- 22 -
My spy network went immediately to
work.
J.D. as always started with his
street low lifes hiding amidst and habitating the dark corners of this holy
city.
J.D.’s prostitute connections made
the first positive connection in the search for accurate information.
He started with the Romans who were
meticulous record keepers. The chain of command always really starts at the
bottom. Slave clerks attached to the army quartermasters unit had records of
army requisitions for the wooden beams used to nail or tie the arms of
criminals to the death cross.
Of course some sort of identification
is attached to each requisition order. Not surprisingly most of the criminals
executed had names like Jew number one, Jew number two and so on. One bit of
useful information was that the base vertical wooden beam or stake was
permanently anchored into the ground. These upright stakes have number
identification and a map on a wall to correspond to the numbering system.
Looking at that map in the quartermaster’s unit and making notes on a wax
tablet cost three gold pieces to the senior clerk in that unit.
Information received for the day of
the crucifixion revealed that Golgotha hill
held stake number one, two and three. These three stakes were the most used and
most visible place of crucifixion. The stakes on a hill gave a prominent view
to the nearby city gate.
Beyond crucifixion to stakes one, two
and three were stakes four through twenty four. These other stakes were began
at the bottom of the rock and each stake continued at intervals of some fifty
foot lengths and sat parallel to the local road leading to the gate.
From the road, the crucified criminal
was set back about forty foot lengths. Forty feet seemed to be a good whole
picture of a death scene. The scene was out of arm’s length from the viewer or
passer by and close enough to smell the blood and the raw terror of the Roman
conqueror.
On the day of the crucifixion eight
criminals were attached to their beams and hung up to wait for death.
Now that the Sabbath was over,
requisition forms called for sixteen more executions on a cross. And when that
lot got taken off their crosses they would likely be dumped in the nearby
desert for the scavengers to finish the job of ultimate Roman humiliation.
I looked at the names of the sixteen
criminals about to die. No names that meant anything to me were on the list. A
few anonymous names were there and some actual names.
Then on a third list of twenty four
executions to follow the sixteen was a name I recognized, the name of Judas
Iscariot.
This clue led my agents to access the
local bureaucracy at the jail that was part of the Roman fortress. No problem
getting into visit a prisoner with a few coins given to the right official.
In a wide general holding cell with
dozens of prisoners with iron bars everywhere preventing escape, my people were
looking for Judas Iscariot. Finally someone identified him to my agents.
Near a wall was a body on the floor
face down. Turning the body over, J.D. made a positive identification of Manny.
The man had been beaten up and seemed near death.
Manny’s face was swollen in places
with one eye shut from the swelling.
J.D. asked that a doctor be brought
to attend the beaten man. The jailer laughed as he took a handful of silver.
“What is the point? He is a dead man
anyway. They all are going to be crucified.”
Another handful of silver brought a
Roman army doctor into a small cell where they had placed Manny. Some basic
tending brought him around. He was survivable if they could get him out of the
prison.
More questions about who to talk to
and how much of an offer to make it worthy to open negotiations.
Now this was a big deal. The Roman
army official in charge of the prison wanted a hundred pieces of gold.
J.D. did not have that sort of
scratch on him. The money would have to be delivered later. In terms of
negotiation, J.D. turned down the first offer. He walked away briefly to
consult with my other agents.
Even J.D. knew that this could be
tricky. Of course when you are dealing with a man running a Roman prison, that
man can screw you up. You can be arrested. They would search you for money. You
could be tortured or ransomed. You could sit for weeks or months until the
jailer got what he wanted.
J.D. knew the art of haggling. In
terms of cultural difference, it only took him a few moments to adjust his
bargaining skills to the right give and take with this Roman official. J.D. did
not necessarily understand the complex Roman politics involved in bribing a condemned
man to his freedom. J.D. did understand human nature.
My man was mindful that Manny’s
freedom was likely to put another man to death, to replace one body with
another body in the executioner’s tally. But that was up to the fates of others
to worry about.
The Roman official finally agreed to
fifty pieces of gold after some haggling. This official was going to likely get
twenty pieces of gold directly. The administration, governor Pilate included,
would get the other thirty pieces.
J.D. did not trust this Roman
official. J.D. wanted a public exchange of prisoner for gold. He wanted Manny
publicly pardoned by order of Pilate. He was asking a bit much. He knew that I
could foot the bill and I wanted no loose ends in the release of this prisoner
listed as Judas Iscariot. A bargain is a bargain. A trade is a trade. Spit and
shake hands on it. The price for freedom went up to seventy five. Pardons were
not only possible but for sale. Twenty five to the official and Pilate and his
cronies would split fifty.
The excuse for a pardon was some long
forgotten tradition first used by Pompey as a symbol of good will to the newly
conquered in this land.
In a public forum, Pilate would
propose the pardoning of a condemned criminal on the occasion of the ongoing
Passover festival still swelling the streets of Jerusalem
The proposal was read aloud by a
public speaker showing the officially signed document. The question was put to
the crowd.
“Who will Caesar pardon?”
To which a dozen paid shouters in the
crowd began to shout the name of the notorious prisoner still being held in the
prison. The paid shouters named Barabas. Since he was popular and this name was
a chance to shout the name of a Jewish folk hero, the crowd went along and
joined in the shouting. Of course the pardon document named Judas Iscariot as
the person being freed.
A short period of time later, Manny,
on a stretcher was delivered to the prison gate and J.D. handed over seventy
five pieces of gold to the prison warden. Surprisingly, this bribery was all
too easy. Apparently, the negotiations would have been tougher and the price
higher if Pilate had actually been in the city. The governor was rumored to be
with his mistress in Tyre
- 23 -
In short order, everything was coming
to one improvised plan.
Manny was in the back of a slow
moving cart and attended by a doctor and Rebecca. All were being exited from Jerusalem
Myself in a saddle next to J.D. and
some of my trusted agents rode in front of and behind the cart.
Once out of Jerusalem
Indeed, Jesus seemed to have lost all
his confidence and with it his ability to even heal himself. I thought that we
were going to lose him all over again.
On one lucid moment when he was
awake, I asked what had happened after he had been arrested by the Temple
All that I could make out or was ever
to hear from him again on the subject went something like this.
Judas went to his crony at the Temple
The flunky to the high priest of the Temple Temple
The Temple
This is where it became unclear and
Jesus slipped into and out of delirium. And as I have said he would never speak
on the matter again.
I only heard a reference later about
Judas from the lips of Jesus himself. On that one occasion of the mention of
his brother in law’s name, Jesus’ eyes welled up with tears but he did not cry.
He then said something like this.
“Greater love no man has than when he
lays down his life for friends.”
Time in the present passed and I am
in my cloth enclosure above a sturdy camel walking with the beat of the desert
trail. We are headed south. My agents have been sent ahead to inform my son of
our arrival at his new home in Arabia .
We were traveling on a tail caravan
and one of Joseph of Aramathea’s own enterprises. The main assembly of camels
were already on the trail ahead of us by a few days. We were traveling fast to
catch up to the safety of numbers in the larger caravan. A tail caravan picks
up late deliveries, late passengers and is sent out to gather supplies for the
main body of the camels and drivers. If you are a caravan and you try to buy
supplies anywhere they jack up the prices. It is only when a big caravan passes
that merchants lower their prices for trail needs and commodities. It is then
that a minor trail boss will buy supplies and bring the tail of the caravan
back to the body already in motion.
Manny is still tended to by a
physician atop another camel. We stayed a few days at the house I had rented. I
did not feel comfortable there. I sensed danger and some of my agents agreed
with me.
This last minor uprising near
Passover had the Romans unnerved. The Roman governor was returning to survey
damage to his prestige after the so called riot. A bureaucrat in need of
brownie points in Capri might do anything and
even investigate what really went down at Passover. Official heads could roll.
Though I could bribe Manny out of
prison, I thought it prudent to travel fast out of Roman territory before
anybody in Jerusalem
In the privacy of my traveling space
I pulled out my father’s star charts along with my own.
There came moments when several
things came together. It is a moment when instant enlightenment fills the mind.
I looked at my father’s charts. I
found some flaws in his calculations. Manny was indeed a special prodigy but my
father’s figuring seemed more than anything else to have been created by wishful
thinking.
I do not know what all of my father’s
thoughts and feelings were regarding this subject. I know that out of
speculative science and philosophies comes new ideas and new methods to view
the world. This is so especially in viewing the position and understanding the
stars. There were new methods in reading star charts since my father’s day.
One new method in the star chart
interpretation had to do with readings from the house of the gods or planets.
It has been proposed that since there
are twelve gods on Olympus , then logic
dictates that there should be twelve planets for twelve gods under twelve signs
and in twelve houses to guide star chart reading. With the aid of these visible
and invisible planets, the charts come alive in a way I sometimes find hard to
believe. It is impressive to see the many ways such readings can aid mortals to
read messages and signs from the gods above.
I began to formulate horoscopes for
myself, my son and Manny.
For my son I see new beginnings. For
myself I see my being a bridge and a pillar of support both for my son and
perhaps too for Manny.
My father’s notes talk of enigmas and
of circles.
Relooking at Manny’s chart, I see a
circle, a loop and a symbol for death and also a symbol for birth.
Perhaps, after healing, Manny will
not stay in Arabia . He cannot stay away from
the enigma of who or what he truly is. He will think that the answer lies in
the troubled land
of Palestine
Before he takes up his message again,
perhaps with a sword and likely perishes, I have a granddaughter or two to
introduce him to.
There should be a profit in all these
efforts by the Magi in these searches for prodigies and great souls.
One amazing star aspect caught my eye
to delight and touch my intuition as a truth revealed to me from the gods or
the stars or whatever.
“A great granddaughter?…
“Indeed!”
-24-
“Indeed!.” I often thought to myself.
My exit from Palestine
I thought that I was ready for a few
years of rest, the joy of grandchildren and a peaceful death in my bed. That bed was to be located where ever I was
at the end. There seems no end in sight
and no restful release into the great beyond from this point in time.
I walk in the blazing desert sun here
in Arabia .
The harsh dry winds and heat brush at my face that is partially
exposed. The wind fights with my gown
and I hear the friction of wind against cloth as I walk.
J.D., aged and in much need of his
eternal sleep pushes himself forward at a distance behind with camels and
guards.
I walk the last part of this journey
in the heat. I must approach this sacred
spot in the right mood and action. An
energy from that place must match a similar pitch in the mind and combine my
spirit with the spirit of this place. Divinity
is always within reach but the length of the reach changes with each grasp.
People pray and the prayers travel at
different lengths depending on the position of stars and the movement of the
sun and the moon in the charts. Prayers
are unpredictable. Touching the face of
God is ever uncertain. It happens when
one carefully chooses a sacred place and uses that sacred place in the same
manner time after time.
To most who view it, the pile of rocks in the desert is just a pile
of rocks. For millennium, simple people
who have tended herds and been in trade on the caravans have made a pilgrimage
to this one spot.
Their gods dwelled here when they
lived here in another time. Now this
spot is greatly forgotten. I have seen
an ancient reference to this holy land in my ancestors’ texts. The great Zoraster or one of his early
followers mapped this all out.
It was no doubt why my son came here
on the map and built a small temple nearby.
The settlement was not too close to the sea to make it easy for pirates
to disembark their vessels in the hope of looting a religious temple. And that living space was not too close to
this sacred terrain.
I stop. The winds have covered the pile of rocks with
sands. The prayer spot and open altar
are buried under several measures of sand.
This is not a good sign. To have the
guards dig the place out would give them a sense of the sacredness of here. The best places for prayers are sometimes best
to be kept in secret.
Prayers will be in order at some
other time. Perhaps the prayers and the
ceremony will be in the cool season and at night. We will camp nearby and light the sacred fire
of the long dead master.
The recent dead master is the person
that concerns me. My Manny had not
recovered from his beating at the hands of those Roman soldier brutes. He had survived. He was not the same. Whether he was better or worse was difficult
for me to say. In some ways, the fire
within is the best gauge of what a person is truly about. Sometimes the fire within is evident. Sometimes it is hidden. And sad to say sometimes it completely
disappears from the former holder of the sacred flame.
They say that only a few or only one
in a generation or even a generation of generations can hold the mighty fire of
God within.
“The fire is to be hidden. The fire is to be revealed. The fire is to be shared with all willing to
search and to know when to touch the sacred flame...”
These words from a prayer haunt
me. They should be repeated over and
over again until only the words and their energy exist. The one who prays and the one who receives
the prayer are not as important as the energy of the living breathing prayer
suspended in air between the maker and those that he made. He made all for the prayer. All can listen. All
can hear.
It must have been the stress of
escaping Jerusalem
News every so many weeks reaches me
by means of my agents and well placed sources to repeat the gossip from the
trails. Every newly arrived ship or
caravan brings new talk to the desert people here. If one is well practiced, one can read
between the lines and guess at to what is really what in Jerusalem ,
Palestine
I am holding a small idol I have kept
in hand or nearby all my life. I picked
it up out of the sands of Egypt
At any given time of the night or day
lately I see only the wasted time or the wasted effort on so many things.
I stayed away from my family for so
long so that my son could compete for power within the dwindling
brotherhood. I let go, and my daughters
had raised their children without me. I
have granddaughters to visit with now but they are grown too. I enjoy their company but they lack the spark
of people of an earlier generation.
Age changes perception on many
fronts. It is a blessing and curse to
live so long. One never anticipates a
balance of back and forth. One good to
offset a bad. One breath to continue life. Another breath to accompany pain, either physical
or of the mind.
The sun is setting on this weird
setting. I will not be able to stage my
prayers. I am silent and lost in
thought. The moment passes and a chill of
night touches me here in the twilight of a day and in the twilight of my
life.
J.D. approaches. I recognize the sound and pace of this aged
footsteps in the sand. He gestures
toward a not so distant place where a fire is being kindled to make warmth and to
heat up some nourishment. I gesture back
my thanks and linger a few seconds more.
I must think of the one called Jesus
and I must reconcile myself to the strangeness of his being and his recent
disappearance. He has disappeared many
times over these recent years. Of those
times, I knew that he was off into the desert, fasting and praying. Now, I sense his being gone forever. I will never see his face again this side of
the paradise. I am waiting with my
faithful ones here on this other side of death.
There are children which Jesus might
lay claim to. These children were born to
my servant Rebecca. She stayed closest
to him after his trauma and escape. She
protected and cooked and maintained a separate household off in the distant
sands away from the regular compound of family, friends and servants.
Since I never got to the point of
returning her to her family after her widowhood, I assumed protection of her
when I more or less bought her from the man, the caravan boss who was most
likely to claim her as a servant or concubine.
I have since asserted her rights as an adopted daughter in paperwork and
public ceremony amongst the brotherhood.
As such now that Jesus has
disappeared again I am responsible for the feeding of three more mouths. They say wealth is easy. It is not.
No matter how high a pile of gold you accumulate in a lifetime, there
are always mouths to feed, family and servant.
There are medicines and the services of doctors to be purchased. There is the expense of clothing and the
public appearance of one’s self, one’s family and even one’s servants to be
considered when maintaining a level of self respect and the respect of the
surrounding community.
The mother of a Magi community leader
and the mother of many children and grandmother of many more is a task in
itself. Still, I have been able over the
years to maintain my hobbies, interests and business ventures.
Rebecca has taken on that unworldly
look and manner so evident in her man. I
have searched the world a dozen times over and I recognize when someone has
been enlightened, whose eyes have been opened in a different way than they have
seen things before. It is not a good
thing for women to know too much. It is
equally not a good thing for men to know too much either. The more knowledge onw gets, the more the
obligations become to marshal energy into the ongoing effort in seeking.
So Rebecca is now my daughter and now
I am grandmother to two of Jesus’ children.
-25-
As a result of adopting Rebecca, she
has been given a new name, my name Miriam in terms of a legal status and heir
to some of my estate. My other children
objected to another child in the split that my private wealth require upon my
demise. My son as always the great
diplomat suggested I give direct title to some property to Miriam, my new daughter,
while I was still alive. She would
likely not see much else in the way of wealth after I die.
Aside from gifts of personal jewelry
and some small horde of gold and silver coins, I deeded the townhouse in Jerusalem Persia by way of Jerusalem
I make jokes with this new daughter
about how traveling and meeting old relatives is more of a curse than a
blessing. She makes a wonderful
companion, as my own daughters have grown distant in the years of my
travels. They still love and show me
proper respect but my words of advice about children or grandchildren hold
little weight.
Rebecca is close on most matters and
sharing except in her knowledge and companionship with Jesus. Indeed, she had become something of a recluse
when he was still around. Now that he
seems to have drifted off into the desert forever she is my house guest and
will only occasionally visit her old abode in the hopes that Jesus has
returned.
The young boy seems healthy and he
has all the outward signs of a boy of Persian blood. My son was quick to induct the boy into the
teaching and rituals of our faith. No
doubt one day this grandson of mine will be a chief priest of the cult. Without a real father about, I think it best
the child find a niche in life.
The baby Sarah, the child still at
Rebecca’s teat, is another matter. A
parent and a grandparent must always worry more about a girl than a boy. Even though young, time rolls around and
before you know a girl is capable of bearing a child and there is always the
matter of a dowry and a suitable match and once a girl child is wed, she
disappears and blends into the confines of another family and its
compound.
A visit from the mother in law is
acceptable but a short visit is best and beyond a few words of comfort to your
lost daughters, what else is there except grandchildren.
Grandchildren can be doted on and be
the excuse for any visit. Healthy and
many children and health and many grandchildren is the ultimate blessing, the
ultimate sign that one has passed this way in the earthly realm.
J.D. is much older now but still in
good health. I had often asked if he
wanted his status of freedom from that of property as my slave. He served both my father and myself over the
years. He at one time or this might
complain and then I would offer him freedom.
For the sake of pride, I set the price of his freedom at a very high
price. I knew that he was quite lucky in
his gambling habits, his one vice. If
and when he would ask to buy freedom, the price could always be renegotiated
depending on the two parties. Everything
in life seems to have a price and a bottom line in terms of value. Everything is negotiable.
When I adopted Rebecca, I also gave
J.D. his official freedom. He did not do
anything with it. He still remains at my
side whenever I travel. I am his only
family and he and I know it.
So here I am. I am an eccentric old grandmother type who
only occasionally studies the star charts.
I am a repository of sorts for my son who might want to clarify an oral
fact or two. My son has access to all my
various research and scrolls and is in charge of the various business
enterprises I used to handle directly.
I gossip with my servants and eagerly
await new gossip coming via boat or caravan from the outside world. The desert is pleasant enough. I can travel to the sea and dote on a
granddaughter or two. Life has been very
good to me.
But always in the back of my head as
I grow older and fade in the obscurity of old age, always is this nagging
thought. It is a thought or is it a
nagging duty. My father was after the
prodigy that would save his race and his religion. I have no clue if in following through on my
various travels that I had finally served my father’s wishes. In retrospect, he was my adoptive
father. I can remember no other
parent. He sought my talents and I
served my community well in my own way.
My former brother in law, now dead, had sought to use me as a sign of
corruption in the family blood line.
Sitting here on the veranda in the
shade and sipping cold tea, I look about at a village of nearly two hundred
souls. These people are blood and
servants and brothers of the Master’s faith.
The temple, the largest of the mud buildings here is where the men
mostly gather daily to pray to the God of the heavens and the earth. Sacred ritual and reading from sacred texts
is a daily process that I have excused myself from. I have paid my dues to my faith.
Still always the nagging question is
about Jesus, my little Manny by nickname.
If I die today, perhaps his young son is the blood that my father had
hoped and envisioned for this faith of ours founded by the great Zoroaster. I would never know. Best to die in ignorance than be a seer to all
the true and unpleasant facts that might follow my demise. How many Persian queens and kings were buried
in respect and splendor only to have their empires crumble in less than a
generation or their royal tombs to be plundered and the their sacred remains
desecrated?
The death thing. It clings to me. At times my age make me weary of the task of
dying. Will it be a painful end or will
the gods be merciful and let me die in my sleep? The unpleasantness of death passes. I make mental notes and have assembled a box
or two the clothing and most precious possessions that will accompany me to the
grave. Over time, the death ritual has
involved both cremation and burial as the final means. Fashion, politics and lack of a plentiful
source for wood makes burial here in the desert the option that will be exercised.
The death thing. I am reminded of the tomb of Jesus in Jerusalem
Peter, that bully of man, is telling
the story that he was first to Jesus’ tomb and that he discovered the absence
of the body as proof of the rising from the dead of his former master
Jesus. Of course, rising from the dead
is no big deal. God, the Jewish God at
least, rules that world. God can raise
anybody from the dead. Jesus was of
course special to so many of his followers.
There are those oral stories of one
or several of the Hebrew prophets being sent to heaven in chariots or on
horses. The disappearance of a body from
a grave can happen all the time. Life
and death balances between this life and a next. There are the thoughts in some cultures of a
soul inside a body or traveling forever between bodies. With my own born native beliefs and having
been raised in another culture, I have many doubts. I will wait until I die to figure out what it
is all about if anything at all.
The grave. The tomb.
Jesus’s tomb has been on my thoughts lately. I am troubled with Jesus’ absence. Has he died in the desert with his prayers
and fasting? Though, at some past point
in time, I would have argued that he was somehow immortal. Stories and legends about him are already
formed back in Palestine
Stories and legends are good
things. They are healthy for a culture
to nurture. Cultures can get too old and
harbor the story and legend too much to the point where reality is no longer
reality. If one does not eat or drink or
breathe the air in a proper fashion, the body or the body of society can suffer
and die. Stagnant ritual and unchanging
myth condemn society. Myth is one
thing. Reality is quite another thing.
Every generation can give honor and
respect to the oral traditions. Life
goes on and legends fade, tarnish and sometimes get resurrected in another
generation.
Jesus was too Jewish for my
tastes. If my father had reached him in Alexandria
The Romans! My skin craws in memory of living always
under that short bloody sword of Roman power.
Under them, always the guise of a Greek play. Under them, the bitter reality of blood and
injustice if you get in the way the Roman power machine.
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