freedom from want

freedom from want

fiction
edward w pritchard


Once I walked a while with Jesus one day on a man made path called a canal tow path north to the end of the trail at an inland sea called Lake Erie. I remember the path was closed for construction
about a mile or two before it reached the Lake and some workers had made a turn around to send you back South from whence thou had started. The sign was missing that said trail closed ahead.

It's very important to me to try and remember what Jesus had said. The written  verses others had compiled and wrote down of sayings of Jesus can be misleading. So I strain to remember. I seek the unedited version. authenticity is experience

Big girls don't cry sang Jesus. When once he put a hand on my shoulder he said thou seeker of truth stay focused "much learning is to no avail. Still children suffer, abominations are everywhere and the money changers always have their way. Fear the bureaucrats more than one thousand crack Roman legions for no friend or family finishes the path with one's self. there might of been more he said

I am a disciple with no name and no destination. Having achieved freedom from want sometimes when I sit on a night train in the dark in the middle of the gloom headed west to Chicago I scan the hands for the nails holes caused by the hammer driven nails that held Jesus to the cross on the youth riding the train and listening to their Walkman. My purse is empty but I clutch it tightly to my chest.

Early in the morning before other disciples awake and become industrious some times I pray for Virginia Wolf the writer. When she went to the river to be baptized she filled her pockets with rocks so she would sink. What must it have been like for Jesus when he was a boy working in his father's carpentry shop straightening twisted nails for further use to know the future of what would happen to Him at the hands of the Roman soldiers concerning stout nails? What must it have been like for Virginia Woolf walking about the riverside to search carefully for proper rock ballast to hold and support her soul as it carried her back to the lighthouse of her memories?

When I told Jesus about Virginia Woolf he took a small plastic packet from his pocket and handed it to me to keep. It was a tightly folded shroud of Turin with the imprint of his face on it. He said everyone mentioned in this story including Virginia Woolf, big girls who don't cry, children, bureaucrats, Roman legions, persons on trains, friends, family and me and you will need a shroud to wrap us in one day when we are cold, wet and still. Strange but I took no comfort in that though I knew he was speaking truth. I forgot to ask Jesus what happen to the rocks that were in Virginia Woolf's pockets and if money changers are entitled to be wrapped in Shroud's of Turin after their deaths.