Christ's Journal Part 4

Everything tastes good..."

I believe my faith will help people because it is a faith of hope, a faith that conquers obstacles; it is a faith based on patience and kindness. We have no right to kill, no right to inflict pain. Ours is the gift of understanding, contentment. Ours is the honoring of simplicity and honesty.

Sun on the hills is a kind of faith...the vineyard that endures is another...the wounded heron struggling on...childbirth pain...fishermen drying their nets on the beach...

Our Father Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name...

He is our guide, Father of us all, brother of us all, master of all.

Seek and you will find. Our kingdom is at hand.

Kislev 2

I

have been reading a scroll, an ancient one.

I write outdoors, on a table, under olives.

As I speak in public I become more and more a master of words. I detect the difference in just a month or so. I am encouraged. I no longer have to think what I do with my hands and arms, how I stand.

Thoughts flow.

Going from place to place I see the same heads. The sun streams over us at the benediction. The pa.s.sion of living is obvious, touching each of us, offering kinship and peace.

Salt of the earth...

John is the salt of the earth and yet he writes me that he has been beaten by his guards. Several times I have returned to Capernaum to visit Joseph, the young officer. He has promised to use his influence to free John. How wary he is of becoming involved with the prison authorities. In Jerusalem my intercessions are ridiculed: John is branded treasonous.

Authorities are evasive or antagonistic. They ridicule our wish to uplift the world. I am told to take care.

Guards at the citadel refused to allow me to visit John.

Written requests go unanswered.

Peter, James and Matthew are no luckier than I.

A finch is watching me as I write under the olives.

Rain is threatening.

Conception. Birth. Death. Each is a mystery.

In my father's house I grew up among mysteries. I heard them talked, argued over, curtly dismissed. I have resented the unknowns, yet to plumb them is still beyond me. Each child is a mystery. The temple is a mystery. The sh.e.l.l that I pick up on the beach has its mystery.

Some say I am a man of mysteries. Does the turtle have its mysteries?

Kislev 5

For days I have been too busy and preoccupied to write-preaching often, healing often. I am writing in a borrowed tent; James and Mark are asleep inside.

Yesterday, on the lake sh.o.r.e, I was circled by a crowd. I talked to them till late. I wish to record the promises I made them:

Verily, I say unto you, he that believeth in me hath everlasting life. I am that bread of life. Your fathers ate manna in the wilderness, and are dead. I am living bread. If any man eat of this bread he shall live forever.

In keeping with my promise I pa.s.sed out bread and fish in baskets. I blessed the food and there was an abundance for everyone, many of them hungry children.

Mark and James and Phillip pa.s.sed the baskets till each was fed, the fish and bread always sufficient. At parting I reminded the people of the deeper meaning but some were overwhelmed by the miracle. A youngster ran about shouting: "He made the bread...he made the fish...with his own hands. Jesus made..."

A strange restlessness troubled almost everyone.

Phillip, Andrew and I strolled along a white path, as white, in the moonlight, as if made of crushed sh.e.l.ls. Galilee was flat and silvery. Andrew continued to comment about the "bread and fish" at almost every turn of the path. His youthful, enthusiastic face warned me, warned me that youth is irresponsible. What is the proper age for wisdom? As for miracles is there a miracle surpa.s.sing the miracle of faith?

Peter has made me a tent. It is dark green, and big enough for two.

The tent pole is an antique shepherd's staff. A charioteer and a number of untranslatable characters have been carved on the wood.

"Papa gave me that staff long ago. He said it is a.s.syrian."

I can carry the tent comfortably and the staff is never out of my hands.

Peter's

Kislev 6

Last night I dreamed I was a tree-a cedar tree.

"Don't cut me down," I begged. "I am shade...I am the home of birds."