The Harvest

by John David Krygelski

“Good afternoon, my name is….”

  “Doctor Reese Johnson, I know. Delighted to meet you, sir.”

  The stranger’s voice reminded Reese of a time he had nearly forgotten. As a small boy, he had devoted himself to the Catholic Church, even becoming an altar boy. His favorite time was during the mass when he was not taking part in the service. He would climb into the loft and sit on the floor with his back against the wall separating the organ pipes from the choir chamber. When the organist would play the lower octaves, the mahogany wall would resonate and the vibration would send shivers up his spine. Reese was glad he was wearing a suit jacket because he could feel his arms break out in gooseflesh.

  “I am delighted as well, sir. Your name?”

  “Elohim.”

  “A beautiful name. Are you Jewish?”

  “Pardon my curiosity, but why do you ask?”

  “I believe that Elohim has a Hebrew origin.”

  “Dr. Johnson, I enjoy a spirited conversation as much as, well…very much. But, please, sir, do not pretend to know not that which you possess. To answer your question, in a manner of speaking, yes, I am a Jew.”

  Reese had learned well that a primary mistake with the charismatic was to resist them. It was the act of and the process of resisting which gave them power over you. He gazed directly into the blue eyes of Elohim, allowing himself to be sucked into a vortex of emotions, all pleasant, all comforting. Time passed. Perhaps seconds, minutes, or even hours slipped past. The experience was not an emotional or intellectual surrender; Reese was conscious and thinking the entire time. He did not feel trapped. Instead, it was like comfortably resting on a large down pillow while not being particularly tired. He felt able to remove himself at any time, at his own whim.

  Doing so, he returned to the present moment. “I understand that you have told these people you are God?”

  “Not precisely, Dr. Johnson. I have told them that I am the Creator.”

  “The Creator?”

  “Yes.”

  “The creator of…?”

  “The universe, as they know it.”

  “As they know it? That sounds like a hedge.”

  Elohim chuckled, a deep-throated chuckle. “You are listening, aren’t you? Yes, it is a hedge. I promise you I will always tell you the truth. Sometimes, when speaking truthfully, one reaches a fork in the road. The first path is a hedge. The other is a digression which would take far too long and possibly not be understood. I assure you I will return to the topic of the universe ‘as they know it’ in a conversation with you in the near future.”

  “I understand, Elohim. But let me ask you this. My universe includes Earth, our solar system, our galaxy, and all of the stars and galaxies mankind has ever viewed. Is that the universe you have created?”

  Elohim paused a moment. During that moment Reese noticed his blue eyes dulled, only slightly, immediately brightening again. “Yes. That is the universe I have created.”

  “And you created mankind?”

  “Yes.”

  “And all of the plants and animals and bacteria which live upon the Earth?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you do this all at once?”

  “By ‘all at once,’ you mean…?”

  “Did you wave your hand and say ‘abracadabra’ and it all sprang into existence?”

  “Oh, no. It took some time.”

  “How much time?”

  “Six days. My friend, you already know that.”

  Reese felt he was a ball of yarn, being batted about by a playful kitten. As Reese focused on his own thoughts and struggled to retain some level of concentration, Elohim smiled. “My dear Dr. Johnson, you are uncomfortable.”

  “I’m not sure uncomfortable is the right word.”

  “Of course it is not. The right word would be frustrated.” He paused for a response and received none. Reese, unsure of what to say, said nothing.

  “You have spent most of your lifetime cutting to the quick, boring through the extraneous, and disregarding the distractions to which most others fall victim. Your mind is quite adept at separating the wheat from the chaff. You are frustrated because, at each time you have needed to do this, the path has been clear and well lit within your mind. You are mostly a stranger to unsureness and doubt. For some reason, today, at this moment, in this room, the path within your mind is not clear.” The old man stared at Reese, not looking for confirmation as he obviously had no doubt he was correct, but gazing with a deep compassion. If this was a game to him, Reese thought, he did not appear to be enjoying it.

  “Let me make a suggestion. Do what you always do. Trust in yourself. Just ask the question which is within you.”

  “Yes, Obi-Wan.”

  Immediately Elohim’s face rearranged from concern and compassion to surprise and delight. As he leaned back, a full-throated laughter erupted, filling the room. Reese did not join in the laughter, waiting until it subsided. When it did, he asked, “How can you laugh?”

  Leaning forward, Elohim said, “It is a mechanism shared by all, but that isn’t what you mean, is it?”

  “No. To find something amusing, one must be surprised, one must not see it coming. That is hardly a trait of our Creator.”

  “No. That is hardly a trait of your God. That is why when you asked if I had represented myself as God, I said I had not. Mankind’s definition of God has become…inaccurate. I truly love you and wish to be close to you. There cannot be a close, reciprocated relationship without surprise. Could you have a loving relationship with your wife if you knew her every thought? If you knew what she was to do before she did? If there could be no spontaneity? If she could never make you laugh?”

  Elohim paused, making a decision. “Reese, you are a parent. Although you believe in unconditional love, you also judge your children, sometimes consciously, occasionally unconsciously. As their parent, along with your wife, you contributed all of the genes which made them who they are. You have taught them and influenced them in countless ways. And yet you judge them. If who they are and what they become is predetermined by you, how can they be judged?”

  “So you judge us?”

  “Of course.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “What purpose does a parent have for judging children? Is it to decide how much love to dispense? Of course not. Is it to decide how much to leave them in your will? Possibly, for some parents. No, a father’s and a mother’s reason for judging is to decide trust and readiness. You judge your children before you trust them with their first bicycle, BB gun, or automobile. Not to do so would be irresponsible. A good parent would not automatically hand the keys over to a son or daughter just because it was his or her sixteenth birthday. A good parent would have to be convinced the child was ready. You need to judge children before you can decide to trust their word.

  “When children are ready to leave the nest, the parent no longer has control over whether they go, or what they do once gone. However, it doesn’t stop you from continuing to decide if they were ready. Why? It is that judgment which tells you, as they spread their wings, whether you can sit back and enjoy their flight, taking satisfaction in the individuals they have become, or if you need to remain vigilant, running beneath them with your arms outstretched so you may catch them when they fall.

  “It is natural to judge…for me…for you…for everyone. There is another reason, as well. If people are not judged, if there is no standard against which they are measured, they, to put it mildly, do not do well. Left to their own devices, so to speak, they measure all their choices against the only yardstick available.”

  “Themselves.”

  “Exactly. And you, Dr. Johnson, more than most, already understand this. It has been one of the primary tenets of your philosophy, which was why I was so pleased when it was you chosen for this…meeting.”

  “Have you studied my work?”

  “Oh, yes. Quite thoroughly.” Elohim paused for a moment and then added wryly, “As you have studied mi
ne.”

  It was Reese’s turn to laugh. After a moment, he asked, “So you have lived among us?”

  “I promised I would only speak the truth and not mislead you. There is no perfectly candid way to answer that question without explaining some things for which you are not yet ready. So, please allow me to be vague and only say that I have always been here, in a sense.”

  Turning in his chair and facing the wall, Reese collected his thoughts for a moment. There were so many directions to take this interview that he was briefly bewildered. Elohim was right earlier. Doubt was rarely an impediment for him. Reese had always trusted his gut, and not only the next step to take but the many which needed to follow were always obvious. This interview was different. It was not that Elohim had convinced him he was God, or rather the Creator, but it was that Reese was beginning to hope that he would.

  “Elohim, you appear to know several details of my life. If all the things we do and say and think are not preordained, then how do you know so much about each of us?”

  “That is simple, my friend. From the moment the word is spoken, the deed is done, or the idea is thought, it is, metaphorically at least, written.”

  “The Akashic Records?”

  “There are scholars here who have given the concept that name. For the purpose of this conversation, it will suffice.”

  Reese, again, paused. He continued to be unsure as to which direction to take. As Reese thought, Elohim waited patiently.

  At last, Reese asked, “Can you perform miracles?”

  “I suppose I was waiting for that question. Please do not take this pejoratively, but it is the intelligent and the intuitive who believe they can deduce an answer with their intellect; whereas, the grayest sheep in the flock, when the shepherd proclaims he can fly, will simply ask the shepherd to show him. Yes, Dr. Johnson, I can perform miracles.”

  Smiling, Reese responded, “I don’t have a problem being the grayest sheep. I’m also not sure whether it would be the intellectuals or the sheep that would be cast in the negative by your story. However, I didn’t ask to see a miracle; I was simply trying to ascertain whether you believed you could perform them.”

  “Well…would you like to see, Dr. Johnson?”

  “Yes. I suppose I would.”

  “A miracle of your choosing or mine?”

  “Please, Elohim, you decide.”

  “You believe my choice will be somehow revealing?”

  “I am certain my choice would not be.”

  Once again chuckling lightly, Elohim thought for a moment. “Dr. Johnson, if you would be so kind, there is a book I need on that table. Would you mind…?”

  “Of course not.” Reese rose from his chair, turning to the corner where Elohim had gestured. There was a plain end table with a single book. He walked to the table and picked up the book. As he returned to his chair, Reese noticed the author’s name was his own. As his eyes moved up the front cover to the title, he froze in mid-step.

  “Look familiar, Dr. Johnson?”

  “This…this is a book I wrote fifteen years ago. It was to be my first.”

  “What happened?”

  “By the time I finished it, rewrote it and rewrote it again, I hated it. It had consumed my life, taking away hundreds of hours which I could have spent with my wife and children, making me ill-tempered and miserable to be around. And after all of that, I decided it wasn’t particularly good. One night, before I ever sent it to a publisher, I got drunk. I don’t even remember what happened. When I awoke the next morning, the manuscript was torn to shreds, the file had been deleted from my hard drive, and then defrag had been run so I would be certain not to retrieve it.”

  “Please, look inside.”

  Reese opened the exquisite gold-leaf cover and skipped to the first chapter. Reading silently, he began to weep. He skipped from the beginning to several parts throughout the book, confirming the authenticity of each passage with a gasp of surprise. Eventually he closed the book and slowly placed it on the table between them. Cradling his face in his hands, Reese was silent for several minutes. Finally, Elohim reached over and placed his hand on Reese’s shoulder. Instantly, Reese relaxed. The calmness was immediately followed by a wave of joy, of euphoria which filled his being.

  “I…I never forgave myself for destroying that book. It was so self-centered. Claire had given so much of herself so I would and could write it. I spent so many hours writing while she took care of the children, took care of the house, went to bed alone, all so I could finish it. And I tore it up! Why? Because I didn’t like it. To this day she swears she was never angry at me for what I did.”

  “That makes it worse. Doesn’t it?”

  “Of course it makes it worse. I would have preferred that she tried to scratch my eyes out.”

  “I know.”

  Reese picked up the book again, turning it over slowly in his hands. “How is this possible?”

  Elohim smiled gently. “I believe that is why they are called miracles.”

  “May I keep this?”

  “Of course. It is my gift to you.”

  Taking several deep, slow breaths, Reese said, “I believe I could use a break. Do you mind?”

  “Not at all. I was going to suggest it. Take your time…I have plenty to spare.”

  “Thank you.”

  Reese stood and shuffled slowly to the door, clutching the book. As he opened the door, Elohim said, “Dr. Johnson?”

  “Please call me Reese.”

  “Thank you, Reese, for that courtesy. There was one other thing. I know that as you review this discussion in your mind, you are going to feel I made a major error in something I said earlier. I wanted you to know I did not make an error. It is you who are mistaken.”

  “I’m sorry, Elohim. I don’t understand. Could you explain further?”

  “No, I’d rather not. You will understand soon.”

  As Reese turned to exit, he was facing the corner of the room from where he had retrieved his lost book. Freezing in place, he realized the table was no longer there.

  Chapter Four

  Lynn Sheffield held his sign higher as the television camera crew arrived at the front of Old Main. He and the group of thirty-five protesters were chanting “God bless everyone – no exceptions!” His sign read: “Don’t spend my tax dollars on religion” on one side and “Say NO! to Reese Johnson” on the other. Since his incident with Johnson and the FBI in the parking lot, Sheffield’s anger had been simmering to a boil. In his mind, the fact that Johnson was accompanied by government agents confirmed his worse fears. The administration, already having proclaimed that it was guided by God, was systematically tearing down the wall between church and state. The fanatic in the White House was clearly leading the country toward a theocracy.

  If the very presence of the government agents had not been enough, Johnson calling one of them “Nicholas” clinched it. He was, obviously, rubbing it in Lynn’s face that there was a close alliance.

  Sheffield had casually followed Reese Johnson’s career for years: from Johnson’s youth, when his face was plastered all over the media; through his several books, none of which Sheffield read; until his appointment at the U of A. It was not until his professorship at Harvard that he became a concern, and even then, not at first. He had, apparently, started his career at Harvard simply teaching philosophy, both ancient and modern, all straightforward textbook topics, nothing that Lynn Sheffield needed to be concerned about. It was not until last year that he created this religion course. Fortunately, he was still a year short of being tenured.

  The call went out through the Internet, and the enlightened answered, burying the administration with a barrage of e-mails and letters asking for Johnson’s dismissal. Sheffield and the like-minded did not stop there. They began a systematic campaign of contacting the frequent and substantial donors to Harvard. The donors who already agreed were asked to write or call Harvard and threaten to stop the flow of money. Those who were not in agreement we
re pressured. If they were in politics, they were threatened with an activist campaign against them. If they owned a business, they were threatened with a boycott. As it had so many times before, the tactic worked: the calls and letters arrived; the administration crumbled; and Johnson was dismissed.

  Sheffield had not traveled to Harvard to join in the fray. He had done his part from Tucson with letters and e-mails. When it was announced that Reese Johnson had been hired by the U of A, Sheffield found himself at ground zero. Through the blogs, Lynn offered his services. Soon enough, details began to arrive, as did the “volunteers.” In preparation for the arrival, Lynn lined up spare bedrooms among the homes of the sympathetic, but quickly found they were not needed. They checked in to Ventana Canyon, La Paloma, and some, to be close to the action, checked in to the University Radisson. Sheffield was amazed at the time that from faded denim purses or dog-eared synthetic leather wallets, platinum cards were pulled.