at twenty-eight years. As Ecclesiastes says: "Woe unto him who is alone when he falls."

Startling, on a hillside, on a hilltop, a contingent of Roman soldiers, a new encampment, white tents in rows, banners, standards, smoke. s.h.i.+elds flash as men drill. Camels are hobbled behind the tent town. We can make out men in half armor, men wearing helmets, men at work shoveling, men erecting a large striped tent.

Is this always glory, power and death?

Peter's-early morning

Sivan 8

Shall we be like trees planted by rivers of water? Shall we mature slowly like the olive? Shall we endure two hundred years? Shall these men replant? They are humble men. Are humble men more or less successful with their lives? These men know ambition and is ambition the safe route? Verily, verily "all is vanity and vexation of spirit," if we listen to Ecclesiastes. What will evolve when the sil- ver chord is broken? I have answered these questions in the past but I wish to answer them once more.

Peter's

Sivan 10

Sivan is a beautiful month, a month of subtle changes.

I lay in deep gra.s.s yesterday. While I lay in the gra.s.s I remembered the fields around Nazareth and I remembered climbing olive trees at harvest time-how we sang and shook down the ripe fruit onto nets.

Mama made the finest olive oil in Papa's oil press, the finest in Nazareth some Nazarenes said. I hurried to fill our baskets... I wanted to gather more than anyone. I never did.

Tomorrow I go to villages and will heal the sick...it is a joy, a joy rather kindred to lying in deep gra.s.s in the warm sun.

I have read my journal. I will return it to Matthew's care. Among our disciples he is the most reliable.

Sivan 12

So, as I write with my bronze stylus, I listen to the evening, familiar sounds; through my window I see the Milky Way and the great constellations and I am aware G.o.d is affirming his handiwork.

I write very slowly, lingering over each letter, the square letters superior to the old script. I go on listening. The lamp burns steadily. There is no wind. There is grat.i.tude.

Nazareth

Sivan 17

Father has suffered from his imprisonment. His hands tremble. After seeing me on the cross he is unable to believe that I am alive.

I held out my arms to him as we stood in front of our home. He backed away.

"...Father, remember how we visited together at Qumran? Remember that old long-bladed saw, how I repaired its handle three times?

"Mama gave you that s.h.i.+rt at the Feast of Lights..."

He turned and walked away, trembling.

When I was staying at the home of Gehazi, after preaching in the synagogue, after healing, Barabbas appeared. Jamnia is his village and he entered the house of Gehazi without knocking. A great tall hulk, he loomed over me; then he knelt and begged me to accept him.

Dressed in goat's skin, his face and beard wild, he seemed ill, perhaps deranged. I tried to calm him, to reason with him.

"I should have been crucified," he repeated in a hoa.r.s.e voice.

For a long while we remained together, talking, praying, hoping.

Peter's

Sivan 24