There is a young man, young boy, I wonder at what point the difference is made? It's not a distinction that I make, I don't have baby mountains or adult oceans. Anyway, in commonly understood terms a young adult male, who goes by the name Bethuel, speaks to me often. I haven't replied to him, but from his first words to me as child I knew that they were meant directly for me, not for an illusory other god or fictional invention that shares my name. Bethuel had always spoken to me.
As usual Bethuel was telling me about his day, "...and I was walking through the village, watching the birds and the people talking to each other and I sat down to rest. As I sat I watched some ants about me, going about their daily business. The ants were all filing along in a straight line, carrying things on their backs and looking at their neighbours and friends as they did so. As I looked up to watch the people in my own settlement also walking to and fro, carrying things and saying hello to each other and I laughed. I thought of you because I wonder if ants can see us?" He smiled and continued, "We're absolutely massive compared to them and I wonder if we're too big to see. For all I know where I live could be on the end of massive tree trunk and there are even bigger people than me walking underneath."
He didn't need a reply, when he spoke like this he was waiting for an answer, but not from me - not from the 'external' me that is. He was waiting for the answer to rise up inside him, he wanted to solve it himself. The part of me that was him.
"I came back and told father what I'd done that day and he wasn't pleased and warned me not to tell the master what I had told him about feeling like God and that I was wrong. Although, I don't *feel* like you, I was only imagining it." He said.
Bethuel seemed to have absolutely no fear of me, I don't know why he didn't, not that he should but everyone around him spoke of god as someone/thing to be feared and those that dared (in their master's view) to worship other gods also spoke with fear about some or all aspects of their being. Nothing summed up his attitude towards quite like the way he would normally ended his one-way conversation with me, as he did this night.
"Goodnight, speak to you tomorrow." And with that Betuel closed his eyes to drift off to sleep.
Popular stories are often re-imagined for a modern audience. But what you may not realize is that some re-imagined stories have replaced the original so completely that only the re-imagination is left. Normally you take a mythical story and re-shape the events to ground them in reality and there’s nothing wrong with the version you know. The story I’m going to tell you was already told and became mythical, losing its grounding in reality. But this is the grounded and original version.
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