“We love you...we had nothing to do with the crucifixion,” Euodia blurted out.
Love, love after crucifixion is a brilliant but black enigma: it proffers and denies. We know that love helps us forget pain; however I ask myself whether it is evil to forget evil. But I can think of resurrection as a form of love, a love beyond supplication. I take that step and realize that immortality is another form of love.
Desert air pushed in as we finished our meal and we soon felt chilled. I wanted to shed my fatigue by reading but we discussed visiting the spring at Neby. I suggested we leave early if it did not rain during the night and bog the paths. At Neby I wanted to work out a plan for James, Peter and Matthew, if James joined us. When government cruelty diminishes I want Peter to preach in Rome.
In my bedroom I read Ecclesiastes—drowsing at times, aware of my familiar pallet, the good pillow, the candles. I was able to dismiss the imminence of departure. I put it away like a shell under sea grass.
Ecclesiastes meant more to me than weeks ago as I read and re-read passages.
Rain woke me during the night—a pleasant shower smelling like spring. So, we would walk to Neby another day. Here I would be able to go on reading Ecclesiastes and Peter’s copy of the Psalms. When I told Peter that Clibus had found the Ecclesiastes scroll on a trip to the upper Nile they were astonished. They had never seen so ancient a scroll.
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Peter’s
Sivan 5
Judas is dead. He took his own life. His body was found by the daughter of Pontius Pilate. Since he was one of us we have buried him; at his grave a downpour struck us and drove us to a shelter. In a few moments the earth was flooded. I can’t recall such rain and thunder.