As I grow older, I daily become more and more certain that everything around me is not at all as it appears. I see it as simply a grand illusion, a continuous rearrangement of the energy fields in which we play, created just ahead of our awareness in time. I may be very young, barely learning to walk and talk, but I can see. To me the world is made of sparkles of energy, movement, change. It is so obvious, I can't understand how mother and father fail to see it for what it is. This that surrounds us is all made up of thought, completely mutable and transparent, and as soon as you fully grasp that, the world comes under your absolute control, where all you have to do is think to change it.
Or at least that's how it is for me.
It takes me a while to realize that maybe I am different from everyone else, or at least so they believe. And belief is the key to awareness.
At first it is just for fun, trying out my ideas, seeing what will happen.
I like being able to bring dead things back to life, but there aren't that many dead things just laying around for me to practice on, so I start to work on living things instead. When our dog has puppies, I take one and pinch its nose closed to stop the breath of life from entering, then once it stops wiggling I blow the breath back into it and it wakes up again and licks my face. I hug it to my chest, and roll on the ground with the squirmy little thing, giggling as it licks me all over. It's so cute and lovable, I decide not to test my power on the puppies anymore. Instead next time I try it on our cow, but I find I have to blow a lot harder to bring her back, and it takes so long I'm afraid father might come by and see what I am up to. I also worry that he or mother will come to investigate when the cow falls with a loud thud to the ground.
"What's that noise?" Mama calls from inside the cottage.
"Nothing mama," I call back, blowing hard into the big pink mouth.
I soon determine that it's a lot easier to stop life in little things like ants and crickets and earthworms: I simply think "don't breathe" and they die. But it is hard to know what part of their little bodies to breathe into to make them work again. After a few failures, I find out all I have to do is think them alive and they live.
After this, I discover that besides being able to bring dead things back to life, I can make things that are not alive move around as if they are, a trick which becomes an endless source of amusement for me.
For a while I move things that no one will notice, like making a small rock or chunk of wood move from here to there. At night when I'm supposed to be asleep, I look out the window and make the stars jump around in the sky, changing positions with each other and then back again.
Sometimes I slip away from the cottage to sit by the nearby brook, and with just a thought I can make the fish and frogs jump up out of the creek and fall back again with a splash, and birds flock down to me from the trees, (but I only do this when I'm sure no one's around.)
One day when mother is weeding the garden I slip out to the dusty road and, looking across the way, I move the neighbor's house a little to the left, just to see if he will notice. When he gets home from work I peek out at him from behind a bush to see his reaction. The man stops and stares at his house for a moment, tilting his head as if not quite sure if something is different about it, but then he just shrugs and goes inside.
I think to myself, if people are this unobservant, how easy it is to keep this illusion going: No one really notices if things change a little now and then. They just shrug and go on, accepting with their mind that it is the same now as it ever was, telling themselves they just never noticed before what their eyes are now telling them exists. When actually it didn't.
Sometimes I make the wind come up for no reason, howling through the trees like something mad, then just going quiet again. But I have to be careful mother's laundry isn't on the line when I push the wind: I made that mistake once, and as she picked up the soiled laundry from all over the yard she gave me a look that said "I know what you're up to boy." But aloud she said nothing, just washed it all over again, which made me feel kind of bad for her.
Mary
We have been home now for over a year, and still Joseph refuses to travel to Jerusalem for any of the festivals, and I despair of ever seeing my aunt Elizabeth again. I ache to feel her arms around my shoulders, her wise counsel in my ear along with a kiss from the gentle old lips. I know the tricks Yeshua plays...he thinks I don't see them, but I do. He is a sweet and gentle child, yet at the same time full of capricious mischief, just like any boy. The problem is, he has the rare talent to accomplish whatever whimsy crosses his mind, and that can make all kinds of trouble. I need to know what to do; I need Elizabeth!
I asked my husband last fall if we would attend Sukkot after Yom Kippur, but he said "Not yet."
Then came Passover in early spring, and once again "Not yet," and again "not yet" for Shavu'ot this year.
"Joseph," I argue in my desperation; "surely God will protect His son on our journey if we go."
But Joseph just looks at me, and shakes his head: "Not yet, not until He sends me word it is safe."
Today that word has come at last, come in the form of a wagon driven by an ancient bearded priest, a frail old woman cryptically wrapped in a shawl, and a young child with long shaggy dark hair and bright eager eyes seated beside her on the bench.
"Aunt Elizabeth!" I scream, running to greet the wagon.
Joseph steps out of his carpenter's shed at the sound, rubbing his hands on his shirt. He looks as surprised as I, and a little apprehensive as well, perhaps.
I help my aunt and her son down from the cart; but Zechariah clambers spryly down the other side of the wagon on his own before Joseph comes near enough to offer a hand.
"You have failed to come to Jerusalem for a visit, so we bring Jerusalem to you...or at least a small part of it," the priest says, his admonition gentled by the warm embrace he gives Joseph as he finishes.
"We feared Herod's son Archelus might seek to harm the boy if we went into his land," Joseph apologizes. "Especially when we heard how, after his father's death, he ordered the slaughter of three thousand Israelites and cancelled Passover. He appears a very dangerous enemy of our people."
"But he quickly reinstated the ceremony when our high priests objected," the elder reminded him. "Besides, how would he know you were there among the throngs of worshippers if no one told him?" He added with a raised brow. "None-the-less, I will admit that Archelus is an idiot as well as a monster, completely unstable. He tries to win the hearts of the people one moment with lower taxes and other kindnesses, then when they aren't satisfied and grateful, he goes berserk and orders his troops to murder the lot of them. His father knew he wasn't fit to rule: The crown was actually supposed to go to Antipas, but Archelus came up with a phony will and Caesar upheld it, at least in part, by dividing the kingdom and rule between him and his brothers. What can you do?" The old priest shrugs eloquently.
"All the more reason we shouldn't expose Yeshua to danger by traveling through the area of his authority," says Joseph.
"All the more reason you should," counters Zechariah. "God will protect his son, not you. You mustn't keep the child from following the law: It is his destiny to fulfill it, and he can't fulfill what he doesn't know."
I nod vigorously - Exactly! - and Joseph scowls at me. So I lower my head in submission, to hide my satisfied smile.
Reunion
I stand on the porch of our cottage, staring at the boy in the yard. He stares back at me just as intently.
"Who are you?" I think. "I know you, don't I?
He smiles, a beam of recognition.
Neither of us is quite sure how it is we know each other, what it is we are to each other: It is a knowing without a name, without any words to describe or analyze it. It is a quickening of the heart, a joy that courses up the spine: we are instantly the best of friends.
I walk up to him. "I'm Yeshua," I say, extending my hand politely.
"I'm John," he replies, accepting my handshake. Then without break
ing our grip on each other, we run off across the yard together, I leading the way.
"Let me show you our mule and our cow," I say, but it is far more I will show him during his stay than our livestock and fields of grain.
One day shortly after his arrival, while sitting together at the side of the brook that bounds our fields, I show him how to fashion mice and birds out of the clay that lines the banks of the stream. His hands are actually more skilled than mine, his figurines much more true to form than my lumpy models. But when I show him how to blow life into them, mine take off and fly clumsily away - misshapen lumps of wings and all - while his remain stubbornly inanimate on the ground.
"Please fix mine so they can fly too," he begs me.
I smile, nod, and pick up one of his clay birds, then blow the breath of life into it. Instantly it opens its eyes, spreads its clay wings and flutters up into the sky with a little bleat of joy.
"How do you do that?" he asks as he watches it disappear into the blue mists above.
"I don't know, I just do it," I answer honestly. "Want to tip a cow?"
Mary
Elizabeth and I watch in secret from our hiding place in the copse of trees on the other side of the brook from where the boys are playing. She gives me a look, a little jerk of her head, and we exit quietly and unseen, returning to the privacy of the house before risking a conversation.
"See aunty?" I tell her. "This is the kind of thing he can do all day long. It's not anything terrible, but what if someone from the village sees, how do we explain it? And I don't want it getting out that our boy has some kind of divine gifts, lest word get back to Archelus and he decides to fulfill what his father attempted to do after the magi told him of Yeshua's birth, three and one half years ago.
The old woman contemplates this for some time in silence, eyes closed. She is quiet so long I begin to think she's fallen asleep, and am about to rouse her when she opens her eyes again and looks at me, taking my two young hands firmly in her gnarled, age-worn ones and giving them a little shake for emphasis.
"You must keep him close to home until he has wisdom enough to hide his gifts under the cloak of discretion. Right now he is a babe still, and practicing his divine sort of magic just as an ordinary child might practice running and climbing and learning to speak. You shouldn't try to curtail that learning, not that you ever could succeed in doing so, even if you tied him to the bed. Trust in God to protect him, so that he may fulfill his destiny here on Earth, and you just worry about protecting your family - once his powers do become known - from the scandal and disgrace that may be levied on you by ignorant people who fear and attack what they cannot or will not understand."
"And how exactly do I do that?" I ask her.
She shrugs, then laughs, and I begin to laugh as well: We laugh until our sides hurt and tears pour down our cheeks. Joseph and Zechariah come in from the workshop to see what is so funny, but we just shake our heads at them and keep on laughing.
Showing Off For John
I show him all my tricks that summer, and he laughs and claps his hands at every one of them. There is no fear, no judgment, just acceptance of who I am and what I can do. Encouraged, I try to do more things than ever to impress him.
One day a man comes to get a bench he'd ordered my father to make for him in a big rush, and right away starts complaining that one of the legs is too short, telling my father he isn't a good carpenter. As he goes to sit on it to prove it's wobbly, I move it just a little bit with my mind and he sits down plop on the ground and farts. As my father helps him to his feet, trying hard not to smile, I make the short leg grow so that when he tries it again, it is perfect.
John and I run outside and off into the field, holding our hands over our mouths to contain our shrieks of merriment, which finally burst forth when we are - hopefully - out of earshot.
"Did you see that mean old man fall on his backside?" John cries. "And the look on his face ..." He laughs so hard he starts coughing and has to catch his breath.
I just nod and grin so wide it hurts the corners of my mouth, happy that I have pleased my best friend.
"Then when he tried the chair again and it didn't wobble he looked sad, like he was worried about losing his mind or his sight," John guffaws.
"I just wanted him not to be mean to my father," I shrug.
John leaves today, riding off on the seat of the wagon beside his mother and father. He turns to wave, and I wave back. I feel like crying, but I don't really know why I feel that way. I look at mother, and she is crying too. I guess that's what humans do when they separate from people they don't want to separate from.
Father has promised Zechariah that we will go to Jerusalem next spring for Passover, so I know I will see my friend then, but right now that seems such a long way off it doesn't help much. I may know time and space are just an illusion, but until John knows that as well, I am there all by myself, which still leaves us both pretty much alone.
The Pilgrimage
Spring has finally come. I sit atop the bundle of provisions in our wagon, wrapped in a blanket against the early morning chill. A light rain is falling as the first light edges over the far horizon, and father grumbles as he shakes the reins, urging our mule Sheba to a quicker pace, as if that will get us to the warmth of day any sooner.
There are only a few other wagons of pilgrims on the road to Jerusalem as yet: I heard father telling mother that he wanted to leave a couple of days early to avoid the crowds that will soon clog the roads and slow our journey. We have four full days of travel ahead of us as it is, he says; and the closer we get to the holy city the more crowded the route will become.
I have never been this far from home before, never further than the woods beyond our village, and my eyes fill with the wonders of all the new things that I see, so that I am fairly shaking with excitement. But after a while the slow rumbling pace, the side to side swaying of the wagon like a boat on a gentle sea, lulls me to sleep time and again, so that the entire journey becomes a series of disconnected pictures from moments awake and asleep.
We camp by the side of the road each night, warming ourselves by a wood fire on which we heat the food mother has prepared, then sleeping huddled together for warmth under a lean-to made from animal skins stretched between two stout poles which are tied to one side of the wagon.
By the third day of our journey the road to Jerusalem has become crowded with carts and foot travelers on the way to the religious festival. Much conversation and greetings pass between people as they reacquaint with old friends they haven't seen since the last pilgrimage, and the highway fills with happy conversation as well as dust.
Sitting up on top of our wagon's load, I imagine myself a prince surveying my countryside from a canopied throne. I wave to the other pilgrims, shout hallos to the children walking beside their parents or riding atop mules or wagons as I am, full of happy excitement and anticipation.
That night as we prepare for sleep, mother decides to tell me about the meaning of the festival we are going to attend.
"Yeshua," she says. "Do you know the name of the festival we are going to?"
"Passover," I answer smugly.
"And do you know what it is about?" She probes.
"Tell me," I reply, knowing that is her intent anyway.
"Well, back many many years ago, when our people were slaves in Egypt, God came to Moses the lawgiver and told him that he was going to send the angel of death into Egypt as a warning to the Pharaoh to let His people go. He told Moses to warn the people of Israel to mark their doors with the blood of a lamb that night, so when the angel of death came by he would pass over their homes and thus they wouldn't die. So this is why we celebrate this event, which we call Passover."
I feel something come over me at her words, a strange sense of knowing; and I find myself saying to my mother: "But do you know what that story really means?"
She looks at me, confused. "Well yes, Yeshua, it means what it means, that we are Yahweh's
chosen people, that he protects us, that He freed us from our captors, He took us out of Egypt, and..."
She stops, sensing I have something to tell her.
"Every story is a story in a story," I say. "Every story is a lesson for the soul. The story of the Passover is in truth the story of the spiritual self's journey from bondage, from the enslavement of the body. The blood on the door that tells the angel of death to pass over, that door is the door to your heart, your soul. Whose blood is it on that door, mother? Whose blood will save your soul from death?"
Mother gasps, and bursts into tears at this. She grabs me to her chest, holding me so close I can barely breathe while she sobs uncontrollably.
"No, Yeshua, no...please."
I stroke her hair, trying to comfort her. As I do, the knowingness that has enveloped me leaves and I am not sure why she is crying.
Father comes back from tending the mule and sees us in that tearful embrace. He takes Mary's arms from around me and leads her over to the fire, holding her hand and murmuring kind words until she has calmed herself. Then he comes over to question me.
"What went on between you and your mother that disturbed her so?" he asks me.
"She was telling me about Passover," I say; "and I just asked her something."
"But what happened, what did you ask her?"
"I don't know, father. I can't remember," I tell him, and it's true. For now, at least, whatever I knew in that moment has fled from my four year old brain and left me feeling sleepy and dull-witted. I curl down upon the blanket, close my eyes, and am almost instantly asleep.
The next afternoon we arrive at the home of Elizabeth, Zechariah and John, which lies in a little community on the outskirts of Jerusalem. Elizabeth comes out into the yard to greet us, dusting from her hands the flour off the loaves of unleavened bread she's been preparing. John comes out right behind her and sprints to the wagon, clambering up to greet me with a bear hug of pure joy.
My heart leaps to see him again.
"Zechariah is already at the temple, helping to prepare the fires for the roasting of the ritual sacrifices tomorrow at sundown," Elizabeth tells father. "Will you be buying your lamb there?"
"I think not, not unless there are none elsewhere to be found," father grumbles. "Those sold at the temple are more than twice the usual price for a young lamb, and then the amount of roasted meat given in exchange is half the actual weight of the animal we've bought."
Elizabeth makes a tsk'ing noise with her mouth, impossible to tell if she is agreeing or disagreeing with him. As the wife of a temple priest, I guess there's not much she can say.
"There is a farmer just down the road with some two month old lambs for sale," she tells him. "Perhaps you can find one without blemish there. Otherwise I'm afraid you may be stuck paying the temple prices to assure a lamb of acceptable purity."
"It's worth a try: How do I find this place?"
"John will take you; he knows it too well," she says. "I can hardly keep him away from the place since spring lambing."
After we unload the wagon, bringing our share of provisions for the Passover feast into the house, Father, John and I drive it to the farm which lies just over the next hill.
While John and I chase the playful lambs around and around the dirt yard, father inspects one and then another, trying to find a lamb that is perfect. As far as I'm concerned they're all perfect, and I've already fallen in love with one that has a black patch on its eye, when father lets us know he's ready to go. In his arms he holds a snow white baby with huge brown eyes, a soft pink mouth and ears, and an expression as sweet and gentle as anything God ever created.
"Oh father, I love it!" I cry, as he puts it down and hands me the rope that's around its neck.
"Good, because you're the one that will be feeding and taking care of it until tomorrow evening, and it's not yet fully weaned," he warns me, handing me a bucket of fresh sheep's milk.
"How?" I say.
"Just dip your fingers into the bucket like this," John demonstrates; "then put them in the baby's mouth. He'll suck the milk right off."
I do what he says, and the sensation makes me laugh out loud. But as we put the lamb up on the wagon and begin to drive away it begins crying out for its mother in a plaintive bleat, and the mother calls back, sounding as distressed as the baby. This makes me feel sad.
"Why do we have to take it from its mother?" I ask. "Will we bring it back when we are done?"
"You ask too many questions," father says gruffly.
"But I need to learn, I need to understand father," I protest.
He looks at me and nods. "That you do, son, true enough, though you might not like what I say. The lamb will not be coming back to its mother. It will be sacrificed at the temple tomorrow, as thanks to Yahweh for delivering us from bondage."
"Sacrificed?"
"Killed. Killed and butchered."
"Oh no! But, but why?"
"Because it is our custom, Yeshua: It is what Yahweh commanded Moses to do on the eve of the first Passover."
"But later He told Moses Thou shalt not kill!" I argue.
"The law says Thou shalt not murder. Killing a lamb is a sacrifice, son, not murder."
"Tell that to the lamb and his mother," I respond tearfully, hugging the animal to my chest.
"Well, it's our custom, and until God Himself comes down from heaven and tells us to change it, we will continue to follow the practice as our ancestors have."
I look at him with open mouth, then closing it into a firm line, I nod; and I see his eyes fog with confusion as he turns away.