Yet, despite appearances, Jesus had not lost any ofhis passion for god. He did not need to move his lips to pray. He’d reached the stage where every breath was prayer, where all the steps and sounds he made were verses for god, where everything was touched with holiness: a heel ofbread, the soundless comers of the house when he woke up, the cobwebbed shadows on the day-white waHs, the motes of sawdust hanging in the window light, the patterns on his fingertips. God in everything and everything in god. Even with his father in the workshop, cutting wood and making frames, he found there was a rhythm to the bow-drill and the draw-knife and the plane which took the place of prayer. Every movement was a repetition; every repetition was a word. The timber and the tools took on new meanings. The knots in wood were sins. Twisted wood was devil’s work and should be thrown out or burned.
Once or twice, immersed in reveries of light and work and wood, he had neared and glimpsed the large and inexplicable itself. To be alive amongst the sawdust and the stars was beyond understanding; to be this person, in this place, and now. Even to contemplate that puzzle was to stray too far from safer paths, to sweat and shiver in that hollow room which has no doors or waHs, where Never End and Never Start hold their invisible debate. There’d be no echo there to comfort him, or anyone. No dark or light. Not even any time. And only god — if only god would show himself — to make much sense of it. Faith or dismay, that was the choice. Choose Never End or Never Start.
Choose god or pandemonium. When Jesus chose and put his faith in god, he blinked away the hollow room. He brought the wood, the tools, the workshop into focus once more. His spirit softened and solidified again, as it had done when he was in his teens, except more bleakly. It formed a question to be put to god. A question taken from the hollow room. A question that a child would ask. This was his question for the wilderness. The question of a simple-hearted, fragile man — guileless in his love ofgod, spontaneous and vulnerable in his beliefs. You see these motes, this dust, this bread, these soundless comers hung with webs, these fingertips, engraved with tiny lines? What for, and why?
No wonder Jesus was a clumsy carpenter. He would have built a leaking ark. He concentrated on the large and inexplicable, and neglected what was on his bench. He cut or hit his f ngers far too many times. God’s patterns on his fingertips were scarred. But he was happy to have wounds. The wounds were prayers, and answers to his prayers. His prayers drew blood.
The wilderness was large and inexplicable as well. Only an innocent would try to tackle it with nothing on his feet, and leave his water-skin and overcloak behind. But Jesus had to put his trust in god’s provision for the forty days, and could hardly pack a bag with clothes and food as a reserve against shortfalls. He did his best to persuade himself that god was at his shoulder at that very moment, supplying al the courage that it took to get up from the woven comforts of the dying merchant’s tent and set off in the falling light towards the cliff-top. But he had found it difficult to pray, away from home. It was hard to concentrate on god when his feet were so sore. He found it easier to summon up his parents and his brothers, and his Galilean neighbours, and their priest. They were transported to the scrub to witness him. At first, they would be laughing at his foolishness.
Their god-struck, visionary boy, too shy to look them in the eye, who’d hid himself in gabbling scriptures, had gone off in a temper to the hills. Their Gaily was absurd. Look at his bleeding feet. Look at his flaking lips. Observe that holy, love-lorn look across his face. See how he hardly manages that little climb up to the ridge. They would expect him to be weak, to tum back at the challenge of the landfall, to take the easy path up to the poppy caves, to fall asleep inside the merchant’s tent. But when they saw him persevere they would wonder at his fortitude and say, ‘We never knew him after all.’ He could not quite admit it to himself but Jesus took more courage from the thought of surprising his parents than he took from satisfying god.
But, in these final moments of his journey, between the tent and cave, Jesus was a tired and disappointed man. He did not feel much welcomed by the scrub. Its textures were harsh and colourless. Its skies were far too large and low. He’d been naive. He’d hoped for greater hospitality, that the path would rid itself of stones and sweep away its thorns for him. God’s unfinished landscape would provide a way, he thought. The scrubland would recognize his simple dress, his solemn purposes, his modesty. Its hils would flatten. Its rocks would soften. It would protect his naked feet. This, after ail, was the path that led to god, still at work on his creation. So the path should become more heavenly, more freshly formed, safer at every step. It should become an infant Galilee. The winds should be more musical. The light should shiver and the air should smell of offerings. But god had left the thorns and stones in place across the scrub.
At last, in the approaches to the cliff-top where Jesus had to find the way down to his lodgings for the night, the scrub began to slope, eroded by flash floods and centuries of wind. There were no plants. Here, the soil was smooth and crumbling and dangerous. Al the loosened stones of any size had rolled away and fallen to the scree pans on the valley floor. Somewhere along the precipice, the latest rock fell free. It made its noisy, tumbling farewell to the slope, and bounced into the weightless silence of its fall. Any nervous man like Jesus, only used to Galilean heights and daunted by the receding ground, would feel afraid of being like that stone. He should not, therefore, have felt ashamed of getting down on his hands and knees and edging forwards on all-fours, like a sheep, towards the fragile brink of the cliff. But Jesus was ashamed, and frightened, too. Frightened that he would end up amongst the scree. Frightened of the night ahead. Frightened of his quarantine.
This was the final opportunity for Jesus to turn around and go back to the tent. It would not be hard to justify such a short retreat — his religious duty was to help a dying man. Perhaps he ought to settle for the easy caves up in the hills. That might have been god’s intention all along. ButJesus was too nervous to stand up and flee. He felt like Yehoch, perching on the temple roof, caHing out for angels and for ropes, because he could not tell if he should put his trust in god or men. The optimist and innocent who had set off that morning from the shepherd’s hut had now become a pessimist. Jesus had persuaded himself earlier that day that creation was continuing in these hills. Look at the lack of trees, he’d told himself, the thinness ofplants and grasses. God would be at work stiH. This was the edge of god’s unfinished universe. But what on earth could god complete on this despairing precipice? Where were his fingerprints? What work was there to do? Every Galilean knew that vegetation was the fruit of god’s union with the earth. There was no vegetation on these slopes. Perhaps there was no god either. Perhaps this was the devil’s realm. The stones were sinners. And the scree was heH.
Jesus hung on with his naked hands and feet. He was ashamed. His neighbours and his family were watching him. They were his witnesses. ‘Ah, yes,’ they’d say. ‘He’s fallen now, down on his knees. Look at him crawl.’
He had no choice. He hung his head over the precipice, and looked from left to right, for a descending path, and any evidence of caves. The light was poor, but he was lucky. He could not see his cave, or any cave, but he could see a sloping rock similar to the one which fo^ed the front deck to his chosen sanctuary. The perfect perch for eagles, and for angels, he had said. Except there were no eagles nor any angels, just ravens and the falling debris of the cliff.
One ofthe ravens landed close toJesus, turned its head a dozen times, inspecting him for food, and then flew off, calling out its disappointment — tok-tok, tok-tok, tok-tok. Its voice was unmistakable, more like a carpenter’s than a bird’ s. He’d made the noise himself a thousand times — the impact of a tool on wood. But, although he tried his best, Jesus could not take it as a sign that god was calling him. He had expected signs all day, it’s true. Some shaft of sunshine, picking out a rock. Some burning bush. A distant voice, perhaps, to tell him how he ought to reach his cave. A white dove, yes; or the elated song of a warbler might carry messages from god. But tok-tok-tok? God would be more eloquent than that. Jesus had to wait for quite a while, clinging like an insect to his slope, before a better sign was offered him. A steady flight of storks, corning up from Egypt to the north — the Sea of Galilee, perhaps — were passing overhead. A sign ofspring. One dropped below its companions and flew along the massive, sheer cliffs of the valley. Its white shoulders and body were briefly highlighted by the sun against the greys and browns. Then it shrank away so far that it became a duck, a dove, a fading speck of white, a mote ofsawdust in the window light. The moment that it disappeared, Jesus told himself, would be the moment that he moved.