by S S Bazinet
It was enough to give Arel the breath he needed to speak. “These horrible feelings come over me. I don’t know how to stop them.”
“You’re not alone.”
“Why can’t I feel that?” he asked in between heaving breaths. His lungs were becoming useless. So was his heart as it went into a spasm of pain. He did everything he could not to cry out. If he was dying, he was determined to do it with dignity. But he was frightened.
He tried to grab hold of Michael’s shirt, but he couldn’t sustain the effort, and his hand fell back. “It’s getting so dark . . . I’m going to lose you, aren’t I?”
Michael reached over and carefully took the bleeding, frail offering, holding it in his own strong hand. “How can you lose me? Our bond can never be severed.”
He pulled Arel to his breast, embracing his failing body carefully, as if it were a precious rose in his garden, a rose that had been trampled by ignorance and brutality. “You’re wanted, my beloved one,” he said as he rocked the man he’d tried so hard to care for.
The gentle motion and Michael’s soothing words broke through all the pain, and for a moment Arel was able to smile back at him.
Michael smiled too. “Nothing, no power in heaven or on earth will take me away from you as long as you want me with you,” he promised. “But you have to let me help. Don’t try to do it all yourself. It’s too much to do alone. You were never meant to do it alone.”
For a moment, Arel felt the darkness lift. A piece of the sun came through. Then he realized that the light was coming from Michael. He was looking at the angel’s face for the last time. “Thank you for staying with me to the end,” he said in short gasps. “Just like you told me.”
He could feel Michael trying his best to reach him on a deeper level. The angel was pounding on the walls of fear that separated them, but even more powerful was the feeling of Arel’s own spirit. It was trying to break away from the curse that had been his life, from the battered body that wanted to rest.
In a final gesture of caring, Michael pushed back a thick, dark lock of Arel’s hair and leaned closer. “Don’t give up,” he whispered as if he could see Arel’s soul ready to take flight. “Trust me.”
Arel blinked back a little of the darkness as it was closing in. “Friends?”
“Always, for all eternity.”
He tried to smile again, but the pain was too great. “I trust you,” he said with his last breath. Then his hand went limp again, falling away from Michael’s grasp.
“Find the truth,” Michael said as he once again held Arel’s frail body close to his own.
Sixty-Four
AS IT GREW in volume and intensity, the roaring in Arel’s ears blotted out everything else. It was the sound of his soul freeing itself. The roar became a great wind, blowing through his body and mind. Its power shook him at his roots. He tried to hold on, but it was no use. He lost his grip on life itself. After that he was at the wind’s mercy. It carried him away from all that he knew. It carried him away from Michael and the body that lay beside the angel. As it carried him, his awareness was laid bare, open to the winds of time. He was pulled into the currents of history.
When the wind had completed its task, he began to fall from a great height. He fell towards the scene spread out below. A silent scream of dread and terror filled him as he was returned to a terrible night he knew he shouldn’t remember. Fire and pain were waiting for him.
When he stopped falling, he became aware of a dual perception. He was a young man named Aelred who faced impending doom. He was also the soul who was revisiting a time that had changed everything.
* * * * *
The bleak village square was ablaze with torches and excitement. The night was cold, and Col was hungry. His stomach rarely had enough to keep it from twisting inside him, a constant reminder that he couldn’t provide for his family. The winter before, he’d lost his son to want and disease. He’d tried desperately to find food, but there had been a scourge on the land, and it was as barren and as empty as his stomach. But tonight he wasn’t only hungry for food. He was hungry for retribution. He held his torch high, and his usually dull eyes blazed as bright as the fire he held aloft.
Col knew that the woman tied at the stake was responsible for his miseries. “You killed my son, witch! And tonight we’re going to burn you for your sins!”
He ran back and forth around the pyre, between the condemned woman and her brother. He spat at them, feeling rage as he remembered all the times the young man and his sister had looked at him with eyes that were too brilliant, with eyes that pitied him, like they were better. But it was the brother and sister who were the different ones. The brother visited with the crazy, old man in the village. The sister gathered herbs and made potions that could be used to cast evil incantations.
But it was Col’s turn now. He held the torch close to the young man’s face, letting its heat singe his skin, causing the young man to cry out. Col laughed in triumph. “Cursed devil, you’re going to pay for your sins! You and your sister are going to burn!”
Aelred looked at him with blistered skin, breath heavy with pain. His pale, blue eyes were pleading with him. “Please no . . . .”
Aelred’s pleas made Col’s eyes burn brighter. He danced in front of the man who thought he was better. He waved his torch like a staff of victory. “You’re the devil! And we’re sending you back to hell!”
When the order was given, Col would be one of the first to light the kindling. He would set the fire joyously, with the zeal of the righteous. He would make sure to look at each of these evil ones, catch the terror in their eyes as the flames caught and the fires rose. When the smell of burning flesh and their screams filled his senses, he would feel some atonement for the son that had been taken from him.
* * * * *
Aelred’s body was bound to a stake. The ropes were tight, cutting into his flesh. His body was already racked with the pain of his tormenters beating him, flogging him with their whips until his blood ran free in the dirt around him. His handsome, young body, so full of promise was spoiled by their defilement. They had taken God’s perfect child and turned him into something broken and limp.
But they hadn’t wanted to only break Aelred’s body. Their purpose ran deeper. They wanted to break his mind. And they were good at what they did. As they applied their torturous instruments of pain to open his body, they knew that his mind would also open. They could drive their wills deep into his psyche. They could use their vicious assaults to batter at his steadfastness. They would inflict their sinister intentions on him when he couldn’t defend himself. They could tell him what they were doing to his sister, Elvina. But the best way they could break his mind, was to let him hear her screams. Aelred hardly recognized her screams. They were like those of a mutilated animal as she too was torn apart by her attackers.
Aelred had always been able to protect his sister from the blows of their harsh father, but bound and bloody, under the curse of his own captors, he was powerless. In his despair, he did the only thing he could. He confessed to them, admitted his guilt where there was no guilt. For he would go to any limits, betray any truth, to stop her agony. But they laughed at his meager bargaining.
“Tell it to God, when you stand in judgment,” they jeered at him as they continued to inflict the most grievous pain on his persecuted body.
After the men were finished with him, Aelred was dragged through the town square. Limp and helpless, he was tied to a knotty post that was surrounded by dried wood and bundles of sticks. He tried to hold on to consciousness. He tried to reclaim the faith that had been torn from him. He tried to believe that God was real, but all that he saw were the faces of those who wanted him dead.
These vessels of hate had already stoned his friend, Oswyn, before his eyes. His friend’s transgression was his desire to protect those he loved. As he raced towards Aelred and his sister, he was struck down by rock and stone. Now the crowd was thirsty for more pain. They banished their t
orches with the enthusiasm of executioners who took great pleasure in hurting those they deemed sinful.
Elvina, his younger sister, was only inches away from him now. But he couldn’t touch her. His hands were too tightly bound. When he tried to call out to her, the only sound she made was a pitiful whimpering interrupted by new cries of torment as the crowd punished her further.
Before the pain of the fire that would take them, before he heard his own screams, Aelred heard the breaking of his heart. His sweet, gentle sister, whose only crime was tending to the sick, would soon light up the night with her burning body. She was the latest victim of the murderers who called themselves men of the cloth. They had beat her, mutilated her body, and defiled her. Now they would kill her.
Aelred shut his eyes trying to close out the pain. He desperately fought to gather back the remnants of his mind. He could only find pieces of what he knew as himself. With his last bit of trust, he offered those tiny shreds of hope to God. He pleaded to the Creator, not for his life, but for the life of his sister. He begged that she might be spared.
His prayers were met by the roar of the crowd as they surged forward, eager to add their torches to the fuel of the pyre. When the darkness became bright with flame, and he was burning, Aelred knew that God had abandoned both of them.
* * * * *
Michael hadn’t been in human form in that life. But his angelic presence had tried to reach Aelred from the moment that he’d awoken that morning. The young man, preoccupied with all that he had to do, had been too busy to notice Michael’s repeated urgings. As he lived another life among those who’d lost their way to ignorance, Aelred too was being tainted with the lie of fear. Now, it was almost impossible for the angel to be heard.
If he had been able to converse with him, Michael would have tried to help Aelred understand the truth about what was to come. He was caught up in a drama of historical proportions. Mankind had slipped far from the love and joy that the Divine had intended. Now, there was a mass consciousness of fear and destruction. Life became a dark, frightening series of conflicts, people divided into opposing factions that grew more and more brutal as their beliefs became more and more unforgiving.
On this day, the nightmare swallowed up Aelred. While he worked in the fields, his sister was arrested, tortured, and asked who her conspirators were. In a moment of agony, she called out to her comforter, the one who always helped her. She called out her brother’s name.
Later that day, they found Aelred toiling in the fields, but they didn’t have to drag him in. When Aelred found out that Elvina had been arrested, he screamed and kept screaming. His pain wanted to pierce Michael’s heart with its pitiful intensity. The ones who captured him could hardly hold him back. All that he could think about was saving his sister. But they beat him until he couldn’t fight back any more. The gruesome details that followed were unspeakable.
When Michael saw Aelred tied to a stake, when he heard the man’s prayers, he tried to intervene. He tried to draw off the fear so that Aelred’s soul could slip easily from his body and be returned safely to its true home in the Divine’s embrace. At the same time, he saw Elvina’s angel trying to reach her.
Multitudes of angels, legions of holy helpers, were gathered at the scene. All were trying their best to get through to the mass of humans that were taking part in the horrendous drama. But the wall of bitterness and rage and hatred was thick and heavy, forming a barrier that no angel could cross. They were messengers of the Divine and powerful, but the humans were using their free will in a way that thwarted all their efforts. People were mired deep in beliefs that had no room for miracles.
Normally, Aelred had been able to see beyond the emotions that ruled the masses, but now, even he was falling into a pit of darkness. He was exchanging the truth for the lie that anger and hatred were more powerful than Divine love and compassion.
* * * * *
As the flames consumed his body, as Aelred screamed in agony, he lost all hope. But something he’d never known took its place. He felt a great, violent fury take hold. He felt rage. It was fed by his sister’s screams and the hideous faces of the mob that burned them.
Rage consumed him. It destroyed his identity as surely as the fire destroyed his flesh. Finally, it released his soul from that which bound him to the earth.
When his spirit flew up into the darkness, it was burning. Nothing was allowed to touch it. It fled from men who hated it, from a god that was powerless to protect that which he loved. The rage was so great that it blocked out the stars and the heavens. It kept burning in him until there was nothing left. The rage that consumed him left nothing but smoldering hatred. Hate existed where once there had been a man. Where once there was a soul of God, radiant and unlimited, now there was a soul of man. For the men had been good at what they did.
And when the earth called him back to his next life, and the next, as he went from one body to the next, he found no joy in life. He simply knew failure. He didn’t know how to fight the ignorance and the darkness that swarmed over the earth. Eventually, he claimed the failure as his own. He turned all the hate on himself. His hate was so great that it blinded him to everything but his pain.
But God had not abandoned His beloved child. God had called the man’s soul from the flames, called His Beloved back to him. For God knew that humanity’s ignorance and fear cannot destroy the soul that knows itself, knows that it is God’s child. But Aelred’s soul had forgotten who it was. It flew past God’s outstretched hand, distancing itself from the pain and the flames, distancing itself from the ignorance of what called itself human.
Lifetime after lifetime, it existed in the darkness, eluding Michael, the great angel who tried so hard to bring it home. The soul saw only itself, alone and isolated from creation. Its only comfort was its freedom. It never wanted to be tied to a stake again. It never wanted to be at another’s mercy again.
* * * * *
Time shifted once more. Arel knew himself as a formless soul, suspended in an in-between world. He had seen the fullness of what had driven him from the love that he craved. Now there was a great pause, a space where nothing seemed to exist. Yet, in that endless expanse, a sound called out to him. An exquisite note in the song of creation rose up from below. It was so sweet, so filled with love that he was unable to resist its invitation. He had to investigate. As soon as he entertained the thought, he was transported back to the church garden, to the place where he left his body. He soared high above the place, like a wild bird. He was torn between the freedom he valued above all else and an alluring sound that called to him. Several times he started to fly out of the world. Then, as he began to penetrate the heavens, the sound would reach out from below and draw him downward.
Like a bird, his soul circled the garden, letting itself come closer with each pass until it saw a man, still and lifeless, laying on the ground. Next to the man, an angel was kneeling. The soul recognized this beautiful expression of love. It was Michael.
Still, Arel’s soul had been wild and untamed for so long. Dare it come closer? The question was quickly joined by words that had been uttered earlier in the garden when Arel had been dying.
“I trust you,” he’d said to Michael.
As it pondered those words and the sincerity behind them, the soul was surprised. It hadn’t expected the hand of the Creator to be so quick. The Almighty’s grasp, lightening fast and so careful, caught the flighty spirit and held it carefully to His breast, close to the infinite expanse of pure joy.
In that moment, nothing existed but the bliss of homecoming. In a pause outside of time and space, golden currents of comfort and calm filled the fluttering pulse of the soul. Gentle stillness settled over it, and it knew eternity.
Let me stay here forever. Let me be a part of Your Heart for eternity.
Perhaps an eternity elapsed after that, or perhaps, only a few moments passed. In either case, when time started up again, so did the sound that called from below. It was a song that fill
ed the soul with a new longing. The beautiful melody carried the call of creation. It was at the core of every rock, plant and animal. It was the sound of the birds as they sang, of the brooks as they carried their waters with joy. It was the sound that stars made when their laughter splashed down from the heavens, blessing the earth below.
Arel’s soul realized that it knew the song very well. It realized that the song was the energy from which its own lifetimes had sprung. It was the song that called him to the earth again, to descend once more into matter.
Sixty-Five
AREL'S BODY LAY dead, but someone was giving it a gift of life. Breath entered his lungs as gently as the sun’s light dawning. It made him aware of his need. He wanted more of the precious thing called oxygen. His lungs wanted to expand again.
Arel inhaled deeply and was rewarded with the exquisite bouquet of roses. The delicate scent made him want to take another breath and another. As he did, he heard the breeze blowing through the trees. He heard a voice calling.
“Arel, wake up.”
He didn’t know how to open his eyes, but they had a mind of their own. Like inquisitive children, they wanted to peek at the world, to know where the sound was coming from. His heavy eyelids gave them their wish. They lifted, like tiny stage curtains, letting his two golden orbs feast on the face of an angel.
Arel had never seen Michael smile so broadly. But he only caught a glimpse of his happiness, for the angel was gathering him up at once. Putting a hand under Arel’s body, cradling his head with the other hand, he raised his limp form against himself. His head lay beneath Michael’s chin and his body was held tight against his breast.
As he rested in Michael’s embrace, he knew only joy. He took breath after breath and felt a tremendous heat radiating from the angel. Its energy flowed into his body, filling every cell with a comforting sense of wellness. He went from cold and stiff to warm and feeling.
