There were vases and cups of flowers in the courtyard and fifty rooftops away a bell came ringing. The children knelt in the dust, at play. This is the way it has to be, said one: I have all the pebbles. But I will give them to everybody. Then you each give one back to me.
First I have to pick a flower, said one. A yellow one.
Nobody can use rocks unless they're inside the line, said one. Here is the line. You can throw a rock if you have two rocks but you can't throw your only one.
Throw a little pebble at a big one, said one. And then I'll take your hat.
Nobody should have three rocks. What do you do if you get a third one?
Jump.
Sing.
Give one away.
Jump out of the circle and drop a pebble. You have to say a rhyme first. And run around the outside.
Now I have to find another yellow one.
No, said one. You have to throw with your right hand.
I heard you should stand on one foot, said one.
I heard you have to stand on your head.
I can't do that, said one.
Then just run around the circle again, said one.
All day breezes stirred along the viny walls. There are patterns that only their makers can see, lost in their own repetitions, lost in the frantic footprints of the children, deep in the dust, shown to no one. Any pattern old enough has meaning only to those who remember every step, who are older than the law, who can no longer see the empty scattered formlessness of their stories, any more than their mothers can see the rules that made this particular mess, and no other. Even the children cannot see each other's games.
You hold this, said a child. I have to pick that big red one.
A prophet carries God's message to the people. A priest carries the people's message to God. To be a priest one must study for a lifetime. To be a prophet one can only be chosen. Both have mystic powers.
Thus says the LORD, the prophet intones, with lightning and cloud behind him. The soles of his feet are tough from tumbling down the mountain; he has bugs in his hair. Repent, says the LORD! For prophets always come when the priests have gone wrong. You are wicked, you are corrupt, you have forgotten everything I ever told you. Why did I make you?
The priest answers from the temple doors: I know what the LORD says. I have read the Word. I have studied the Word and I have studied the works of generations who have studied it also. I am not to be instructed by a shepherd gone mad. Who are you to teach on the steps of His temple?
I did not ask to carry the Word, the wild man says, I only heard His voice commanding. I alone am righteous, and so I am chosen. I must obey. Thus says the LORD.
You are no prophet, says the priest. We have the Word already.
I will show you I am sent from Him, says the prophet. And he lifts his hand and makes it rain.
But the priest thinks that maybe this power is from the devil, these droplets hanging in his beard, and he reminds himself of the power he feels when he commends the dead into God's care, when he marries the betrothed together, when he judges his people--the moments when everyone knows that God is among them. It is like a rainfall in his chest, a tremor from his neck to his fingers which cannot be denied: power! He is a conduit for God because he keeps the Law just as it is written.
Nothing can happen without me, he says.
In the night, deep in the temple, the priest speaks to God, bearing to Him the cries of all the people. Protect us, the people say, and he tells God: yes, protect them. Forgive us, they say, and he says: yes, forgive them. Save us, the people say, and he says: yes, God, save them.
Give me wisdom, he prays. Tell me what to do with this man from the hills who speaks in Your name. Will I banish him, or forgive him, or put him to death as a heretic? Would I not recognize Your word when it came?
This man with his wild eyes and his mad proclamations and his perfect assurance, can he be Your messenger? Can I have wandered off the path I swore to hold to? Can this truly be Your answer in his ragged mouth? And what messenger will come to tell me whether he speaks the truth?
Christine, Dreaming