chapter 13

After ten years in Rome, it was time for Jesus to be the messiah. Fau helped me with our children. Francis was almost ten and smart like his father. Jamie was seven and wild like his father. And Sarah was three. Fau had a little girl who turned six the day we boarded the ship for the place we used to call home.

Anne, Fau's daughter, called Jesus her uncle. She was, however, his child.

It was the children that kept our spirits from leaving us and jumping overboard to be with the fishes.

"Ignorance is brutal."

Our first few days of living on the water were very wet. The sky was one big black cloud. Sometimes it looked like the rain would take a break but it didn't. There were different kinds of rain.

The rain that seemed to float was our favorite rain. Little drops like bubbles that exploded into little points of wetness when they floated into our faces.

Our children had received more education than most of the ship crew. They simply had not opened their minds. In many cases it was easier to communicate with the resident cats. Cats ignored the laws handed down by war lords.

Obey or die. It was a horrible system. Everyone who woke up enough to see it, knew it was killing us.

Making free creatures of heaven into slaves of hell. It was impossible to ignore the problem and just take the kids to the Toscana and raise goats and chickens. Jesus was made a legend by his, our ancestors. And he was to be made a religious icon by the Empire that ruled most of the western world.

"Mommy, why are you crying."

"I was thinking about your grandparents. They have been poisoned by the laws of Moses and I'm so afraid to see them."

"They will still want to see their grandchildren."

"Anyone who doesn't want to see you Jamie, is a monster."

"You're mom and dad aren't monsters."

"No. Not anymore than you and me."

Jamie made a scary face and I made one back at him and a little bit of sun broke through the clouds.

chapter 14

To say that Palestine was waiting for the return of Jesus would be an understatement.

Herod wasn't happy but the women of his court were. Jesus was a hero for the women and children. Everyone except for those who would lose most by the freeing of the human mind, the war lords and their marketing monkies, the priests and lawyers, were happy to see Jesus, his loving women, his loving children and his attentive crowds.

"Save us from the tyrants of Law and Chaos. Jesus."

Jesus went down to the river to be baptized by John. The crowd loved it. John was washing them of their sins and preaching that Jesus would set them free.

"The evil pricks do not own your soul. And we will one day tear down their evil lie."

The lawyers and priests were raging mad. And everything Jesus did made them more mad. Keeping the company of women and bastard children made them furious.

The more furious the fat assed lawyers and priest got, the more Jesus raged like an animal angel. The more he shone, the more hope he infected in the people.

When Herod's sister Joanne left the palace with her maids and servants to lend their support to our Jesus theater, Herod, the inbred incestuous bastard, threw John into prison. We considered tying Jesus down to keep him from running amok.

When Herod had John's head cut off because of his promise he made in his drunkenness to his niece, we had to take Jesus to Ethiopia for a few weeks.

We traveled down the red sea and hiked up the cradle of man and lived in a mountain village. And Jesus watched our children play with the local children and let his anger bleed out of him and remember that John would be back and that there was much Jesus had to do and he had no time to hate Herod.

And when we left Ethiopia, we knew that Jesus had infected them and that they had infected us. Our concept of life and time had been changed. Rome had been wiped out of our minds and when we returned to Palestine, Herod had been removed of his duties and replaced by yet another Herod.

When Jesus taught outside of the villages, great crowds would gather. And when they hungered, Herod's soldiers brought us bread and fish.

Rome had given us full protection and it was our job to stage the events that were meant to empower the animal in man and tear down the power of the war lords.

Even if it took another 2,000 years of war lord rule.

chapter 15

It was very soon impossible to distinguish our theater from real magic. The people lived in such poverty of body and soul that there was no way to go but up.

There was so much sudden caring and love parading through Palestine that it was pointless after a few weeks to stage healing. Many were healed with a smile and a touch.

"Hello. We are both here. And so is the sky. The heavens."

They had been so beaten by war lords and their laws of servitude that they had fallen into darkness. Ignorance.

Jesus spent most of his time trying to get people to think. To use their head for basic logic. Most people didn't take time to entertain ideas. The notion hadn't occurred to them.

"There are no sins, people. You are not born with sin. The priests and lawyers are telling you brutal evil lies. They have made you believe you must die to go to heaven. They have sold you this lie to make you obedient slaves.

Heaven is here and now. Live and be in heaven. A prostitute, a tax collector, a sheep herder. It does not matter. We all live here now. We can all sit down and watch the moon rise over the hills and know that it is real. That we are under the moon and under the stars. Under the sun and we are born and we die and we are born and we die and we grow and if we take the power back from the war lords who stole heaven. We will know that we are the angels becoming the gods. We are the gods. Life is our holy mother."

"Jesus, there is someone coming through the roof."

Jesus looked at me and I shrugged. We had that one already. A second one hadn't been planned. But it was pretty obvious that the man had been drinking and that his friends were enjoying themselves. Looking to be part of the Jesus show.

So Jesus said the same thing he did at staged events.

"Your sins aren't real. You are a free man."

It was Goddard with a beard. He stood up slowly and smiled.

"I can walk."

So we all walked to the synagogue to annoy the priests. People touching Jesus as he walked by making a show of being healed. Dancing and singing, mocking the priests and lawyers. 4,000 years of the laws of Moses.

The animals suddenly coming to their senses.

One could imagine the world waking up.

But Borus warned us against underestimating the power of fear. The world still couldn't read. We should have fun but also patience. The road not yet traveled was a long one.


mary helene chapters 16 - 18