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TITLE: madman of gadara By Penny L. Auld 05/01/09 |
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1) The multitudes, at last dismissed, turned homeward.
They stretched along the scenery beyond my sight.
What questions must be clandestinely quieted
Within the minds of these,
These thousands schooled in parables?
What had they understood of what He said?
We turned ourselves now seaward
(He said that we must reach the other side).
Unanchoring our vessel,
Setting sail against the wind,
Peter barked out orders
As Jesus went below in search of silence.
I happened by His quarters and found Him sound asleep.
"How trusting of our skills," I thought,
"To turn Himself so soon into our hands."
I climbed above and scanned the sea and sky outstretched before me.
James and John and Peter stood together
Shouting to the little boats that huddled to our side.
"Keep a distance!" Peter cried.
"You can see Him in the morning. Pull away!"
The waters parted 'neath our bow
And we were soon beyond the sight of land.
The other boats, a dozen I suppose or maybe more,
Were filled with noisy nuisances,
Curious folk who wondered at our Master,
But who would not be disciplined to Him;
They filled the air with sounds of childish melodies;
They slapped the sea like babies,
Undaunted by their lack of seaman's skill.
They filled my mind with pompous aggravation,
These seekers of some momentary thrill!
When darkness settled round us,
The voices from the little boats were gone.
A somber song now sifted through the silence,
Baritone and bass rose from the helmsmen
(The women and their children slept alone).
A man's song drifted upward towards the heavens,
A song of strength, of legendary deed.
A wind began and weaved into their melody,
Tugging at the helmsmen,
Vying for the lead.
The sound of song was quickly drowned in thunder,
In blasts of wind and thrusts of wave
As streaks of lightning shocked the midnight sky.
The rising waves were splashing,
Then with violence, their crashing,
As both wind and wave now slashed into
The smaller vessels scattered at our side.
Children wakened terrified and called out for their mothers. . .
The ships were tossed like toys upon the sea
And noise of breaking timber creaked,
And mothers shrieked, and fathers cursed
While children wept,
And all the while, the Master slept ...
Voices shrill and cold with terror filled my head,
Voices screaming out to every name
Of God and strength and help,
Mixed with sobbing, mixed with anger. . .
Men called to one another, and I heard them call the Master.
"Where's Jesus?" someone shouted.
"He will save us!" someone cried.
As though defied by such a thought,
The waves now turned upon us,
Climbing high with hellish fury,
Fulminating cataclysm writhed and lashed our hull.
Water mounting, knuckles whitened
Beat upon us,
Truculent wind,
Assailing walls
Howling curses, hurling death against us.
“Don’t you care that we are dying?” Peter shouted.
“Don’t you care?” he screamed in terror at the Master.
“Don’t you care?”
The words resounded in my mind
Where thoughts were bitter as my tears :
How dare He sleep and I so frightened.
How dare He not awake before
We came to such a state as this.
Then He arose.
3) The still was awesome -
More awesome than the mighty waves
That crashed and cursed us just a breath ago
And brought us almost all unto our end.
Our ship was great and mighty:
The wood, hand hewn and set in place;
The sails with skilled perfection laced;
And we were, several, seaman for a life's work -
Daily tutored in discerning wind and wave.
"Have we, like children, whimpered without reason?"
"Was not the face of death in proud display?"
And each one took his turn,
Avowing danger was at hand - none could deny it.
Yet, with only words,
This one unskilled among us,
He who'd slept amidst the storm,
Stood to rebuke the wind in much the way
A mother scolds her child,
And hush the sea (hushed it absolutely)
Not so unlike a grand conductor tapping with his wand,
And every eager ear awaits the music.
That was the kind of silence it was,
As though we all waited for the world to start again.
"What manner of man is this?" we wondered.
"How can He do these things and be a man?"
We pondered all among ourselves:
Remembering the anger of the sea,
The white-eyed wildness of the waves,
The shouts of men snatched from their mouths
And swallowed by the howling wind. . .
Recalling thoughts that came when death had threatened,
Recalling vows we made that must be honored. . .
And having seen our final selves
Approaching death's uncertainty
In cowardice and anger,
We sailed the sea in silence.
---------------
4) We anchored at the place where dwelt the Gergesenes,
A place not gracious to our kindred,
Nor a people to our liking.
Still, it was to us the look of land.
We scanned the deck and hull for signs of damage,
And twice secured our vessel in this harbor
(John found the largest rope on board, as yet untried,
And tied us tightly to the shore with teenage fervor ).
As we were caring for such things, The Master took to shore alone.
Along these coasts, men bury one another,
And we surveyed their graves
Spread to the north, and northern still,
Along the stretches toward Bethsaida:
It looked as though some mighty bird
Had belched a thousand stones of different shape and size
Along the waters' edge.
And, feeding there beside the tombs,
Great, grunting hogs among the stones,
Rooting fodder from decay and lack of living things.
Among the tombs, no people dwell,
With grass and trees removed as well,
Death rules among the ragged rocks and seaweed.
We saw two men (or those who looked like men) in flights of anger,
Coming from among the graves.
They’d seen the Master standing there
And cried, and howled and cursed the air,
Defied and fouled and angry things
Descending fast upon Him.
As one, we gathered to the shore
And only slightly touched the ground,
Could He not see the danger?
We shouted loud our warnings,
Racing swifter than our hearts that screamed within us.
Then, as though our feet were not our own,
They slowed and slowed
Until we walked approaching Him.
5) The men we'd seen from ship were near Him now,
The fierceness of them caged behind an unseen wall.
They stood as tall as any men I've ever seen,
Near giants in their stance,
Broad and hairy as some wild imagined things.
I'd heard of those who robbed the dead
And plundered spoils from out their graves.
Saprophytic vultures, guarding carrion -
Threatening the passers by
Who dared approach their treasure.
These must be some of those.
We heard the men beseeching Him,
"If we must leave, allow us to depart into the swine."
How odd a thing for them to say.
How could they know the Master?
He'd never walked this coast before.
We talked among ourselves and did not understand.
We thought they must be both insane,
And that He humored them as well when He agreed.
But, sudden as the locust swarm,
Descending on a fruitful field,
A thicker air than what we breathed
Arose from 'round the men,
Came down upon a herd of swine not far away,
And then the thick was gone.
In an instant, as though thunder cracked,
The herd took heel,
Stampeding with one mindless thought,
The air now dark with sand and rock
And every piece of thing beneath the hoof, kicked up in flight.
My ear heard nothing,
Save the fearful squeals and grunts and hammering
Of frightened fleeting hoof by hoof
As, to the very last of them,
Each hog, each sow and every piglet
Found its tumbling path down to the sea.
6) The waters wrenched,
Contorted with the many swine enfolded.
How terrible, the screams of drowning things:
Squealing loud,
But squealing stopped in choking,
Gasping for air, dying for air,
Kicking hard at waves and one another -
Stone sharpened hooves forced angry into fattened flesh,
Blood mixing with the water -
Fighting strong and long and with their every effort,
But never to be freed from this, their grave.
I lifted my eyes from the water,
Not willing to carry the picture of this death,
And saw the final glimpse of herdsmen
Rushing to the city,
To the owners,
To their people.
The Master stood there listening to two once wild, now gentle men.
It seemed these two could not have been
The creatures that would ever frighten anyone.
He told them things I did not hear,
For I was listening little now.
My mind was reaching hard to find
A place for these new sights and sounds and happenings.
The others 'round Him silent stood as I,
Sharing glances shy with wonder,
Closer knit because we shared them.
A rumbling from the city found its way to where we stood,
Bringing citizens, and countrymen and swineherds;
Bringing anger, deadly anger,
Cries of anger, brash and haughty.
I pulled my collar close against the chill of them
And noted that, in anger no one dared to speak to Him.
The spokesman chose his words with care -
An empty man, quite obvious dismayed,
Concerned more by the debt of swine unsold
Than caring for the price of men now paid -
Quite more beseeching than demand,
Requested we be gone and not return.
7) Some people came to see the men
And wondered that the terror now was gone;
Still, keeping them at distance
Should the demons dare return.
Small children, safely tucked behind the skirts,
Or wedged between the legs of timid parents,
Reached out their eyes.
They gazed upon the two, of course,
And wondered at the tales they'd heard
Adults repeating in the streets as they all hurried here.
Peering at the mounds of sand and rock and all
Where once (they knew) were rooting herds,
They curiously cocked their heads,
Then with wisdom of their years considered
What the herdsmen said about the Master.
How obvious they all desired to see Him.
The children longed, with hungry looks,
To meet the man before whom demons fly.
And this was sadness for us all :
Too soon the brightness in their eyes would wash away
In this uncaring place.
Considering the words He'd spoken oft before,
We knew He loved the children;
All His heart cried out to children;
How valuable the children!
Yet nothing more could He accomplish there.
The people of Gergesa watched, as we,
And everyone now followed Him:
We fell behind on foot,
They fell behind, yet followed with a look.
Then, as we climbed the plank up to our ship,
Their whispers broke aloud
Into the rumble that was there at first:
Brash words now aired
In safety of our distance,
Words left behind us as we pulled away.
8) Our ship was free again,
Loosed to the depths of sea again,
Turned southward and bid good-bye forever to these angry men.
The winds ran swift along the shore
And we enjoyed their speed.
We eyed the coast, as seamen do,
Bewaring rocks and currents,
While painting in our minds
The portrait of this dismal shore
So seldom known to us before.
Not deep into our journey
(Ten miles, perhaps a little more),
We saw the port of Hippos - just one small city on the coast -
And thought we might turn in.
But, no.
Wind pushed us south and southern still,
As though obeying where He willed the ship to go.
Recalling words of other men
Who'd come this far then home again,
We realized the countryside, deciding that Gadara lie ahead.
“How curious,” I thought, “that He
Would bring us to the shore of people
Similar to those we bid good-bye not long before.”
We pulled our vessel in,
And once again, secured us tight
With seaman's knots as sturdy as we knew.
We waited there upon the sand,
Mountains rising on each hand,
Rocky trails scratched here and there and leading to Gadara,
Then leading down to tombs and death again.
The stories older seamen tell were proven then:
These swineherds also fed their flocks among the trash of buried men.
Disgusting that a beast would feed
Among the ruins and decay of flesh and bone,
And then be sold as meat.
We watched the herds among the tombs.
I stretched myself upon the sand.
9) "Among the tombs . . ." I thought.
Those words recalled to me a tale told in my childhood,
A tale of one so fierce, so wild:
The Madman of Gadara!
The others joined me on the sand where, leaning back on elbows I began.
"They say he lived among the tombs,
But no one knows just why.
Some say he was a murderer,
Some say he was insane,
But most agree he lived in torment,
A man of fathomless agony
Whose screams of anguish in the night
Kept city folk from wand'ring off.
His strength, they say, was monstrous.
No chains, no ropes could hold him.
He broke them all with effortless absurdity.
They say he knew such torment that,
With sharpened stones like razor's edge,
He'd gash his flesh and rend himself
As futile, he would try in agony to die.
The mountains echoed day and night
With cries of pain and woe,
But death would never come for him,
Or so the story goes."
We spoke together of this tale,
Then shivered should it dare be true.
We turned to scrutinize the tombs
but nothing moved.
No, nothing moved.
The Master had remained aboard,
But now He headed toward us;
And when His foot first touched the land -
As though responding to His heel,
Some unseen force beneath us upped a man among those tombs:
The Madman of Gadara!
We'd been there, standing on the shore,
We'd looked intently at the graves
And nothing moved until He came
To join us in our standing.
His presence brought to life the tale I'd told.
10) But now it wasn't tale, not myth at all -
For tall and wild the madman of Gadara came
With screams of terror like the devil chased him on.
The fear I'd known not long ago,
When from the tombs two others came
In much the same dread fierceness in Gergesa
Was not in me now.
I stood, almost as calm as He,
Assured that fear did not belong, and now my ears could hear.
The madman kneeled there at His feet.
In torment, pitiful he cried,
But in his pain, he worshipped Him,
Entreating Him with pleas sincere,
And this the wild men of Gergesa had not done.
Indeed, they called Him Son of God,
But in disgust their words were said.
This Madman of Gadara spoke
With sounds of hope to dare believe
And begged for help, out trembling lips
Beseeching Him, “Oh Lord,” he said,
"You have the pow'r to make men free . . ."
Immediately, the Master spoke,
"Come out of him."
Then sudden as one blinks an eye
The man was full upright again.
Cursing foul and crying loud,
Each word spit out deliberate,
"What business have You here, Jesus,
Son of God most high?
You cannot dare torment me yet,
For God has set a time for that,
And that time has not come. . ."
Such haughty head and confidence,
High, mighty words in arrogance
From him, who only just before
Was on his knees in tears and pitiful cries.
The Master spoke to someone then,
Someone other than the man,
"What is your name?" He asked,
And as I leaned to hear,
A thousand eerie times the name was called at once, "Legiolegionleegionlegionlegionlegionlegion. . . We are many here."
11) How can I say the sound of it,
A thousand wicked voices naming one,
Not united as a chorus but like when a cauldron boils
And every frothing seethe has its own sound
Although they all are one.
Perhaps that's it as close as I can say -
As though the man were dead within
And cancer's voices formed the words now coming out of him.
I gazed upon the figure there,
Upon my fellows staring as did I,
And dared not move,
For such a sound as hideous I'd never heard and never shall forget.
And then there came another sound,
The voices ceased, and one remained
Imploring Him, "Please, send us not
Far from this place, not from this country -
Here we all do well.
Send us to the mountains,
To the swine there in the mountains."
He let them do as they had asked,
So once again, the air grew thick
As from the mad man, every trace
Of pain and horror left his face.
Lifted from him must have been
A thousand agonies as well
For with a sigh, his body fell.
With softened heart we watched him then,
Once a monster, now a man -
Unclothed and battered, cut and bleeding,
Gashes of his skin removed,
Flesh ripped off where chains had tried to bind him.
The agony within his eyes,
Tormented man with unheard cries,
Unwanted and unable to be free of his tormentor.
He'd been a fiend of childish tales,
And never once, had I considered
That he was a man.
He'd lived among the Gadarenes
And known more hurt than all of them,
Despised for what he could not learn
(A derelict, they called him).
12) Cast out for lacking comeliness,
They'd ridiculed the heart that dared believe
Compassion was a treasure.
He grieved the hard of them,
And was so torn by loneliness,
So hurt and broken, as an unwalled city
Easily besieged.
I felt the warm of tears as I considered him.
There he lay before me,
His naked body scarred and places gaping,
His flesh a thing so raw
With every look of pain upon him.
I offed my cloak, and John, his shirt,
And every man his something to cover this one’s shame.
The Master gently touched him,
Within His touch was healing.
Miraculous as early dawn,
We saw the life arise in him
As open places closed and sealed
And broken parts restored,
And where the flesh was red and raw,
Now there was nothing,
No sign of it at all.
The man arose and took the things we'd offered him,
Our shirts and cloaks and coverings,
And clothed himself as readily
As though he'd only dressed for daily duty.
And then they came, as swineherds will,
In anger, for the herd was lost.
Just as the pigs of Gergesenes,
Beneath the sea they lie.
How strange.
I hadn't seen two thousand swine cast to their death.
This time I saw a man made whole, instead.
13) The people gathered all around.
Beside the swineherds, men from town
Had come to see if it was true
That their own Madman of Gadara was no more.
From all the countryside, they came and stared amazed -
The man they'd heard to scream and cry
Now sat in peace,
More sane than they, I feel,
And dressed and clean and quiet
As the gentlest of sheep.
The swineherds told them what was done,
And how the demons spoke aloud
Calling Him Lord and Son of God,
Begging entry in the swine.
Told them how He’d bid them go.
" He spoke to them," the herdsmen said,
“And they obeyed His voice
And left the mad man all at once
Then drove our herd into the sea."
What first was anger fell beneath the fear,
As though the deepest terror there
Had come to surface in a man restored
And they were frightened now that he
Should be so sane of mind as they.
With one accord, a trembling voice -
A voice that whispers when it speaks -
Begged us to go away.
“Do us no harm," (as one they spoke)
"And quickly go," they pleaded.
Aboard our ship, somewhat confused,
We turned to ask Him why they feared,
But He’d gone back to speak unto the man once mad.
“Return to your own home," He said,
"And tell them what your God has done."
He made it clear so all would know:
This new man of Gadara was to speak for Him.
And speak, he did,
Not only in Gadara and the country round about,
But throughout all Decapolis the people heard
How my Master changed his life with just His Word.
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