proffers and denies. We know that love helps us forget pain; however
I ask myself whether it is evil to forget evil. But I can think of
resurrection as a form of love, a love beyond supplication. I take
that step and realize that immortality is another form of love.
Desert air pushed in as we finished our meal and we soon felt
chilled. I wanted to shed my fatigue by reading but we discussed
visiting the spring at Neby. I suggested we leave early if it did not
rain during the night and bog the paths. At Neby I wanted to work out
a plan for James, Peter and Matthew, if James joined us. When
government cruelty diminishes I want Peter to preach in Rome.
In my bedroom I read Ecclesiastes—drowsing at times, aware of my
familiar pallet, the good pillow, the candles. I was able to dismiss
the imminence of departure. I put it away like a shell under sea
grass.
Ecclesiastes meant more to me than weeks ago as I read and re-read
passages.
Rain woke me during the night—a pleasant shower smelling like spring.
So, we would walk to Neby another day. Here I would be able to go on
reading Ecclesiastes and Peter’s copy of the Psalms. When I told
Peter that Clibus had found the Ecclesiastes scroll on a trip to the
upper Nile they were astonished. They had never seen so ancient a
scroll.
Peter’s
Sivan 5
Judas is dead. He took his own life. His body was found by the
daughter of Pontius Pilate. Since he was one of us we have buried
him; at his grave a downpour struck us and drove us to a shelter. In
a few moments the earth was flooded. I can’t recall such rain and
thunder.
Judas, born in Gamala, vineyard proprietor, dead at twenty-eight
years. As Ecclesiastes says: “Woe unto him who is alone when he
falls.”
Startling, on a hillside, on a hilltop, a contingent of Roman
soldiers, a new encampment, white tents in rows, banners, standards,
smoke. Shields flash as men drill. Camels are hobbled behind the tent
town. We can make out men in half armor, men wearing helmets, men at
work shoveling, men erecting a large striped tent.
Is this always glory, power and death?
Peter’s—early morning
Sivan 8
Shall we be like trees planted by rivers of water? Shall we mature
slowly like the olive? Shall we endure two hundred years? Shall these
men replant? They are humble men. Are humble men more or less
successful with their lives? These men know ambition and is ambition
the safe route? Verily, verily “all is vanity and vexation of
spirit,” if we listen to Ecclesiastes. What will evolve when the sil-
ver chord is broken? I have answered these questions in the past but
I wish to answer them once more.
Peter’s
Sivan 10
Sivan is a beautiful month, a month of subtle changes.
I lay in deep grass yesterday. While I lay in the grass I remembered
the fields around Nazareth and I remembered climbing olive trees at
harvest time—how we sang and shook down the ripe fruit onto nets.
Mama made the finest olive oil in Papa’s oil press, the finest in
Nazareth some Nazarenes said. I hurried to fill our baskets... I
wanted to gather more than anyone. I never did.
Tomorrow I go to villages and will heal the sick...it is a joy, a joy
rather kindred to lying in deep grass in the warm sun.
I have read my journal. I will return it to Matthew’s care. Among our
disciples he is the most reliable.
Sivan 12
So, as I write with my bronze stylus, I listen to the evening,
familiar sounds; through my window I see the Milky Way and the great
constellations and I am aware God is affirming his handiwork.
I write very slowly, lingering over each letter, the square letters
superior to the old script. I go on listening. The lamp burns
steadily. There is no wind. There is gratitude.
Nazareth
Sivan 17
Father has suffered from his imprisonment. His hands tremble. After
seeing me on the cross he is unable to believe that I am alive.
I held out my arms to him as we stood in front of our home. He backed
away.
“...Father, remember how we visited together at Qumran? Remember that
old long-bladed saw, how I repaired its handle three times?
“Mama gave you that shirt at the Feast of Lights...”
He turned and walked away, trembling.
When I was staying at the home of Gehazi, after preaching in the
synagogue, after healing, Barabbas appeared. Jamnia is his village
and he entered the house of Gehazi without knocking. A great tall
hulk, he loomed over me; then he knelt and begged me to accept him.
Dressed in goat’s skin, his face and beard wild, he seemed ill,
perhaps deranged. I tried to calm him, to reason with him.
“I should have been crucified,” he repeated in a hoarse voice.
For a long while we remained together, talking, praying, hoping.
Peter’s
Sivan 24
Patience—we need patience.
Going from village to village, town to town, means walking five days,
four days, two. It is a five day walk to Nazareth. It is a two day
walk to the village of Gehazi. Most walks are pleasant. It can be
cold, windy, hot; and when it rains there is seldom any shelter.
Sometimes we travel together; sometimes we walk alone; these days I
prefer my solitary walks. I am aware of close communion when alone.
Patience, patience...but the calendar moves on: Shevat, Adar, Nisan,
Iyyar, Sivan...
Peter’s
Tammuz 3
I
will miss Peter’s little house, its rough walls, its crooked windows,
its clumsy thatched roof. The floors have interested me. He found
pieces in some Babylonian structure; he hauled them here in an ox
cart. I have come to love this isolation, its olive trees.
Today is a summer’s day.
Great clouds, great sky.
Peter sought me out as I sat in the bedroom reading. Again he asked
for forgiveness. Kneeling by me he promised he would carry the
word... “to Rome, if you wish. Teach me courage, teach me strength,
teach me to be wise...”
He and I have worked at the carpenter’s bench lately, in Lazarus’
shed. It took the three of us to line up a door. Of course it was
very old. Laughing, we had to admit our clumsy workmanship.
We are proud that there are more than seventy of us now. I send them
out in pairs.
The home of Lazarus
Tammuz 8
It seems to me I view mankind with a sense of compassion—a constant
perception. Mine is a brief, swift looking back: I heal the sick, I
renew lives... I remember the hart and the brook...man’s insatiable
thirst.
Children come and animals come...the ox and the donkey have been
friends. A shepherd, I still follow hills, hills of resurrection they
may be. Perhaps history may call me a man of righteousness. Perhaps
history may not stop. I speak to history. I say, once again:
“Go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father,
the Son and the Holy Ghost...”
Teach as I have taught...remind them of grace.
Tammuz 11
I leave no tomb, no crypt, no marker.
Finality may not be a friend...
When I leave shall I carry a handful of earth with me?
James, Peter, Matthew, Mark...Mother and Father...Lazarus...Miriam...
each one is mine but for how long?
Peter will pick up my sandals and say:
“These were his.”
Father will say:
“He helped me make this box.”
The Godhead is before me and I struggle with delight and with
astonishment.
Tammuz 12
I am entrusting my journal to Matthew. Since we have friends at the
synagogue in Capernaum he will leave my journal there.
Verily, verily I say: Fear God and keep His commandments. This is the
duty of man.
FAREWELL THOUGHTS
I
hope these thoughts may be helpful. It is very late and lamplight
flickers...
Inside a man of light there is light and with this light he
lights the world.
The angels and the prophets will come to you and give you
strength.
Blessed are the ones who have heard the Father’s word and kept
it in truth.
Have you then discovered the beginning so that you ask the
end? Where the beginning is, there the end will be.
The kingdom is inside you. When you really understand you will
know that you are the son of the living Father. If you do not
understand yourself you will be in poverty.
Split wood and I am there. Pick up a stone; there you will
find me.
Come to me because my yoke is easy, my lordship gentle. You
will find rest.
The kingdom of the Father is spread over the earth and men do
not see it.
Blessed are the solitary and the elect; you shall find the
kingdom because you have come from it and you shall go there
again.
I say, whenever one is one he will be filled with light, but
whenever he is divided he will be filled with darkness.
Love your brother as your own soul. Guard him as the apple of
your eye.
There will be days when you seek and you will not find me.
NOTE:
These logia appear for the first time in a journal.
They are from the 4th century Coptic book,
The Gospel According to Thomas,
discovered in Hammadi, Egypt,
quoted through the courtesy
of the translator, Dr. Ray Rummers,
Chairman, Department of English, Baylor University.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
P
aul Alexander Bartlett (1909-1990) was a writer and artist, born in
Moberly, Missouri, and educated at Oberlin College, the University of
Arizona, the Academia de San Carlos in Mexico City, and the Instituto
de Bellas Artes in Guadalajara. His work can be divided into three
categories: He is the author of many novels, short stories, and
poems; second, as a fine artist, his drawings, illustrations, and
paintings have been exhibited in more than forty one-man shows in
leading galleries, including the Los Angeles County Museum, the
Atlanta Art Museum, the Bancroft Library, the Richmond Art Institute,
the Brooks Museum, the Instituto-Mexicano-Norteamericano in Mexico
City, and many other galleries; and, third, he devoted much of his
life to the most comprehensive study of the haciendas of Mexico that
has been undertaken. More than 350 of his pen-and-ink illustrations
of the haciendas and more than one thousand hacienda photographs make
up the Paul Alexander Bartlett Collection held by the Nettie Lee
Benson Latin American Collection of the University of Texas, and form
part of a second diversified collection held by the American Heritage
Center of the University of Wyoming, which also includes an archive
of Bartlett’s literary work, fine art, and letters.
Paul Alexander Bartlett’s fiction has been commended by many authors,
among them Pearl Buck, Ford Madox Ford, John Dos Passos, James
Michener, Upton Sinclair, Evelyn Eaton, and many others. He was the
recipient of many grants, awards, and fellowships, from such
organizations as the Leopold Schepp Foundation, the Edward MacDowell
Association, the New School for Social Research, the Huntington
Hartford Foundation, the Montalvo Foundation, and the Carnegie
Foundation.
His wife, Elizabeth Bartlett, a widely published poet, is the author
of seventeen published books of poetry, numerous poems, short
stories, and essays published in leading literary quarterlies and
anthologies, and, as the founder of Literary Olympics, Inc., is the
editor of a series of multi-language volumes of international poetry
that honor the work of outstanding contemporary poets.
Paul and Elizabeth’s son, Steven, edited and designed this volume.
Christ’s Journal
was set in Garamond type by Autograph Editions. The typeface is named
after Claude Garamond (c. 1480-1561), a French type designer and
publisher and the world’s first commercial typefounder. Garamond’s
contribution to the history of typesetting was substantial. He
perfected the design of Roman type: The fonts that he cut beginning
in 1531 were recognized as possessing a superior grace and clarity,
so much so that Garamond’s fonts influenced European printing for the
next century and a half.
It is interesting to note that Garamond type is the evolutionary
ancestor of the type used to print the first official copies of the
Declaration of Independence. In the 1730s, Englishman William Caslon
refined Garamond’s version of Aldine roman, the well-balanced
typeface became popular, and was introduced to the American colonies
by Benjamin Franklin.
Despite his considerable contribution to the evolution of typography,
Garamond was not a successful businessman and he died in poverty.
During the past five centuries, so many variations of Garamond’s type
designs have been created that the phrase ‘Garamond type’ has come to
be used loosely, with little memory remaining of its history.
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End of Project Gutenberg's Christ's Journal, by Paul Alexander Bartlett