G. N. M. - 14, 15

- 14 -

Our little group went home before sunset. As I said I would always rather sleep in my own bed.

When we returned next day to the ongoing feast two facts were repeated over and over.

Jesus had left. Jesus had turned water into wine.

“Who is this Jesus?” I asked Mary and Martha.

“That handsome young rabbi you saw yesterday. They were using a fondness or nickname of Manny.”

“I had wanted to see this guy again. I would have like to talk to him. I was curious. Few men these days had what I interpreted in him as having a natural charisma.

It only took a few minutes for a half dozen versions of the story of a miracle to be repeated a dozen different ways.

After we had left the previous day the wine had run out. This was not a good thing at a long planned feast. Jesus ordered servants to fill empty wine jars with water. The water came out of the jars as wine.

Today the host of the feast was being complemented by some with the remark about the host saving and serving the best wine for the end of the feast. That sounded like sarcasm to me.

Of course I have heard of watering down wine and even an old wine jar being full of sentiment mixed with water for a miserable cup of whatever. When served with this miracle wine, it tasted first rate to me.

In a place with so many party attendees coming and going and with everyone already half drunk from a day of feasting, I discounted stories about miracles. I would have to see in order to believe.

It would not be the first time a holy man had pulled a con to get attention, respect and money. I would have to wait and see about the whole matter. Sounded like a good trick if that is what it was.

Sitting there on the final day of the feast, I directed questions to whomever I met about this Jesus person.

Apparently there was a whole group here connected with Jesus. He seemed to have an assortment of brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews and a mother.

After I had focused on this Manny the previous day, I saw him briefly talking to an older woman. I had since identified this older woman as being his mother.

From my previous day’s thoughts I remembered seeing the interface between this Jesus and his mother. I had made a mental note. Their body language to me had said that Jesus was talking to a former nanny or a favorite auntie. He was not being formal to this woman and I have seen men treat their mothers with great formality in public in this land.

In fact, today, the man James identified to me as Jesus’ older brother was treating this mother figure in a very formal manner this day. James was using his finger to reinforce verbal communication to this mother figure. He seemed more like a man who had the duty to have this woman in his care. One felt that he did not like this responsibility.

Jesus and his attitude toward his mother was more like the role of friend and confidant. I had this relationship with my own son whom I sorely missed.

Next day I arose with a purpose. I got into my cart and decided to go somewhere.

Mary and Martha were likely to be part of the crowd. They had told me that after these shindigs like a wedding, a large unofficial gathering would take place out in the hills near the farm.

Local rabbis and preachers had their chance to take part in a sort of religious revival happening.

All through the many cults of the land there was a need and a hunger for a national unity. There was great dissatisfaction in those areas controlled by Herod, the Roman puppet king. Some of the other areas had prospered under the Roman rule but only for the Romans and not the natives. Roman rule promoted trade over road and sea lanes protected from bandits and pirates.

A city like Tyre or Caesarea were showcases of the art of Roman city building. There, large Roman settlements were magnets for money and trade and foreigners.

Most native Jews only felt comfortable in small Jewish towns, settlements and of course Jerusalem.

Having lived most of my life in a desert and a nation without a present king or kingdom, I did and I did not quite understand the many complex aspects of this land.

Overall I saw Persia as a lot like Egypt. One large vibrant city like Alexandria occupied by foreigners and the rest of the country was filled with decaying towns along the Nile river. Persia had the caravan routes and trading spots but there was no large city left.

Egyptians and Persians had past identity in a straight line to the past. Israel had a choppy history in a land of many settlements belonging to various native cultures coming and going over the centuries.

Israel does not seem to me to have recovered from the Babylonian conquest of over five hundred years ago.

In terms of a national unity, even their so called history and sacred texts seemed to divide this people. Even amongst all the sects, there was no one list of acceptable to all sacred texts except the Torah. This made me think that there were many small Israels within the context of one nation believing many different things.

Some of what Martha and Mary had said to me led me to believe that the richest and most religious Jews would like to buy Jerusalem from Roman control.

Apparently through the centuries, foreign armies like that of the Egyptians and Persians crossed this country on their way elsewhere. Jerusalem through all those years and foreign presence more than likely paid a leave us alone tax or ransom to many of these visiting armies.

In terms of buying the religious center, the present elites wanted to reduce their Israel to the Temple and its surrounding city with Roman rule outside a new magic national bubble.

Inside the bubble would be rigid ritual practiced at the Temple.

Outside the bubble would be all the displaced, non-property owning peasants.

Herod did what the Romans told him to do. The Romans have an all or nothing attitude toward rule and control. They knew that if they controlled one city in this harsh holy land, this Jerusalem, then they the Romans had a knife at the throats of the hearts and minds of all this people of this land.

  

- 15 -

Many were already gathered out in the hills beyond the horizon from the great farmhouse. Many here had likely just attended the recent wedding. Others were not well dressed and were likely here for some other reason.

There was a little bit of trade for horses and goats or sheep. Some food and drink was available for sale. This was however not a market day setting.

A few men at various points were preaching and small groups were listening. No great focus was here in this spread out crowd.

There was a lot of dust. I was trying to figure our why Mary and Martha thought so highly of a gathering of people in the desert.

Then the thought occurred to me. This gathering was a forum of middle class as well as the of the displaced and the dissatisfied.

At first, the various speakers seemed harmless enough. When you started to put the words and the ideas together a formula of thought flowed through the various speeches. Nobody was preaching against Rome. Many were preaching about the unfairness of taxes. Nobody was preaching against Herod. Many were preaching against the hypocrisy of the high priests at the Temple who were sanctioned by Herod and indirectly by Rome.

I heard speakers talking about past rulers and past victories. I heard speakers talk about a deliverer, a leader with a sword to overthrow the tyrants.

I felt a lot of anger in many of the speeches. As soon as some had heard one preacher’s message, they went along the trail to join another small gathering and hear another message.

From a distance, the whole gathering seemed harmless enough.

Those gathered had the excuse that they were trading or coming back from a wedding.

I believe the Jews had in their history used the hills as a military or rallying point against past dominant cultures on the coastal plains and sea coast.

We were at a place which was only crossed by herd trails and off the beaten path.

Walking about on my own, I came to a place where only a handful were seated. I sat and wanted to view everything and think.

In a few minutes, Martha and Mary and a few of their friends had found me and they in turn sat and talked about things that they had heard among various speakers.

Many pointed out various men known to be associated with temple bureaucracy. One had to wonder if their sympathies lay with the sentiments of some of the speakers. One also had to wonder if these men were spies for the Temple.

“We only went to hear the Baptist preach once.” Began Martha.

“He had been so fierce and powerful a critic of the king. He spoke too harshly of his marriage to his brother’s widow.” added Mary.

“It was the priests at the Temple that feared the Baptist most.” continued Martha.

“People were coming out to the Jordan river to be cleansed. They were not going to the Temple to pay their tithes. People believe that access to the Almighty is now ransomed at the Temple.”

Another friend of Mary and Martha’s lent her opinion.

“Herod does not care if you curse him or his family or the Romans. All Herod wants is his damn taxes.”

And so on and so forth the dialogue went on.

Many pointed out some men a short distance from us.

“They were with John the Baptist.”

The men pointed out were about six in number and surprisingly I recognized two of them.

One man was that James, the older brother of Jesus the rabbi. The other man was that man Matthew, the man who had come to my villa and accused me of being something that I was not.

What was Matthew, the Roman tax collector, doing here? Was he spy for the Romans or the Temple priests? Again an uneasy feeling swept over me.

In a lifetime of knowing who I was as a person, wife, mother, daughter, priestess, and prodigy, here I was beginning to question why I was here.

I had to reinforce myself and remind myself of my mission for my son and my faith.

The crowds seemed to be breaking up. People were turning in one direction. People were pointing. People were saying things like “the Baptist!”, “the rabbi!”, “messiah!”.

Everyone in all directions were moving up a hill. Dust was stirring. As I stood with the others, I briefly saw a hooded figure walking slowly up the hill. He was the focus of everyone’s attention.

We followed the crowd. The hooded man did not quite reach the top of the hill. He stopped when a crowd preceded him and surrounded him.

As he removed his hood, I saw another face that I recognized. The figure of Jesus emerged as the center of all present.

I saw a diverse crowd turn and follow a man up a hill and saw them almost in silence and awe. I came to the conclusion that I was not the only one who saw greatness and charisma in this man.

I have read what others have written and attested to as what he preached that day. They seem to have heard more than I that day. But then again I was there and then again I was somewhere else at times. My mind drank in so many things beyond words and dry sacred text. I witnessed the moment and cannot accurately describe what I saw and felt that day.

I remember the speech about not being able to hide a city on a hill and the taste of salt in the humanity of men.

I remember only two sayings about the meek inheriting the earth and blessed are the peacemakers.

Those two sayings stick in my mind. I do not remember much else about the words.

Words are so important to some these days. The written words do not mention the feel that those words held in their delivery or their being received in the ears and minds and hearts for the people who witnessed the words that day.

In fact, his simple words in a simple local language melted away into a spring and flow of nothing less than what I would describe as enlightenment.

If I say this word enlightenment, I talk about the person within, the developed soul and the pathway to the creator.

People around me might have focused on every word spoken by this man and remember them.

I was lost on another plane of thought.

In the middle of one or two hundred living souls surrounding a preacher on a hill, I was part of the word.

The word is part of the cosmic truth of the creator.

There on that hill, I found a man whose soul was as bright as any city on any hill in history.

The question that remained in my mind was if this Jesus was my father’s long lost prodigy.

Why was this question so important to me? I was not certain what my part in any quest started by my father would mean. I only knew that at this point in time, I was ready to touch and understand what all this meant to me, mine, my religion and to history.