Category Archives: Story

Dragon

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The first Man to come down into the Cave found there treasures and riches all unimaginably amazing! Then, the Man met the Dragon of this Cave. This sly Dragon offered him a Key. The Dragon said that if he took the Key from the Dragon’s teeth then he would be the Ruler of this cave and own all the treasures within it. And so, the man beguiled by wonders and dreaming of riches took the Key from the Dragon’s fang. And then the Dragon laughed and hissed for he through cheating won a secret vow: the man was now indebted to him, and was bound to repay the dragon with his life, and the cruel Dragon would own, terrorize, and feast upon this man and every being born of his body forever.

And so more filled the cave–the children of this Man, and at the end of every cave dweller’s life, like cattle fattened for slaughter, they were fed to the Dragon, to die a hideous, horrendous, and unwholesome, gruesome death, where they would be swallowed up, tortured, and tormented forever in repayment of the bargain. And so those who lived in the cave lived under the fearful tyranny of this Dragon.

And then one day, there was born into this Cave, a Child, born not of the seed of the first Man, but rather born of the One who made the cave itself, the One to whom even the Dragon owed its allegiance. When this Child came of age, the Dragon offered him the same Key he offered to the first Man, but this One refused. This Wholly Other, unfettered to the Dragon, joined the cave dwellers by living in this cave that was ruled by the Dragon, and showed the cave dwellers how to live as if they were not enslaved to the Dragon.

Well, those more powerful cave dwellers and those who were more entrenched and entangled in the Dragon’s ruling ways sought to destroy this Outsider, this Wholly Other One, who threatened their ability to control the treasures of this cave in their own little minds and their own littler worlds: even though he was offering them freedom from the Dragon if they would follow him. Others did follow him, but once they recognized what it meant to follow him, even they cowered and shrunk back because their hearts were too full of fear of the Dragon, whose rule alone they had known their whole lives.

There was a final showdown, when in order to get rid of this Wholly Other One, who had come among them, those who ruled the cave surrendered him and delivered him up as a sacrifice to the Dragon to feast upon him. And the Dragon came to swallow him whole so that he could be tormented just like the others. Only this time, he wasn’t just swallowing whole any old slave, but this particular one was the Son and seed of the One who owned this cave–the One destined to inherit this Cave. It was a tantalizing temptation to tasty to resist, and the dragon snapped his jaws upon this Wholly Other born in this Cave.

Those who followed the Wholly Other One, were incredibly astounded and downcast. They had lost their only hope of ever defeating this Dragon.

However, like the Dragon, this particular Wholly Other also had a secret: the One who made the dragon, was Himself now inside the Dragon to unmake him. And so, he dug deep inside the Dragon, all the way through his entrails making a pathway out of the dragon’s belly and out the other side. Only this time, because he had already been through the Dragon’s jaws, the Dragon could no longer bite into him and could no longer harm him, because he had fully surrendered to the owner of the Cave, and by so doing, he made a pathway through the dragon, so that any who followed him now, if they would go through the dragon, they would not be trapped and tortured forever suffering torment, but they would instead be free indeed to live in the Cave beyond the time of the Dragon, even in the time when all dragons would all be cast into a pit, never to trouble the seed of any ever again.

And so now, for every cave dweller there remains the choice. Play into the Dragon’s claws, pursuing the treasures of the cave and seeking to preserve your own life as best you can, the jaws will clamp down, and you will go the way of all Cave Dwellers to death and torment. Or if you will follow him who made a pathway through the Dragon, and surrender yourself not to the Dragon, but to the one who has overpowered the Dragon, then you will find his way through the Dragon to the other side where it can never harm you again.

Buried Treasure

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There once was a great field that was far expansive. It was said this field held buried treasure of immeasurable, insurmountable worth. Many curiosity seekers came and sought the treasure, but they didn’t want to put in the time and effort to actually find the treasure, so they just made the treasure a hang out place. One or two treasure hunters came to the field and claimed that they discovered the treasure, but it was in different spots, and they staked their claim on that part of the field. People flocked to get a chance to see the treasure, but the so-called finders only showed them pictures and described the treasure they had seen. It was enough to satisfy some imaginations, but many were unimpressed and walked away.

One of the ones who was “unimpressed” went off into another part of the field. You see, he had found an ancient map to this field which showed where the treasure was really buried. He found it covered with thorns and brambles. He cut away the thorns, and the thorns cut away at him, but he pressed on until he got the ground cleared. People jeered at him, and mocked him for being so determined when others had already dug up the treasures. But he knew his map was accurate, and he believed that the treasure was worth finding, so he kept going. Day and night seeking to go deeper.

As his shovel pierced the ground he soon ran into some rocks, large stones, heavy and rounded. He cleared one stone at a time until he had dug a deep and very loose-soiled hole. Once again the people mocked him as his hole got deeper. Some said he should take better care of himself. Others were curious though about what he would find, but not nearly enough to help him out. But he knew the treasure was greater than himself, so he kept on going. Day and Night seeking to go deeper and deeper.

As his shovel dug deeper he struck bedrock. Who would bury a treasure this deep? He sighed, the work was so difficult. He climbed up out of the hole using the ropes that he had kept to get out. When people saw him, they said, “You’re out of your hole! What’s the matter? Got in over your head? There’s nothing there.” But the treasure hunter went to the well, and pulled up a bucket of water, and then walked up to the edge of his hole, and poured out his pale into the darkness. They all were like, “What are you doing?” He grabbed the ropes and back down into the hole. And he kept digging with the ground now softer from the water. With some terrific strokes of his pickax, and chisels, he made it through a thin layer of bedrock. Little did he know that it was thin because it had been placed there. His shovel found soft soil underneath the bedrock, and down he went. Day and night he continued to go deeper.

The journey was exhausting, and tedious, and time consuming, until one day, his shovel struck something that clanked. It was not Rock. It was wood. This deep no tree roots grew and he was too deep to be seen clearly from above. He dug around it and found it was a box. He found that it had a lock on it. After cleaning off all the dirt he found that the lock was still shut tight. He swung his pick ax and clang! it came off. He pulled out the broken lock, and pulled out the latch, and then with both hands he opened the lid.

If anyone else had been in that deep, deep hole that man had dug for days and nights, they would have seen a trove of gold, silver, precious stones, gems, pearls, jewelry, and diamonds. The prize of the treasure was one mammoth pearl perfectly round, the size of an ostrich egg.

He put the pearl in his bag, covered the treasure over, and climbed out of the hole. He walked away from the hole first filling it with water, to make people think that he was making it into a well and that he had given up. Mostly, he was trying to keep his new-found treasure hidden.

He went to a connoisseur of fine pearls in the town. And told him he needed to see him privately. The man sat down with him and said, “What is it that you wanted to meet with me about.”

The treasure hunter reached into his satchel and pulled out the massive pearl. It weighed about 30 pounds. The eyes of the Connoisseur went just as wide as the the pearl. He was incredulous as he inspected it carefully.

“Where did you find this?”

“It was buried in the field.”

The man looked up at him. “You found the treasure of the field! I would like to buy it from you.”

“For how much?” he said.

The Connoisseur said, “I would offer you all of my finest pearl necklaces.”

The hunter shook his head. “No. Can you tell me how much it is worth?”

“Round pearls are extremely rare! and to find one this size, I don’t know of any of the other the round ones that are this large!”

“I will keep it for now. Please give me a certificate of it’s value.

“If you don’t sell it, keep it well hidden or someone will steal it.”

The hunter put it in his pouch and walked out. He went first to the owner of the field, and asked him what it would cost to purchase the whole field. The owner said the price. The Treasure would more than cover it. The hunter agreed, and gathered some of the gold from the treasure and went and spoke privately with the two hunters who had claimed they had found the treasure and he asked them to show him what they had found. They showed him their pictures, and they told him their descriptions. The hunter said, “You have not found the treasure of the field, neither do you really know what the treasure is. Leave this place and deceive the people no more.”

They said, “We have our claim. You cannot tell us what to do.”

“Your claim is invalid because the field’s owner has transferred all ownership to me.”

“What?”

He then took out the Pearl. The two of them stared at them in amazement. “It’s a fake.”

He showed them the certificate signed by the Connoisseur. They looked at him in the amazement.

“You will leave this field in my keeping, your claims are now forfeit. You will be gone by tomorrow and take all of your works with you. If you will tell everyone that you lied to them, I will give you a stipend for your care for the people who have stayed in your field. You will make sure they are all well supplied for their move.”

The posers left. One of them took no stipend and left quickly, but the other admitted his falsehood and gave the people the resources they needed to make the transition to another part of the field. Before the second poser left, the hunter who now owned the field came and handed him something in a cloth bag. The poser opened it up. It was several gold coins.

“Some use their position to care for others. Others use their position to take care of themselves. Since you took care of your people, you will have some help to start somewhere else. Start with honesty.”

The other man nodded and thanked the man and said farewell.

The man pulled out from the buried treasure at night, and used it to sow seed in his field. He hired the people who had been treasure hunters to become farmers in his field. He built his home next to the hole, and lived happily ever after.

Care

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Trudging along the wall, her shadow bent in the sun, she carried her backpack on her left shoulder. She felt the absence of friends walking beside her on her way to class. At home, someone had said that he doesn’t care. If no one cares, why should she?

Still, the teacher was watching that shadow as she walked by. Her silhouette told things she did not know it told. The same face she turned to him: “Why should I care?”

She walked in and sat down in her new seat next to new chorus-mates. Things were different now, but nothing had changed. This was her third time around. She felt like she was stuck in a time warp.

Then one day, early in the day before the sun rose and gave definition to the odd shape slightly darkening the wall as she walked by, a rather eccentric teacher, shined a flashlight on the wall, obliterating her shadow.

She turned around and blinked at the grinning face of her teacher. Her face this time was not “Why should I care?” but it was “Why are you doing something crazy?”

The teacher said, “Some people need to be reminded they are not their shadow. I thought one of those people might be you.”

She didn’t get it.

So he walked up to her and said, “You are not your failures, or the unkindness of others toward you. You are the sum of God’s purpose for you and His delight in you.”

And then he gave her a hug. It took a little while for his words to sink in.

~Written for a former 7th grade student L. Blanco

November 16, 2021

Parable: Two Temples

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Once upon a time in a great kingdom far away, there was at the center of the realm, a Temple. This temple was immense, and it was also a garden. Fruit trees, cherry blossoms–a self-sustaining eco-system where the animals and plants all produced and flourished with life. It was tended and kept by watchful guardians, and it was perfect.

Then one day, someone came and dumped a ton of trash in the center of the garden. The keepers of the garden were devastated and since they didn’t know how to deal with the trash, they left it there. And the trash started to mess with the ecosystem and make it fester. It started to pollute the whole garden until it overran it. People abandoned their care of the garden, and they abandoned visiting the temple, but their hearts still hungered for the beauty of the temple.

So they started building temples of dead things, and started to put up artificial fruit trees. The people there were all very friendly, but they had only one rule: you had to call the artificial trees, “real fruit trees.”

One day a visitor from a neighboring kingdom came and visited the realm, and went to the temple they had constructed, and he remarked to them all, “What is with all the fake trees?” The people politely corrected him since he was a stranger, “They aren’t fake, they are real.” And he said, “No they’re not. In my kingdom, our fruit trees bear real fruit and you can eat them. This is not a real fruit tree.” Impatiently, they said, “Well, when you are in our kingdom, you will call these real fruit trees. If you don’t like it you can leave.” And he said, “What about the garden at the center of your kingdom? Don’t you have real fruit trees there?” At this they grabbed him and kicked him out of their temple and said, “Don’t come back here again, if you’re going to treat us so disrespectfully!”

Scratching his head, the visitor went to the center and saw all the trash littered there, and he started to call people in the kingdom to help him clean it up. A handful of them worked together until at least a small part of the Garden looked like it did before. Then he brought to them the fruit from the center of the Kingdom, and offered it to the people in the “Artificial Temple.” Of course they had some type of fruit, but it was imported and borrowed and as artificial as the trees, but not nutritious. He offered the fruit to anyone who would take it, and when he handed the fruit to someone who accepted it, he called the fruit a word which they did not understand at first.

Sacred.

Parable: The Well

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The Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who dug a well in search of water. He dug a short ways and found no water. He knew of wells nearby which had run dry and were now muddy because people kept filling them from the water of the lake, but the water was stagnant and stale, and bacteria grew in the well which poisoned the water. So, he dug and dug, and dug some more until at last he struck a deep underground river of pure water. He and his family never went thirsty again.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

Hear the Words of Jeremiah the Prophet through whom the Lord said, “If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find Me.”

The Four Captains

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Four ship captains set sail to go to sea. One captain let the wind and waves carry him and did not steer, and he ended up crashed on the rocks. Another Captain being nervous about the strong winds, rolled up his sails and made his men row the whole time, but the men grew tired, and the ship quickly turned back for home. Another captain had no compass, but he steered his ship towards any visible or imagined points on the horizon, but he ended up getting lost at sea. Still another captain steered his ship into the winds with sails unfurled, and used his compass to guide him, and he sailed to his destination over the horizon pushing through every wind. He reached his destination and all of his men and his goods made it with him.

The Scar Chapter 4

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The Lava man and the gardener did their best to repair the wound to Zoe’s hand, but all they could do is put some salve on it to ease the pain and a great bandage around it. Her hand now looked like a molten cracked landscape on top, with some crusted scab and ooze in the cracks. Zoe was able to bear the pain of it better, now that things with her father were better. They went back and finished their dinner that the events with the stranger had interrupted.

Later that night, as she was getting ready for bed she heard a knock on the door. It was her Mom coming to say good night.

“Hey honey. How are you feeling?”

“I’m okay.” She said.

“Your hand?” She said motioning to the bandaged hand.

“It still hurts.”

“Try not to move it too much.”

“Yes Mom.” And with that, Mom leaned over and kissed her on the forehead and said, “Good night.”

“Good night.” Zoe said as she snuggled under the covers.

Her sleep was not to be. She blinked after a while in bed. The house was still and the lights were out. She rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. She lifted her white-bandaged hand and wrist, and then placed it back down on top of her blanket and sheets.

She remembered what her father had said: to go to God as your Heavenly Father. She couldn’t sleep, so she just prayed.

“God, would you please heal my hand?”

No response.

“God, my Dad said that you would come if I called you.” But then as she said it, she remembered his words, “If you seek him with all your heart.”

She tried again. “God, will you please heal my hand?”

No response again. Maybe she wasn’t doing it right. Maybe she was still mad at her Dad, and God didn’t like that, or that made her heart unable to hear him.

A third time she persisted, “Father, I am sorry for what I did to disobey my dad. If you are willing, could you please heal my hand?”

This time, she didn’t hear anything, but she felt something. It was like the silence around her was full of something. It wasn’t bad, but it was . . . hard to describe except . . . peaceful.

Is this what her Dad meant?

She checked her hand unwrapping it from the bandage. It was still tightly curled in a fist of burned skin and oozed scabbing.

Then she heard in her head, three words that felt like they were “light” itself. They were:

Open your hand

Her inside recognized the voice. It was something she had heard in her father’s voice, but it was other than her father’s voice. She at first was delighted to comply. She stretched the un-wounded hand open and raised it up for God in Heaven to see. But the “light voice” returned:

Not that one

She then realized, he meant to open the burned hand. By now, the burned skin had hardened, and It stung and oozed and burned.

“But it will hurt” she said.

There was no answer. But a memory stirred in her mind. A picture of an old woman who said to a boy she had been healing. “It has to hurt if it is to heal.” That was the answer. She had healed enough wounds of others to know that it was true. But her mother had said, “Don’t move it.” She had asked God her Father to heal her. And he had responded with a command: open your hand. The same words her Dad had spoken to her when she asked him earlier. She knew it was the answer.

But now, the choice was hers. Did she want to obey God or did she want to leave her hand the way it was? Did she trust Him enough to go through the pain He asked her to? Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to have one burned hand, she thought. She could still heal people. But her hand wouldn’t be able to feel as much as she needed to tenderly care for others. It would be a scar that she would always carry, but would not be one of the scars she loved.

She spoke to the voice, peacefully assured of Whom she was talking to, and said, “If I do it, will you heal me?”

The response was confusing. It was garbled with her own thoughts. It was as if, her own mind was speaking louder than His voice. It was not a helpful question.

She tried again. “If I obey you, will you do what I want?”

She tried to quiet everything else to hear what He would say, and a sad question came back,

Must I?

Her face grew puzzled, and she now wondered if she was truly speaking with her Heavenly Father? He’s All-powerful. He doesn’t have to anything . . . And then it hit her. She was trying to impose a condition on her obedience to God. As if she was saying to God, “I will trust you, if you promise you’ll heal me.” As if He had to agree to her terms before she would do anything. She knew she was wrong to say it. That’s why it was so confusing. She had to be willing to trust Him even if he did not promise to heal her. But she did have her Dad’s assurance that He would heal her heart.

“So that’s what this is about.” She breathed mostly to herself. “You want to heal more than just my hand.”

Yes

Then she felt it. She had come before the presence of the Almighty, and He did not crush her. He offered her a step of obedience to take. That was what she needed. And just like she trusted her father. . . maybe . . .

She let out a deep breath and said, “Okay, God. I will.” As she took the bandage completely off, she held her burned hand in her good hand. She first tried to see if there was any painless way to pry apart the fingers, but all she could do was pick at scabs and cause bleeding.

She sighed. Her gift was so helpful in situations like this. If only she could heal herself. But her gift didn’t work like that. She couldn’t heal herself. She needed someone else to take her wound.

She took a deep breath then put her muscles in her hand and forearm to work. The tearing, the stinging, the burning feelings all made her whine and cry again. She remembered the initial pain when it happened as her fingers out-stretched and moved around. It was like her whole hand was an exposed nerve. She felt the air brushing against it chilly like a knife.

And then again the voice came.

Give Me your hand.

Tearfully crying afresh, she extended her hand out into the air above her bed in the dark saying, “Where are you?”

Right here.

And then though she could not see anything, she felt a warmth surround her outstretched hand and grow hotter. It was like her father’s fire, only it didn’t consume her skin. Instead, it comforted it. It hurt good, like the salve they had put on her hand earlier. She held her hand out for as long as the warm process in the dark was going, and when it was over, she pulled her hand back to her and felt it with her good hand. And to her amazement and shaky gasps of laughter, the difference between her good hand and the hand that was burned was no more. She kept feeling around the skin of that the burned hand, but she felt no pain.

Suddenly, in the midst of her delight and amazement, she realized that she for the first time in her life, she was now on the receiving end of her own gift. And she knew the cost of what it must mean to the one who heals. She wondered, and asked aloud, “Father, does this mean that you have to deal with my pain in yourself?”

His response came almost as if with a smile: I already did.

She remembered that Jesus had died on the cross, and carried all sin and causes of sin, all infirmities on himself in the Cross. He bore her pain out of love for her. And now she loved Him all the more.

Then, as she felt around her hand that had been burned, she felt a patch of skin that was still rough to the touch. She turned on her lamp by her bed, and looked at her hand. It was like new, except for this small patch of a scar on the back of her hand about an inch wide. And she said,

“Lord, why did you leave a scar?”

I have scars too.

At this, she responded with something between crying and laughing, because she understood what He meant.

The next morning, she told her parents how God had met her. The father and the mother were amazed at the scar and they rejoiced. And that is how Zoe got her favorite scar of all.

The Scar Chapter 3

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After a while of lying on her bed, she now stared over the edge of her pillow until her Mom came in the room. She immediately felt like her Mom could not help her, so she stiffened.

Her Mom sat on the edge of her bed next to her daughter, and like nursing a wilted sapling she stroked her daughter’s back.

“I’m so sorry, honey. I know it hurt terribly what your father did to you.”

She said nothing.

“We both been trying so hard to protect you, and he went too far.”

“Yeah, well he’ll never want to protect me again.” She said bitterly.

“Why?” asked the mother.

“Because I broke his mold around my hand. I know he felt it. He’ll never forgive me for causing him that kind of pain.”

“Oh, I think you don’t understand your father at all.”

“And you do?” shot back the daughter and hugged her pillow and turned her back toward her mother.

The mother lay down on the bed beside her and reached her arms around her jagged daughter.

“Your father does love his creations. But there’s no creation He loves more than his child. He feels like he has hurt you so badly that you can never forgive him.”

The daughter was surprised at this. “Do you think he would forgive me?”

“I know He already has.” She said. “And if there’s anything I have learned about your father being married to him, he is usually willing to admit when he’s wrong. It just might take him some time to see it. Now, if you want things with your Dad to be fixed, I am going to tell you what you need to do.”

Meanwhile, the dad had called the ambulance to come pick up the man at his house, and the man had just left on his way to getting some help in the hospital. Inside though, his heart was like an iron ship that had been sunk. He knew his daughter was hurt more than her hand. Her heart was in her hand. . . and he had burned it. How could she ever trust him again? He worried that maybe he would hurt her worse with an apology, as if it would take away the meaning of what she had suffered. But he also knew that he was wrong, so he got up and walked toward Zoe’s door, when suddenly, he stopped.

The doorknob slowly turned, and Zoe stepped into the living room toward her father. Her hand was badly burned still. Slowly and with a slight shudder she walked up to her father and slowly lifted her eyes to look into his face. The father was mystified. Her daughter was not angry. The look in her eyes was more unbearably breaking. Her eyes were full of trust.

She reached out both her hands toward him and said, “Papa, I know you love me. If you want to rockify my hands again so that I never heal another wound, I offer them to you. I promise I won’t break the rock again.

At this, her father sank to his knees. He held out his hand to take her unburned hand. She gingerly held it out, hoping that he would not encase it in rock, but still trusting him. When he took her hand he gestured to her to kneel with him on the floor. She did.

With difficulty he got the ability to speak again. “With your confidence in my love and your trust of my goodness, you have overcome me, my amazing Zoe.”

He took her into his arms and embraced her, and she cried as they squeezed one another. He released his grip to look her in her eyes, and he said, “I do love you, and I confess I was so wrong to hurt you and to hinder you as I did. Your heavenly Father gave you this gift, and I was a wretched fool to use my gift to keep you limited to the life that made sense to me.”

Then he clasped the burned hand that was still balled up into a fist in his two hands and said, “By the grace of God who gives gifts to mankind, I will not hinder His work in you. I will never rockify your hands again. Will you please forgive me for hurting you so badly?”

Zoe nodded, a bit unsure of what this could mean for her if her father was going to loosen restrictions upon her and her gift. Did this mean he would not protect her anymore? Did he not love her anymore?

The father smiled as if he could sense her nervousness, and said “I will go to God for how best to protect you from now on, instead of trying to do it on my own. I ask that you please trust me keep doing this for a little while longer.”

She nodded, “I will try, Papa.”

“It’s going to be hard. I don’t intend to, but one day I will fail you again. I have much selfishness in me. But when I fail to love you rightly as a father should, I have a way that should make easier on you.”

She nodded, “Yes, sir?”

“When I fail you, I need you to go to your Heavenly Father, who loves you more than I ever could, and seek His healing from the wounds that come from me.”

She shuddered, “How do I go to Him?”

“Open your hand.”

“What?” She said confused.

“Invite God into the wound and wait on Him, counting on His love, and let Him speak life into you.”

“What if He doesn’t?” said Zoe her hand still clenched.

“He will. You will find Him when you seek for Him with all your heart, especially the broken pieces. And His love is the only fire that can bring all the broken pieces together and give it back to you whole again.”

The Scar Chapter 2

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A week later, they were all eating dinner together, when a desperate knock came at the door. Zoe’s father went to the door, and spoke to someone out of sight of Zoe sitting at the table. She looked over her spoon as she sipped the vichyssoise her Mom had made. Her dad came back carrying a man in uniform with one arm around his shoulder. The uniformed man looked wan and frail. The mother got up and hurried to clear the table. Zoe backed away as the adults pushed everything off the table to make ready. Her father gave her a knowing glance which they exchanged with previous understanding: Do nothing.

“I barely got away.” said the man in uniform, who up close looked to be clad in the garb of a park ranger, though he reminded Zoe of a soldier from the Revolutionary war. The warm light of the chandelier above gave it that feel. Zoe’s eyes were transfixed on the man. He was middle aged and stared blankly at the light of the chandelier. She could see he was in a state of shock. The father and the mother talked with the man, and found out that this he had been attacked by a bear, and his bowels severely injured by the claws.

“Zoe,” shot out her father, “get some water.” She started for the door to go to the stream, but he said, “No use the water we’ve already boiled!” He said motioning to the refrigerator. She looked inside the opened refrigerator and located their carafe filled only half-way. The mother poured water on her own hands and did what they could to clean up the man. His breathing was shallow.

Zoe ached to help. Her mother was not picking it up, but her dad was. He kept looking from the man he was caring for to Zoe whose eyes remained glued to the poor man.

She got lost in a memory triggered by the sight of her father leaning over the man, but powerless to help. One time, little Zoe played with a little rocking horse her Dad had fashioned from with him of Micas polished. She tipped it over, and the side collision landed on the stone fireplace, and the head split off. It was the first moment when her world shattered, as children’s world’s often do. She didn’t know it, but her father’s outcry was not because it couldn’t be fixed, but because he felt what happened to it in his innermost being as if it were happening to him, because it had come out of him. She saw her dad seize with anguish for a moment that twisted his face, and then he looked at the girl’s face. Huge tears were just starting to gush forth, when he reached out and clasped her close to him in a comforting embrace. She did not mean to do it. He patted her on the back gently and rubbed her little head, and told her not to worry. He took the rocking horse with its shattered head into another room. She waited for him, turning over this new feeling of anguish that was not her own, but it was her dad’s. A short while later he came out of the room, and held wide the rocking horse remade. She ran up and gasped. Her daddy fixed it. He could fix anything.

But not this. She said to herself. I can fix this. Then she saw the man’s head tilt back unconscious. She could feel something was wrong inside him. Hope was waning, though she stood right there.

She begged her dad to do something. He did not look at her. Instead he said, “Be still.”

“He’s dying.”

“Silence!” he cried, still staring at the man.

The urgency of the situation swelled inside her. She had to do it. And so, she stretched out her hand past the adults toward the man.

What happened next was shattering. Suddenly, Zoe’s arm was caught in a flash of flame, and the unconscious man faintly heard the outcry of Zoe in pain. The father’s hand had turned molten pale yellow like lava hot in the mantel, and had grabbed the wrist of his daughter whose hand burned under his touch. She sank to her knees as the burning continued. Her screams startled everyone, except the man on the table who was barely conscious. The mother screamed and yelled, “STOP! Stop it please!!”

The firelight died down, and a thud was heard as a sizzling, darkening orange bracelet and glove of rock thudded to the ground with Zoe’s tender living wrist cuffed inside it. The mother’s face was fixed in fright and amazement. The mother’s face burned with tears and anger at her husband.

Zoe was still on the floor sobbing and holding her arm now with a warm but solid black mitten. Her skin was still tender from the burn. Thus her father found her and stood above her. She looked up with eyes pleading and crushed as she looked through the strands of her hair. “Papa?”

Her dad’s heart softened til it broke, and he sank to his knees beside her. He reached out his hands to her, but she pulled her arm away and started away. He reached further to embrace her, but she pushed him away.

“How could you?”

“I had to protect you.” He said softly.

“What about him?” she cried pointing to the man on the table, “I was given this gift for a reason, and you . . . you punish me for using it?”

“You have to trust me. Sometimes we parents do things that don’t make sense. Please, you have given me your heart.”

“Well, maybe I was wrong.” She fumed, and then she passed briskly to the wall and took her black stone-gloved wrist, and lifted her arm with a back hand thrust and smashed it against the stone wall. It had the desired effect. Her father’s face was torn by that familiar anguish. Tears started down his cheek as he felt the house’s pain and the bracelet’s destruction within him, but more so, his daughter’s repulsion of the very one who brought her into this world.

She saw his reaction and blackly accused, “You care more about your own creations than you do about me.”

“You are the BEST thing that ever came from me!” Roared her father in a sudden burst.

“Well, I’m not you!” She said.

She screamed and stormed out and slammed the door, threw herself onto her bed, punched her pillow for a while, then sobbed. She felt both the shattering truth that she had broken her father’s heart, just as much as he had broken hers.

The Scar Chapter 1

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“Why do you feel like you always have to reinvent the wheel?” She asked him.

“Because,” he said, “I want to experience the wheel. If I don’t make the wheel, I don’t know it.”

This was said one time by a man who had special volcanic powers. He could generate fire and even pour of himself and it became as lava. As it cooled he fashioned it into shapes and stones, and as his skill grew, he could make anything. When he made something, he knew it through and through because it came from him, and was of his inner fire. He made a table, and knew that table because it came from out of him. When he was full grown, he made a whole house of various types of volcanic stone: obsidian, granite, and the pumice all shaped according to the desire and design of the craftsman.

One year there was a terrible flood, and his house was right in the middle of it, but it held fast because its foundation was fused by his lava to the bedrock. When the water receded, he saw that the water had washed away parts of the stone. He knew that weathering over time was going to destroy anything he made. So, he re-melted and replenished the stone where the water began its decay, and if any mold or mildew showed up on any of the rock, he would melt it away and patch the stone.

As the years went by, he met a woman who had hair the color of lava flowing down her head. He fell in love with her and invited her to his home. She looked around and found the stone work impressive, but a bit grim. She was not like him. She had the ability to nurture plants. Under her watchful care, she could cultivate living things to their full potential. Soon, they agreed that they wanted to live together for the rest of their lives, and so they got married.

They moved into the stone house, and soon the plant-loving woman had made space in the home for living things to grow. She moved things around in the house, and she did not understand that the lava-crafting man felt intently everything that she moved around, because he knew each thing, and why it was where it was, and how it was inside. She came to understand this over time, asking similar questions to the first question of this story. But, over time, both of them took ownership of what he made, as she was able to use his stone-work for her plants. Any time she needed a pot, he would make one for her, or planters, or wall-hangings—he fashioned them all for her. They were very happy together. The plants were protected, soil-enriched, and warmed, and the house looked much more like a home, and the air inside was fresh and less fumy.

However, the woman was unhappy after a while. Such a place was great for a house made of stone, but she wanted to move near the water so that she could nurture her plants more easily. At this, the man halted, because water was the very thing that would wear away at what he made, and compromise it. They sought a compromise, and when they had found one, they moved to that spot. The mountain they moved to in a very green country they built near a mountain stream. This suited the man fine because he had plenty of rock, and the water was being channeled down the stream which in the winter swelled to a river.

Then they had their first child. This child was gifted like his father and his mother but different. She had the ability to impart life to someone. One time when she was three years old, she found a butterfly that had been stepped on and lay still, but she picked it up, blew on it, and it came to life in her hands and it flew away. Her parents discovered soon that this priceless gift came with a price. She would grow ill, hurt, or deathly sick in proportion to the amount of life that she would give out. One time, she healed another child at school who skinned their knee, and she limped on her own leg for a week and then she got better. Word got out in the school that this girl was special, and the parents feared for her, so they left the mountain stone-home by the stream and got into a covered wagon and drifted from place to place. They home-schooled the girl, whose name was Zoe.  From her father, she learned that structures are first fluid, then they must be solid, but if need ever arises for them to mended or amended they can be melted and renewed. From her mother, she learned that life could only be given by something that life itself had grown.

Zoe understood that her parents were trying to protect her, but she longed to share her gift with the world. She did not know yet how precious a gift it was, or how terrible the world could be to such a one with such a gift. She became familiar with the stories of the Bible. In them, Jesus from Nazareth healed people, and the people ended up crucifying him. She wondered if maybe that might happen to her. She found in the Bible, the same fire that her dad said helped him to create things, and the same life that grew the things her mother cultivated.

As time went on and as she used her gift, she collected two sets of scars. One set was resulting form the wounds that she incurred, the second set was from wounds of others she had healed. This second set was her favorite.

One day, fifteen-year-old Zoe sat beside her father on the edge of a cliff staring out over the woodlands in the evening.

“It’s like I can get inside what people are feeling and experience it myself.” She voiced to her father.

“Yes,” he said, “When you let it happen to you, it becomes a part of you. I would encourage you to do something: learn from your mother. What she knows is probably more important than what I know.”

“But Mom,” she said haltingly, “It’s like she doesn’t understand. She doesn’t get inside things the way we do.”

“No, she doesn’t. But she values that which is outside herself. That is the lesson she can teach you better than I can. Perhaps one day, you’ll meet someone who will teach you this lesson even more.”

“Have you ever gotten to know her from the inside? You know what I mean.”

The Dad smiled and said, “Your mother is self-less in a way that I am not, and yet she gives of herself all the time. . . like you.” He said patting her on her shoulder. “You’ve been given two very different parents, but you will never fully become like either of us. I know you, because you came from me, and yet, I know that somehow, God is going to make you, something more than either of us, something different. And He’s the only one who can.”

Then he gave her a side-hug pulling her in close and kissing her head.