Wednesday, January 5, 2011

The Book of All Things New

The parking lot surrounding The Olive Garden Restaurant is now a pilgrimage destination. Reform Congregation Rodeph Shalom is now a pilgrimage destination. People claim to have received cures. People claim to have had encounters with 'passed' loved ones. A Red Paint 'seer' tells Jonathon and Baylah that they have created a truth. It is not a falsehood. It is no longer a lie. God has stepped in to make it real, like the healing sap, bled by a tree to seal a wound. Jonathon asks - Whose reality, whose truth did I create? And the seer answers - Elijah the Tishbite's, the Prophet Elijah. He who prepares the way of the Annointed One.....Jonathon asks - Does that mean the Annointed One, blessed be he for whom we have been waiting, will come?..... The seer simply shrugs. He turns to Baylah and says - You need not ask. You know. You set out to emulate the Mother of the Nazarene. And you  did it very well. You created a void for her to fill. And there is a pattern here, in Philadelphia I mean. First we had  the unexplainable events captured by the universal eye. (he turns to Edith) What is it? She responds - The internet. He says - Yes, the internet. Like a fisherman's tool. It gathers us all in. Then we had the night without death. That one was a 'biggie.' And now we have this....... Sarah says - I see young people wearing 'My hands are God's Hands' hoodies when I go out. I don't know where they're getting them or if anyone makes a profit, but I see it. And the news says street corner drug traffic is way down...... Albion puts down a handful of Legos, silently approaches and adds - We visit aged ones in those orphanages for the elders they have. And the care givers are starting to seem as if they really do care. Even the physicians. There are less bed sores and less carelessly spread infections. There are more visits by children too. I condensed  at a bed side late last night, about the second or third hour after midnight, and a doozing son and daughter were still there keeping vigil over their ailing mother. They woke just as I offered her the blood. Just as she tasted the drops in the vial. They looked, but did not say a word. And they heard me say 'God bless you' as I quickly sublimated away. To them it must have seemed as if I disappeared........ Sarah - I wonder what they thought?....... They know that she is well now. Isn't that enough? - whispered the young 'elf.' And they sat there, in the hours before the dawn as they always do, discussing their 'lives,' sharing hopes, expressing fears. A peaceful night, in a snug refuge deep within the woods of the vast city park............But in Rome, things were not so peaceful. Police and other more mysterious individuals surround a  house in the rain where The Teacher had been sheltering as he composed his thoughts. The area is cordoned off. A chorus of glossy reporters hovers in the distance. People whisper - The Vatican Bomber, The Vatican Terrorist, they have found him. He is about to be apprehended..... Everyone grows silent. The police begin to move in. But their prey rushes out like a charging bull. He roars with rage. The humans fall back. Some of the civic guards hold their ground. And he sublimates and barrels right through them, his tiny, glass-like particles shredding them to bits. The remains splash down onto the paving stones and are  washed away by the rain drops. But those body parts which were not shreaded, such as the occasional head, knee or hand, do not wash away. They lay there on the ground as a swarm of image recording devices whirr away.....