7-10-2009

Welcome to the debut page of The Third Testament, the first time I've publicized a portion of the text that lies behind much of my art, my strength and my thought. It is hoped that here you will find a bit of wisdom, some sense, and a better understanding of my paintings. What follows is the first, raw draft of the first 10 chapters from the major rewrite started over a year ago. This represented a major change in the tone and style from the previous versions, though the story remains the same. A book design featuring images and details from my paintings and drawings exists, but is not represented here. Eventually this will be published and available at large.

I welcome feedback, thoughts and comments as this page evolves. Enjoy.

 

 

Synopsis

The Third Testament follows the journey of Jacob, a modern day every-man, as he faces the truths of his existence. Drawn against his will and beyond his comprehension into war, he looks inward and seeks answers to the questions of the age. Ultimately he is tested in an epic confrontation with his adversary, Adam, who is bent on the destruction of all that is good. The Gods of the day circle and swirl around these figures in a drama that unfolds in memorable, timeless fashion.

The Third Testament ©
by
Gary A. Jacobs

Introduction:

Think big.

The 20th century ended, taking with it the epic wars that marked the culmination of man's ability to destroy himself. The battlefield turned inward to become the territory of his passions, greed and desire. No more could he think in terms of the mechanistic actions of aggression and reaction. Now he would find darkness, or ignorance, or perhaps hopefully, in the end, light.

But on the outside, there was peace. The people gasped a sigh of relief. No, there wasn't agreement, but like water to a parched soul, the thought of safety from instant annihilation brought the sweet taste of life, goodness and wonder. The atom remained, but the eye saw.

A hundred years. A thousand years. A new century dawned. A new millennium came, and hearts and souls clamored. We battled for hearts and minds, but the void was vast. The emptiness swirled. New gremlins crept in and new demons rushed into the gap. Some were good. Some were bad, and that was where the new battles were to take place.

Such a time called for signs. Man needed guidance. He needed symbols, and language and maps. He needed hope and he needed faith and he needed religion. He had these, but they didn't seem to fit. He needed feeling and he needed realism, and his feelings about reality did not feel like his feelings about his gods.

So went the decline. The blind shuffle of man into his new age commenced on a shaky ground. Word came from below, but no help came from above. Let's focus on Jesus. Jesus dominated the previous thousand years. It was his followers that built the great civilizations of the modern era. They debated and they quarreled, but when they fought they fought outward, and their accomplishments remained intact.

But now there were so many other teachings. Intuition told us they were all good, but our needs didn't tell us what to think. If all is good, then all is bad too, and morality and ethics and virtue could all slip away into pettiness, corruption and shame. Jesus was religion, but if religion stopped working then Jesus stopped too, and that is what happened. The sweet refuge of the yearning soul was stripped away leaving no man safe from the fragile fabric of his very being. The gentle guiding hand on the course of our lives withdrew leaving us alone and abandoned. Our natural impulse to step forward was thwarted by the nonexistent corresponding thought. We were ripped in two by the conflicting actions and inactions of body and mind, and no person can go beyond himself. None, except those who back up, or go back, or feel beyond reason.

Mary was amongst those who did. Mother Mary, Jesus' holy mother, the virgin, was a woman, and women see differently than men. So, she looked on, but she did not stop. Neither did the women of earth. They held the peace that seemed so fragile and they longed for it to stay. Women and Mary couldn't see why man was so conflicted, but men were blind and couldn't see the way.

1. Mary Rising

So Mary rose up and said, "I was the chosen one!" She was angry and vengeful and filled with enmity toward her son. She was distraught over his condition and his lack of response to man. Neither she nor Jesus knew that they were both on their way out of the immediate sphere of human affairs, but she still looked for solace. She just flipped and tossed her predicament back and forth and wondered where the answer was. If it was at the fault of the religion then she didn't understand the religion. If it was for the sake of one kind of feeling over another then she didn't know what those feelings were. It seemed as if on one hand man was focused on sensation, what he could touch, see, manipulate and control. On the other hand, he seemed desperately reaching for a sense of knowing, intuition and competence managing that which could never be contained. For man to move ahead, the first had to be let go. The second had to be gained.

An eye can see all but itself. How could the lessons that need to be learned be learned without the wherewithal to know what is being taught. How could man grow by looking at himself and seeing only his limitations? There is art, and there is inspiration, but there is also an inner drive toward certainty, confidence and the absolute. Only those measures that stand up to the strictest scrutiny tend to survive while the rest dies ruthlessly. The way to progress is a rocky road.

No, for the most part man relies on stories. Man generally is not ambitious. For the most part he is content to lay back and remain comfortable. He relies on the few to take chances, then he applauds or jeers. The stories get made, and the rest follow. So, Mary saw the need for new stories. Man is the measure of all things, but he needed to see himself anew. There need to be stories about the nebulous, vague energies in the universe, and not about the concrete. Mary vowed this, and with a vehemence that shall go unsaid.

2. The Dream of Jesus

But Jesus slept, because in effect that is what anything that ceases to act does. It loses its power. All that remained of Jesus was the dream he once had, his own teachings, his very essence which was so dear and loved by all. Now it was truly once again just a dream, and as dreams do it revisited him in his sleep.

He dreamed that he was in an old, ancient place. Gardens withered to sand, and a wretched serpent rose on wings triumphantly into the air. There was a menacing aspect to the writhing creature for sure, but Jesus watched in awe. Surely if there was justice the beast would be dashed again, but instead, for as long as he watched, it only landed and rose again at will. Jesus felt a great sense of loss at the thought, but eventually he came to peace with the idea and lost interest in his fear and the wraith altogether.

Then, in his dream, he walked out onto a vast and barren plain. The land stretched out in all directions around him. He was totally alone. Above him the sky was deep and blue, but below him the land was parched and dusty. Ahead of him mists gathered and swirled. Soon he was in them and he wandered unknowing and blind. Finally, though, the clouds parted and on the horizon a large city rose out of the ground before his eyes. It was like no city he had seen before. It was not made of stone, or brick or wood, but of steel and glass and concrete as we know them today. Straight walls rose to dazzling heights. Angles were true and square and there was life, light and movement. But as if out of his own time, a simple gate opened at the base of the buildings and out came a lion to greet Jesus. It was of fierce continence, but gentle in nature and told Jesus of that in words as clear as any. He questioned the lion about this seeming contradiction, how it might lie down with others, but the lion only said, "As you live and breathe," and Jesus accepted that as it was.

His dream was not over though. The lion turned and re-entered the gate, and the city sunk back into the earth again to wait. So Jesus sat. He sat and digested this information for days and nights and weeks till 40 such days had passed. Then he got up and returned to his own town. There he saw every kind of person. People laughed and shouted as there was a festival going on and all were lost in unbridled revelry. They delighted in Jesus of course and made him tell them the story of the serpent and the city and the lion, but they did not really understand. Instead, they joined hands and danced around him in a mad, frenzied circle. Their faces bobbed up and down as they danced around Jesus. Their mouths hung open and their tongues lolled out. Their eyes bulged and their bodies twisted, and as this was a dream they danced so for not several minutes but for two thousand long, long years.

They remained steady, but Jesus became dizzy and began to fall. He was sick and reeling and the earth lurched beneath his feet, but the people moved no more. They were like statues, blank stares from frozen features as if they were never real at all. Jesus was the one spinning, circling and clomping around clumsily. His spirit sank within him and dropped until a void opened up infinitely below him, and as he raced downward, words and visions raced up toward him. He heard Mary and he saw women and his very self asleep, and his body convulsed. He was awake, and he was angry and confused.

3. Heaven

Jesus raised his head high in the swirling, star-filled heavenly realm, a question on his mind. "Why am I awake?" he asked to nobody, more concerned with the state of his constitution than the nature of his slumber. He wanted recompense and he wanted peace, but he really didn't want answer. Jesus had sunken deep and there was nothing new to be brought to this moment. Much time had passed before now and there was no surprise here except his shock, the spark of there actually being something amiss.

Jesus stood up, the length of his body stretching long and sinewy against the dome of heaven above. His body hurt and his muscles ached. His joints were stiff and his blood thick and slow. He yawned and the air came in his lungs with crack and pain and howls of wind that mounted and became a mighty, mighty, titanic roar. He took two, simple, slow, short, faltering steps and it was like the crystalline, sparkling, shifting, floating surface below him was quaking, but really his legs shook and his knees quivered and it was as if his whole teetering being was going to come crashing down. Mary peeked from afar out of the corner of one fluttering eye and she was terror struck to see her son in such retched condition. She hung her head and turned to saunter away, but as she walked her pace quickened and she lunged and leaped and finally raced away far into the sparkling reaches of the vast, unknowable vault.

That is a lot of emptiness, and that left Jesus very much alone. There were others, yes, but understand. By that day there was little for Jesus to do. In judging even he was lapsed. Look, a cloud, or vapor or what is that that streams before our eye like the stream of our galaxy across the sky? Pale shrouds, milky essences that remind us that endless souls, you and I in our death, our mothers and fathers and all that are dear to us still filed into the eternal home without pause, but now they did so without interference. Again, you and I, all that I mention, you know it, already choose and know on our own. We are ready by the time we go and we take our places in eternity, whether in a good place or a bad, without question. Jesus was unconcerned. There was music as we are told. Jesus didn't hear music. The tune was ingrained and unconscious. There was sweetness, but to Jesus it was sickly. There were stars and faceted essences and chimeras dazzling beyond all account, but to Jesus they were pale. What is the quality of life, or death when neither life or death have quality? Jesus didn't know. I don't know. Mankind shakes his head. Jesus made fists, and rubbed his eyes.

4. Earth

Life after life ground on for Jesus and life on earth ground on for people too. Society evolves, but crept on at a snails pace that was almost imperceptible. It was as if the blade of civilization that once cut had become a plow, too wide to press forward. The product of man's effort had piled high and no one man, woman or child could find their way through. Skyscrapers, mighty edifices of fitted surfaces soared above head. Jet planes of silver and stenciled colors etched the atmosphere. Rockets and satellites, chariots of fire and power floated weightless and lofty around the ball globe of the rock, molten, liquid planet. People sped across it's surface in automobiles, steel, rubber containers of independence and momentum. Electronics, networks and webs of signals and transmissions, optical cables and lines of every kind, radio and TV embraced the human experience and made trivial the old machines that relied on cog, gear, brut strength and leverage. Thought was transmitted into chemistry, physics, energy and biology. Everywhere, people felt the promise of a hypothetical peace as the cauldron of dream and aspiration.

But there was trouble too. At the feet of unparalleled advancement there was a tugging undercurrent of fear and discontent. People hated each other. People hated each other's Gods, their beliefs, their teachings, their loves, their families, their hopes. There was baggage. Everyone carried a load, and discourse walked with a stooped back. Nothing seemed right anymore. No one was happy. No one truly could be. For all they had, it seemed that they should be much, much farther along than they were. They lived in a relic. They were hobbled by wreckage. They were dogged by inefficiency. People yearned for more, but nothing answered their needs. Nothing and no one offered a solution. No one direction seemed better than another. The leaders were bankrupt and bereft of ideas. The priests were without comforting words. The masses could not be controlled. The populations could not be coordinated. No one agreed about anything, and these issues only got worse.

Earth came to the end of an age of deep avowal. The old ways stood in stark profile as never before, but were quickly passing into the dustbin of eternity. The clutching fingers on the rocky edifice of progress slipped and would grip no more. The breath escaped the lung, and none rushed in to replace it. As Jesus awoke from his dream, the people of earth, like him, were angry, angry and confused.

5. Jacob

In those days, long ago there was loneliness and isolation and Jesus experienced these as much as anyone. Distance, time, fog and mist separated him from his followers, and no true idea of the nature of his and their mutual effect existed. No one knew Jesus anymore, only writings, histories, priests, pundits and impostors. Jesus knew nothing of his followers, only imaginings, memories, expectations, guesses and hopes. There was no connection. No one really knew what Jesus would do, anymore than did Jesus.

Maybe. There is always an exception. There is always someone. There is no such thing as a vacuum. There is such thing as love though, and love always rushes in where there is need. So find a need, as we have, and we will find a hero. That hero went by the name, Jacob. Just Jacob. That would be the man, an ordinary man of the transition time, the change, the millennial period. Jacob was someone who thought, who loved, who tried, who suffered, who lived and died, and lived and died and lived again and again and again all in the simple span of his ordinary years on earth. And, he was not really even elderly. He was just wise. That was Jacob.

That was Jacob and there was nothing else to say that could be said, only more than can be spoken. Jacob was of his time, and his time was rich. Oh yes, his time was rich beyond belief, so Jacob was rich despite his station. Jacob was a rag king. That was Jacob. His time was interesting, so interesting, so yes, Jacob was interesting beyond comprehension, because Jacob was aware. Not only was he aware, as many are- true prophets, children, madmen, soldiers and ecstatics- but he put his experience into material and ideological form, so Jacob was fascinating beyond all knowing. Some said, some said, some said Jacob was fascinating in comparison to any ever, perhaps to, even the other of whom we've seen, he who went by the name, Jesus.

Some would call Jacob an artist. Some would call him a story teller, which would be more accurate, as anything of significance at all tells a story. Some would call Jacob a god, or a man-god, or maybe even a new kind of man, and that would be most accurate of all, because that is an accurate description of reality, Reality. The reality is that... but that is what this tale is about. The tale is about the transition from the manifestations of the second chakra to the manifesting of the third chakra, but more on that later. Jacob was a story-teller. He moved with the actions of the stars. His ears heard the harmony of the angels. His musings came from an unknowable place beyond the wall that separates us in this world from the others we can only intuit. Was he hurt? Was he just injured? No one knew. We may not know. It may not matter. What we know is that Jacob was sensitive. Jacob cared, and none cared more.

Jacob was a likable guy. Many liked him. Jesus liked him. He liked Jesus, but that was not surprising. For some, still, the veil between distinctions was thin. Conditions were not as desolate as may be described. They never are. Jesus liked to exercise his power from time to time, and thus on the day that he awoke in his chamber he was able and had the inclination to reach down, upon clearing his eyes, and touch Jacob.

6. Adam

Adam was another. He was another man on earth, but Adam is completely another story. Adam's legend is nothing like Jacob's. Where Jacob saw through the veil, Adam saw nothing. Where Jacob was a victim of separation from Jesus, Adam was a victim of himself, and no greater danger exists to any man, mortal or immortal, for that is the one fault which has the potential to destroy all. Adam lived dark circumstances to us, and to us Adam was darkness itself.

If Jacob was good, then Adam was bad. If Jacob was goodness, then Adam was evil. If Jacob was hope, then Adam was doom. If Jacob tried, if he cared, if he loved, then Adam hated, he rebelled and he deceived. Not only was Adam deficient in all these ways, but he, like Jacob, manifested that which he was like few do- criminals, murderers, psychopaths and fate- so he was dangerous and treacherous beyond estimation. Some try to quantify these things, but they cannot be measured. Some say they don't even exist, but those are the rambling of the facile mind. They are as real as goodness, for without one the other does not exist, and the abyss drops away beneath our feet farther than we can ever pretend to see, and if perchance somewhere, sometime it changes then it is only into something new, something perhaps that bears light, that grows out of the turmoil, and is completely different.

Pain exists. Violence exists. That which we really do not want to face or find out or learn at all exists, and that was Adam. I will tell you more about Adam, because by necessity that is where we have to go, but more on that to come. Adam also reflected his times, so his times contained great troubles. He lived as much as did Jacob, so there was horrible opportunity for his kind, and he thought as much as did Jacob, too, so his intention was to be feared. Adam operated in the shadow of Jesus and despised the so called deity above his head. He migrated in opposite directions from Jacob and cursed the good neighbor he sensed was there. Do not get entangled with Adam. Do not try to figure him out because he will always be there. He cannot be saved. Rather listen to the story, for there you will learn how to carrying on despite Adam, for that is what every story does. Adam was bigger than you, and he was bigger than me. He would make sure of that no matter what. That was Adam. He was an ordinary man, but only in extraordinary ways, and that was his flaw.

Adam was not someone you'd necessarily notice, or care to notice. No one wants to think about him, nor does he want them too. He was an effect that played on your mind, and nothing more. Nothing more, that is, until he makes his presence known, and then there is only reproach. When all is lost, our will leaves us and only then do we know Adam. To be alive is not to recognize the man. To know anything at all is not to acknowledge him, and few are so bad off to do so. Jacob wasn't, and not even Jesus was, and so on the morning when he awoke from his troubled sleep, even after reaching down to touch Jacob, Jesus simply let Adam be.

7. Jesus and Mary

Jesus was still angry, though, seething like a cauldron brewing, cooking that which has already been stirred. He simmered throughout his body, though little evidence could it struggle to show. Waves crept up, and his left eye, precise, convulsing muscle twitched. Heat crept out and his right hand, nervous impulse fluttered. Crescendo of riotous, contortion crashed forth and washed around his knees, he felt, as if a torrent of water. He teetered. He hobbled, and had to fight to retain balance. He was movement, uncontained movement swirling around an empty center, unbridled, unfocused, undefined.

He thought, and he didn't know what was happening. He didn't understand his dream. He didn't understand the threatening sights and sounds at the end. Mary. What was her part? The masses, those who made light, those who threatened. What was this to him? What was he to take away? For a moment he questioned himself, but not for long. A rush of responsibility came on him, but as quickly passed. It made him queasy, but found little harbor.

Then Mary came back. As if from behind merely a veil she appeared laying meaningless the notions of time and space. What aspect of her was that, that could return with such force and ease, but simply her concern, and she spoke, not what would bely the drama of the moment, but easily and brief, "Good morning, my son."

Her words penetrated the air like a slim branch, fixing the recipient with its incipient logic. "Good morning, Mother," Jesus reflexively answered.

"Is everything in order?" she continued, the tension quickly building under the question's somber weight. The balance point, the sharp catch on which everything hung, so easy to confuse to interpret one way or another, thus changing everything was struck. The open ended inquiry begged for the worst.

"Yes, I believe it is," Jesus said, and the chasm between him and Mary opened wide. The gap between him and reality, between him and himself yawned open ready to swallow him. He hung his head. It felt heavy and dense like lead. He was hungry, a gnawing in his stomach. There was bread. There was bread, he broke off a small piece, put it in his mouth, on his dry tongue and chewed.

"I often wonder if there are not things that elude us," Mary said refusing to stop her uncomfortable line of interrogative. But with this the scale had been tipped. Her interest had been defined as not so innocent as could be construed. There was more implied, more on her mind, and Jesus did not miss the fact.

"What makes you say that?" he asked.

"It's just a sense I have. It is like everything is turning to sand. It is like my flesh is feeling cold. It is like I am falling..." to which Jesus just stared, transfixed. Who was Mary, now, to rise to hyperbole? What was the meaning of her waxing poetic in conjecture, unpeeling the very layers of her thought? He, for one was not ready for this. He could barely sort out the scattered shards of his own ideas let alone hers. Rather, her words stung with the force that had built behind them. They bit at his self-image and scarred his ego.

"I see," he said. There was silence, and then, "And what do you think this trouble could be?" Jesus now leading. He determined to see this through, to draw Mary out, to hear it all.

Their eyes met. Mary looked at Jesus, into Jesus and through Jesus. The words came out slowly and with finality, " I wonder if it could be something to do with you," she suggested, and the statement plunged into Jesus' heart like a dagger.

"What do you mean by this!?" he flared. He raged and reared up.

"Nothing!" Mary recoiled. She had tapped the well. She had opened the wound. She had lanced the sore. Mary, in her unassuming way had just set all the wheels in motion. Jesus was now more than angry and he fumed in her face. The words raced out and rolled over any reply she might offer. The two dueled, they parried, but little resistance did Mary offer or care to. Jesus undid himself and the repercussions would radiate out and make history. The filial bond was broke and Jesus now partook in the nightmare. The portents were unleashed and captured all his attention. Jesus turned on Mary and she fled. He puffed himself up and felt the blood race through his veins. He became a beast of conquest and fury. Pure reality moved through him and took him by surprise. How else does one come to terms with himself? There was not supposed to be anything that was beyond his knowing, but here it was. The old Jesus died. A new Jesus we did not know was born.

8. The Wind.

When the wind blows, the silence can be heard, for all the words ever spoken are swept away. So it was for Jacob as he was out walking one day, his spirit soaring on the breeze, puffy clouds over head, blue sky and warm air. The sun was golden and shown in great arcing rays to all the horizons. Trees on distant hilltops stirred in vivid relief and texture. Birds sang. Insects hummed. The world was alive in every way and played on the senses in an intoxicating, rich, mix. The seas could be felt. The mountains bowed down. It was as if all of existence was made for the very moment, and of course it was. All existence is made for every moment.

Jacob walked on a velvet path. His way was strewn with pebble and stone, and root and branch, but also with leaf and needle upon needle, and tender grass, soft sand and powdery, silken earth. It was a route for the adventurous wayfarer, the wanderer and those seeking solitude and refuge. The path went up, as all good ones do. Some go down, but it depends what you're looking for. Jacob was looking for the heights. Here, among the peaks he found peace. Here he found not only up and down, but north and south, the whole planet, anywhere that existed between below and above. His gaze reached out not only out across lands in every direction, but up through the thinnest layers of azure to where stars must be visible, vast realms of darkness and reaches unknown. Gravity in it's most reduced form. An axis from here, to who knows where?

So Jacob wandered and so too did his thoughts. His worries and cares slipped away as he communed with what surrounded him. His inner dialogue just turned to wonder, speculation, attention and whimsy. He let himself go, and in return came back impressions just beyond his grasp. He tingled with excitement striving to decipher the random feelings that came to him. He was thankful and grateful for the scintillating scene around him and for the quality of experience he was privileged to be having. He was abstracted, and in that form, anything can take place, seed, germinate and grow.

Deep, deep, deep inside Jacob felt a calling. He knew he was made for something special, but he didn't know what. He knew he had a purpose, but it wasn't clear. Something was questioning him, asking something of him, but all he could do was answer, 'yes, he was there.' The way turned rough. The path was jumbled and twisted, the elements playing out their own battles on the landscape since time immemorial. The beauty of stress and struggle and strain was overwhelming. Nature. Nature in all its glory was not to be matched. Jacob felt meek and humbled. He felt small and week. He stumbled slightly. A small red flower caught his attention and he bent down to appreciate it. A bug buzzed close to his ear, and then flew off. A wisp of cool brushed his cheek. He stood transfixed. Forgot about the flower. Sat down, and was still for hours.

 

9. The Valley

Don't hate Jacob. Don't hate Adam either, for neither of them chose their lot. They both ended up where they were by forces and circumstances very much beyond their control. They became what they became simply by making the most of what they were given, albeit in different ways, and that's where you can consider them differently. So while Jacob sat on the mountain, Adam roamed the valleys, and had very different thoughts. While Jacob contemplated and considered his feelings and perceptions, Adam stewed and mulled over his, determined to extract something less nebulous than Jacob, more salient and resolved, fitting and severe. Adam looked toward the mountains, but wandered the ghettoes and slums, the factories, dumps, camps and ruins he found wherever he went.

He didn't have to go far, nor did he have to think very hard to find indignation and rage. Injustice was rampant and suffering the norm with the people he saw. Depravation, need and spiritual decrepitude reigned. Poverty was everywhere. Moral and ethical failure were pervasive, and logic, rather than feeling, that cruelest of masters we are surprised to realize- logic- rendered common behavior desperate and unrecognizable to us. When it is you against me, survival of the fittest and dog-eat-dog, then we are reduced to animals and before even the pale membrane of our earthly existence trembles to capture our attention we find ourselves acting out in questionable ways large and small, innumerable, repeated, multiplying and compounding individually and together until they reach a mighty crescendo that sweeps over all that is human.

Adam knew this, but was of the body. The terror implied washed through him and stirred his mind, but his feeling remained chilled, aghast and averse. His meditations were not on optimism and possibility, but fact and contradiction. Adam, admirably, admittedly, grasped the comparison better and more intimately than most, perhaps any, and took this to deep, deep entrenched places in his heart. Adam was not conflicted or hesitant, but clear and resolved and he grew fierce, impressive and glorious in this ability, but also in it he struck a pact to deliver punishment, deserved or not, into the hearts of all man.

10. The Faithful

Quiet came down, the calm before the storm or dark before the dawn, sweet dew drop drips from grass blade in microcosmic metaphor of change in the still, damp air before birds sing, before motion comes. The dawn is a time for no man and those who venture there leave identity, voice and pride behind confronted with the calm way of things and the uncertainty of even the coming day. Jesus reflected in his heart, and he had his doubts. Mary reflected in her heart, and she had her doubts. Humanity reflected in its heart, and had its doubts. Logic is a mill for which there is only so much grist, and that is the heart of the very problem. Logic feeds on illogic, and when everything is resolved we must, we must, we very much, absolutely must create or find illogic to satisfy it. We must make art, must make stories, explore, invent, create or dream to satisfy the logic mill of our mind, or we will implode, and we absolutely will go mad. What do you do when you look in and the well is dry? What do you do when the cupboard is bare? When you hiccup your heart stops, they say. Or when you sneeze. Jesus looked at his heart, and started to choke.

Nothing was right. It hadn't been for a long time. Things were playing out, but coming up at the same time. There was a sick feeling deep in the pit of the stomache. The eyes burst wide. The mouth opened wide, but did not speak. What came up was fear. Fear spun the brain. Fear made the body cold. It made the mouth dry. It forced its way out through the skin and gathered in the groin. Fear had far more territory to manifest in than the soul. The soul comes into us and can withdraw just as easily. Fear takes over wherever it can, which is the entire physical world. Fear advances, and it's a war what wins. What we do know is that in the end, death wins over us all. Does that tell you something?

We are not the master of our actions. Each cell has a life of its own and does what it will to survive. Each nerve. The air, the water, the nourishment around us, the furniture, every force that assails us is as much our life as the force we create and the calories we burn. Jesus didn't know why he was acting as he was. He didn't understand his outburst against Mary, or why he was lethargic, pained and so self-conscious. Nothing made sense. His canvas was blank, bare white, crisp, glittering primed on which there was no mark. There was no writing on the page. The slate was wiped clean. All there was was the yawning, beckoning surface from which all would proceed. Jesus hesitated. He paused for just a moment, and in that space all possibility at once, chaos itself, wild, uninhibited, absolute unrestrained chaos, apocalypse even raised it's head, and Jesus was truly afraid.

If Jesus fears, then the faithful fear, too. If the faithful fear, then all men fear. The ripples radiate outward and stir everything in their way as would the flutter of a butterfly's wing. They build and build. If all men fear, then the earth fears. Anything material stands vulnerable to the energy that courses through it. If the earth fears, then all existence fears. Everything is but a shadow of the thought behind it. The typal leads to the archetypal. The archetypal leads to the ectypal, and the ectypal leads to number. Number leads to ones and naughts. A shudder, latent and always possible runs through the center of this place and from time to time escalates into a quake. Now it came forth, and God the father, himself, was shaken in his soul.

The universe was a child stirring in its crib. Its tossing and turning echoed throughout the farthest corners of the house. Its cries rang in the ears of all those who could hear. Its tears stung the eyes of all those who could feel.

Who would comfort the sobs of the child? Who would pat and caress it until it tired itself out? Who would hold it and squeeze it until its shaking subsided, slipping into a gentle sleep? Who would provide, beforehand, the dreams that it must dream? Who would open the door that must be opened, and who would pass through, but the child itself.

 

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