Bright Dark Madonna by Elizabeth Cunningham

Author:Elizabeth Cunningham [Cunningham, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780983358985
Publisher: Monkfish Book Publishing
Published: 2013-02-05T05:00:00+00:00

Since the first baptism hadn’t taken, I wasn’t overly concerned about this one—but it proved to have consequences I could not have foreseen. First of all everyone was now obliged to regard me as a sister in Christ and to treat me with charity, including Sarah. She had not been formally baptized, as far as I knew, but in Paul’s eyes there was perhaps no need; she was so clearly favored by Christ Jesus. Everyone welcomed me and embraced me. When Sarah put her arms around me, she clung to me, as if she had been holding herself apart from me and now at last was free, for a moment, to love me again. If this baptism pleased her so much, I wasn’t about to voice my reservations or remind anyone that I had not consented.

So I tried to be happy that evening as I joined in the communal meal, but I went to bed feeling uneasy and false. Sheep’s clothing is not always comfortable if you’re not a sheep. That night for the first time in a long time, I woke and felt my beloved’s presence. It was not that he was not always with me, in my heart, in my memory—but now he was with me, surrounding me, inside me, his unmistakable essence flowing over me. I felt mine pouring into him and my tears with it.

“Where the hell have you been!” I demanded silently suddenly realizing how angry I was with him. “Did you really appoint this Paul guy to be your apostle and set him apart from his mother’s womb?”

“He tends to overstate the case,” my beloved understated.

“I’ll say! I suppose you know he tried to force my conversion.”

“But he failed.” I could sense in my beloved both amusement and wistfulness.

“Cariad,” I said. “I of all people understand the god-making death. But I can’t accept the rest of it. You know that.”

“Thank goddess,” he said; yes he did. “But Maeve, listen, that’s why the people need you, the ecclesia needs you.”

“Needs me for what?” I bridled.

“To tell the story as only you can. To tell our story.”

He knew how to get to me, even after all these years of being dead or resurrected, or whatever. Or he thought he did, but things weren’t so simple on this side of the veil.

“Have you forgotten the deal I struck with your pal Peter? Let me remind you. I agreed to disappear from the country, from the story, in exchange for keeping Sarah, for being able to raise her in peace. For Isis’s sake, you were there that night or Peter and I never would have come to terms. You sent me a vision of Sarah safe on the mountain.”

“I know, cariad, I know.”

“You know? You know?” I refused to be soothed. “Does being a god make you omniscient? Then tell me, why has everything gone so wrong? Do you know that Sarah blames me now for keeping her from your disciples? As for telling my story, Sarah has begged me not to.

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