The 49th Mystic

by Ted Dekker

  My mind spun.

  “It is further written that all confessions of faith, all knowledge, and all belief are nothing without a love that holds no record of wrong. Furthermore, those who follow the way will be known for such love. Do you know those who hold no record of wrong, 49th?”4

  “No.” Then softly, “They would be like water walkers.”

  “And thus, the problem with Albinos. Though saved in the next life, they cling to judgment, holding records of wrong and thus subjecting themselves to what they believe threatens them. Without love that holds no record of wrong, they are as powerless as the Horde. Your journey is to find the vine of true love beyond judgment, then abide in it. In the end, this is the meaning of all five seals.”5

  A low hum of anxiety replaced my wonder. “You’re saying I should see no threat in Vlad? It’s impossible to hold no record of wrong. Even for a short time.”

  “And for that short time you will find yourself a victim of fear and conflict, professing your beliefs but compromised by grievance. Your beliefs are powerless to save you from worry and fear when you hold any record of wrong. True love holds no record of wrong. It’s the only way you can walk on water.”

  His words frustrated me because he was talking in esoteric terms, nothing concrete that I could wrap my brain around.

  “It still doesn’t make sense to me. You’re saying no one knows how to love?”

  He turned his head and drilled me with a penetrating stare. “Origin,” he said with absolute authority, “is Infinite.”

  I stopped my horse, taken aback. “My Father does.”

  “Elyon,” he said, voice now soft. “Does he not love you with the same love he asks you to love others with? If he were to hold a record of wrong for even one billionth of a second, then for that billionth of a second he would be compromised. A victim threatened by what is finite. Do you think so little of him?”

  He might have hit me with a sledgehammer and I would have felt less of an impact, not because of the truth of his statement, but because I felt small for having so recently felt that overwhelming love in Eden only to have already argued against it.

  “You must simply learn to see what he sees. To see with the eyes of love. To see with the eyes of Justin. This we call faith in Justin, the evidencing or manifestation of things unseen by the old mind. In this you can move mountains. In this you are a water walker.”

  I let his words settle, imagining a world in which no one held records of wrong. There would be no arguments, no division, no hard feelings of any kind. It would be . . . heaven on earth. A true garden of Eden.

  “What about the law?” I asked. “Like in the Scriptures. It holds record of wrong, right?”

  “The law is an old wineskin,” he said. “Weak and useless—fear based. A decent teacher at first, but that harsh schoolmaster can only lead you to true love by its failure to save you from fear. The more you try to follow the law, the more it fails. Indeed, the fulfillment of that old law is the new law called grace. Grace is found only in faith that surrenders to a love that holds no record of wrong. So we never condemn this world of polarity and law. We honor it for the lessons it brings us as we move beyond it.”6

  With that one statement, a dozen confusing teachings from Eden shifted and came into focus. I was clearly mastered by the law, which caused all of my fear.

  “Any assessment of what’s been written that doesn’t lead to true love is simply a misunderstanding,” he said. “Powerless.”

  “Because it takes you back into law,” I whispered. “And so you sink.”

  He nodded and we started the horses forward again.

  “No need to condemn yourself, daughter. Your Father doesn’t accuse you. Your faith in the law is your accuser, as written.”7

  My Father didn’t accuse me, and this had been written? “Written where?”

  Talya turned his horse to face me and looked me in the eye. “My dear, everything I say has been written in the ancient texts, with which you are quite familiar. You mentioned the Scriptures yourself. Everything I teach you is from the teachings of Yeshua, Johnin, and Paulus.”

  Simon had never taught them like this.

  He took a deep breath and his horse resumed its walk.

  “The love that frees you from fear begins with knowing Origin is Infinite, not subject to fear. Few Albinos truly know Elyon as infinite, beyond threat, much less who they are as the sons and daughters of Elyon. They look only to the life to come, while blind in this one.”

  “Seeing, they do not see,” I said. “Those were Justin’s words.”

  He nodded once. “He too came with a sword to divide the old mind from the new. Grace and truth always cause havoc in the face of the laws of polarity.”8

  I recalled the rest of Justin’s words. I would bring crisis . . . But I didn’t want to be someone who caused conflict. Nor did I feel remotely qualified to lead anyone anywhere. I couldn’t even lead myself. If they expected me to hold no record of wrong . . . Maybe God could do that, but me?

  My familiar friend anxiety drummed softly in the back of my mind.

  “Know that there’s only one way to find true peace in this life. It is this forgotten way that Justin invites you into.”

  I remained silent as I considered his words. The five seals were that forgotten way. I wasn’t sure I wanted to pursue it.

  “Who am I?” I asked. “My mother and father. The Mystics.”

  He looked up at a blue jay fluttering between branches above us. “There have been many Mystics, but most have been killed. You’ll meet those who still live in this world soon enough. Elyonite authorities found your mother and father guilty of heresy and banished them to the wastelands when you were three years old. When you were found by our tribe, both had passed. The Mystics raised you as their own. You were taken captive and traded to the Horde. Ba’al, servant of Teeleh, poisoned your mind and erased your memory as part of his customary practice.”

  “You told Samuel that my name isn’t Rachelle.”

  “Because it isn’t and it is. A person’s true name is their identity beyond their earthen vessel. The earthen vessel is only a mask they wear, though they believe it to be their identity. As you know who you truly are, you’ll see that your name, your true identity, is Inchristi. Daughter of Elyon. The label of your earthen vessel is Rachelle. On occasion I will call you by that label, but it’s not who you are.”

  “So my real name is Inchristi? Like Christy? But my earthen vessel is called Rachelle. This isn’t clear to me at all. Why not just call me Christy if that’s my name?”

  “Inchristi,” he corrected. “This will become clear as well.”

  “What if it doesn’t? You said many Mystics have been killed. What if I am?”

  “Then there will be another 49th.” He looked at me and winked. “But I rather like this 49th. She is full of fear, just like the rest of the world. And yet doing so well. To this end, I serve you for a while before I leave you.”

  “What do you mean leave me? You just found me.”

  “It will take us five more days to reach the Great Divide. Time enough for you to begin seeing with new eyes.”

  It was all too much, too quickly, like trying to drink from a fire hose.

  “We plunge into rivers of living water, my dear, not a little drinking fountain.”

  We’d come to the edge of the forest and faced another desert that butted up against the low mountain range I’d seen earlier. Talya’s lion, Judah, rested on a low hill, watching us with lazy eyes. I assumed if there was any trouble nearby, he would be the first to warn us.

  “I presume Jacob stopped in the city for fresh horses and is already tracking us, so we travel with haste while we can. We train as we ride.” Talya faced the desert. “For the next six hours, you will follow close behind me in silence and observe. Your faith is currently in this world, as we both saw back at the lake. Now see with new eyes beyond the laws that limit you. To this end, I give you an ancient promise.”
r />   He whistled and Judah rose, trotting east.

  “What promise?”

  “Patience, 49th.” He studied the wasteland before us. “It is said that in this desert, yellow flowers bloom every spring. The Roush harvest them to feed their young. Look now, do you see that harvest?”

  I saw only light brown sand and rock with a few tufts of grass and the occasional small shrub. “No.”

  “The promise I offer you is found in one of the most powerful teachings in all of history. In summary: ‘You say four months until the harvest, but I say’”—he lifted a finger, tapped his temple, and swept his hand across the desert vista—“‘Lift your eyes—change your perception—and in that perception you will see a realm beyond time in which the harvest is already ripe, now, not in four months.’ He called this realm the kingdom of heaven. Also called eternal life. It’s the experience of life not bound by the laws of time and fear, up and down, cause and effect. It is now, not in some future, as many suppose.”9

  He turned bright eyes to me. “Do you know who taught this?”

  I shook my head.

  “Yeshua—Jesus—who taught obsessively about perception. It was he who also taught that the eye, perception, determines our bodily experience in this life. With clear perception, you see only light, unbound from the polarity of light and darkness. But if your perception isn’t clear, you will see darkness. Fear. So remove the plank of judgment that blinds you. Pluck out your eye if you must. It’s better to be physically blind and perceive the kingdom beyond polarity than to have two eyes and be in darkness.”10

  Oh be careful little eyes what you see . . . The song from Sunday school. I swallowed.

  “An unfortunate distortion,” he said. “Yeshua’s teachings on perception are a staggering invitation to see beauty instead of darkness. A shift in cognitive perception. Water walking. Metanoia, remember? Say it for me.”

  “Metanoia,” I said.

  “Good. There are two worlds to see in this plane of existence. In any given moment you place your faith in one or the other and are bound to it. Step beyond the polarity of time and space, and see what cannot be seen with earthly eyes. Practice. Six hours, not a word.”

  He glanced at the trees behind us, patted the rump of his stallion, and took it into the desert.

  Leaves rustled, and I watched as Gabil glided down through the canopy. He landed on the back of Talya’s horse, hopped around, and faced me.

  “That goes for you as well, Gabil,” Talya said as the Roush found his grip on the blanket behind the saddle. “Not a word.”

  Gabil grinned at me like a child who’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Hello, daughter of Elyon.”

  “Gabil . . .” Talya warned. Then to me: “Forgive my new friend. It’s been a long time since any Albino has seen him. He’s quite excited about it all.”

  Gabil made a little salute with his wing and contented himself with clinging rather precariously to the mount while keeping his big green eyes fixed on me. I found it hard to tear my stare away from his perpetual smile.

  But this wasn’t the sight Talya wanted me to focus on. I had learned how to see without using my eyes, right? Having lived blind had its advantages.

  What if we were all born blind and didn’t know it?

  I nudged my mount and followed ten or fifteen paces behind Talya, and I tried to practice what Talya called metanoia.

  I TRIED. For two hours I tried to see another world by changing my perspective through the shift of the mind Talya called metanoia. Problem was, I didn’t really know how to “lift my eyes” and see that the harvest was already ripe. What was I supposed to do? Stare at the sand until my vision blurred? Close my eyes? Focus my thoughts on what was behind an object? In an object? The essence of the object?

  Polarity was the world of space and time governed by laws of physics, and quantum physics had proven over and over that there was an accessible reality beyond space and time—the realm of the miraculous, beyond the law that most humans clung to. In the same way, polarity was also the realm of liking and not liking, threat and no threat, anger and judgment. Love, on the other hand, held no record of wrong.

  That was fine for God, who created all that was, and for Talya, who was clearly far greater than me. But I was trapped in polarity.

  This got me thinking about the Eden in my dreams of ancient Earth, where I was sleeping at this very moment while my father and Miranda were pacing and fretting over what might come next. I had to figure that out as well.

  Gabil calmed my nerves somewhat. His adorable stare was terribly distracting. And when he jumped off Talya’s stallion and landed on the head of my mare, thoughts of anything but him were virtually impossible.

  The horse couldn’t feel or see him, naturally. But I could and I did, touching his wing and then his head. Talya made no attempt to discourage him. I began to wonder if he was part of the test. He touched my hand with spindly fingers, then jumped behind me and rode with his wings wrapped around my belly.

  It had to be part of Talya’s lesson, so I forced myself to focus once more on my surroundings.

  For two more hours I tried. Then for two more, before finally concluding that changing the perception of the brain could not be done using the brain itself. Hadn’t my father taught me that? What was it Einstein had once said? A problem cannot be solved on the same level of consciousness that created it, or something similar.

  If metanoia constituted a change in perception, then I needed more than a change in my brain’s thinking pattern. I needed a whole new operating system. Clearly, I wasn’t understanding his teaching because I was using a mind wired with old programming, and that frustrated me. Maybe that was his intention—to frustrate my old patterns of logic so I would let go of them.

  These were my thoughts when Talya finally stopped us to make camp on a high stone ledge that overlooked the vast desert we’d been crossing. The sun was on the western horizon, shifting from a blazing white ball to a fiery orange sphere.

  “I’m begging your pardon, but I must be leaving now,” Gabil said, jumping back on the horse’s head to face me. He gave me a respectful bow. “It has been my greatest pleasure to ride with you, daughter of Elyon.”

  I resisted the urge to give the furry Roush a hug. “The pleasure was mine. Once I got past the distraction, that is.”

  “I distracted you?”

  “Well, you are far too cute.”

  “Cuteness! And you are beautiful. But I have to fly back to my side of the woods now or Michal might scold me.” He sprang from the mount, spread his wings, swooped low to catch some speed, and soared into the dusky sky.

  “What did you see?” Talya asked as I watched Gabil quickly gain altitude, headed west.

  I faced him. “I saw that seeing the way you want me to see will require a whole new operating system.”

  He gave no sign that he didn’t understand what an operating system was. For all I knew, he did. The Utah of my dreams existed two thousand years ago, and everything that had happened there would have been recorded in the Books of History.

  “So then,” he said, “you saw only polarity.”

  “I guess so.”

  “And your failure to understand frustrates you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  “Good?”

  “An excellent first step, especially for those who depend on their own logic.”

  Talya dropped to the ground and quickly untied the straps on one of his saddlebags. His comment frustrated me even more. Didn’t we all depend on our own logic?

  “Why can’t you just tell me what I need to know in terms I can understand?”

  “Patience, 49th. Can a student write before they know the alphabet? In time you will understand.”

  “You speak in half riddles. Why can’t you just tell me how to find the seals?”

  “Half riddles?” he said, brow raised. “You mean like the half riddles Yeshua used to hide his meaning from those who didn’
t have ears to hear?”11

  Parables. And it was true, they were like riddles, hard to understand.

  “When the student is ready, the teaching appears,” he said, turning back to his mount. “Seek and you will find. The treasure is hidden for you to seek, not for me to give you. Only in that quest will you finally relinquish all that you think defines you to possess the staggering power of that which does define you, as Yeshua taught.”12

  He withdrew a bundle from the saddlebag. “Now if you’ll excuse me for a moment, I would enter ceremony. If you don’t mind, find us a few sticks of wood to burn.”

  I watched as Talya hurried to the edge of the ledge, flapped open a thick wool blanket, swept his robe back, and sat cross-legged. A few shrubs scattered about provided all the wood we would need, and I ambled about, gathering dried-out branches. But my eyes kept shifting to Talya.

  He gingerly unwrapped the bundle and withdrew what appeared to be one of several old books, which he laid on the ground before him. His back was to me so I couldn’t see the book, but I was sure it was a Book of History.

  Pulse spiking, I dropped the wood and started toward him. But I’d taken only two steps before he lifted his hand to stop me. This without looking back at me, as if he had eyes in the back of his head.

  I hesitated, then collected the wood I’d spilled, all the while watching him. Judah sauntered back to our camp, took up a position close to me, yawned wide, and watched his master with me.

  Talya began to sway gently as he read aloud from the book spread out before him. I could barely hear his mumbling, only enough to know he wasn’t speaking English.

  After ten minutes he lifted his arms to the desert now cast in an orange sunset and cried out in a deep voice that seemed to shake the very air I was breathing.

  “Inchristi is all; Inchristi is in all.” Then again, louder. “Inchristi is all; Inchristi is in all! This . . . is the forgotten way!”