“The father of all creation made this.”
We ended up taking refuge in the room that we hired at one of the many hotels in the city. Two rooms for twelve of us. The lads are protective and fearful, I seem to have lost sense of fear. Do I care anymore? There comes a point when you surrender to the inevitable. I know, I just know before this week is out I will be dead.
I could get bothered by it, I am at times, usually 3 in the morning. I awake I find myself soaked in sweat. I have never sweated blood before but I have seen blood on the pillow. I do what I read somewhere, “ Get up and make yourself a cup of tea.” In those moments the others are sprawled around the room. I see these guys as my brothers, they are closer than anyone I have known. When I think back they gave up a lot because they believed in my plan to change things.
I was tired of status and class determining who you would be. Religion had become a currency for the educated, the stable, the well off. My God, my father wanted for as many who wanted a relationship with the divine to have it. Since I was a child I got this idea that God was my father. Joseph my father was an old man when I came along and there seemed to be a distance between us.
One day as a very young child I got up early and walked outside. No one was about but the sun was up. I looked into it and then across the sky, something in me said, “The father of all creation made this.” I responded instantly with, “ I want him to be my father.” The something in me said, “He already is.” From that time on I began a relationship with the one I called ‘father’.
Later they told me I had to learn about God by spending vast amounts of time reading. Why would I read when it was a relationship with life itself in the form of the one I called father. I learned to rise early as I had done when I looked into the sun. I would walk in the silence of the morning and talk with father. He told me to learn what they wanted to teach me. That it would give me a language that I could speak. I didn’t understand but I did as he said. His speaking was what I was to learn in the books what they called love.
And so our relationship continued day by day and then before long, it was years. The more I knew him and the more I learned from their books the more a tension grew. They would say, “This would mean this” yet in my heart I knew that the words could only flow from a relationship. They tried to have a relationship with words but that only led to an elite. The Father desired that all people have a relationship with him not with words or books. The words came from a relationship they misunderstood that. Write your own words tell of your relationship.
A few years ago when no one would employ me because I was seen as a radical the time came to broaden the message. I was only one man I couldn’t do it alone. I thought my cousin might be the man to join so I went to where he was. He was dunking people in water and declaring them ‘born again’. When it came to my turn he wouldn’t do it he said I was greater than he. I said, “John, just do it” He did and as I rose from the water a dove came towards me and stood on my head. I felt this power within me. The people started pointing at the strange sight and then someone shouted, “ There was a story told that the one who would lead the people from oppression would be known by the dove that flew from Noah’s Ark landing on his head. It is he.”
It wasn’t my intention but it seemed like this would be the day to launch the school. It would be a mobile school going to wherever the people were and it would proclaim a message of freedom. I needed teachers and these guys became my staff. I wanted those who knew little of the books so that the power of the relationship would be communicated in their lives for all to see. Not one of them said no it seemed like they were ready.
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