28.

Sermon on the Mount

Saturday, April 6 - 9:30a.m.

The tour of Israel was interesting for both Mike and Jennifer. Jennifer wondered why so many people fought for so many hundreds of years over such a barren and desolate place. It was, after all, absurd.

Mike was surprised at how little had changed. Throughout most of the trip, he said nothing. But he remembered. At times he chuckled under his breath. That’s not where I was baptized. It was at least five miles downstream. But if I said anything, would it change anyone’s beliefs? Doubtful.

At first, Jennifer had all kinds of questions for Mike about everything she saw. After a while, she realized she was distracting him and what he needed was time to just reflect and remember. She decided there would be plenty of time for questions later.

They visited the Golan Heights, a barren grassland with pretty little signs that read, “Danger: Land Mines.” Mike thought, This place hasn’t changed much in two thousand years, and neither have the people. There is still just as much fighting as ever, but now they have technology to help them kill each other.

Tuesday, April 9 - 1:30p.m.

On the fourth day, the tour bus drove up a twisty road until it reached the top of a huge hill. At the top was a large brown building, and beyond it, a breathtaking view of the Sea of Galilee. The tour guide announced, “This site is the Mount of Beatitudes, the site where Christ delivered his famous Sermon on the Mount. You have one hour. Please be back on the bus promptly at two-thirty.”

The crowd shuffled off the bus and began taking pictures. Mike and Jennifer walked away from the crowd. “So where exactly did you give the Sermon?” she asked.

“Here, I’ll show you.” He took her hand and they walked back up the road. When they got a half-mile from the tourist building, he walked a short way down the hill until he reached a small flat spot on the side of the hill. “It was right here, I think. See how the valley below is kinda shaped like an amphitheater? My voice was able to carry a long way.”

They sat down on a small patch of grass and held hands. “Wow,” she said. She took a deep breath. “So are you going to lecture me? Give me a sermon?”

“Do you want to be lectured?”

“No,” she said, “I want to be held.”

He took her into his strong but gentle arms and held her.

She smiled. “What was the sermon about anyway?”

“It was all about how what’s on the inside is more important than what’s on the outside. What counts is inside your heart. It’s what you believe in, what you feel inside, what you think, what you desire. Your whole inner life. Not what you do or how you look.”

“Couldn’t you just say that?”

He frowned at her. “Times were different back then.”

“Yes, I suppose they were.” She looked up at his powerful blue eyes and his vibrant smile and somehow she saw the love behind it. She knew that she could trust him with her life. Over the past weeks, she had come to love him. And she wanted him. Still, she was afraid. Afraid that she might scare him away, or that intimacy would change their relationship from playful friendship to adversarial. Still, she toyed with the idea of Mike touching her. Maybe tonight, she thought.

Tuesday, April 9 - 9:30p.m.

After a full day of touring, they had a nice dinner and retired to their hotel room. As usual, Mike put on sweat pants and got ready to sleep on the couch. Jennifer had been thinking about it all day and made her decision. Instead of changing into her pajamas in the bathroom, she stood next to the bed and slowly took her clothes off as he watched. She was deliberately slow and teased him by turning and stretching this way and that from a distance. She held each piece of her outfit at arms length and let it fall gracefully to the floor until she was down to just panties and a bra.

She motioned for him to come to her bedside. He came over to the bed and sat down on it. She turned her back to him and asked, “Can you give me a hand?” indicating he should help undo her bra strap. He unfastened the clips and she let it fall to the floor, then she turned around to face him, bare breasted. Inching closer to him, she asked, “One more question for the interview?”

His heart was beating faster. “Yes?”

She put her arms around his neck. “What do you think of pre-marital sex?”

He turned a little red. He spoke slowly, distracted. “In this particular case, I’m all for it.”

She nudged her bare breasts closer to his face. “Make love to me, Mike.”

He wondered if her emotional wounds were healed enough to allow intimacy. He shook his head. “Jennifer, you don’t have to do this.”

“Shut up and make love to me, Mike. And no jokes about the second coming.”

They made tender love and he was as gentle as a kitten. Afterward, they held each other close. As she lay in his arms, she said, “Promise you won’t hurt me, Mike. Promise you’ll always be there.”

“Separation is an illusion, Jennifer. I’ll always be with you, I promise. Even if I die tomorrow, I’ll be with you in spirit.” He smiled and his eyes twinkled as if he knew something she did not. She fell into his arms.

As she drifted off to sleep, she was surprised by a tingling sensation that enveloped her body. The tingling grew stronger, until it felt like her body was being shaken to the core. At first, she thought the noise and vibration were caused by a passing airplane. As the vibration got more intense, she became frightened that it might be an earthquake or some kind of military activity in the area. After all, the Israelis were always fighting with the Palestinians. But ordinary bombing or shelling would have been in loud bursts, not the constant loud drone she heard.

Mike felt the same vibrations, but he knew what they were: the onset of another out-of-body experience. He turned and looked at her frightened face. He tried to reach over to comfort her, but was paralyzed. Then the noise stopped and there was complete silence. Suddenly, he was free and reached his hand out to her.

Jennifer felt as light as a feather. She turned to him and said, “What’s going on? What just happened?” There was a hollow echo to her voice.

“We’re having an out-of-body experience,” he said. “Take my hand.”

As she put her hand in his, they started to float up toward the ceiling. She felt free and laughed with delight.

He said, “Now look down,” and gestured down with his eyes.

She looked down and saw two sleeping people lying on a bed below them. “Who are they?” she asked.

“That’s us.” Then she looked closer and saw that it was their own two physical bodies, peacefully resting in each other’s arms on the bed below. She remembered another time, a darker time, when she would watch her own physical body from up in the corner of the bedroom. She would watch while her father raped her innocent body below. But now, with an act of love rather than betrayal, and in Mike’s tender embrace, she found redemption. Love was no longer a violation.

She looked deep into his eyes. “I love you,” they both said simultaneously. With fingers intertwined, they pulled their spirit bodies together to hug. They expected to hold each other close and revel in the joy of their touch, but when their astral bodies touched, much to their surprise and delight, their souls began to melt together into one, and they each felt a fire building in intensity, a crescendo of ecstacy. It was a state of joy so intense that they were carried beyond all rational thought. It seemed like their souls would shatter under the intensity of the fire burning in their combined soul.

Their unified soul-body couldn’t contain the fire that kept growing, so it started to expand. They burst in an explosion of a thousand suns, and their unified consciousness expanded until it encompassed all of creation. They became simultaneously aware of all people, all animals, and all plants on the planet. They could feel conscious awareness of every blade of grass on the planet, and every blade of grass inwardly danced with the joy of creation, the joy of God. They could feel the love of God inside every rock, every grain of sand, every drop of water and every molecule of air, every atom of creation. They directly experienced the truth that God is love, and that love is the building block all of creation.

When Jennifer awoke, tears of joy were streaming down her face. Mike was sleeping beside her peacefully. Their bodies were still intertwined, almost as if they were trying to hold onto the experience and relive it in the flesh. She drifted off to sleep happier and more content than she had been in years.

Excerpt from The Gospel According to Mike

He said, “When you go to bed each night, ask yourself three questions. First, ask if you have brought yourself closer to others–your mate especially–or if you’ve distanced yourself from them on that day through your thoughts and actions. Second, ask if you have brought yourself closer to your true self, or if you have distanced yourself from your true self on that day through your thoughts and actions. Third, ask if you have brought yourself closer to God or if you’ve distanced yourself from God on that day through your thoughts and actions. Then vow to do better tomorrow.”