Sailing aboard the Pneuma (Part Three).

I awoke to the sound of gulls and men speaking with raised voices. Clambering up on deck, a warm and bright morning sun awaited me. “Good mornings” came from every quarter. “Good morning”, I returned. The dockside was a muddle of toing and froing, dogs barking and orders shouted by disembodied voices. There was no stress, no pressure. Each working with a willingness and level of co-operation that was alien to me.

Looking around the deck I finally spotted Shekinah, he strode over to me before I could call out to him. “I am glad you are awake. There’s something I want you to see.” He gestured for me to follow him down the gangplank and on to the quay. The bustling crowd parted before him and I followed in his wake. After a little while we left the docks through a double gate leading to a broad street. On either side of the street there were cottages of various sizes interspersed by shops such as grocers, butchers, haberdashers and many more too far up and down the road for me to immediately identify.

On either side of the road were trees that were tall and handsome. Each tree, as far as I could tell, bore a different fruit to that of its neighbour. Twelve homes had easy access to the abundant fruit of one tree.

Everything had happened so quickly since I awoke, I had not been able to ask where we were. I ventured to pose the question to my guide but he responded before I could. “This is the land known as ‘Calledout’; it is a place that is devoted to the King and display such through the way they live.”

The street was not as busy as the docks, but there were many people about. Couples walked and talked while others were busy in the various shops. Children played, as they usually do, very loudly. What really struck me was the diversity of individuals, difference in social rank was evident, but competitiveness and envy were completely absent. Do not ask me how I knew this, for I would be unable to tell you. I just knew it. No two people passed each other without, at the very least, a respectful and warm greeting. It was almost as if everyone knew everyone else, at different levels to be sure, but no one was a stranger. Small groups stood talking in undisguised voices with no need to whisper.

While it was obvious that some had more than others did in terms of material goods, there was no poverty or ostentation. Well-maintained cottages and shops were all that I could see. Nothing derelict or neglected. Gates swung open and closed. Windows were whole and devoid of cracks. Gardens were maintained and neat, some more so than others, but none were unkempt. In many front gardens, people were working at weeding and trimming. What was striking, to me at any rate, was that I could see through every cottage window. Although each had curtains or blinds, none was drawn or down. The interior of each and every home was visible from the street. Amazing. Those who were inside their homes went about whatever they were doing as if there were no possibility of others watching.

Finally we came to the end of what I presumed was the main road through the village. We turned to the right and began to ascend a hill. It was not a steep path, but it snaked out before us into a glade of trees about a half a mile up on the left.

As we approached the trees, Shekinah halted and motioned to me to proceed. I looked at him quizzically but he just smiled and glanced in the direction in which he wanted me to go. I walked up to what appeared to be ruins. The closer I got I could see that these ruins was made up of many buildings with no doors, uneven walls, half a roof here, no roof there. Piles of stone and bricks peppered the land around the structures. “Why bring me to a ruin?” What really bothered me that there would be such a place just up this hill from such liberated order and cherished freedom.

I looked back from where I had left him, but he was not there. I was alone among the ruins with the sound of a light breeze exploring the empty spaces around me. It took some time, but eventually I began to see that this was not a group of ruined buildings after all. This was not some ancient and abandoned place. As my eyes opened in opposition to my preconceptions, I saw that I was not alone. Many of the faces I had seen in the village and at the docks were here, around me. It seemed as if they were unaware of my presence. They were not the happy and content people I had just seen. They seemed upset, let down, disillusioned. What was this place that was incomplete but held the seemingly out of reach promise of greater things?

I walked over to one man who seemed particularly distraught. His head in his hands he sat forlornly in front of an incomplete wall. I placed my hand on his shoulder but it passed straight through as if he were a ghost. I then attempted to speak to a woman who was passing by and she did not respond in anyway. For her, it would seem, I was not there at all.

What I had thought was a gentle breeze spoke, softly. I looked for the source of the voice but there was none. The breeze breathed, “Each of these people is really down there in the village right now, what you are witnessing is their inner person that no one else sees.” “Why are you showing me this?” The breath answered, “Even where the King rules and is willingly and lovingly obeyed there are unfulfilled dreams and untapped potential. These people began things long ago and then allowed themselves to abandon them. They dreamed and for a while believed those dreams to be possible and then doubted. During their quiet inner moments they come here to mourn over that which was not accomplished, dreams dashed, plans unfulfilled.”

“Can nothing be done?” I pleaded. “It has already been done. When the King grants life, as he has done for all of these, he resurrects the dreams and plans from old. Most do not accept that even as a possibility because they are convinced that their rebellions of long ago have removed from them the right to dream again and reach for the unfulfilled visions. For others, they consider age as an insurmountable obstacle. Again, this is untrue.”

“Why should age matter? Is this place not forever?” It still concerns me why I should have thought that. The breeze replied, “Nothing this side of the horizon is forever, only that which is beyond. But while they are still here life is supposed to be lived.”