Nicodemus the poet,
the youngest of the elders in the Sanhedrim
On Fools and Jugglers
MANY ARE THE fools who say that Jesus stood in His own path and opposed
Himself; that He knew not His own mind, and in the absence of that knowledge
confounded Himself.
Many indeed are the owls who know no song unlike their own hooting.
You and I know the jugglers of words who would honor only a greater juggler,
men who carry their heads in baskets to the market-place and sell them
to the first bidder.
We know the pygmies who abuse the sky-man. And we know what the weed would
say of the oak tree and the cedar.
I pity them that they cannot rise to the heights.
I pity the shrivelling thorn envying the elm that dares the seasons.
But pity, though enfolded by the regret of all the angels, can bring them
no light.
I know the scarecrow whose rotting garments flutter in the corn, yet he
himself is dead to the corn and to the singing wind.
I know the wingless spider that weaves a net for all who fly.
I know the crafty, the blowers of horns and the beaters of drums, who
in the abundance of their own noise cannot hear the skylark nor the east
wind in the forest.
I know him who paddles against all streams, but never finds the source,
who runs with all rivers, but never dares to the sea.
I know him who offers his unskilled hands to the builder of the temple,
and when his unskilled hands are rejected, says in the darkness of his
heart, "I will destroy all that shall be builded."
I know all these. They are the men who object that Jesus said on a certain
day, "I bring peace unto you," and on another day, "I bring a sword."
They cannot understand that in truth He said, "I bring peace unto men
of goodwill, and I lay a sword between him who would peace and him who
would a sword."
They wonder that He who said, "My kingdom is not of this earth," said
also, "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's"; and know not that if
they would indeed be free to enter the kingdom of their passion, they
must not resist the gate-keeper of their necessities. It behooves them
gladly to pay that dole to enter into that city.
There are the men who say, "He preached tenderness and kindliness and
filial love, yet He would not heed His mother and His brothers when they
sought Him in the streets of Jerusalem."
They do not know that His mother and brothers in their loving fear would
have had Him return to the bench of the carpenter, whereas He was opening
our eyes to the dawn of a new day.
His mother and His brothers would have had Him live in the shadow of death,
but He Himself was challenging death upon yonder hill that He might live
in our sleepless memory.
I know these moles that dig paths to nowhere. Are they not the ones who
accuse Jesus of glorifying Himself in that He said to the multitude, "I
am the path and the gate to salvation," and even called Himself the life
and the resurrection.
But Jesus was not claiming more than the month of May claims in her high
tide.
Was He not to tell the shining truth because it was so shining?
He indeed said that He was the way and the life and the resurrection of
the heart; and I myself as a testimony to His truth.
Do you not remember me, Nicodemus, who believed in naught but the laws
and decrees and was in continual subjection to observances?
And behold me now, a man who walks with life and laughs with the sun from
the first moment it smiles upon the mountain until it yields itself to
bed behind the hills.
Why do you halt before the word salvation? I myself through Him
have attained my salvation.
I care not for what shall befall me tomorrow, for I know that Jesus quickened
my sleep and made my distant dreams my companions and my road-fellows.
Am I less man because I believe in a greater man?
The barriers of flesh and bone fell down when the Poet of Galilee spoke
to me; and I was held by a spirit, and was lifted to the heights, and
in midair my wings gathered the song of passion.
And when I dismounted from the wind and in the Sanhedrim my pinions were
shorn, even then my ribs, my featherless wings, kept and guarded the song.
And all the poverties of the lowlands cannot rob me of my treasure.
I have said enough. Let the deaf bury the humming of life in their dead
ears. I am content with the sound of His lyre, which He held and struck
while the hands of His body were nailed and bleeding.
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