Cross Roads by William P. Young

made that expression everything, not realizing that you swim in death’s ocean every single day.
    “Tony, you were not designed for death, but neither was death intended for this universe. Inherent in the event of death is a promise, a baptism in this ocean that rescues, not drowns. Human beings uncreated life and brought that un-life into your experience, so out of respect for you, we wove it from the beginning into the larger tapestry. You now experience this underlying tension between life and death every day until you are released through the event of death, but you were designed to deal with its encroachment in community, inside relationship, not in self-centered isolation like your little place here.”
    “And all those paths, the many trails leaving here?”
    “Tony, they originated here, inside all this damage. No one is coming. They all left.”
    For a moment grief rose like a stalking predator but asquickly vanished. He decided to acknowledge what he was thinking. “I sent them away, didn’t I? They didn’t just leave.”
    “When you don’t deal with death, Tony, everyone in your world becomes either a catalyst for pain or dead to you. Sometimes it’s easier to bury them somewhere on your property than to simply send them away.”
    “So death wins?” Tony knew what he was really asking, and if this Jesus-man was really… who he said he was, then he would know, too.
    “Sometimes it feels like it, doesn’t it? But no, life won! Life continues to win. I am living proof.”
    “So you’re not just a myth, then, a children’s story? You really expect me to believe that you rose from the dead?” He wanted to hear him say it.
    “Ha, it takes a lot more faith to believe that I didn’t. That I was beaten unrecognizable, hung on the torture cross, speared through the side into the heart, buried dead in a tomb, and yet somehow resuscitated, unwrapped myself, rolled away a ton of rock, subdued the elite temple guard, and started a movement that is supposedly all about the truth of life and resurrection, but actually based on a lie? Yeah, much easier to believe.”
    Tony glanced at this man, his words framed by edges of humor and triumph, but the canvas a portrait of grief.
    “It’s just a story!” Tony exclaimed. “A story to make us feel better or fool us into thinking that life has some kind of meaning or purpose. It is a morality fable told by weak people to sick people.”
    “Tony, I rose from the dead. We broke death’s illusion of power and dominance. Papa God loved me to life in the power of the Spirit, and demonstrated that any ideology of separation would forever be insufficient.”
    “You know that I don’t believe any of this, right?” Tonysnapped. “I still don’t even believe that you exist. I don’t know what overcame me. I mean, sure, there was a Jewish guy, a rabbi named Jesus who did a lot of good and so people made up all sorts of stuff about him doing miracles and even rising from the dead, and they started a religion, but he died. Like everyone else, he died, and death is death, so you can’t exist. You are nothing more than my mother’s voice echoing somewhere in my subconscious mind.”
    “You almost convinced me,” Jesus stated with a touch of sarcasm and laughed. “What you are in the middle of at this moment, Tony, is called a crisis of faith. More often it happens in the moment of your physical death, the event, but since there have never been formulas governing relationships and you are not actually dead yet, something special and mysterious must be afoot.”
    Tony was surprised. “Are you telling me that you don’t know why I’m here?”
    “No! Papa hasn’t shared that piece of purpose with me so far.” He leaned in as if to share a secret. “He knows I like surprises.”
    “Wait. I thought you were supposed to be God?”
    “I’m not supposed to be God, I am God!”
    “Then how come you don’t know why I am here?”
    “Like I said, because my Dad