The Lamb

Notes On A Dream

The Feast:

We were in the desert.

The sun shone brilliantly in the clear blue sky. Its unadulterated glory sterilized both earth and air; hot winds carried dust and sand on an aimless, eternal journey. We were exposed and the heat threatened to overwhelm us, but we were strangely unbothered - as though protected by an invisible hand. The heat was rather a comfort.

We were foreigners, yet welcome guests.

Friends and family sat together at a wooden picnic table. I could not see their faces, but I knew they were close because of the love that I felt in their presence. Evidence of those bonds deeply known, yet unseen. The table of our gathering was out of place. It was the kind one would expect to find in an American national park, not in that distant wilderness.

We were having a great feast.

Chefs dressed in desert robes, like those of the wandering Bedouin tribes, attended to us. They made sure that everything we ordered was exactly what we wanted.

I cannot remember whether or not there was a menu. Perhaps the lack of one was the reason for the chefs’ unusual deliberateness. Whenever I ordered a dish, they brought out each ingredient and asked for my explicit approval. One by one I scrutinized the raw materials until every component of the dish had been accepted.

This careful process continued in the kitchen.

Returning to the front of their cuisine, the chefs worked on long metal tables. There, they blessed every ingredient for its purpose through offering and prayer. From every item they cut away that which was unworthy, about ten-percent of the whole. Only the pure remained.

After the ingredients were pruned, the unworthy parts were taken to the cellar in the back of the kitchen. The door was removed and the way was always open. On the other side, a staircase descended into the abyss. A single lightbulb cast its glow on the stairs – weakly, for the steps were quickly swallowed by darkness impenetrable.

Evil spirits haunted the pit. They could not break through the doorway, but reached ever towards it like smoke flees to an open window. There, on the threshold, the chefs cast the unclean pieces into the black. An offering to the demons.

This process repeated fractally: first for every ingredient, then for every combination of two or more ingredients, then, at last, when the final dish was achieved.

Now completed, the chefs brought it out and asked for our final decision.

If we declined, the whole process started over again. If we approved, they lifted the plate up high and prayed the ending litany. This accomplished, our food was ready to eat.

Such is how we dined the great feast – a meal without end.

The Young Man:

A young man stood next to the desert tree.

The tree looked like mesquite, or, more appropriate for that region, acacia. Its dry, brown bark made the tree look dead, save for the green leaves sprouting from its branches. Its crown provided a speckled ring of shade.

The young man stood beneath the canopy, protected by its shadow. He was shirtless, but wearing: shorts, a backwards baseball cap and sunglasses. A prideful display of his well-muscled physique.

He was obviously a foreigner in those conservative lands.

Stark was the contrast between his clothing, or lack thereof, and the traditional garb of the desert people. They were dressed to withstand the heat of the unveiled sun. He, in his nakedness, relied on the shade.

A crowd of about twenty people gathered around him.

With every move he sought to capture attention and provoke reaction from his audience. The crowd, in turn, responded to each conjured novelty: sighing, laughing, groaning. He was holding a GoPro and recording his slippery movements – no doubt intending to reach a wider audience.

His actions, indeliberate, were the opposite of the chefs’.

Suddenly, he was thrown to the ground by a force unseen. All of his reason left him as he thrashed in the dirt, blind and foaming at the mouth. He was possessed.

Seeing this, the crowd began to mock him.

They pointed their fingers and laughed at the all-too-obvious fruits of his carelessness. Some said, “See? This is what happens when you abandon prayer!” Others, “This is the consequence of action without thought”. They soon abandoned him in his curse.

Beneath a desert tree, the young man writhed in dust and shadow.

The Lamb:

A great crowd circled the bonfire pit.

The multitude stretched out as far as the eye could see, a ring of earth separating them from the central fire. In that ring stood twelve chefs who, as ambassadors, attended to both the one and the many. Beneath the unveiled sun, they waited.

A roaring fire burned in the central hearth.

Gardening bricks formed deep walls, providing space for the large pyramid of wood that fueled its blaze. Smoke, attempting to rise, was ignited before it became visible – a fire of great heat. Ash filled the pit to the brim.

A white Lamb sat in the furnace.

Buried up to His neck in cinder, He was not consumed by the flame.

Twelve chefs approached the Lamb with long knives.

Each cut off a piece of His flesh, coloring their blades scarlet. Large sections were stripped away, yet the Lamb was not divided. The chefs then brought their pieces to the crowd and distributed them to the people.

Thus the Lamb, unburnt and unwounded, fed the multitude.

He remained whole.