This is It - Episode 4: The Blessing

The crowd parted, and he approached the water’s edge.

John beheld him with sudden and certain recognition.  You’ve come!

Yes. I am here to be immersed by you.

John hesitated, his fevered eyes boring deep into the eyes of this man. But it is for you that I have been waiting.

Yeshua closed his eyes for a moment, softly taking in a breath of air.  This brought clarity to the moment, to this meeting. When he opened his eyes, he smiled. I am here for your gift. I am here to be immersed, to sanctified by your service.

Surely, said John, feet firmly planted in the river, the roles should be reversed. I crave your blessing, cousin!

You are blessed and you are blessing. I come to be immersed by you, to be renewed and sanctified toward the fulfillment of my own calling.

While they were speaking, soft white clouds had gathered overhead, offering the people a coolness and shade from the warmth of the midday sun.

He didn’t know why, but tears gathered in John’s eyes. He felt a profound sense of being at a time and place before time and places, within a presence greater than any standing here at the riverbank. This was meant to be, and he knew it, and he was humbled. 

He reached out his hand.

Come to the water.

Yeshua dropped his cloak and bag on the embankment, stepped down into the water and waded to where John stood.

Tell us what you want to turn away from. Then, fall backward into my arms. I will dunk you under the water, and you shall rise up, clean in body, mind and spirit, in thought, word and deed. This is how you let the holy one know you are awake to your calling.

Yeshua spoke only one word. Pachad, he said, as he let himself go into John’s arms.

And John whispered in his ear, as he gently lowered him into the river, Be not afraid.

And then a gentle sprinkling of rain fell from the puffy clouds on all who were gathered there. 

And then the clouds opened to reveal the fullness of the sun. 

And then all were suddenly bathed in rainbow colors.

And then John lifted him up into the marvelous light.

© 2020 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen and songsofasouljourney.blogspot.com

A brief note about my literary exploration of the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth: I have undertaken this exercise having read, sung (in several languages), meditated and prayed on the contents of the Synoptic Gospels (as well as the Non-Synoptic Gospels) for at least 45 years. In that time, I’ve accumulated a bit of a library (which comes as no surprise to those who know me), and I try to follow modern scholarship. Here is a partial list of the authors and books that come to mind as I write these episodes:

Ballentine, Debra Scoggins, The Conflict Myth & the Biblical Tradition; Oxford University Press 2015

Erdman, Bart, various titles

Gaus, Andy, The Unvarnished New Testament; Phanes Press, 1991

Herzog, William R., Parables as Subversive Speech; Westminster John Knox Press, 1991

Louden, Bruce, Greek Myth and the Bible; Routledge, 2019

Tatian, Diatesseron; www.earlychristianwritings.com/diatessaron.html

Wajdenbaum, Philippe, Argonauts of the Desert, Routledge, 2011

Ward, Keith, The Philosopher and the Gospels, Lion Hudson, 2011

Yosef ben Maityahu (Titus Flavius Josephus), various writings

How Does The Garden Grow?

We are miracles of being. We are packets of life that burst into a world that is often unprepared for us, although it is furnished with the potential to serve all our needs.

As adults, perhaps we spend too much time weighing the potential of life to serve us, while not enough time in service to that integral nature that sustains miracle upon miracle, and has done since opposite somethings began to attract, in those first unprecedented moments of creation.

For sentient individuals, this span of existence, in whatever form we take, is so brief and brutally free, while filled with such inexplicable beauty in each moment that is our now, I wonder why any person would isolate themselves in the virtual.

Reality and realism are a calling. Immersion in what-is, above what-can-be, is an essential landscape I fear is missing from the lives of many. This is not to say that what-can-be is unimportant or missing from the world. What-can-be lies within a limitless field of creative potential.

Sadly, most people frame their lives, whether they will admit so or not, within prisons of what they deem are “inevitabilities.” Mortality aside, nothing is inevitable. Therefore, all things are possible.

What-can-be could be seen as that which you grow in your garden. What will your garden contain? What will you grow? From whence shall the seeds be harvested? How often will you water the young seedlings that sprout after you have the seeds you have acquired? What culture will you grow? How will it impact the world?

These odd questions are vital, yet rarely directly addressed in our upbringing—the upbringing that shows us primarily how life must serve us. Parents too seldom pass to their children the knowledge of culture—where it comes from and how it is perpetuated—beyond the mere experience of it; I think, sometimes, we haven't learned all that is required to bring culture to birth and nurture it; to build and maintain it; to pass it on to its next conservatorship.

To think this way seems beyond so many people. Artists perhaps, may have the greatest potential and sensitivity to the philosophical implications of life in service to beauty. Too many others feel that sort of dedication is someone else’s domain and responsibility. Too many others believe that culture is and should remain free, and by that they mean, existing without investment. Somewhat like parents who expect schools to train their children to be good people, yet invest nothing or little in seeing to that themselves. Somewhat like people who decide how to vote based on what they read in checkout counter tabloids or what they see on Fox News.

Is this how the garden grows, the garden of you and of all of us?

From one impulse through many impulses, from one voice through many voices, from one set of hands through many sets of hands, your life flows. Infinite messages flow through all your experiential pathways. To which and to how many shall you respond? And what will be the result of that response or interaction?

Life is a series of callings within the single, yet infinite, garden of being. Yours is to choose. “Life is all about choices,” a friend once reminded me.

The paradox of life is that it supports you while you support it.

How will you nurture what has nurtured you? This is a vital question, a real question.

Everything depends on your answer.

Birdsong

The bird sang,
singing to the beauty of day and light,
from the afternoon through the night,
and this sweet music was the very last,
the most utterly sweetest collection of sounds of all,
and why Jesus wept.

Hearing the sweet song,
he remembered the time before time,
he remembered the Artist forming time
and all being, and being formed within and from it all
—and though he knew that the bird could not know this,
he and the bird and the song would meet in Paradise.

And thus it was that,
on the third day,
the sun rose,
and the bird sang for joy,
and the bird’s song was heard
both in this world and all the others.

© 2013 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

In the Garden of Delights: 2. The Invitation

Whispers
in the wilderness:
a Voice.

like warming flame
flowing in a mirage,
calls,
reaching out
from the unknown
like the sunrise at dawn.

Come,
O come,
BE with me.

—[eyes open,
the slumberer awakes,
the recumbent one rises,
feet move forward,
step by mindful step,
heeding the beckoning call]—

Come,
I long to
refresh you.

—[forward momentum,
over trackless desert,
jagged tumbles,
deepest impressions,
and craggy peaks,
listening, listening]—

Come,
it calls,
the still voice.

the way,
it is crooked
and hard,
but I will make it
clear for you,
all will be made plain.

Come,
O come,
my friend.

when you arrive,
glad will be
the desert,
the rough places,
the bees,
the flowers,
and I.

Come,
let us be
together,
to shout,
to sing,
to love,
to rejoice,
to delight
in pure being.

Come,
that is all,
just come.

Celebration
awaits. 

© 2012 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

This entry actually appeared here in 2010, but I realized yesterday that it needs to be part of a cycle I am writing now!