1799

That was purely my doing", says Jesus. "Until then, until when you first met me, you were completely under the thrall of the dark lord, and then I intervened, knowing that in time you would be coming over to me. Even as a newborn baby, I saw you and looked on you with eyes of love, and even then, the first spark of response I could read in your eyes. I myself could not recall this until after I had risen from the dead and ascended to be with My Father, since living the mortal life, I had to accept the complete dulling of my senses and facutlies. But this time you were held in a secure and safe place for almost two thousand years. Then, it was I who awakened you, knowing full well that the dark lord in all his arrogant stupidity would never have guessed that I had just tricked him and already robbed you, his prey, from his very jaws...

1798

"And then shortly after", says Jesus. "Everythihg else happened. " "everything else." "And then I fell asleep. This time, and as far as I can remember, and I am not lying, until the early twentieth century when I woke on that beach in Sweden and already had those distinct instructions concerning the mother of Isabella and Sven. Jesus, my Lord, tell me, please..." "Explain to you why you fell asleep for so long..." "If it please my Lord, yes."

1797

The racketeer of humans became quite taken by me and decided to keep me for himself. He did not want me for sex but for various duties in his villa, so I cleaned, cooked, cared for animals and stayed there for a good twenty-five years. Of course, I remained young looking till the very end, and to their great consternation. He was warned by a wise woman that I was accursed and that my presence would bring upon his household death and misfortune. He did not want to kill me because he was fond of me and in his way had come to love me, so he put me up for sale again, and this time I fell into the hands, and bed, of Levi the Pharisee...

1796

"You were such a beautiful baby. I was drawn by your beauty. You were so delicate, yet so robust, so perfect and radiant and calm and serene. I could have eaten you up on the spot." "Because you did not yet love. You felt greed and hunger, just like your father, the prince of darkness who conflates love with lust, longing, greed and devouring." "I wandered away from the other shepherds, and soon abandoned my sheep. I was lost, and began to wander. And beg, and wander all through the heights of Judea and beyond into Syria. In Damascus I was taken as a slave by a lascivious pearl merchant and became his bedside boy. But he became deathly ill and soon died. His companions began to blame me for his death, they thought I was accursed and had brought evil upon his house, and they all fell upon me. They were going to kill me, but one of them got the brilliant idea to sell me as a slave to a racketeer in humans...

1795

David gave me more headaches than all the thorns that could be counted on the crown they shoved down on my head. He was still just recovering from the Bathsheeba affair and in the throws of repentant anguish for choreographing the murder of her husband so that he could have her. Of course this also put him off women for a while, and he was all the more vulnerble to your youthful boy charms, Caspar. But I also want to point out that you are still not being entirely truthful. You were in Palestine and wide awake long before you were fellating Levi, who unfortunately is eternally lost to me now and languishing unrepentant to this very moment in the Lake of Fire. And you remember every single detail. Are you going to tell us, or shall I. "I was one of the shepherds that first saw the angels that came to visit you in the stable." "and that, Caspar, was the very moment that your process of redemption began..."

1794

"Jesus", says Caspar, "I have not been entirely accurate or truthful." "How can you be truthful about anything, my dear, when your progenitor happens to be the father of all lies? But now your redemption has already begun." "I was an adolescent when the king David brought me to his bed with him, and many times I lay there with him. But there were whisperings in the palace, and he banished me with a tutor to the Negev Desert, where I fell asleep in an oasis. Then, when I woke some years after, a caravan abducted me and carried me to India, where I also tempted the Buddha and his servant, though neither lay with me, then I slept again until I woke in the bed of the pharisee..."

1793

"Because you were made perfect through suffering", muses Carl. "Exactly", replies our youthful lord. "But here we have strayed far and away from you, my good Caspar. And I have some things to tell you, my love." "Yes, my Lord", he replies, daring not to turn his head to face him. "When your dark master conceived you and brought you forth some three thousand years ago, it was with the idea of making of you the very pawn to disrupt and eternally corrupt and ruin my plans for the salvation of humankind. You were not born in India as you claim, but five hundred years earlier, in ancient Israel. You were born the bastard offspring of a servant girl in the palace of none other than my very progenitor king David. As you hear my account of your earliest years your memory shall again become fecund and you will recall this. My progenitor, as some might recall from reading the accounts in Samuel and Chronicles, was what is now called bisexual, and in love with the prince of israel, Jonathon. The carnal aspect of their love was never consummated, but My forebear, even after being made king and having at his disposal wives and concubines, he pined unceasingly for his fallen love, Jonathon. He was fifty when he first became aware of you Caspar, and now you are beginning to remember..."

1794

"I never would have imagined", says the elderly Joseph. "You were always lacking in imagination, my dear husband", she retorts. "You were a carpenter. And a good provider. I need not have asked or expected more. But remember this, my dear. I did not choose you. You chose me, or rather our parents made a deal over us but please don't for one minute imagine that you were ever able to bring me to the heights of pleasure. You did give me five more children, after Jesus, but like all men, you have no idea what six successive pregnancies must have done to my body. Or my soul. My one single consolation is Jesus. A most wonderful, if often unpredictsble and frustrating child, but raising God in the family was not exactly going to be a cakewalk. And we were always making mistakes. "But weren't you submissive to your parents", asks Erik. "I was obedient. But submission and obedience are not always the same thing. And my endless curiosity and sense of wonder and adventure could sometimes create such problems as to push both my parents over the edge. They really didn't have a clue what they were doing with me, but they did better than a lot of others would have done, which is why I picked them." "But weren't you supposed to be perfect and sinless" say I. I was without sin. Not perfect. Two different things, and had I been perfect I would never have been human. My divinity was made perfect through my imperfection..."

1791

I am Catholic", says Jesús suddenly. I find all this so hard to understand. To accept. That is not what the church teaches." "The church teaches a lot of error", says Jesus. "They have always had a collective neurotic obsession about sex and sexuality. They have fabricated an enormous and toxic culture of shame that to this day has distorted and ruined millions of human lives. There was no reason at all, following my birth, that my mother should remain a virgin. Think of my poor stepfather here." "It was only a few days following your birth in that barn", says the elderly British gentleman, "That your mother and I could finally enjoy what it is really like to be man and wife." "I would have to say it was more your enjoyment than mine, dear Joseph", she says...

1790

"I consented to your conception, Jesus, because I was a child of thirteen, and had only in the past month begun to bleed as a woman, and who was I to argue with an angel especially a high archangel such as Gabriel? But it was still a violation, a wonderful and so sacred and so beautiful moment, but I had no agency. I was alone, still a child, and then there was my betrothal to your earthly stepfather here, Joseph, and how only through the angel's intervention could he be persuaded that I had not cheated with some randy boy in the village. Jesus, my Blessed Son, did you know how vulnerable, how frightened I was? Do you really know, can you really understand what it is really like to be woman?" "You are teaching me, Mother. You have been teaching me these last two thousand years. And yes, even though I am God, I always have things to learn, and that is how I can appreciate your humanity, because I have also made it my humanity...

1789

That was the beauty of being human. Even though I always have inhabited all my creation, I could actually experience my dialogue with the queen bee, as a man, as a human being. I could walk in the fields and inhale the fragrance of flowers and herbs in the warm spring air. I could feel the ground under my feet. I could feel the flesh, blood and bone of a living human body. I could know, in a a way not quite possible before I sprang into your blessed womb, Mother, what it is like to engage fuly with mortal life, the world, with people, nature, with everything, but a man. I knew what it is to be a man." "But not as a woman, my lord." "But it is still all the same." My Lord, I have never spoken of this to you, but now, even though I am very ancient, it is time..." "And I know already every word you are going to say, Mother..." "But still I must speak to you those words, my Lord, otherwise, it would never be the same..." "And that is why we have prayer...

1788

"Mother, you already know I forgave you. The very moment you swatted me upside the head, I knew your were under tremendous pressure. "I was pregnant, again, with your brother Jude, your sister Miriam was constantly screaming for attention and I was breastfeeding Simon. And Joseph, the brother after you was constantly getting into everything. And there you were, pouring all over your head the honey you hadn't already filled your mouth with with your own grubby little fingers." "Mom, remember my teaching. It isn't what goes into the mouth that defiles a man but what comes out of the mouth, that is what defiles a man. I was six years old, and the honey so looked like the Holy Spirit being poured all over me that I had to try it out. It was quite a sticky mess, and then came the back of your maternal hand." "You have forgiven me, my Lord." "you needn't ask again, love. You always can count on my love and forgiveness. But you never asked me what I did to refill the honey jar. I went out into the field where I found a queen bee. I told her the dilemma, and she went and started a hive near our house. Very soon after, honey was dripping down the tree tunk. Of course I could do this, because I made the bee, and she was going to do my bidding...

1787

"My Lord", says his mother, "Do pardon me for changing the subject, but I would like us please to spend some time on your attitutdes towards women." "Speak, Holy Mother", he replies. "We have never spoken about this my lord. And yes, you as God becamwe incarnated as a man. But never as a woman. Only as man. And even though you have treated us women with the most impeccable respect, ever since I swatted your head when you were little for spoiling the honey jar." "Oh yes, the honey jar", he says laughing. "and mother, you could really pack quite a whallop. And unfortunately that wasn't the only time." To us Jesus says, "The churches, notably the Roman Catholic Church, has long propogated the myth that ours, the Holy Family, was the most perfect, and harmonious, the very sweetest little set of mother, earthly stepfather, and divine son, that ever graced this planet earth.."

1786

My holy Scriptures were gathered, collated and redacted during a time when homosexuslity was not deemed to exist. That that was the darkest, vilest and most horrible of sins which would be found in no Christian person. The homophobia and denial that afflicted all those who professed to represent me was such that their own eyes remained blinded to the obvious. Nor would any of them have ever dreamed that the love that the disciple, my great apostle John, had for me could be anything but fraternal and devotional. And in case any of you here are wondering, and it is clear to me that you are, nothing untoward ever happened between myself and my beloved disciple, nor with any others of the twelve, nor with anyone else. My mission here was to save, to teach about the Kingdom, and to offer myself up as the saving victim that would bring redemption and the reality of God to all of humble and repentant hearts. John's love towards me, alas, was not exactly pure, for he also had a strong homoerotic predispostion, but through contact with me he learned to master it and to not allow his carnal tendencies to interfere with the work of My Holy Spirit. Indeed, he was not the only one, and then there was my beloved Magdalene, and at this point we will not go into the complete codswallop that has been assumed about her over the centuries, along with that distasteful and absolutely stupid and groundless notion that we married each other and had children together, but I will say that there was an ongoing rivalry between them both for my love and attention that only became resolved after I rose from the dead, and openly confronted them both that they must put aside their rivalry and their longing for someone they could never have, and come to work for me in a spirit of unity and fraternal love...

1785

"This is something I never ever for the life of me would have imagined", says Francois, truly scandalized and clearly gobsmacked. "Not me", says Carl. "Not me at all. I always figured that naked kid was a rent boy that found himself in the wrong place at the right time. But that was you, Caspar." "That was Caspar." The voice belongs to Sven Lindstrom, and this is the first time he has so far opened his mouth. "I would have been sixteen when you told me about it." "Nobody is allowed to have secrets?", says Erik. "What shall be whispered in the bedchamber will be shouted from the rooftops", says Jesus. "With Me, and in my kingdom there are no sectets. All is transparency. All is light, All is revelation. And especially, all is love." Say I, "According to my father, biblical scholars agree that the identity of the young man belonged to the writer of the gospel itself." "Pure homophobic horse shit", enunciates Jesus, and of course every one is shocked to hear the Author of Life and our Great Redeemer use that kind of language...

1784

The Young Jesus is still holding Caspar and cuddling him like he is a large kitten or puppy.  "Caspar", he says softly and tenderly, "When you drove those nails into me, I knew that the Father would transform everything, and when I looked at you and you saw the love, my Father's love for you, that was the very beginning of your redemption.  The dark lord could do nothing to de-immortalize you, but only through my power and authority, for by this your salvation would be secured and completed.  But darling Caspar, neither have you told us the entire truth of what happened, for when you awoke two thousand years ago in Jerusalem, you awoke in the bed of one of the chief Pharisees.  That is right, Caspar, you were his catamite, his young homosexual boy toy. He had purchased you months earlier in the slave market.  You still were unconscious, and walking as though still in your sleep.  This had all occurred in the highest secrecy of course because among such vipers every possible sin was being explored and gloated over, though clandestinely.  Your new master had been summoned away to an emergency night council, for they were already waiting for my capture and arrest and to see me dragged before them.  You, in the meantime, lay there in his bed naked and completely perplexed.  Then you heard the noise and the hubbub outside.  You got up and saw through the window all the commotion.  You dressed yourself in the bedsheet, winding it round your naked body, and then you ran out to see what was happening.  One of the guards recognized you as Levi's slave boy, fancied you for himself, and made a grab for you.  He only got hold of the sheet, and you fled away, naked, back to the home of your master, where you dressed yourself and waited, because you knew already you would be summoned to do your job with me.  Yes, it was my servant, Mark, who recorded this in his gospel, for all the world and for all time to know about you, Caspar...

1783

And now Stella, for the very first time today, appears to have completely dropped her tough bitch garb, her wise old hooker armour, which likely will not serve her well while she is here anyway. She is beginning to cry, soft little sobs proceeding from her mouth and shaking her strong and sturdy shoulders, and I see tears on her cheeks. "Oh Lord", she says in a soft and tremulous voice, "Thank you, thank you so much, Jesus, for your great mercy and love. For forgiving Caspar, for receiving him as your own", and now she simply breaks down, covering her face with both hands, while the rest of us look on, as though we are witnessing the birth of a child...

1865

Say I to the holy Mother as she is using her hands to knead dough that is going to make pita póckets, "I think your son was asking if you ever made hummus." "He already knows the answer to that.  That came after our time.  We did use similar ingredients.  I was forever mashing garbanzos and tahini together.  Fortunately we could buy the tahini already milled and made, otherwise I would have lost my right arm from having to do all the work myself.  No one had ever heard of carpal tunnel back in the day."  And then to her husband she says "Speaking of which, my most noble spouse, how about shaping the pitas out of this lovely mess." "Nothing would please me more, my queen." "but not of heaven.  Please, if I have to hear the rattling of one more rosary and those insipid prayers, I just might send down a lightning bolt or two." "which, mother dearest, you already know I would never permit.  And that isn't your job anyway." To me, Mary also says", by the way, I did have to grind the flour, from the wheat, with a stone mortar and pestle, and along with having to spank our lord and his little siblings all the time, that nearly did in my right arm altogether." "Divine justice, my dear mother." To me she says, "All you Christians, worse, the Catholics, but plenty of Protestants too seem to think it was a cakewalk raising God to be a good and responsible adult.  What a complete joke.  But most so called Christians are still in at least partial denial that I really was giving birth to and raising God, and those barmy Catholic fantasies that I was without sin  and queen of heaven and blah blah blah blah blah...the truth is, we all spanked and yelled at our children back in the day, and sometimes used language that you're not going to read in the four Gospels."  Even though she is rolling her eyes, her tone is that of a mildly amused upper class English school mistress, and I cannot help laughing right now.

1782

Dear Lawrence, can you accept this?" "Yes", he replies without looking up. "I think I can." "Even without the glad distractions of your phone or the internet." "It isn't going to be easy. But I have to accept that you have brought me here for my own good." "You will be struggling with this for a few days, as will some of the others. Prepare to be transformed. All of you. And you also, dear Caspar", he says to Caspar who is seated next to him. Jesus puts his arm around his shoulder. "You are already undergoing the greatest transformation. You have become, Caspar, fully human. And soon shall you be healed of your many painful memories." He is starting to tremble, and already there are tears rolling down his cheek. "Lord, I have sinned against you far and above all the others here. How can you possibly forgive me." "How can you possibly forgive yourself, my love, except by knowing my forgiveness of you", and here, the young Jesus enfolds him in a tight embrace...

1781

"Before moving on to Caspar, my lord," says Erik, "Could you please explain to us how you could be in two places doing two different things at once, talking with us here and appearing in Sarah's dream in Thailand? This is most perplexing." "Time and space are but nothing to me, my child. I can be in many places and many dimensions and still not have to move from my chair here because I live outside of time and space. I live in eternity. I am the creator and sustainer of time and space and ruler of all. Yes, I know, such strange words coming from a teenage boy, and so I must create in your hearts for you the eyes of faith and cause you to see not with the eyes that perish, but with the eternal eyes of the soul. When I give sight to the blind it is both sets of eyes that are illumined that the two may see as one. And Lawrence, please forgive me, because I can tell by your thoughts that we are not yet finished. Shall I tell you, or would you like to tell me?" "I was just wondering about Damien." "A miraculous process occurred last week when he spoke to Sarah. That night, she invited him to sit with her in the lobby. They spoke at length about you, and Damien begged her to forgive you and he both. And now she has. But she must wait to hear and see your repentance before she can accept you again into her life, and you are still not ready yet for this to happen, for which reason I strongly recommend that you stay here with us until your formation is complete."

1780

"When should we all be finished here?" say I. "That all depends on how much work you give me. You each have responsibility to work with me if I am to do well in your formation here. "Lawrence", what are you thinking right now. No don't tell me, I already know. Do not worry about getting out of here in time to contact Sarah and intervene the abortion. I have already appeared to her in a dream, since it is still early morning in Thailand, and all is well. She is going to talk to you when she is back, and together you both are going to begin the future of your new family." "Does that mean I'm staying here?" "We can talk about it after dinner. But now I want to move on to the guest I have particularly been wanting to see here", says Jesus. "My own beloved Caspar."

1779

Speaking of Sarahs, says Carl, what about our Sarah, and her two friends Jenn and Maureen. It would be nice if they could be here with us. "Yeah", says Francois, "It's a pity that we 're all men here." "Oh speak for yourself", barks Stella. "I happen to be both." "Better than nothing", I guess", quips Carl. "Oh be quiet and eat your peanuts", she says. "I will be sending for them and the others tomorrow", says Jesus. "What, do men get special privilege, being here first?" mutters Stella, as though unaware, rather, indifferent, of whose divine presence we all happen to be in right now. "No", replies our youthful Lord. "Then why were the twelve apostles all men?" "Those were the twelve recorded apostles. There were also my blessed mother here, the Magdalene, Susana, Johanna, other Maries, Martha, many others." "Oh yes, says Stella, "Patriarchy." "That and simple pragmatism", reples our Lord. "Those twelve men needed special and extra time with me as part of their formation. Not because their position was superior, but because as men, they were entirely way more selfish and self-centred than women, and needed particularly to be broken of those toxic tendencies if they were going to serve me well....

1778

"I can't understand", says Lawrence, "How Sarah could have become pregnant. She was always diligent about taking the pill." "It could be said that she conveniently forgot just that one night at Whistler. She had a lot on her mind, especially the preparations for your soon upcoming trip to Thailand, now her trip with her girlfirend Melanie , and some deep seated consternations about her future." "Her future with me?" "Dear Lawrence, please. This is not all about you. She is older than you,. thirty-nine next month and as they like to say, her biolgical clock is ticking. Of course she has never had time to actually sit down and think any of this through, but Sarah's body has been screaming at her to produce a child, one of the deepest motivating instincts that any woman has to live with...

1777

"Twins." "Identical twins, Lawrence. "Twin boys." "Identical twin boys. Your hands and your lives are about to become very full. But the choice is up to you, dear Lawrence." "I never would have thought..." "Which is very typical among male breeders, for that is the very apt slur that some homosexuals have towards heterosexuals. And breeder men never have to worry about pregnancy. They can simply make their little deposit, and off they go for the next coital opportunity. No fuss, no muss, and the woman is left having to carry everything, baby included. But, Lawrence, even if your mind is made up now, about staying here and enduring what is being offered to you, for my discernment is never incorrect, you and the others here, will still be offered the choice of leaving from here this evening. First we must dine, then you have the choice to go down to the beach and wait for the boat that will begin your journey home. But heed this warning. That will be your only opportunity to leave, and should you decline this evening, then you are all going to have to consider yourselves my guests here until we are finished...

1776

"I'm...I'm going to be a father?" "That all depends." "Depends." "Depends. It depends on what happens here between you and me. If you chose to abort this work of repentance, renewal and transformtion of life, then it is sure and likely that Sarah will also abort her pregnancy. That for her is going to be very tough decision, because she grew up Roman Catholic, and depite the feminism she has force-fed herself on since she was sn eleven year old, the old catholic teachings, especially about life, and about abortion contlinue to squat like as derelict tenant in the very recesses of her soul." "Which means." She is going to find out in Thailand that she is pregant." Then she is going to send you a text. That is going to occur in a couple of weeks time, just after you are finished here and back at home again. She is going to make it clear that she does not want to be a single mother, but that she still cannot do this alone, but neither is she prepared to return to living with an unfaithful partner. She is going to impose on you her own shotgun wedding. If you want to see your children alive, then you will repent of your philandering with any and all genders, and properly marry her and build a life together." "She's going to blackmail me." "Correct. But if you do decide to stay on here with me, it will soon become to you such a sweet proposal that you will not have it in yourself to turn her down....

1775

"Of course there is also the problem of family racism, since your sister married a Filipino-Canadian. Your mother, Lawrence, adores her new son-in-law. Your father, not so much, but he is being brought to repentance. And that is something you simply will not admit, not even to yourself, but when you were told that your new brother-in-law is Filipino, which is to say that he is not Caucasian , you simply went silent, and chose to ignore it all and have a lovely weekend full of unprotected sex with your girlfrend Sarah at Whistler. I am bringing this up, my dear Lawrence, because Sarah is just about to discover that she is pregnant with your children. Yes, I said children, because she is carrying twins, Two boys. Identical...

1774

Aaron, with his companion, Doug, was involved in a very intense and very delicate ministry to AIDS sufferers, and on the night of his brother's wedding a dear friend of his invited them both for dinner. This friend was already in the advanced stages of illness and would be dying within the following two months. He had given them the dinner in gratitude for all the help and service and love they had been rendering him. And Aaron had a lengthy history of friendship with Ken, who originally lusted after him, then realized that Aaron was his friend and brother in Christ, which is to say, within the purview of my love, authority and will. Ken accepted the limits on their relationship and for years cherished Aaron's friendship which in time led him to me and now he lives in the courts of heaven where he is among my many servitors in the unseen. Aaron was right to ignore his brother's wedding because of his service to me....