The Crystal Spectre Finds a New Home

The time after the Baptism was an upper-room time in the city of eternity. What now?


And Christ came to that room with me (the bride) and the Baptized One. I welcomed him eagerly, as was my custom. But the Baptized Spectre kept his face turned aside, toward the fireplace.

"What now?" I asked. And a thought swelled in my head of my place in the Holy Writ.
My deep soul wondered: was the dark test passed?
My deep soul wondered: does life begin again within me now?

But Christ looked at the Baptized One, not at me. "He fears the truth of prophecy.
If you become the Mother,
what becomes he?"

I looked at my new deep-soul companion and saw
indeed what lodged in his spiritual eye.
He would somehow be the dragon
...and his faith buckled under the strain of such a profession
over his destiny.

My faith folded over, felt the hands of prophecy press down, and turn
and fold again.

"Maybe that is not who he is
in the story."

They both looked at me. Such different looks.
One an electric stare.
The other a flirt of a smile.

Then they looked at each other.
"It will be a large discipline," he forewarned.

"It is wisdom," I walked forward adamantly.
"It is a way to be a disciple,
such as no human can know.
What a wonder!"

And so the Spectre
became a novice
and my very body the monastery.

Curled up and small,
small and powerless,
powerless and devoid of influence
over any but...me.

Thus we continued life together.