When I was staying at the home of Gehazi, after preaching in the synagogue, after healing, Barabbas appeared. Jamnia is his village and he entered the house of Gehazi without knocking. A great tall hulk, he loomed over me; then he knelt and begged me to accept him. Dressed in goat’s skin, his face and beard wild, he seemed ill, perhaps deranged. I tried to calm him, to reason with him. “I should have been crucified,” he repeated in a hoarse voice. For a long while we remained together, talking, praying, hoping. Peter’s Sivan 24 Patience—we need patience. Going from village to village, town to town, means walking five days, four days, two. It is a five day walk to Nazareth. It is a two day walk to the village of Gehazi. Most walks are pleasant. It can be cold, windy, hot; and when it rains there is seldom any shelter. Sometimes we travel together; sometimes we walk alone; these days I prefer my solitary walks. I am aware of close communion when alone. Patience, patience...but the calendar moves on: Shevat, Adar, Nisan, Iyyar, Sivan... Peter’s Tammuz 3 I will miss Peter’s little house, its rough walls, its crooked windows, its clumsy thatched roof. The floors have interested me. He found pieces in some Babylonian structure; he hauled them here in an ox cart. I have come to love this isolation, its olive trees. Today is a summer’s day. Great clouds, great sky. Peter sought me out as I sat in the bedroom reading. Again he asked for forgiveness. Kneeling by me he promised he would carry the word... “to Rome, if you wish. Teach me courage, teach me strength, teach me to be wise...” He and I have worked at the carpenter’s bench lately, in Lazarus’ shed. It took the three of us to line up a door. Of course it was very old. Laughing, we had to admit our clumsy workmanship. We are proud that there are more than seventy of us now. I send them out in pairs. The home of Lazarus Tammuz 8 It seems to me I view mankind with a sense of compassion—a constant perception. Mine is a brief, swift looking back: I heal the sick, I renew lives... I remember the hart and the brook...man’s insatiable thirst. Children come and animals come...the ox and the donkey have been friends. A shepherd, I still follow hills, hills of resurrection they may be. Perhaps history may call me a man of righteousness. Perhaps history may not stop. I speak to history. I say, once again: “Go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost...” Teach as I have taught...remind them of grace. Tammuz 11 I leave no tomb, no crypt, no marker. Finality may not be a friend... When I leave shall I carry a handful of earth with me? James, Peter, Matthew, Mark...Mother and Father...Lazarus...Miriam... each one is mine but for how long? Peter will pick up my sandals and say: “These were his.” Father will say: “He helped me make this box.”