“Nowhere nor in anything, except in the assertion of the Church, can we find that God or Christ founded anything like what churchmen understand by the church.”—L. Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God is Within You
“There is no wealth but life.”—J. Ruskin, Unto This Last
“For, truly, the man who does not know when to die, does not know how to live.”—J. Ruskin, Unto This Last
He hovered there a long time in the cool dark, using his newfound energy remembering—re-constructing a world—re-realizing his place in it. He could see the mortal vessel in a shroud on the cold stone below him, but felt no connection to it, yet, no boredom, no pain, no emotions at all—only absorption in the accrual of puzzle pieces of this old/new world, and a subliminal knowledge that all was as it should be—all while his head swam with visions of where he had been.
He was aware of other mortal vessels in the vicinity, the kind of low-life company he had once preferred, but these were done walking in this world, and choked the thin air with that finality. How long had this phantom interval been? Years? Centuries? Or timeless? And now he was moving backward—daring to interrupt eternity.
It was like sliding down the slick sides of a funnel—a process he both dreaded and embraced, but in any case couldn’t stop—until with an agonizing jolt he was back—stuffed into the oppressive confinement of his human self like a universe folded into a pinpoint—with the twin urges to escape, and tell of, this live burial—until he felt the old sensations of hunger and thirst, and the throbbing pain in his extremities, an ache beginning to spread throughout his body.
Then, lying there, he felt at last the slow crawl of time. He tried to moisten his cracked lips with his tongue, but his journey had left him dry. He tried to move, but the pain stopped him.
Since he had no choice, he waited.
An age.
Until—at last a knife of light sliced the darkness, and living souls appeared. Not to his eyes but to his inner senses. He couldn’t see them but he knew them—three women—creatures of great fealty and love.
They opened the portal wide, light poured into the chamber, and they approached. They had wrapped their lower faces with the ends of their headscarves—though in here, there was no need—no decay—only the fragrance of myrrh. They set down the basket of spices they had brought and froze. A bolt of astonishment and joy rent their lives in that moment: he was alive.
Water, he whispered.
Trembling, they moistened his lips and lifted his upper body so they could trickle a little down his throat. He coughed and managed a smile—and his eyes were no longer the eyes of a man, but portals into a knowledge and love beyond understanding. And the thought that they, so undeserving and ordinary, should be privy to such a vision brought tears to their very human eyes.
A vision born of pain.
Hungry, he rasped, and one of the women took out some of the bread she had brought and he ate a few morsels.
Such a dream, he managed to say, almost out of breath.
They struggled to get him to his feet. He was very weak and couldn’t support his own weight, so they found him a makeshift crutch, and after a long interval as he fought the pain wracking his body and gained some strength, they helped him out into the light. He was so emaciated and bruised and in such pain, those who saw him hurried away in fear, knowing he could not possibly be alive but a visitor from the Land of Death.
There is nothing to fear, he told his helpers. I am not, and you are not, this.
One of the women began to sob.
Take heart, he said. What is troubling you?
To see you in such pain.
You enter this life in pain, he said, and carry that pain all your life, because you don’t know what you are. Do not resist—but live.
News reached his old friends, and they hurried to join them.
He told them of the horrors of Hell, the bliss of Home.
Are they real? they asked him.
They are real, he said. They are not to come, but are already here.
He felt no need to record any of it. He knew the right people to tell.
And after that, he just didn’t seem to be among them anymore. As though he had somewhere else to be, obeying some compulsion beyond their knowing. He remained only in—you could say, his influence, memory, spirit—and they were hardly aware of his absence so all-absorbing was his effect on the soul.
Could he even have been real?
They tried to remember the last words they had heard him say. The Kingdom of God is within you. Or, as others had it—The Kingdom of God is around you.
No one knew if that was two things—or two ways of saying one thing.
And if so, exactly what that one thing was.
But what hadn’t been paradoxical about him?
And destined to be misunderstood.