Bilocation Would be Nice Perhaps you have heard of the miraculous stories in which God gives a saint the grace to bilocate. Most famously, St. Padre Pio would be present in two different places at the exact same time. As a young Catholic, I joke with my friends that bilocation is one of the coolest gifts God gives to a saint. Bilocation is one of those gifts like visions, the stigmata, or levitation, that seem reserved for the holiest of the holy people. It wouldn’t just be nice for my own sake, though! Think of all the people I could help if I could be in more than one place at once! I tend to look at God and ask why there are so many problems in the world. How am I personally supposed to choose between helping starving children, sex victims, and the homeless? What of assisting and loving the mentally ill, ending abortion, and promoting the sanctity of marriage? What of educating youth and evangelizing? I wish I could do it all, but realistically, it is just not possible. Maybe I can do one or two things and pray that as I work on one problem, someone else will work on the other. Besides, we are the Body of Christ (1 Cor 12:27). Made up of many parts, we each play a specific role (1 Cor 12:12). Maybe I just need to accept that I can’t be in more than one place at once. Or, I can ask God for the gift of bilocation. How to Spiritually Bilocate There is another tool that changes the world besides fundraising, mission trips, service projects, advocacy, promotion, protest, voting, donating, negotiating, and working. The other tool is prayer. If we believe that God is all-present and all-powerful, that the Church is universal, and that we are indeed a part of Christ’s Body, then we can bilocate. That is, we can be in two places at once. Not in the physical, dramatic way we see in Ignatius Press saint movies. Instead, God grants us access to all of heaven and earth. At Holy Mass, we join with all the faithful throughout the whole world and the kingdom of heaven. All of the faithful are with us and we are with them, united by the Holy Eucharist. If we are indeed sent forth at the end of Holy Mass to “Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord,” then we must continue our mission of universal prayer. For example, we can give up a sweet for a child suffering from the war in Yemen. In our bedrooms, we can pray a psalm to comfort victims of human trafficking. In the car, we can sing loving songs to orphaned and neglected children, forgotten elderly, the lonely, and the sick throughout the world. We can give up our bed for the night and offer it for someone who has none. In private, we can speak tender words of forgiveness and mercy to terrorists or unlikeable political leaders. In essence, we don’t need to leave our inner rooms. In fact, Jesus encourages us not to even leave our inner rooms (Matthew 6:6)! We can travel the whole world with the eyes of faith. Prayer is a form of spiritual bilocation. Try it. You don’t have to be Padre Pio to be called to do this saintly practice.
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13 CE 15th Year of Our Lord District of Galilee, Palestine I gulp the cool water from the stone jug in a rush. I overslept. I let out a breath as I pull the mouth of the stone vessel away from my face and hand it to my wife. Leah takes it from me with one hand as the other rests on her round belly. Her inner tunic drapes loosely over her bulging stomach. Her cheeks are rosy as they especially have been since the start of her pregnancy. Her long brown hair falls down her back, too early in the morning for her to don her veil. “The peaches are ripe, Daniel.” Leah smiles beneath her round eyes. Moving across the inner room, lit by a lone clay oil lamp, she glances over her shoulder. The light gently touches the stone walls of my home; stones I quarried myself to build upon the bedrock of the steep hill. My firstborn son, Daniel, sleeps soundly in the corner. My son is named after me, as I was named after my father, like the fearless Daniel, whom even lions could not overtake. My son is only a couple years old, and now, Leah is pregnant with our second child. My gut rolls at the thought. Another mouth I must somehow afford to feed. Our goat squeals and rustles in the stable in the back cave of the house. It knocks its head against the pen wall—a sound I have become accustomed to. I tie my undyed head-covering tightly around my forehead, letting the long end fall down the back of my neck. Now supporting her back with one hand, Leah plops the stone jug on the compacted floor by the wash bin, across from our sleeping son. She swiftly takes a camel skin, freshly filled with water that should last me this whole day of work, as well as my satchel, packed with my midday meal—probably bread, raisins, and goat’s cheese, as usual. My fingers curve around the sling of my work bag, heavy with metal and wooden instruments as Leah walks back to me, her agility still not weakening after these many months with child. My lip twitches as she offers me my food and drink, which I carelessly throw into my work bag. “Do not crush your meal, again.” She winces as I sling the strap over my shoulder. I feel the hard, sharp tools press against the soft goods. “Or spill your water. It leaked last time.” “I will be home late this evening,” I tell her stiffly. I do not mean to be cold toward her, but my burdens are too great. Leah frowns, her face ever child-like as if she were pouting. I wonder if she suspects something with my late nights. But then, a change takes over her expression. As if a token was just presented to her, she looks up at me earnestly, her energy ringing in her youthful voice. “Do you know why I love peaches?” I know why. But I cannot bring myself to say it. I cannot think of such things right now! “We had peaches on our wedding day," she says. “We were also sweating like dogs beneath our headdresses and tunics,” I say, forcing a smile. I attempted to make it a light-hearted comment, but it came out as more of a complaint. Indeed, it has been three years now since I married her during this hot season. The past two years, I bought her a peach at this time. This year, though, I will not be able to afford it. “I do not remember the sweat, Daniel,” Leah says, her chin dipping into her neck. She gently touches my cheek, covered by my black beard. Six days a week, that beard glistens with sweat and grime. On the seventh, the holiest day, it glistens with anointing oil. “I remember the sweetness…” Leah muses softly. “Of the peaches,” I finish for her. Three rumbles of laughter shoot from her mouth. They always come in “threes.” “Yes, of the peaches and nothing else!” She pats a kiss on my cheek in parting. Under different circumstances, maybe I would fall to my knees in a dramatic gesture of love the way I had on our wedding night and I would sing to her the Song of Songs, telling her that her eyes are doves and her lips are like a scarlet thread. Maybe I would delay my day’s work and I would tease her for the way her earlobes stick to her neck, as she so hates. But I cannot afford to do so. I cannot afford anything. Therefore, I depart for the day in good time, despite my late arousal from the night’s sleep. I walk out of the courtyard of my home, which is the roof of my cousin’s home beneath me. The houses we build in Cana have to be built on top of each other with such a steeply slanted landscape. I hurry down the series of stairs, thin at length. The sky is just lightening with its early morning blue, brightest where the sun will rise in the east. As I reach the bottom of the stairs, I regrettably meet my cousin Ezra as he walks out of the door of his own home. “Shalom, Daniel,” Ezra loudly exclaims, slapping me on the back. “Shalom,” I say in reply, shoulders arching. Ezra’s son joins his father at the doorway, eagerly awaiting the day’s adventure of building a great city. “You look like a tired mess. Were you out carousing all night?” Ezra inspects me, one eyebrow raised quizzically. One side of his lip lifts slightly beneath his thick mustache. “You know I do not carouse, cousin. I have been hard at work.” Ezra truly is the pest out of all of my brethren. Needing to get away from him already, I take an opposite turn around the house, into a narrow alleyway. “We all have been hard at work,” I hear Ezra call after me. Ignoring him, I choose to stand against the cool wall of his house, waiting. A salamander slides across the wall of the adjacent house in front of me, belonging to Bartholomew, the leather-worker. After deciding I have waited alone long enough, I emerge from the alleyway, toward the Glassmaker’s, Tanner’s, and Potter’s shops, stationed slightly downhill at the edge of the village to keep the fumes and smells away. I hurry down the steep hill, not bothering to take the donkey path that snakes up the hill for easy travel. Instead, I bound downward, through the purple thistles. I curse as I feel the rough scratch of thorns on my skin. Ignoring it, I follow the other half-a-dozen builders at the bottom of the hill, traveling south for their hour’s walk to Sepphoris. As I catch up to them, I walk at least ten paces behind the rest of the men and their sons. “Daniel! What are you lagging behind for?” Ezra looks over his shoulder, not slowing down as he moves across the yellow grassy field. “I am not lagging. I am…praying,” I say. It is a lie. The sun peaks out from the eastern hills, my eyes leaping away from its brightness. “Then ask Adonai to be merciful! I say today will be the hottest day of the year!” Ezra throws a lazy hand in the air and continues his conversation with the other men. I usually walk with them when traveling to work, but I fear what may come from conversing with them. The tax collector will be coming any day now and their kind are not known for their mercy. It would appear in the eyes of any Jewish man that I am well off and can pay my taxes, even if the collectors are cheating scum. I have a consistent job with a consistent day’s wages. I make the same as my fellow builders, as we are skilled carpenters and masons. I make one dinar a day. Sometimes more, depending on how wealthy the owner of the building is. I also make locks and windowpanes and plows for the other inhabitants of Cana. Those are enough funds for my wife, son, and I to eat, keep up the chicken, and the goat. It is enough to give the tax collector over half of my wages. Most of it then goes to Caesar. Some of it goes to Herod—the man who has issued the rebuilding of the city of Sepphoris, making it the capital of his region of Galilee. But even with this, I should have enough to buy my pregnant wife one ripe peach in honor of our marriage. Dread, guilt, and panic plop into the bottom of my stomach like cow dung. Leah’s sister will be coming to live with us in a month to help birth the second child. I will have to feed her as well! My thoughts run to what I must do after work. My only option is the one I have been doing every night for weeks. Go to the inn and make an income off of a game of dice. If I am lucky. Following my neighbors, I walk across the landscape, wheat fields on my left and stone terraces and olive groves on the right. I can hear the clatter of horses’ hooves on the road in the distance and the chatter of travelers. Swatting away a couple flies, I feel the temperature rising already, dry, but dense. Soon, we meet the Roman road, covered with travelers, caravans, and tradesmen. As I step on the gray stone pavement, a Roman soldier on his pure white horse gallops past me, his bright red cape bloating behind him. Craftsman and merchants are ahead of and behind me, leading their animals that are pulling carts piled with their products to sell in the market of the big city. A couple wealthy foreigners make their way on the crooked backs of camels, clothed in purple garments and silk turbans. There it is, every man’s destination: Sepphoris. Years ago, when I was just a boy, the city was burned to bits by a Galilean revolt. Then, the extravagant Herod Antipas chose Sepphoris as his diamond to show off to the nations, issuing every carpenter, mason, and builder from the surrounding villages to come and build it up until it is a polished ornament. Complete with a ridiculously large amphitheater and a network of waterworks, it reeks of pagan Romans and Greeks, and that is even with a mostly Jewish population! At least a dozen years into the project, I have worked on it since my father first taught me the trade, but the city is still not complete to Herod’s liking. My father passed away shortly after my marriage to Leah, but I have kept up the trade with Ezra and my other relatives. My mother has been dead since I was a child. I hardly remember her. I have lost sight of Ezra and my neighbors in the growing stream of people, but I will meet up with them soon enough at the worksite. As I get closer to the city, I see people moving in and out of the tan walls. Men are already on the top stories of rich mansions, finishing the pink tiled roofs for Greek merchants, government officials, and tax collectors. The pointed tip of one temple is visible from here, but I do not care to know which pagan idol it is for. We devout Jews refuse to build homes for the gods of Greeks and Romans. But, if they pay us to build the homes of men, we will accept for monetary reasons. I do not go inside the walls of the city, but am just on the outskirts, working on building a series of humble but qualified homes for a Greek landlord. There are at least three dozen builders, gathered on the quarried worksite. Rocks and gravel mound on the ground. A few finished limestone houses, fully plastered, give promise to the ones that are just being carved out of bedrock, or simply have the cornerstones in place in preparation for mounting the walls. “Behold! Daniel has found us worthy of his presence!” Ezra says loudly to a cluster of other builders between the foundations of two homes. The men look at me with sly smiles and raised brows. I look away from them, trying not to be intimidated by their stares. Puffing up my chest, I remind myself that I am a man. I have been one for seven years. I began reading the Torah at five. Every law passed down from Moses and the tradition of our elders was drilled into my brain by the time I was ten. At twelve, I read the writings of the prophets aloud in the synagogue, at last, a true man. The little teenager that I was, strove to be a man, strong as an ox and fierce as a desert storm. It was my aspiration to follow ritual purification to the last drop of water and follow the commandments of Adonai with zeal. I looked forward to the day that I would take a wife, beautiful as a daughter of a king, and she would bear me a son. I would teach my son the trade; how to cut wood and stone precisely to build a sturdy habitation. I would have more sons and maybe a couple of daughters. I would please Adonai by pleasing all the men of Cana, earning their respect, admiration, and praise. Naturally, good wealth would come with that. Perhaps not the wealth of Solomon, or even Job when Adonai gave him a fortune, but the comfortable wealth of a successful carpenter, who would be a beloved man in the eyes of his villagers. I am a man. My hands are rough from years of hard labor, be it drilling, chiseling, nailing, hauling, or lifting. My shoulders are broad, and my arms are robust. My large feet, constricted in my leather sandals, hold the weight of all the burdens and loads that Adonai has yoked to me. “What did Adonai say to you as you prayed, Daniel?” Ezra asks, his arms crossed over his chest in amusement. I swat away a fly. There is more than one pest for me to deal with. “That wine is arrogant, strong drink is riotous and none who are intoxicated by them are wise,” I say, satisfied with my use of the classic proverb. Everyone knows Ezra was the first man passed out from drink when we feasted for the holy day of Purim this spring. Ezra scowls, his large mustache covering his full upper lip. “O young man, in your youth.” He clucks his tongue as if disregarding an annoying child. “We are raising the walls of five homes today,” the landlord interrupts us in Greek. I only use the Greek language when speaking with gentiles. Sauntering over the rocks as if it were a silk carpet, the landlord holds his hands behind his back. The workers gather together and quiet themselves. “I want these homes built and sold in the next month.” The landlord turns to the head architect. “Divide these men accordingly.” Beginning immediately, the architect scans the lot of us and begins pointing random men to different tasks. “You will be hauling stones. I need you three based at the pully,” the Jewish architect speaks to us in our native tongue of Aramaic. “I am basing you for framing the doors and windows. Have these ones help you move the ashlared blocks. Take a couple mules with you. And you, make sure the windows do not exceed half a cubit in length. And you,” the architect says, looking at me pointedly. “Get started on mixing the mortar.” That pile of dung in my stomach only expands. I glance at my right at the pit we men carved last week for creating mortar. It is one of the most mundane, simple, back-breaking tasks there is! A stupid child could mix mortar, but the landlord does not seem to care for my intelligence. With the landlord’s eyes upon me, I waste no time grabbing a thick wooden stick, with a sort of paddle at the end of it and begin the grueling task of mixing the immense quantity of soil and chalk together. With the mortar, we will fill in the cracks between the stones of the walls we build. Perspiration settles over my skin and I adjust my headwrap so that it fully covers the back of my neck from the sun. Ripping my worn leather sandals from my feet, I cast them aside and hop right into the soil of the pit, large enough to be a full mikveh, a pool specifically for ritual purification. My toes twiddle, thankful for the cool feel of dirt beneath my feet. My calloused hands firmly hold the stick and I begin pounding it into the dry substance, coaxing the chalk on the edges to mix with the soil. A couple of men are ordered to pour in more water to make it a greater mud-like consistency. “You! Help him mix the mortar. Hurry up, now,” I hear the architect say from a distance. I blow out a breath, trying to expel the heavy stench of chalk, charcoal, plaster, paint, and tar from my nose. It is a smell I am used to wherever I build, but on days as hot as this one, it makes me want to vomit. I do not bother to look over my shoulder at who has been assigned to work with me. I build with hundreds of workers, only knowing a few by name. I notice the figure of the smaller man jump into the pit beside me. “Shalom,” the small man’s voice wishes me peace. It is a youthful voice, perhaps of a lad. I look up. A youth indeed. Several years younger than myself. A teenager who has not yet reached his full strength. “Shalom,” I say in return, pushing my stick into the substance. This is too grueling of work to chatter. More men come to dump large barrels of water into the mixture. It rises up to my calves, cool and refreshing. I continue plodding the dry granules with the water. “What is your name?” The teenager asks and then huffs as he starts plowing his stick into the substance. I throw him a perturbed glance. “Daniel.” “Daniel,” the boy repeats. “Daniel, son of…?” “Daniel.” “Ah,” the boy says. “Daniel, son of Daniel. Where are you from?” I truly have no desire to utter one word to anyone all day. “Cana.” “Daniel, son of Daniel of Cana. I hear Cana is on a fierce hill? Does that keep the mosquitoes away?” “So they say.” I shrug. Why is this little boy conversing with me? “Do you like your village?” “There is no shade.” I focus on the blackened mortar below me. “Adonai is your keeper, Daniel. Adonai is your shade.” “So the psalmist says,” I grunt, my voice strained by my work. I think of the inn that is a short walk inside the city. What could I make with the dinar I earn today? I could make at least twice the amount. “You do not think so?” The teenager questions. “I never said that.” “What do you think?” “You ask a lot of questions for a boy,” I say, hoping he takes it as an insult. When I was fifteen, I would give a young calf to be called a man. I still would. “You speak very little for a man.” “Who are you?” I turn to the boy in a jerked motion to get a good look at him. His skin shines with sweat, reflecting the harsh sun like metal. His brown hair, which is in terrible curly disarray shows hints of auburn in the light. He is knee deep into the mixture, his tunic wet with dirt water and his tan arms and face are splattered with the muddy substance. A soiled, thin kerchief hangs around his neck. His brows are fully rounded, making him appear very alert, but not scared or anxious—just attentive. His eyes are a heated swirl of cinnamon, almond, and burning wood. Hints of a beard spot his chin. He smiles at me, setting me on edge. It is far too big of a smile. “Why are you smiling?” I poke my stick again and again into the mixture as I watch him. Likewise, he pokes his stick repeatedly but keeps his eyes on mine. “What is there not to smile about?” “You are mixing dirt for gentiles.” “I do not mix dirt for gentiles, Daniel. I mix dirt for Adonai.” My face contorts at his oddity. No boy speaks like this! “Who are you?” “I am Jesus of Nazareth.” “Nazareth!” I let out a cruel chortle. If any village was considered less than Cana, it would certainly be that little farming place, overshadowed by Sepphoris, its great Herodian neighbor. Once again, I look down at my work, thankful the mixture is becoming a consistent wet slop. I push through the mortar to focus on combining the dry chalk at the edges of the pit. “Daniel.” I look up, thinking I heard my name. I see the teenager looking at me. Did he say my name? I turn my gaze from him and carry on. “Daniel.” “Here I am…” I drawl in irritation, eyeing the strange lad. “Daniel.” “Speak your mind, Jesus of Nazareth! I am listening.” I look again at his eyes, colored like roasting embers, as they heavily concentrate on me. A part of me wishes to scold the boy but for some reason that only Adonai knows, I do not. “Tell me about your day, Daniel.” A frustrated, “ha,” emerges from me as I wipe my brow with the back of my arm, knowing I have just smeared mortar on my face. “I will tell you, young Jesus of Nazareth. I woke early but not early enough. Usually, I get up before the cocks first crow, but I lingered in bed. Finally, my wife woke me. I hurried to wash my face, don my clothes, collect my tools, and get my meal from my wife. Now, I am mixing mortar on perhaps the hottest day of the year with a peculiar boy from Nazareth.” “And what will you do after the day’s work?” His voice is neither quick nor urgent. It is fully calm but certainly curious. “I…” Why does he care? “I…” I think to formulate a lie, but I am fearful the boy will know. “I will go into the city. To the inn by the theater.” Workers come to add straw to the mortar, which will decrease the risk of cracking when it dries. I hurry to push the straw into the mixture. Glancing up quickly, I see Jesus still looking at me, clearly waiting for me to continue. “And I…I will take my daily dinar and…I will make two dinars.” He keeps looking at me, even as he mixes the mortar with the strength of a stone olive press. “I…eh…I will cast lots.” My legs press against the thick slop. “The inn is a good place to increase my earnings.” Why does he still stare at me? “I uh…” What am I to tell this boy? He has no right to know my personal business. What I do with my day is mine to know and mine alone. And Adonai. “I lost most of my wages this past month,” I say it aloud, surprising myself. My face turns terribly red and it is not because of the sun. “But I swear to Adonai,” I jump to explain. “I was multiplying it! If luck comes again, I will make up for it before the tax collector arrives at the end of the week! I did not always gamble. I never had in my life. But this year, with our young son…I wanted some more time out of the house because…well, married life was fun for our nuptial week, but I am the man of a household now and she is with child again and I am completely dependent upon myself and no other. A year ago, I went down to the inn, deciding to reward myself with some fine wine and I was cajoled into one game. One little game! I was successful and one led to another and another. I bought Leah earrings with it! And I got myself a new cloak. I told her I found extra work in Sepphoris, and that is why I came home late every night with surplus goods. My cousin, Ezra, might suspect my actions or think they are graver than they really are—I am not sure! Now, Leah’s time is in only a couple months. I have gambled away every shekel I own—every dinar! What I make today is all I have and I will multiply it tonight. You are a devote servant of Adonai, boy? Pray to him that he shows me favor. I have committed no folly. I am no sinner. I follow all of the commandments. I cheat no one. I play fairly and justly and with good intention—to provide for myself and my wife and our children. Did not the sailors cast lots to ask Adonai if Jonah was the cause of the storm? Tonight! Tonight, Adonai may show me favor once again. I promise to fast vigorously for the Day of Atonement at the start of the new year. I will then offer three doves in the Temple for the Feast of Dedication. And, I will contribute four dinars to the Temple treasury! Adonai must only bless me tonight, you see?” I can hear my breath winding wildly and I realize I have stopped working the mortar and Jesus has as well. He looks at me with the same calm expression. Did I just recount a year’s worth of burdens to this teenage boy? I take a deep breath, but my throat feels clogged as if the mortar is stuck in it. “Daniel,” Jesus says to me, gently. What oddity! What boy speaks in such a manner? What little boy looks at another man as if he were the father and the man was his infant son? If I were in a more stable state of emotion, I would care what the other workers would think of this! What the landowners would say if they found us relaxing. “What do you want Adonai to do for you?” Jesus slowly presses against the mixture of filth, moving toward me, and resumes stirring. “I…I told you…” I shove my stick into the mortar, my toes curling over the grime. Men begin taking buckets full of it to raise the walls. “I want…money for my pregnant wife and child. For myself. For my taxes that are due for the devil’s kindred!” “Daniel, is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” Jesus asks. He then adds thoughtfully, “I came upon a wild peach tree this week.” My body jerks at the word, “peach.” The manly part of me thinks this boy must be some pathetic harpist, grazing among the lilies of the field. The boy in me wants to tremble at the thought of ripe peaches, for I have failed to provide my wife with one peach. “It was hidden behind a hill near my village,” Jesus explains, his shoulders lifting slightly as he stirs. He moves out of the way for a worker to lower a bucket into the pit and collect the mortar. “No man was caring for the tree. It had the choicest of fruits, ripe, clothed like soft fabrics, and the colors of sunset. Surely Solomon had never tasted a finer peach. The tree did not toil nor spin. It did nothing by itself, yet Adonai, the Creator clothed it and nurtured it. Are you not more precious than a peach, Daniel, to the Creator? If Adonai provides for the wild fruits, will he not provide for the fruit of his hand—the man he made in his own image?” It takes all of my willpower to continue working as the boy speaks. A cartful of soil is piled into the pit to make more mortar. “Why do you search for riches on your own account in useless gambling and play? Why do you put your faith in dice? Do you believe in dice to provide for you and your family?” I shake my head. “I do not…dice no…” “Be not afraid. Put your faith in Adonai. Do not put it in casting lots or the things that the world can buy.” “Dice are as useless as stone idols!” I exclaim. “I know that! But I am a married man with a family to care for!” “Daniel. Daniel,” Jesus says slowly, stirring now as if the mortar were a stew. “Daniel! Daniel,” I cry, stabbing my stick into the mortar. “A man whom lions bow to! I am no man!” Jesus’ rounded eyebrows raise. “Did Daniel tame the lions?” My brows knit together. “No. Adonai tamed the lions for his faithful servant.” Jesus tilts his head to the side, hardly blinking, despite the chalky dust around us. Adonai tamed the lions for his faithful servant. “What do you propose I do, Jesus of Nazareth?” “Work well today,” he says with a mixture of thoughtfulness and confidence. “Work for Adonai.” Jesus smiles as he pushes the substance around. “When you have finished, go home to your wife. Pray.” He lifts a blackened finger to the heavens. “Put your faith in Adonai to provide for your family. Wake up the next day for Adonai. Work hard again. Pray and give thanks. Do not gamble away your earnings. When the time for taxes arrives, give what is due to Caesar to Caesar. Give what is due to Adonai to Adonai.” A line of assembly forms to haul the mortar to the walls and settle it between the stones. I am issued by the architect to begin building, my whole body dripping with the elements of the earth. The Nazarene and I are separated. My hands tingle as I work. Perhaps it is from the forceful mixing motion I have been doing all morning, or perhaps it is because of my mind settling the words Jesus spoke. Sweat falls down my whole body but it may as well be the flow of droplets from a waterfall. The heat is like a series of bodies pressing in on me, but it may as well be a sea breeze. The man in my mind is searching for ways to provide for myself. The boy in my mind is searching for Adonai to provide for myself. For the rest of the day, I observe Jesus as he works. We do not cross paths, but I see him working on the other houses, plopping giant stones on the foundations. I observe him speak to those he works beside. Then, I see him work quietly and with great concentration. He is indeed the strangest man I have ever encountered. When late afternoon arrives, my muscles are heavy with the satisfaction of a day’s worth of good work. I pull the headwrap from my head, enjoying the feel of air between my strands of hair and my neck. “Daniel.” I turn immediately, recognizing the voice. “Where are you going?” Jesus asks, scratching his dirt-covered arm. “Home,” I tell him. “Why are you smiling?” Jesus fiddles with the satchel slung over his shoulder. I cover my mouth with my hand, not realizing that I was. I lift my shoulders in a slight shrug, my smile broadening. “What is there not to smile about?” Jesus clasps his hand good-naturedly on the back of my linen tunic, returning the smile in full. “Perhaps I will see you tomorrow at work?” I say, curious about this young man. Who is his father? Who are his brethren? Who is his teacher? “My father and brethren work in Sepphoris nearly every day. Surely, we will see each other again.” Jesus shakes his unruly hair with his hand. “Perhaps one day, you, Leah, and your child can visit us in Nazareth.” Jesus looks up at the walls we raised today and then back at me. “My mother likes visitors. She bakes as if for a wedding banquet.” I incline my head, unsure of how to respond to the friendly offer. “Are you coming back with us today, Daniel?” Ezra calls, one hand on the shoulder of his son. My eyes jump to that cousin of mine. “I am,” I respond curtly. Taking one last look at Jesus, I turn north to take the road back to Cana. “And Daniel?” “Huh?” I look back at Jesus, who has one hand in his sack-cloth satchel. “Take this home for your wife.” Jesus pulls out a rounded yellow-orange fruit. He stretches it toward me. Slowly, I take it from him. My hands brush against its fuzzed surface. A ripe peach. |
AuthorJacqueline St. Clare: I spent six months in a cloistered convent, and now I'm a college student! Archives
April 2021
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