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improve his lot by planning ahead, he was able to perceive the fate Nature had prepared for him.
Psychologists say that when a person is faced with untimely death, he typically goes through five stages.
The first is DENIAL: he simply refuses to believe that this horrible thing is true. The second is ANGER:
why should he be treated this way when others are spared? It simply isn't fair, and he is furious. The third
is BARGAINING WITH GOD: he prays to God for relief from this sentence and promises to improve
himself if his life is only reprieved. Sometimes it is reprieved, and sometimes he honors his bargain. But
when this appeal fails, he comes to the fourth: DEPRESSION. What is the point of carrying on when the
sentence is absolute and there is no escape? But at last he comes to the fifth: ACCEPTANCE. At peace
with his situation, he wraps up his worldly affairs and comports himself for the termination.
It seems reasonable to assume that man's whole life is governed by similar stages of awareness, even
when his death is not expected to be untimely. As a child, he denies death; it is beyond his
comprehension. But as he matures, the deaths of relatives, friends, and strangers force awareness upon
him, and he responds angrily by indulging in death-defying exploits of diverse kinds, "proving" he is
immune. With further maturity he becomes more subtle; he becomes religious, accepting the thesis that
physical death is not the end, but merely another change in his situation, a transformation to an "afterlife."
Perhaps all religion derives from this urge to negate death; one cannot bargain with God unless God
exists. Yet the fear of death is not entirely abated by religion; the services of assorted churches may be
perceived as mere ritual, and his confidence erodes. The inexorable approach of death in the form of
advancing age depresses man; he longs for his youth again. But in the end he resigns himself to his
situation, makes out his will, arranges for the disposition of his remains, and departs with a certain grace.
He has accepted the inevitable.
They stood on the road to Damascus, staring in the direction Paul of Tarsus had gone. The man, already
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lame and scarred by disease, had been blinded by his experience and was sadly out of sorts, but Brother
Paul knew he would recover. Brother Paul found himself shaken by his contact with the man whose name
and principles he had adopted. The name remained-but Brother Paul could no longer consider himself a
follower of those principles.
"Still I am with you," Jesus remarked. "Why have I not dissipated? I long to rejoin my Father in Heaven."
"I don't know," Brother Paul admitted. "I'm not sure why I haven't returned to my own framework. These
Animations seem to continue long after their purpose has been accomplished. Their immediate purpose. I
thought return would be automatic once you-finished."
"But I haven't finished," Jesus said. "My life and death are only the beginning, showing the way. Now the
rest of the world must follow to achieve Salvation."
"I-doubt that will happen immediately."
"But the Scriptures say-"
"Sometimes things take more time than anticipated. We really don't know how God measures time."
"Then I must remain to watch. I cannot let the people drift alone."
Brother Paul shook his head. "Jesus, I fear you would not like all of what you might see."
But Jesus had decided. "Come, friend Paul; you and I will watch it all. Return your body to its place, and
we shall go together in Spirit."
Brother Paul tried to protest, but the will of Jesus prevailed. "All right-we'll watch it together. But I don't
think we'll be able to participate directly because you are physically dead and I have not yet been born."
"Come," Jesus said.
Brother Paul's body shivered and dissolved. It had returned to its frame-but he and Jesus remained,
standing side by side.
"Come," Jesus repeated, taking Brother Paul's ethereal hand. "We follow the lame Pharisee."
They flew through the air like the spirits they were, invisible to all others except each other. When that
became tedious, they simply jumped through space and time, fading out in one location and fading in at
another.
They followed Paul of Tarsus. Though physically unpretentious and a rather poor public speaker, the
Apostle Paul turned out to have a fine if narrowly channeled mind. His logic was powerful and his
written material eloquent. He also had a remarkable determination, a perverse courage that absolutely
prevented him from deviating from his set course. In some cities he was ridiculed or even mobbed; he
carried on. Many of the other Christian leaders distrusted him and plotted against him, but he made
converts everywhere.
"But this is not my message!" Jesus protested. "I was not attempting to found a new Church, but to show
the way-"
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"I said you might not like it," Brother Paul reminded him. "Yet if it is necessary to start a new religion in
order to show people the way to Salvation-"
Jesus sighed. "I suppose so," he said dubiously. "Since the world will soon end, it may not matter."
Brother Paul did not comment. It was obvious that the Christian Church was not the initiative or desire of
either Jesus or the Disciples who had known him personally. Thus, it seemed, it was necessary that a man
who had never known Jesus personally assume a leading role in the propagation of the new faith. As with
a failing business: a professional organizer had been brought in from outside, and he was doing his job
without catering unduly to the foibles of the existing order.
But the Apostle Paul, it became apparent, was shaping that faith into his own image-and that was an
unfortunately narrow one. Jesus, sexually voided, had not made stipulations about sex. He had treated all
people equally, gladly accepting women as well as men, regardless of their station or the prior state of
their conscience. Rich men and prostitutes were welcome, provided each renounce his/her liabilities. The
Apostle Paul was far more restrictive, almost anti-woman; he permitted them to join, but never to
exercise responsibility.
Jesus shook his head sadly. "I had not supposed it would be like this," he murmured, as he watched the
Apostle Paul quarreling with the other Apostles. Brother Paul had mixed emotions. How much better to
see his namesake from the perspective of history, rather than as this sometimes small-minded person! "He
has written some excellent Epistles," he said.
Then, looking ahead in history, they discovered that not all of the Epistles written by Paul the Apostle
had been collected in the Bible and that not all the fourteen collected had been authored by Paul. Jesus
watched the Epistle to the Hebrews being clothed with the Apostle's name so as to make it acceptable for
publication, and suddenly he laughed. "Even as Paul credits me with attitudes I never held, so now he
himself is being credited with letters he never wrote! Truly my Father is just!" But he soon sobered, for
all of this only elaborated the distortions of Jesus' own message.
"Let's view some other aspect," Brother Paul suggested. He had liked to think that the fourteen cards of
each Tarot suit reflected the fourteen Paulean Epistles in the Bible, but if some of these were invalid-"
"Perhaps they are doing better in America," Jesus said. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]