The Damascus Road

by Jay Parini

  With his odd and discomfiting thoughts, Musa jolted me out of the complacent ideas with which I had lived so comfortably for much of my life. He didn’t let me fall back on facile thinking or received wisdom. “That is not wisdom,” he would say. “Wisdom allows for the unexpected. It feeds on error, which it modifies into truth.” And so I began to read again as if for the first time the opening movements of the Torah, marveling at the work of God as delivered by Abraham our father.

  A long period of study, prayer, and meditation followed, and gradually I found my place in this community, which had welcomed me without reservation, asking no questions about my past, taking me for who I was.

  The Essenes worked and studied with an impressive stillness. Musa told them about my father’s trade, and I was glad to pass along my skills at tent-making: how to sew the seams in a way that would form a barrier against sun and rain, how to find the most durable materials, what tools worked well. We sat together in silence, studying in the pink-and-gray early hours of the day, and prayed together in the evenings. And we kept the Sabbath, a time for deep prayer and rejoicing.

  Musa and most of the others here had encountered Jesus, many of them personally, and they often would talk about their experience. This was useful, as I continued to try to understand and absorb what had happened to me on the Damascus Road. This was probably the work of my life, as I knew. What did Jesus want of me? Obedience? Was the Christ simply another god who needed my fealty? I put this last question to Musa.

  “Jesus doesn’t want or need your allegiance.”

  “So what does he need?”

  “The universe has no need. He is the Logos.”

  “Meaning?”

  “He directs us to an awareness that was here before and after everything. He is understanding itself.”

  “That is cryptic,” I said.

  “I don’t wish to confuse you.”

  I pondered what he had said. “I must pray to God?”

  “No,” he said. “You must learn to pray through God.”

  It would take time for these ideas to make sense, for them to settle into that depth below depths, where we no longer ask questions but sit beyond any need for understanding or logical thought. A thought, to become your own, must taste of acacia and fresh figs. It must have an aroma, the sharp smell of reality. It must sting like nettles.

  “We live in a thousand minds at once, in the Christ,” said Musa. “We unleash ourselves, let go. We are one body, not alone. Not ourselves.”

  After a day of labor, in my case working to repair canopies, I sat with Musa and the others around a fire, and we broke bread together, then passed a cup of wine, and the heavens opened inside us.

  “I give you this, the resurrection,” said Musa, intoning. “We rise together.”

  And everyone said, “We rise together.”

  I said it myself, over and over. And I would rise, with them, that day.

  Chapter Six

  PAUL

  Musa came to me one morning when I was reading the Psalms of David, basking in the straw-colored rays of the sun, sitting with my back sealed comfortably against a stone wall. He sank to his haunches, eye to eye with me—as he often did when he wished to instruct—and told me I must go.

  It was time for me to visit the synagogue in Petra, he said. This would become the starting point for a longer mission. “You will travel to the ends of the earth,” he told me.

  “So far?”

  He smiled. Once in a while I did manage a small joke, and he liked this and touched my shoulder.

  I looked into the dirt to think, pushing the sand to one side with a stick. My three years in the desert had been edifying, and I could hardly bear the idea of leaving this circle of friends, such lively and compassionate spirits. I had learned so much, and it was likely I could learn more if I stayed.

  “I don’t want to go,” I said. “I feel at home here. I can study and pray, as everyone does.”

  The thought of remaining permanently among the Essenes had consumed me in the past year, and I didn’t wish to live anywhere else. I had no desire to resume work in Tarsus with my father. Jerusalem was impossible, even dangerous, for me. And I didn’t know that traveling to the ends of the earth made sense for one of my disposition. I liked being in the same place, among congenial friends.

  Musa was unresponsive.

  “I have something to contribute, to you, to everyone here,” I said.

  He nodded, as if to confirm what I said.

  “We worship God together,” I added. “There is a lot of work to be done with the scrolls. I can help.”

  “You have already helped,” he said.

  My linguistic skills and long training under Gamaliel had served me well here, and I knew my way among hundreds of psalms now. My new friends hadn’t encountered the visions of Daniel, and I opened this material to them, quoting from memory: And those who have wisdom shall shine like the brightness of the heavens above, and those who turn many to righteousness shall glisten, taking their place among the stars. I could actually see the words in my mind. And so they often asked me to talk of Daniel, who had risen to the third heaven: ever the goal of deep prayer, although a further turn remained, which was to bring back into daily life the insights of any revelation.

  As ever, Musa read my thoughts.

  “God has something in mind for you. Petra is only the beginning of your journey,” he said. “You will find many guides in your life, and you will add to the store of inspired writing.” He read my mind closely. “Nothing is enough. Not for you. But that is your nature. To lie under open skies, to think, to move, to talk and persuade others about the truth—the full meaning—of the Christ. We are each given separate gifts, you see. Some will feed the poor and heal the sick, or sit beside them unto death. Others will teach. Others have the gift of prophecy.” He paused. “I see you as a prophet. Your time will come.”

  Did he really say that? It was unlike Musa to exaggerate.

  But I resisted this idea. I didn’t want such a lofty place in the universe. “I’m at home here. I can make a contribution.”

  He stared at me, squeezing his fingers in that peculiar way of his. “Move on, Paul. In Petra, you will find a group of pious Jews and Godfearers—and they will listen to what you have to say. The ground is fertile. Say what you say boldly, even when it comes out misshapen and provokes anger. Your true work begins in Petra, but it extends to the farthest regions. The power of your voice, it will carry you over many mountains, deserts, and plains. You will walk in valleys of the shadow and find yourself in bright and noisy cities. You will tell the world what you know. And some will listen.”

  I looked up with interest, knowing he told me something I must hear.

  “You will go to Rome one day. Even Spain, perhaps. I can’t say where. But you must go quickly to Petra. When the fruit has ripened, it withers if not plucked at once. Fill God’s basket!”

  Occasionally I teased Musa when he offered ponderous sayings, and sometimes I responded with a favorite old Syrian proverb that my father often repeated: “The dogs bark, the caravan moves on.”

  The caravan, it seemed, must move on.

  Now Musa gestured for me to come close, and I leaned forward to accept his direction, looking into the green-gold glistening stare, seeing his nostrils widen like a bull before the charge. “Mark carefully,” he said. “As you approach the city of Petra, you will see an overhanging red rock—it is blood-bright stone, unmistakable—with a thin spire like a crooked finger pointing at the sky. On the eastern side of the long and narrow entry. Wait there, and a voice will come. You will have further instructions. Don’t be impatient. You are always impatient!”

  “I don’t know why you say this.”

  “Don’t expect too much. Try not to want so much.”

  Easy to say, of course. I thought back to my first
days with Musa. He evidently found me insufferable, full of my own opinions, wishing to argue. He took me aside many times and said I must allow the well to fill, must not always drink so greedily. He asked me to find the silence in which the spirit prospers, to wait on God, who would find me at the appropriate time.

  I was sure that I grew stronger in the desert, richer in the spirit, able to accept the quiet of God as my foundation and the place to begin my real work. I had sought his face, as the scriptures commanded, but it blurred whenever I tried to examine his features. Even the voice eluded me.

  “Remember that he comes when least expected,” Musa said. “But he comes. Depend on this.”

  Musa had been my guide for more than three years, and I found it painful to leave him, possibly forever. It was hard to believe I would return, as a child can’t return to a school once he has finished his studies, at least never as a participant. Parting is life’s work. We are always leaving someone or something.

  This was the first truth, and I must embrace it.

  I must go.

  * * *

  This was a bad time to be a Jew in Arabia—or anywhere. All rulers owed allegiance to Rome, who looked for the slightest signs of insurrection.

  “It’s the Jew!” they would cry.

  It was always the Jew. Everywhere in every situation.

  Being of the resilient tribe of Benjamin, and a Pharisee by affiliation, I embraced my tradition and spoke first as a Jew, much as Rabbi Jesus had done. His trust in God became my trust, and I tried to emulate this devotion, allowing my dependence on him to grow, not wane.

  Musa took my hands in his. “In the Christ there is neither male nor female,” he said, “neither slave nor free man, neither Jew nor Greek.” He paused. “This is the teaching of Jesus, and you need only remember it and repeat it. Tell all the world! I believe you will do this.”

  Neither male nor female, neither slave nor free man, neither Jew nor Greek.

  This radical equality of every class and kind startled me. And I knew it would take a lifetime of prayer to assimilate this teaching properly, as it was deeply strange and far-reaching and profound.

  “Go, quickly,” Musa said. “Hesitation is a little death. If you don’t act, you will never act.”

  I didn’t even pause to say goodbye to the others, as the agony of separation would convulse me, upend my leave-taking. Musa would explain everything to them, and they would understand and accept his reasoning. And so, with a few belongings in my sack, I left this circle of friends, this holy community, my spiritual family.

  “Your time is upon you,” Musa said.

  With that, I set off into the sun, which burst over the lip of the desert, a bright red ball, departing with just a slight nod to Musa, who ignored me as he crouched by a tree and chewed his ganza, the sweet grass that had browned his teeth over the decades. “It is always arriving,” he said, more to himself than to me, the last words I ever heard from him.

  Certainly “it,” whatever that was, was arriving now.

  I pushed back tears. It felt impossible to leave my friends, to discontinue our conversations. But I would go where I must go, and learn by going.

  God’s path opened, as Musa predicted. A sense of well-being lifted me as I walked across the Valley of Bones stretching into the eastern desert, passing tent villages that had no name or fixed location. These nomadic people drifted with their animals as the grazing season shifted, at home nowhere and everywhere. They would roll their tents onto long poles, then carry them on the backs of donkeys or camels for days and weeks on end; a small village would manifest in the midst of a plain, near an oasis, in the leeside of a cliff.

  There was no need for a map, as I simply followed the ruts of caravans that had left decades-deep impressions in the dirt, with Petra a magical destination: this fabled pink fortress carved from sandstone. Nobody went through this part of the world without stopping there. I recalled that Aaron, the brother of Moses, lay buried nearby, and his tomb attracted votaries from as far away as Egypt and Spain. Petra itself was the hub of Nabataean authority—the earthly power I had escaped several years earlier, in flight from Damascus. Should they discover me, I would be arrested, tortured, and killed.

  Or perhaps they had forgotten me.

  I drew upon a small caravan of char-faced travelers with half a dozen camels and a donkey or two, but followed from a slight distance, not wishing to engage them, as they might be Bactrians or Turkmen, who could prove hostile. I assumed they were headed for Petra, since the red hills appearing on either side of the valley suggested that I was moving in the right direction. As I walked, I was buoyed up by God, with the Holy Spirit rising within me like a geyser.

  When the caravan paused to rest, I paused as well. I knew the rhythms of these travelers well and mimicked them.

  Once I fell asleep during one of their resting periods at an oasis—I kept off to one side, out of view in a nest of shrubs—and they pulled far ahead of me, out of sight. But I felt confident about the route to Petra, since the trail showed signs of centuries of travelers, with hoofprints, wheel ruts, dung droppings, and refuse that proved oddly reassuring.

  As I drew near, I tried to imagine this legendary city of the Nabataeans. Over the years I’d heard many travelers describe it: this massive narrow canyon of rose sandstone, sculpted by human hands, the walls of the canyon transformed into dwellings, temples, public spaces. It was a busy thoroughfare, too, because so many of the world’s roads converged here.

  I followed a path above the main route on the eastern side of the valley, as Musa had suggested. A goat bell tinkled in the distance, and I saw sheep on the hillside, these white grazing peaceful blurs. A shepherd boy looked up at me, then continued to move in the opposite direction. Soon I passed the carcass of what must have been a donkey, though the hawks had already had their way with it; even the eye sockets were empty. Only the ears remained, barely attached to the skull. The long dorsal spine had settled in the dirt, and a bit of gristle clung to the bones. The smell was musty, not putrid. Time purifies everything, and soon this poor creature would exist only as a layer of dust on rocky soil, an outline in chalk.

  As I surveyed the ruins of this beast, a voice sounded above me, with an edge of steel: “Paul, Paul. I am the son of the Lord your God.”

  When I looked up, the face of Jesus materialized, with distinct features: not a ring of light. Nothing hazy about this now. The face hovered, ablaze in its unique beauty, the features sharply etched and yet welcoming. I could almost reach up and touch the cheeks of my precious Lord had I dared.

  His eyes burned a hole in the sky.

  “Lord,” I said, kneeling in the dirt.

  The late-afternoon sun paused on the far west rim of the cliff on the other side of the valley. And I knew that dark would never overhang this day. It would shine and shine. Jesus had come before me, face-to-face.

  “There is a rock,” he said. “Do you see it?”

  It loomed, rising not more than thirty paces away, redder than the surrounding stone, nearly sanguine, with a golden spire that caught the sunlight and glittered.

  “I see it, Lord.”

  I could feel a warm pressure like an approving hand on my shoulder.

  “Pray in the shadow of the red rock. And you will know what to do before darkness falls.”

  I looked up again, but the face had disappeared. Only the blank sky now. Jesus had vanished as rapidly as he had appeared, leaving a gap in the air. I rubbed my eyes, staggering toward the overhang, and sat in its shadow with my legs braided in the position Musa had preferred for “deep prayer,” as he called it. In the yellow afternoon light, I welcomed this shade, the sense of enclosure.

  I was overwhelmed, having just seen the face of Jesus.

  One can’t look into the sun without going blind, much as one can’t look frontally at God. Such intensity of l
ight is overwhelming. And so the Almighty gave us the gift of his son, a deflecting shield upon which we might gaze without flinching. The human face of God, as Musa called him. And now I had seen that face myself, although I tried without luck to reconstruct the exact image.

  I recalled the words of Musa: “Jesus forms the image of the invisible spirit, and becomes in this the firstborn of creation. By God’s strength, all things came into being. God was before all things, and all things hold together in his being. Jesus calls us into this reality, which is before and after, the durable kingdom. Open yourself to these true things. Allow yourself to settle into his unseen hand, which will hold you and keep you strong. Then rest in God.”

  My skin blazed as I sat under the rock, feeling my skull opening to the sky, to the heavens. I shone, entering a world aflame with love, and blazed with my newfound freedom, released from what had been my life and now held by unseen hands.

  This was the fiery love of God.

  So I repeated those beautiful words delivered by Musa: In the Christ there is neither male nor female, neither slave nor free man, neither Jew nor Greek. The language would always draw me back to the source, refresh me, give me the courage to move forward to the next step, however perilous or beyond view.

  The boundaries of male and female were artificial. Perhaps essential for the perpetuation of humanity, and for incidental pleasures—that was all too imaginable. Lust had its purposes. But I could not see how any of this mattered, given that the final manifestation of the Kingdom of God loomed. Procreation must cease, as it was irrelevant. No child born today would see adulthood but, in the hope of the Christ, would live forever.

  All boundaries and antinomies—male and female, slave and free man, Jew and Greek—lost their meaning in the shimmer of God, as did so many other distinctions. Neither rich nor poor, neither jailor nor prisoner. Not heaven and not earth.