Call of the Awakening

G. D. Carroll

The breadth of the clouds stirred in him a sense of the majestic as he knelt, bleeding to death, in the tall grass just outside the gates of Rome. The sun never looked more beautiful as it prepared to dip beneath the far away horizon, blazing the sky with deep oranges and reds. The wind swayed the sparse scrub brushes that dotted the hillside in the spaces between the grass and the rocks. A snatch of breeze carried the scent of cooked lamb to his nose.

Proximo breathed it in, savoring the delicious aroma and imagining a thick plate of meat, and bread, and wine. That would be nice. But it was unlikely that he would live long enough to enjoy another such meal. Already, the blood from his wound was too great for his hands to hold in and he could feel it running down his stomach and legs.

The Roman had been kind, a swift blow to his chest rather than the slow death of the cross. The sword went straight through without so much as a hitch, a testament to the soldier's professionalism, skill, and care for his equipment. The others carried him from the city and threw him to the dust, laughing as they went back to their wine. A thief could do worse. So much worse. He looked up the hill, spying the pikes with impaled bodies that jiggled every so often. It was too far to hear the groans, for which he was thankful; his own pain was enough for his ears. Ah but that sunset, it was almost worth it.

He thought it might even be worth it if the plate of lamb were thrown into the pot. An ache made itself known, spreading out from his lungs, a sure sign that time was passing with his blood. He wondered what it would be like. There was fear, to be sure, after all he wasn't a good man, he was a thief. But he was a good thief, until today that was. He watched the blood drip onto the long blades of dusty brown grass. No, he wasn't good enough today.

An eagle cried out as it circled to the east, its wide wings curving with the wind. It was hunting, looking for a rodent or hare, but its flight was so perfect. He wondered at the splendid design of its body. He had a good eye for symmetry and worth, qualities precious to one in his trade. So intent was he on the bird's wondrous flight that he failed to notice the man standing behind him. The eagle swooped low with lightening speed and came up with a small rodent clutched tightly in its talons. The bird of prey carried its victim in a tight arc straight up, catching warm air currents that allowed it to continue its path with barely a flutter of its massive wings.

The thief followed the drama of life and death until the angle became too steep for his neck, sending a spasm of pain through his chest. He cringed silently, his eyes squeezed shut. When the pain relaxed, he opened his eyes and noticed the shadow of the man that was now at his side. He was beyond being startled and so merely looked up, blocking the sun with his free hand.

"You're hurt?" said the frail, old man.

"No, my friend," he replied, pulling his hand slightly away from the fatal wound, "I am dead."

"Ah," sighed the man as he knelt next to the bleeding thief. "Roman justice."

The thief smiled sadly. "Deserved this time. I chose to steal from the wrong man."

He rested a hand on the dying man's shoulder and chuckled lightly. "An honest thief? A most unusual sight."

"No reason to lie now, old man. Soon I go to see what lies beyond, if anything. I need no further sins to pave my way."

"An interesting notion," said the old man, nodding his head slowly. "And what is it you think you will find?"

"Death," said the thief. "The great mystery."

The old man looked deeply into the thief's eyes. "Death certainly. But that is not the mystery."

Blood ran in large droplets to the dirt making a dark mud that dried quickly in the arid climate. The thief looked away searching for the beautiful bird, but it was long gone.

"You speak in riddles, old man. I have little time for such."

"My name is Paul." He smiled at the thief.

"Proximo," said the man, patting his bloodied chest lightly. "I'm Proximo."

Paul untied a water skin from his waist and handed it to the thief. "Water?"

The thief did not realize until just that moment how thirsty he was. Now that it was brought to his attention the burning in his throat seemed as agonizing as the hole in his chest. His lips were dry and felt like ages old dust. Suddenly he wanted that drink of water more than anything in his life.

"Yes, friend, please yes." He took the water, cool from evaporation, and marveled at the wonderful splendor of the quenching liquid, as water gushed into his mouth, escaping in tiny rivulets past the sides of his lips.

"Death is neither the riddle nor the mystery, but rather the confirmation of what your heart already knows."

"My heart knows that it has been pierced, old man. And that it thanks you for that last drink." He offered back the pouch to Paul, but the old man made no move to take it.

"Perhaps it will not be your last taste of water after all."

The man's eyes squinted in suspicion. "Are you a physician? A sorcerer perhaps?"

Paul smiled, his haggard face coming to life in that instant. "No, neither a physician nor sorcerer, merely a friend. But a friend that can make known to you an offer of great worth that you have neglected to accept."

The man sighed heavily and moved from a knee to his seat, stretching out his legs before him.

"What good now, wealth? Will it buy back my blood?"

"Perhaps," said the old man as he sat next to his new friend. "Though not in the way you think."

The thief shook his head. "More riddles? Have the gods sent me a tormentor before my due?"

"Of which gods do you speak?"

"Who knows, old man? I have paid tribute to many in my day. Athena, Hermes, Zeus, the gods of the Greeks and the gods of Rome. Once even, I laid a trinket on the altar of the Egyptian god Horus. But what have they to do with men? What is an ant to me? Something to be crushed beneath my foot. Unnoticed. Too small to be of account." He winced again at the pain. "The gods care not for the ways of men. If they even exist."

"Yes," said Paul. "Men make many gods. They carve marble from the earth and with part they make a floor to be trod on by their dirty feet. With the rest they shape a goddess to praise and worship and adorn with gold. Like the trinket you paid to Horus."

"Little matter," said the thief. He leaned close to Paul and whispered; "I stole the trinket as well." He sat back with a great laugh, that sent such pain through his body that tears rolled down his face. "I do wish I had saved that trinket for Athena though. She at least was beautiful. Skin so smooth and curves so right. Horus was most unattractive."

Paul picked up a small stick and began to draw in the dust. "And what would a statue of stone do with your gift? Would she be thankful? Could she so much as touch your cheek in appreciation? Does dead stone feel? Can it give or receive love?"

Proximo looked hard at Paul. "You are not Roman. You have the smell of a Jew."

Paul sniffed theatrically at his sleeve, then held up both hands. "I smell like a Christian Jew who was born in Rome." Paul then sniffed the air about him; "And you have the smell of a dead Greek."

Proximo laughed. "A dead Greek with a Roman mother." The thought made him sober. "A bad end. She would not be proud."

"And your father?" asked Paul.

"Dead. Long ago." He tapped a finger in the air at the old man. "You Jews are a strange lot. You seek to do with one god what we fail to do with many."

"And what is that?"

"To make life have meaning. We create hundreds of gods so that we can fool ourselves into believing that everything we do is for something rather than nothing. But you… you profess one God to do the same. Although I have heard that this new Christian God has three heads."

"So you don't believe in the gods?" said Paul.

The dying man chuckled. "I don't know. It is too late now."

"Yes it is late," said the old man. "Very late indeed. But let us talk for a few minutes before the night comes. Our God does not have three heads. He is one God, manifested in three persons. He is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, all in one."

Proximo scowled. "Not a three headed god, but one made up of three? How can a man be a father, a son, and a ghost all to himself?"

"Is a man not made up of three? Mind, Body, Spirit?" Paul drew three stick figures in the dirt. A man may be a son to his father, a husband to his wife, and a father to his children, all while still being one man." He circled the group and then drew a squiggly line that looked like a wave. "Is not water itself one in three? It is liquid in the sea, solid when frozen to ice, a mist in the pot over the fire, and yet water all the same. One manifested in three. Not so difficult."

Proximo grunted approval. "Perhaps you are a sorcerer after all. But what matter? I've too little time to learn a new religion. What must I give to gain your god's favor? I've no money and my tunic is a bit damaged." He pulled his hand away, showing the sopping shirt with the jagged tear. "So what have I to offer?"

"You have you," said Paul.

Proximo smiled shaking his head wearily. "Riddles, riddles, so many riddles. Can you not speak plainly to a dieing man?"

"No riddles my friend, I have spoken truly. My God wants you. He wants only that you trust in him and accept the great gift that He has made available to you."

The thief held up a hand in surrender, "All right, all right I lied. I have a Roman coin, two shekels and a denarii in a hidden pocket of my tunic." He dug for the coins producing them in a hand caked with dried blood. "Give them to your God and tell him I thank him for his favor."

"My God has no need of your money. He owns the sheep and cattle on a thousand hills. The precious stones and gold of all the earth would yield themselves willingly at his smallest whisper."

"Ah, I have lived to see a new thing. A priest that will not take money." He let his hand fall back to his lap. "Well then if it is me your god wants, he can fight the other gods for me soon enough, although they may put up a battle. After all a really good thief is not easy to come by."

"It is not the skills of your trade that my God wants of you."

"Not my money… not my skills… then what?"

"The most precious thing that you possess, your love."

"My love?" said the man. "And what would a god want with that?" He shook his head slowly. "Not even a woman would want the love of a dying thief… no woman save a mother perhaps."

"And what of a father's love?" asked Paul. "My Lord spoke of such a father. He told a story about the son of a rich man who took his inheritance before his time and spent it foolishly, until he had nothing and longed even for the slop of swine to fill his empty stomach. At last, he reasoned with himself and came back to throw himself on his father's mercy, and to beg to be taken as a servant. But the father saw him a long way off and made a great feast for him, and welcomed him with a father's love, restoring him to his former position and paying his son's debts himself. Forgiving all."

Proximo coughed shortly, speckling his lips with tiny flecks of blood. "A good father that, but a poor son. Why should the father take him back?"

"No reason at all," said Paul, "except that he loved him, and wanted him back."

"So… are you saying that your God wants me back?" asked Proximo. "But why? I am not his son. I don't even know this God."

"Perhaps you know him, but have just forgotten," said the old man with a smile.

The thief shook his head slowly. "I am not in the habit of forgetting gods, my friend. A stealer of goods needs all the blessings he can get."

"We forget for many reasons," said Paul. "Sometimes because of the world and all its intrusions. The simple act of daily survival. But most times we forget because we choose to." He looked gravely at the dying man. When you snuck your hand into the Roman's pocket, were you remembering your mother?"

"My mother? What has she to do with my trade?"

"Nothing," said Paul, "save what you said before; she would not be proud. Would you have plied your trade while thinking on your mother's love and what she would think if she knew your actions at that moment? If she were, herself, watching from afar?"

Proximo did not speak, just stared at the dust and grunted a reply.

"So you see? We choose to forget our father and his love when we decide to please our flesh. You wanted the Roman's coin but if you considered your mother, the coin would have burned like fire in your hand. So you decided to forget her."

"Yes—yes—yes," said Proximo, looking about the sky, searching for the eagle. "But what has that to do with forgetting a god I never knew?"

"We are each of us born knowing the one true God," said Paul. "The knowledge of Him is everywhere. In the trees, the grass, the stars and most of all here," he pointed to his own chest, "in our hearts. Is it Zeus that tells you to steal is wrong? Athena? Horus? Nay. Why the Romans even pray to a god of the thieves, as do the Greeks and the Egyptians. Yet in your very heart you know it to be wrong. You knew it as a child and even if your mother taught you the trade of thievery herself, still you would know the truth. Because the God I speak of has written it on your heart. And only by forgetting Him can you allow yourself to do that which is wrong. A lifetime of forgetting can make it difficult to remember."

Proximo shook his head weakly. "But if your God will not take my money or my talents and since my blood is spilling too quickly for me to come to a knowledge of Him then what can I give?"

"What did the son that sold his inheritance give? He threw himself on his father's mercy."

Looking at the coins in his hand, Proximo spoke. "But the son only squandered what was his. His only crime was foolishness. These I stole from others. These and a life's time more. Can the crime go unpunished? Will your God do that?"

"No," said Paul. "My God cannot do that. For He is just and righteous and our sins bear a price that must be met lest justice be undone."

"Then perhaps," he said, handing the coins once again towards the old man, "these might pay a portion?"

"And what justice," said Paul, "to pay for one's crime with the proceeds from that very crime?"

Proximo's hand flopped loosely into his lap. "I see. That is truth, no justice there. But then how might one pay for their life's crimes. All have done things in the span of their years that could never be accounted for. The price of the accumulated debt must be far too high? Your God will have little company I fear."

"Do you remember," asked Paul, "the Jew that Pilot put to death in Jerusalem?"

A buzz was beginning deep in Proximo's head, growing louder, making him feel faint. "Yes of course, Rome was in an uproar over the news. The carpenter Jew that was crucified. The one whose body they searched for."

"But never found," said Paul. "For He is the Son of God. God Himself come to earth for us."

"Ah," said Proximo. "You seek to riddle me again but I remember your words of the three in one. If He was this God of yours then why did He come? And how is it that even Caesar himself, with all of the might and power of Rome, might be able to kill Him?"

"He came for you, Proximo. For you and for me. He came to walk in our sandals, so He might be a fair and righteous judge, and so that he could help us when we are weak. He came as an example of what we might be, of what we can be if we just stop forgetting our Father. But most of all, He came to pay a price. Your price."

"My price?" asked Proximo, straining to keep his head erect. The pain in his chest felt dull now, with a low throb that beat in time with his pulse. "What man can pay another's debt?"

"You speak truly my friend," said Paul. "No man could repay the hurt you have caused others, nor even his own debt. No man. But God—the creator of all. Perfect. Sinless. Come in the flesh, tested in the fire and proved true. He paid your price, Proximo. On that cross, where the Roman's drove nails through his hands and feet. Where they lashed Him with the whip, not for His sins, but for yours and for mine. Where they shoved a crown of thorns over his brow, acknowledging his rule over them even while spitting in His face and stealing His very clothes. Where they mocked and laughed and taunted. It was there He paid our price. He, the God of all, allowed that to happen to Him so that He might bring you back to Him. Just as the father of the prodigal son paid his child's debts, so too has our Father paid ours. He took our place and paid the price of justice. Pain for pain, blood for blood, His for yours. For you Proximo, he suffered all that for you."

"But to what good?" asked Proximo. "If He is dead than what aid? Can a dead God help a man?"

"You forget the missing body," said Paul. "The reason it was never found is because he arose from the tomb three days after the cross. He raised Himself from the dead and sits at the right hand of the Father."

The sun strained at the edge of the hills, its last rays staining the clouds a bruised purple. The sound of the eagle could be heard in the distance.

Proximo tried to adjust his position in the dust and found that he could no longer feel his legs. His breathing rattled in his chest.

"Too late priest, too late. You spin a pretty tale, but I have followed many gods and paid tribute to them all, save yours. My coins He does not want and nothing else have I but this blood that runs from my heart swifter than you can speak."

"Not your coin nor even your blood, my friend. It is rather His blood that pays your way. His death pays your debt and his risen body shows you the way home, where your Father waits with open arms to accept you back."

"But how?" asked Proximo, his head lolling at the end of a neck suddenly too weak to hold it aright. "How? I do not know the way home. Is there some magic spell I must chant, or some word that allows entrance?"

"No magic. No spells. You must become like the son in the story. Humble yourself. Acknowledge that you are weak, that you cannot bear your debt, nor make amends. Then throw yourself into God's embrace, believing with your heart that He died for you and arose so that you might follow. Believe that, my friend, and though you die you will live forever."

Proximo started to speak then fell back, his head hitting the dust and sending a misty cloud into the darkening sky. Stars began to speckle the sky overhead like freckles on the cheek of a young girl. He smiled, but it was thin, pale.

"Too late…"

"Yes," said Paul. "It is very late. But you have this chance, this one last chance before the endless night overtakes you. Look ahead, into that black horizon that stretches forever and ever, and there see yourself with the full knowledge of all the harm that you have done. The harm that you caused by your own hand, and your own tongue, and more—far worse—oh so very much worse. Look further, into the depths of your soul, and see the harm that has and will continue to multiply from each wrongful act you performed. Like ripples in a lake, starting where the rock drops and then moving outward until the entire surface of the water is touched by its effects. So too has your life touched the world and all those around you, some that you do not even know. But you will know. You will know everything. You will know each wrong—every hurtful thing. And you will know them forever, never forgetting, and you will watch as they grow like open sores, spanning the years and decades. Touching the lives of those not yet born, but who will feel the pain of your wrongs, from their parents and their friends and on and on and on.

"Zeus is a marble statue; unfeeling, uncaring, dead. Athena; a pole of wood shaped to look like a woman. Horus, Hermes, Mercury, Amen-Ra, all of them nothing more than creations of men formed to help men forget the true God, your Father who waits and cares and loves. But the choice is yours, Proximo, just as it was for the boy who ate with the swine. He could have stayed with the pigs, forever in debt, instead he chose a father's love."

Paul looked up, watching as the last golden edge of the sun disappeared. A cool breeze stirred his gray hair and shaggy beard. He pointed toward the vanishing light.

"But see the night comes on wings swifter than a falcon, and for you there is only now. Choose, before it is too late. Go home Proximo. Go home to your Father."

"Such a pretty tale," said Proximo, his voice a whisper of air. "It sounds so nice. I wish…I wish I could go home. I wish it were all true."

The eagle that had cried in the distance swept lazily back into Proximo's view, dipping gracefully in the currents of the night wind. So beautiful. What kind of a God could create such a thing? So swift and powerful and sure. He remembered his mother, how she loved him and cared for him as a child. The way she teased and the stories she told when he was afraid at night, and the soft wonderful feel of her lips on his brow before he drifted off to sleep. What sort of a God could create a woman like his mother?

"Then believe," said Paul. "Believe."

Proximo felt the edge of the coins in his hand digging into his palm. He thought to hold onto them in case one of the gods could be bribed in the afterlife, but what would a statue or a totem do with gold?

He closed his eyes and with his last breath smiled at the old man, thinking of his mother and her smile and the God that came as a man to lead him home.

The coins fell from his fingers, dribbling to the parched grass. There would be no need of a bribe today.

Proximo let go and felt a deep wrenching lurch in his chest, and somewhere far off, and yet very near he heard the cry of the eagle as it called out to him. Called to him to sleep no more. To awaken.

It was time to go home.

Gordon Carroll has been writing for over thirty years. After serving seven years in the Marine Corps he went to work as a deputy sheriff in Colorado where he became a K-9 officer. His many experiences involving late nights in scary places and bizarre situations, has enriched his story telling and now he would like to share them with you.

Copyright 2005, G. D. Carroll