Just As I Am

When I had spoken to the villagers I realized truth is never simple unless it is understood, and I had indeed failed my first sermon, for what had I done but rather than directing my people to God, I had directed them to myself? It seemed that to speak what I would to Man was not to be a simple task at all, for in the simplest things Man will see only what he believes he sees. … My dilemma seemed boundless. However there was no point in retreating. I must don my armor and seek the world.

I was not very far away from the village which had become my nemesis, and I decided to return to see what I could do. When the man had brought his child for healing, I had told him with treatment the sores would go, the child become healthy, and that healing was God speaking to Man, and he must seek God. I was curious to return and seek him out.

When I arrived at the village and returned to the small place of eating where I had been invited to partake of wine and bread, it was not long before those who had seen me drifted close about me. I sat waiting patiently until any would approach me as I ate.

They waited until I had consumed my scanty meal and then an old man who was crippled came near and laid his withered hand upon my arm.

“Master,” he said, “I am old and of little use in this world to any, least myself, but I would have one thing if it could be given.”

I turned to look at him for the quiet dignity somehow struck at my heart. “And that would be?”

“To stand before God a man whole in body so the Lord would not then be offended at the sight of me.”

“My God,” I prayed. “How may I reach this man who has neither learning nor need?” and the voice he used to speak to me told me then to touch him and let the words speak themselves.

I laid my hand on the top of his head for bent and crippled as he was, he stood no taller than my shoulder high as I sat.

“My brother, my friend and my father, for you are old and venerable and due my respect, but you are Man as all and for that I give my love. Will it not be known to you that flesh is but dust of earth and soul stands beyond the flesh in the eyes of God? God sees you as you are and loves what is known to him. Go and know that you are healed, for the soul will speak to God and know this truth. You have chosen well when you seek, for it was not to stand tall before Man that was your desire, but before God.”

And then marvelously I could feel the warmth of God’s energy flow down my arm and to his body, and he looked at me suddenly with eyes blazing with love and said, “Thank you, Master,” and hobbled away, tears lying on grimy cheeks.

There were murmurs around me and then someone spoke for all.

“But he has not been healed.”

“He did not ask for healing before Man. Nor does he have need of it. God has touched him within, and that is healing enough for him.”

“I would seek less affliction of body and leave the soul to chance,” a bitter voice spoke to my side.

I rose then, and walked away from the crowded area of shops, to the edge of town where evening cool was setting in and it was a period well suited to calm reflection.

“Aye, the body may be sore afflicted and Man may wish to achieve a state of physical wellbeing which will do away with the discomfort he encounters, but he too often treats flesh as if he had no respect for it. Having been created, he never ceases to war against his own beingness, either indulging the flesh or denying it, or indeed tormenting it by his anger and his desires. Let Man know that the flesh is not the way to God, but the way to the understanding of the self, and when one understands self then may he turn and discover him who is above all.

“Look at you. You deny the flesh because it is a desecration to you. Do you care for it? Treat it with the respect due to the creation of God? Or do you disrespect it, allowing it to direct you in its desires? When you learn to respect this overcoat of flesh you wear, then may you seek God to help you in the maintenance of what it is. The spirit that resides within you cannot but be tainted by the outer shell it wears, for what you present to others will be reflected in what is seen by them. Is the spirit of Man not mindful of the house in which it resides?”

“That’s fine for you to say, but are you suffering from want or hunger, or are you afflicted by diseases that waste and torment?”

“I am what you see, and all I have in this world is with me. If I am to be envied, then envy me for those things that God has made clear to me. Take from me anything you believe I can give you, and it shall be yours.”

“What did you do to the old man?”

“I gave him what he sought.”

“Then do as well for me that I may know what he felt.”

“I can give no man what he cannot seek for himself, but I will do this for you, I will ask God to speak to you in the days to come that you may hear his voice and know what it is you seek.”

It was useless to speak so to them. They could not understand. Their minds were closed against what could be theirs but for the seeking, but had they known what they sought would God have sent me to preach it to them? Ah, was I not an inadequate instrument in his hands?

My inadequacies and frustrations welled up in me, and I raged inside myself against this awesome thing I had come to do. Oh God, what is this I have chosen to be my task!

A mother stood nearby with a babe in her arms. The child looked half dead. In fact, I could not be sure it even breathed, and I suddenly felt the thoughts abounding within these poor who had so little and did not even know what to ask for.

I reached out my hand and spoke to my God. The child, must it suffer as well the onerousness of flesh before a world can seek its wisdom?

“Is not every Man the chooser of his destiny?” The words rolled in my head like a torrent.

As I had chosen did this one now wonder what reason such a search? Could not compassion undo the marvel of its birth and death so close at hand?

To every Man is given the choice of gaining such merit by its very life that it advances even as it comes. Has the child reached out to you, and you know it not?

Fool, I thought. You question God and expect these people to do less.

I touched the child and held my fingers lingeringly on face and chest and wasted limbs and the cheeks flushed pink under them, and the limbs straightened in the life pulsing strongly through, and it opened eyes wide and mouth wide in its renewed struggle for life, and all there cried out in the mystery of life.

I left them then and walked the road in the coolness of night and thought and thought and thought as if my brain were made of the complexities of the universe to gather unto it all the answers.

Compassion—was that the answer? Was healing the flesh the answer, the way? Was there birth in healing? Could I not as well feel the need and gratefulness of my fellow Man when the flesh is made whole? Is sorrow the penance all must pay or only those who cannot discover how to absolve the flesh from its own illnesses and fate?

The night drew down around me and all the sounds of earth except my beating heart and storming brain, ceased. Where was the peace I was to seek if I was to bring it to Man?

And then God spoke again to me in the quiet of the night.