"Who is Christ to you?" asked Father Joseph.
I replied.
***
Countless rains had washed away the topsoil in the gully, leaving rocky, sticky clay exposed. The green-tufted pine trees lining the high banks clustered thickly, their sharp limbs intertwining to block all but the most tenacious light from the little valley.
Flash floods often flushed the gully, but the dry periods left it to fill with the detritus of nature and civilization, and now, among sticks and stones, an ancient refrigerator, a rusted hubcap and shards of glass smothered the clay.
Here, in a depression on the gully floor, surrounded by filth, I existed. Wallowing in dank pools of self-pity and bemoaning the futility of my life, I saw no one but myself. I was alone in the semi-darkness.
Occasionally, a sudden deluge washed away the trash while I clutched at roots to avoid being blasted downstream. In those moments, memories of a bright, open place and a brother who loved me would flit through my agitated brain and run away on the tail of the flood.
It began one day when a harsh run of water ripped through the gully, swirling trash around me like a giant garbage disposal. I lost my grip. Something heavy, swept by the torrent, slammed my head, and I floated senseless. I awoke entrenched in mud on a bank I had never seen.
My head hurt. I couldn't move. I lay still for a long time, looking through thin trees at the gray sky, desparing. It was then I heard a sound, sweet and warm and far away, carried on a current of warm air. Instinctively, I raised my head to hear it better.
It came again. Dulcet, sweet, filling my aching head with a bubbly sensation which drove away the pain.
"Hope," I croaked, mouth caked with clay. I clawed at the layers of silt which held me, desperate to get up and follow the sound. In a moment, one leg was free, but in my injured exhaustion I fell back with bloodied fingers, unable to loose the other.
"Hope," I cried again, desperate that hope would hear me. "Help me! Help me come to you! I'm stuck! I can't get out!" In frustration I pounded the clay which held me in its strangle-grip.
And then the sound became a word.
It was my name.
Someone was calling my name. It was a voice with the tone of a thick carpet before a crackling fire. It was the sound of strength pouring through the thorny fence of dead-limbed trees. It was a rush of pure water which carried with it healing and cleanliness.
It came nearer, and with it, a marvelous light which stretched ahead of the sound, a beacon into my darkness.
And then, he was there, beside me.
My brother.
And he smiled at me.
"Sweet little girl," he laughed, "what are you doing half buried in the mud?" His quizzical expression was half amusement and half reproach. "Dear one, our Father is looking for you. He sent me out ages ago to find you and bring you home, and I've been calling and calling and searching for you since! Will you come, now?"
He held out the hands of a woodsman, worn and scarred.
"I'm stuck," I replied, spitting out clay, relieved beyond comprehension, but embarrassed he should see me in this state.
He laughed heartily. "Yes, love, I can see that. But come on, you move that buried leg to loosen the mud, and I'll dig it out. Hurry now, He's waiting!" And with that, he fell to work stripping stones and layers of silt from around me until at last so little mud remained that my feeble efforts prevailed and I withdrew the leg from the hole.
My brother held out his hands and helped me to my feet. Then, with joy spawned by a long search, he took me in his arms and gathered me to his chest.
"How I love you, little sister! Bless this day on which I found you!"
I cried, and he set me down.
"Look how dirty I've made you," I spluttered, trying to wipe my eyes and the dirt from his shirt at the same time. He laughed again. "Dirt? Come on, I'll show you how I can make it new again. Follow me!" He took me by the hand and led me to the other side of the gully where the faint trace of a track ran up the other side. He leaped up the bank, but I held back.
"But, but brother…" My voice stuck in my throat as he turned to look down at me from the top of the bank.
"What is it?"
"What about my stuff?" I gestured to the layers of trash molding in the gully.
"Leave it," he said.
"Leave my stuff?" My indignation flashed at him and with an angry glare I let go a string of vindictive words, stomping my muddy feet.
The look of joy faded from his face and a quick sadness flitted there before he composed it into a patient expression. He looked around him.
"From up here, my love, I can see our destination. It is the house of our Father, and he sent me to find you. You can choose to stay there with your stuff if you like, but I'm asking you to follow me home. I don't want to disappoint him by coming back without you."
"Fine!" I yelled. "Have it your way! But you better come down here and carry me, because I'm not going to walk the whole way!"
He shook his head. His smile of pity infuriated me. I turned my back to him and flouncing dramatically back to the hole, planted my leg firmly in the muck.
When my histrionics produced no result, I stole a glance in his direction. He was seated on the edge of the bank, feet dangling, carving a piece of wood with his pocket knife. He sang softly as he worked.
Hours passed, days, weeks and every time I raised my eyes to him, he would smile at me and beckon, calling my name in the gentle, sweet tone I remembered.
Memory.
I saw in my mind's eye the days when I was young and lived in a field. The ground in that place had been mean and painful, but my brother was there with me and the sun shone on us. Later, I wandered into the woods and fell into the gully, pushed farther and farther from him by the muddy rage of silty water. But he had come for me. Searched for me. Found me.
A longing to be back in the sunshine filled my heart and pulled me so strongly I rose to my feet and turned to look up at him.
"Brother! I'm so sorry! My Lord, what an ungrateful little snot I am! I want to go home!" I struggled out of the hole and up the bank, stepping out into the grassy place where he sat.
Smiling, he rose to his feet and snapped closed the pocket knife in his hand and returned it to a pocket. In his other hand was a stout stick, the height of my shoulder, which he had peeled, smoothed and carved with my name.
"Here, then, little Sister, is something I made for you. Follow me!" And turning on his heel, he strode away into the dark forest without looking back.
The walking staff fit perfectly in my fist and I gripped it tightly, hurrying lest I lose him in the woods. I wasted no time looking back into the gully, where a rush of muddy water was raging once more.
