The 13th Disciple

A large crowd followed Him everywhere. The noise, the dust, and the commotion repulsed Kadesh, but he couldn’t stay away. He hung onto the edges of the crowd like a bur sticking to soft cloth. With squinted eyes, he sat on a hill overlooking the scorched, yellow valley, chewing on some dried dates, following the comings and goings of the people down below.

 

The wilderness was were Kadesh felt at home. The silence, the glaring sun, and the uncompromising, harsh laws that governed birth, life, and death filled him with the comforting feeling of the familiar. There, removed from the world of man, and more importantly, from His gaze, he felt safe.

 

Digging up roots, trapping and killing animals, collecting rocks to fashion a fire pit, and breaking dry, brittle branches to cook his food was easy. But to be seen, inside and out, as clearly as one sees their own reflection in a tranquil pool of water was more terrifying for Kadesh to consider than hunger, bodily harm, or death.

 

He looked at the people in the crowd with disdain. They were like flies buzzing around a piece of ripe fruit. “How they clamor and push, how they howl and fight to be near that One in the middle!” Kadesh spat on the ground in disgust. But oh, the yearning His sight produced in his bosom!

 

It was a kind of gnawing hunger, a burning, unquenchable thirst, a secret throbbing within. He saw, in springtime, how the hart panted after the hind, how they found each other, and became one. Kadesh shook his shaggy head of hair, let out a sigh with a snort, and could not understand why the sight of Him should make him think such thoughts. “I am like the blind that still sense and follow the rhythm of the sun even if they can't see it.”

 

Being near Him, the animal in him was silenced and tamed. He fought this feeling with all his might, for what was the world of man but mad turmoil and chaotic disarray? He saw slaves dragged through the streets, their heads bowed low. He scoffed at both master and servant; he had no place in their world, nor they in his. The wilderness was harsh, but just, its laws immutable -- unlike that of man.   

 

But when He stood surrounded by the riff-raff of the desert, and Kadesh caught a glimpse of Him, it was like rain falling over parched land, it was like shooting stars lighting up a black sky, it was like soft leaves touching his rough skin. Kadesh blinked, scratched his mangy beard, and thought of the owl of the desert whose feathers help him blend into cliffs and desolate ruins, or the hyrax that hides in rocky outcrops wearing his earth-toned fur covering. “How our eyes deceive us!”

 

Kadesh was perplexed and astounded, and yet, he knew he would not go to Him. It was his savage pride perhaps, or the faint knowledge that he was already there with Him, closer than any in the large, noisy crowd that saw but His clever camouflage as they reached out dirty fingers to grab at His sandals, His white robe, and spoke to Him to compel Him to do favors.

 

What was ‘Kadesh” but a name no one ever uttered? What was He, but a dream that never ended and never began? Two unknowns, drawn to each other, like hart and hind, guided by forces unseen, to commune without words, to unite, to disappear from sight, to vanish back into the deep bosom of the unknown from whence they came.

 

Kadesh stood up. Closing his eyes, he turned his face to the sun, letting its warmth pour over him. Behind his eyelids, made nearly translucent by the morning light, he beheld the familiar silhouette of the robed figure - there, even now, in the yellow, rocky valley, at the center of the crowd.

 

A faint smile curled the corners of Kadesh’s lips. Then, opening his eyes, he turned and walked away.

Reviews

[emmajoygreen]

'What was ‘Kadesh” but a name no one ever uttered? What was He, but a dream that never ended and never began? Two unknowns, drawn to each other, like hart and hind, guided by forces unseen, to commune without words, to unite, to disappear from sight, to vanish back into the deep bosom of the unknown from whence they came.

Kadesh stood up. Closing his eyes, he turned his face to the sun, letting its warmth pour over him. Behind his eyelids, made nearly translucent by the morning light, he beheld the familiar silhouette of the robed figure - there, even now, in the yellow, rocky valley, at the center of the crowd.'

History is not its beginning but - its ending. Finely put.