chapter 07

We left Cairo with a shipment of furniture destined for Istanbul. We had our own private cabin and guarantee of safety from the captain. Which was a comforting assurance because I was the only woman on the ship and received much attention. Jesus told me I was worth a few camels even if I wasn’t a virgin. I was a little insulted because Sarah had been worth camels, asses, sheep, male and female slaves and a large sum of silver to open up her womb for a Lord from another tribe. When I explain this to Jesus he just laughed and told me he had no intention of being a pimp like Abraham.

It was for Jesus and me our first ocean voyage. It was taking us farther from Israel and farther from Judaism. The world was getting bigger.

The open sea was a strange thing. It was a big emptiness. Jesus talked to the captain about the horizon and the size of the world. He was quite excited to see Rodos rising up out of the water before us.

The captain drew a picture of a curve with the ship at one side and the island at the other. He explained that the great water was not flat. It was a constant hill with a very gentle slope.

He told us how to watch the stars to know the direction to sail. He told us stories of Troy and the great wars with the Greeks and the many gods and goddesses. We learn about Helen of Troy and Sparta. The Trojan war. Jesus knew the story from reading the Iliad and the Odyssey but it was mostly new to me. I had not heard of Paris and when I did it struck me that Jesus had once told me that all stories were basically the same. Jesus wasn’t going to wage a war on Troy. But he was going to wage a war. A much bigger war. His war was also for a woman. Or focused around a woman. Maybe not so much a woman as for women.

I smiled at him while he talked the stories of the Iliad and the Odyssey. The captain sang a few verses of it for us. It was a favorite for sailors who spent many days and nights away from land and women. And it was nice that there was a sense of elevation of woman in the stories rather than what was typical for our Holy Scripture.

When we went to our cabin at night we talked of the mad habits of men. Or we made love like animals oblivious to culture.

“Moses was such an asshole. All our ancestors. The world is so big and we, the chosen race, we are just one inbred family waging war on one bit of desert.”

“Cain took a wife from somewhere else. Maybe the father of Adam took his wife from somewhere else.”

“His father and his father. The world didn’t start with our arrogant family.”

Jesus was getting himself worked up on the idea of the ignorant arrogance of the Holy Scriptures. He was even more upset with the Priests and Lawyers that ruled with violence and law to keep the chosen race, full of inbred and bastard children, believing simply impossible events. Because they had been written.

Ignoring the obvious fact that the rest of the world didn’t know anything about Adam and Eve. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The most famous of all being bastard children. Fathered by kings of other tribes.

“Just like you.”

“Not a coincidence. If the word holds any meaning. All events are influenced by the events before and beside it.”

“And our people have a set of laws that say you are a bastard. Like David, Jacob, Isaac and likely Ab and Adam.”

“It would make more sense to follow the line of ancestors through the women. If at all.”

“It would make more sense if we weren’t your in house possessions. Sex slaves. Baby producers.”

Jesus smiled and I could see the laws fall away and the animal appear.

“Mad men and their defining of meaning.”

“You’ll redefine it, Jesus. You’ll find the key to unlock the door that keeps us in our prison of obedience to a hoard of tyrants.”

“You have redefined it for me, Helene. You have defined my war against war. The world will see what we see.”

The world had a long way to go.

Before all the self appointed royalty was removed from their power of fear and lies.

There were no other Jews on the ship. The men were mostly superstitious but there superstitions were not based on Holy Scriptures. There was a tendency of random association. Jesus took note of several of them and questioned the sailors about them. Their answers were always very convincing unless the logic was examined.

On night, when the sailors were bored, they played a game with two young men. They were each given a stick and told to hit each other. At first they hit each other lightly. And the other sailors simply smiled and waited. The young men were not instructed to hit each other violently and they thought they were clever hitting each other lightly. But it didn’t take too long until one thought the other hit him too hard and he hit back a little harder and from there it got quickly out of hand and they may have beaten each other to death had the captain not broken through the circle and kicked them both in their asses.

The captain yelled at the crew to get back to work. The two young men were told to make their piece with one another and stop being so bloody stupid.

“There’s a lesson in there, Helene.”

“A fairly obvious one, I’m sure.”


chapter 08

Istanbul was a world apart from Nazareth. Eyes followed us from the ship to the university. The university campus was a different world again.

Jesus and I were taken to our flat in a house with two other professors and an old woman that would look after us if we needed anything. Or if we didn’t.

She loved us both on sight and mentioned a few times that she had been blessed. She made us mocha coffee while telling us about Istanbul. Where to go when and best times for which fish. Best locations for new and imported fabrics.

Our flat was small but very bright and the kitchen was open to a balcony overlooking the campus.

It was our first place that was our place.

So we got naked and had sex. And we stayed naked, having sex and sleeping until the birds called on us the next morning.

There were not many Jews in Istanbul. There were many non-Jews who were little different who paid service to any other gods. People loved to worship. They loved the assurance that their belief was the right belief. The loved being members of the club that was the best club. It made me a little nervous to walk the streets alone without a religion or cult to protect me but walking the streets was the only way to get to my dance class. It was traditional dance different than the traditional dance of my ancestors.

Being the woman of a member of the university was also a cult status. Coming from and going back to the campus showed that I too had a membership in an organization. It was an organization that was not well accepted by all for it was no secret that education led away from religious acceptance.

I enjoyed shopping in the market most of all my activities I did without Jesus. There were many other women with their children. Sometimes they tried to talk to me. Touch my face. Sometimes vendors tried to charge me too much. Never more than once. The old woman of our house had taught me how to show instant outrage and insult at being treated like an outsider.

We ate fish almost everyday. It was always fresh and Jesus was convinced red meat slowed him down too much. He would eat it if we were invited to someone else’s home for a meal but fish was the only meat that made it into our apartment. And there were so many fruits and vegetables to chose from. Grain from many lands. Herbs and spices.

I was happy to see Jesus so charged. He took classes and taught classes. I attended many of the classes he taught, especially enjoying his rebirth class. The students shone like angels when they sailed on his teaching.

I took theater classes and most mornings the old woman of our house helped me learn her language. She was very refreshing and always called me Angel. Jesus she called Master or Lord. We called her Mother Andra.

On days when we had no classes, one or two days a week, Jesus and I went to the Black Sea. There we had a favourite fishing village that wasn’t really a tourist destination but there was a friend of a friend who let us stay in his boathouse in exchange for a little work, fish cleaning, and hospitality.

He, like so many others, loved to hear Jesus talk about heaven and being born over and over. Learning each life like each day.

“Can you tell me who I was in my last life.”

“No, I can only see what remains. I don’t think it is such a clear framework. We see ourselves and perceive ourselves as mortal individuals, I suspect because in a way we are. That which lives on is less defined. It is the us that is part of the all. The all of us is always alive. Individuals come and go and add to the all of us. And every new individual comes from the all of us.”

“Sometimes I think I was always a fisherman.”

“Part of what you are is always a fisherman for that is what you now are. And we have been catching and eating fish for countless generations.”

“Why.”

“Why do we fish. We fish because we can.”

“No. Why are we here.”

“It is a place we can be. We can’t be most other places for there are no fish most other places.”

“But to what purpose do I fish one life after another.”

“To eat fish.”

“Surely we are not here just to eat fish.”

“I think it is a misconception that there must be a reason. Look at the fish. Or the birds. They do not look for a reason. Why must we have a purpose, why must we have a god to worship. Our belief that we are here to serve a God comes from many generations of serving tyrants that call themselves Lord. And their enslaved servants called them Lord or had their heads chopped off. Our need for a purpose has been imposed on us from tyrants who have stolen from us our ability to live in the moment.

“Look there, see the birds washing themselves in the puddle. They live but a few years and look for bugs and when they have eaten they prance in the sky from tree to tree. They do not wait for heaven. They take this place as heaven. And when we can see like a bird we will also take this place for heaven.

“They tell us the purpose of our life here is to serve the man who has been chosen by one of the gods to rule over us. They tell us if we live a life in adherence to the laws of man we will have our heaven when we go to life after death. We are already at that place. We have been waiting life after life to come to where we already are. When we die and go to heaven it is the same place. And still there are tyrants that tell us we must wait.

“I say we should stop our waiting. Stop our believing the laws and religions of the ruling class and take our heaven now. For if there is a god, our should one day be a god, or, most likely, should be many gods. It is an insult to life itself to keep waiting for something we already have if we can simply reach out and take it. Embrace the tree of knowledge. Learn the tree of life. It is here now and forever. We have awoken in heaven and have been told by the few that we do not deserve heaven.

“I say, heaven is at hand, do not ask why, reach out and take it.”

Jesus reached out and touched my face. And the fisherman put his arm around his son.

“What, do you think, my boy.”

“I am hungry, Father. Can we eat.”


chapter 09

“Our religions are stories told from one generation to the next generation. Every land has a different story that they hold onto as holy wisdom. All these stories are different from one another in language and sound but they all have obvious similarities.

“And they are all dangerous if adhered to as ultimate truth. We are a long way from ultimate truth and perhaps it may never be nailed down.

“We demand too much too soon from our language and perception.

“When I was a child, I lived in Cairo and was confronted with the ultimate truth of my ancestors, a book of instructions how to kill sheep and goats and a thousand other laws and the ultimate truth of Pharaohs that sold themselves, like Moses, as gods. Truths from the south, the north, the east and the west.

“And the one simple truth that seems to be continually ignored.”

Jesus took a short break and smile at me.

“We are here. And it is while we are alive that we are here. This is a truth we need not argue on. If we can drop, even for a moment, the written truths, the all so many varied stories of our grand ancestors, we will wake up to the most beautiful of all truths.”

He waited again.

“The kingdom of heaven is here and now. And it is eternal.”

Jesus went on to explain the reasons for propagating belief in a heaven somewhere else but all I heard him say was that he was in love with life and I was one of the parts of life that he most liked to touch and with whom to share heaven.

He explained that life was God, that we were all part of God, from the fish to man. That a newborn child was also part of everything that had been. That we were in a physical and spiritual way still our ancestors. It was self indulgence to honour our brutal achievements of the past.

He pushed and pulled until he had set them on fire. His students. His teachers.

When he had finished, we went out into the early evening sun.

“Jesus. There is a fish waiting for us for our evening meal.”

We invited Mother Andra do eat with us. She didn’t like to impose but she did like to visit us. So she came and we talked while Jesus prepared us a fish dinner.

She told us of her two sons that had joined the military. The younger one had died in a battle at sea. The older one had lost an arm and died a few years later from a curse. Both of her daughters had been married to soldiers who had died in war. The one lived alone in a village in Africa. She wrote once a year to say she was still alive and the other daughter went to the far east and she wasn’t certain if she was alive or dead. The story was not new to me. She talked of her children often. She was proud to have lived so long with so many hardships.

She never talked of her husband.

She told me about a fabric she had found at the market. She was sowing a new dress for me and I would have to come by in the next days for a fitting.

“I have heard many good thing about Lord Jesus. They have heard of him throughout the city.”

“He is a good teacher.”

“Yes, that is what they all say.”

“He is also very good in the kitchen. He prepares a meal like he prepares his lessons.”

Mother Andra had her religion and we waited for a moment before eating so that she could pray to her god. She blessed the food, Lord Jesus and his angel. Jesus watched her pray and I watched Jesus watch her.

She did not know the teachings of Jesus. She didn’t want to know anything that might conflict with her religion. That the world had many religions was of no interest to her.

So we ate and talked of the weather and the fish and the market and the military parade of the week before. And when she had given us all the news that she had heard she bid us good night and went back to her apartment to pray before going to bed. Like she did every night.

Jesus and I sat on the balcony and watched the moon. It was full and cast light and shadows over the university.

“Do you think there are people on the moon looking down at the Earth wondering if there are people on the Earth looking up at the moon wondering if they are there.”

“No. Helene. I think the moon is cold, dry and lonely. If there were any great bodies of water we would see them. I have seen the moon through a looking glass and it is not like the Earth.”

“Do you think there are other places like here.”

“I don’t know. There are many stars out there. Maybe there is a planet like ours. Maybe there is a pair of lovers wondering if there is another pair of lovers wondering about them. But what I know is that here on this planet there are many people looking up at the moon tonight and wondering. And many of them will grow tired of wondering and shut their eyes and sleep until the morning comes and another day unfolds much like the day before and after it.”

“And will there be a purpose to the day.”

“There will be opportunities.”


mary helene chapters 10 - 12