It was a morning like any other, unremarkable and consistent with every other morning. My back ached, the usual crappy taste in my mouth, and the urge to get quickly to the bathroom all belied another day rotating on the third rock swinging around the same old sun that beamed through my window reporting that I had slept a bit longer than usual. I normally rise well before that time. I enjoy my early mornings as the only real uninterrupted me time that I get.
My wife had become deeply dependent on my services, as her weight and failing health required me to be on call during all her waking hours. So, those few hours when she slept and I was awake had become quite precious, something only another caregiver would really understand.
It isn't that attending her needs take up a great deal of time. It is more about the need to be ready at any time to respond immediately. Somehow that becomes a burden in itself, but I digress. I was trying to relate what made this day special, and terrifying all at once. I will try not to wander too much.
I had come to enjoy social media. Recently, I had become engaged with political activism in that manner, being for the most part homebound, I could express my political beliefs to like minded folks. It filled my remaining personal moments with a sort of purpose that rose to a meaning that was to shrink to insignificance in following days. I checked my newsfeed as usual, and found no really important issues for which to add my sage thoughts.
I went then to You Tube to see if any interesting suggestions popped up for me. Looking them over , one caught my eye. “Heart broken Pastor tells his congregation that the Bible has changed”. If not for the last part of that title, I would likely never have opened it. I clicked on it ready to laugh at such a ridiculous idea. That one click of my mouse changed everything!
The pastor was doing what he always did. He was teaching from scripture that he had learned and taught from for thirty years or more. This time was different. He started his session with a very sad face that was mixed with disgust and a sort of incredulity that was unmistakable.
“Please turn in your Bibles to Isaiah 11:6, but let me ask you a question before we begin to read. What lays down with the lamb?” He asked.
“The lion", they all chimed together.
“Read with me now from your Bibles”, he told them with sadness and resignation.
“ The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.”
I could not believe my ears. I had read that verse many times, and I knew it by heart as being one that was both comforting and instilled a great hope for a better world to come beyond this veil of tears. I went immediately to my digital Bible to see what sort of joke this was.
Now, it was time to not believe my eyes. There on the screen was exactly the words that he read aloud. I cannot properly describe the shock I felt. It quivered deep in my belly, and remained there for a week or more like a parasite that was busy consuming my reality, or at least the reality that I had relied on for consistency and comfort.
Yes, you guessed it. I went immediately to the cabinet in my wife's room to retrieve my Bible that I had not opened for years to reassure myself that it must be some manipulation of the digital version I kept on my computer. I know now that I was not thinking clearly as they were reading from printed Bibles, but such an assault on my sensibilities demanded that I have hard proof.
Bursting into my wife's room and ending my me time, I must have had a crazed look about me. My wife was shocked into wakefulness by my untimely entrance, as I said, it being utterly out of character to disturb her slumber.
There before my incredulous eyes was the verse as quoted by the pastor exactly as he had read it aloud. To say that I felt like the rug had been jerked out from under me would be a gross understatement. My mind swirled with doubts and possibilities to explain this madness.
I knew that any digital text could be changed with a few simple keystrokes, but here before me was a Bible with words printed years ago which had lain in that cabinet for many years. Did someone retrieve it, and reprint it then replace it without any evidence of such an event? No! That was crazy!
Certainly, I must have just thought that was what it said, and substituted some misquote for the actual text. No! I knew that I had read it that way, but how could it have changed? Ink does not rearrange itself on printed pages, so I must have misremembered!
The flaw in that conclusion was my insatiable hunger for the scripture that was caused by my conversion more than ten years ago. Having led an errant life for most of my years on this, or should I say that planet, I consumed the words in that tome like a starving man consumes free bread. Certain passages, having special significance, are set to rote memory.
If you are atheist or agnostic, you may have trouble understanding such need, but that is what it is, a need.
Having roused her from sleep, her needs called, and I had to put this profoundly disturbing issue on hold for a bit which was a blessing of sorts but a frustration as well. I made her coffee attended to her morning rituals as usual with perhaps just a bit more haste than usual. I was eager to speak to her about this insanity, but knew better than to broach the subject before she was fully awake with a full belly.
What was in reality only an hour or so seemed like days, but that time dilation was to continue for more than a week. My usually delicate stomach become a closed container for all that week with it only accepting an occasional glass of milk and basically nothing else. I have become rather slight in my declining years, and not eating was already a concern as it had become hard to not lose weight. Try as I might, I simply could not force anything solid down my reluctant gullet and swallowing became extremely difficult and not worth the effort because I wasn't hungry anyway.
Sorry for the unnecessary personal issues, but somehow they seem to be important to the telling of this tale. I suppose we'll find out together as it unfolds whether they are germane or not. I don't want to stop and edit it as it seems to be flowing out like water from a stream. I suppose I am afraid that if I stop, I will become reticent to continue at all or to just close and delete this romp through what for you by now must think are the ravings of a madman.
On that subject, let me say that until now, I have prided myself on my rationality and logical reasoning ability. Since this occurred, I have felt that what was once rational, is now questionable. So it goes when reality is revealed to be at least pliable, and at worst completely unreliable. There is so much more to tell with so many weird twists and turns, but I don't want to lose you with too much at once. You will have to decide for yourself if this is a fictional tale, or a recounting of actual events. This is merely an introduction to this wild ride, and not an attempt to fully tell the tale. If interest is sufficient, and they don't come to take me away to the funny farm, I will continue to share my experiences. I promise that the insanity deepens, widens, and stretches out to become a landscape of incredible proportions. For now, I will leave you with one observation and three questions.
The observation:
What I have seen and discovered following this revelation has literally changed my life and my perceptions.
The questions:
What will you do with this tale?
Will you now check your “Reality” to see if anything has changed?
Will you laugh and say,"Nice story, but I'm not stupid"!