The child in the clover patch
Scenario: One day a girl has an encounter with a strange child that changes her life.
Author's Note: Sort of inspired by writings by Edgar Allan Poe, George MacDonald and Saint-Exupéry's 'The Little Prince' among a number of things... and of course the Bible =)
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On a mild, windy day on my way to University at the end of summer session, I came across a path that I had never seen before. I had traipsed through the gardens so many times before that I thought I knew every stick and twig in the place but apparently this was not so. I glanced at my watch and seeing I still had a good half hour before class, I abandoned my heavy psychology books and my bag in a nearby bush and crept along the path, my curiosity piqued.
The trees towered over me, lifting my senses and singing with ethereal voices in a language I could not discern. After stepping through various patches of dappled shade and sunlight, I came upon a field filled as far as the eye could see with soft, large clover. As I peered closer I could make-out faint ripples of movement and I realised, the wind was causing the field to ripple like waves on a glorious ocean. I breathed in deeply, admiring my surroundings until I saw him.
A child.
Sitting in the middle of the field alone.
He sat so still, as if in prayer, holding his hands out to the sunshine, like some sort of monument, then slowly, gently, he began to move his hands in a simple, graceful pattern, causing the clover to spring up from the bare earth and dance underneath his fingertips. I was about to creep away, feeling like I was witnessing something sacred, something I was not supposed to see when he turned and pierced me with smiling eyes.
"I've been waiting for you..."
I stared at him for a moment, wondering if I'd heard correctly. I could see that he was perhaps no more than eleven years old, with dark brown curls and deep, winsome eyes that seemed to hold the entire universe. He was dressed in a simple, white shift that was made out of some sort of course material that went down to his knees and was knotted at the waist with plaited cord.
"Do not be frightened," he smiled and patted the place next to him. "Come and sit with me..."
I sat down next to him, not able to take my eyes off his face that was filled with a strange yet vivid light. And then he went on at a great length to tell me about the fields and the flowers and the trees, talking quite happily about many insubstantial things... and yet the way he talked about everything was as if everything mattered to him, indeed every blade of grass... He turned then and looked at me expectantly.
"And how are you...?"
I stared at him, dumbfounded. How was it that a child could ask such a personal and yet such a knowing question... a child that I did not even know... He looked at me searchingly as if daring me to answer.
"I... I..." I stuttered, "I'm fine..."
He reached out and touched my arm and I gasped as I felt a bright spark of warmth flow right through me.
"Your spirit is broken in so many places and yet you say you are fine..." he murmured wonderingly.
I snatched my arm from his grasp almost angrily, "I wish you wouldn't talk about things you couldn't possibly know or understand..." I twisted the nearby clovers talks in my hand, breaking them away in great clumpfuls. The child looked as if he were about to cry and said quietly, "Must you destroy my garden...?" I looked at him in surprise the clover hanging limp in my hands, so deep was his intensity. He took the dead, mangled leaves gently from my hand and buried them in the earth, his fingers covered in dirt. But he didn't seem to mind.
"I know everything about you..." he said softly without looking up. "I know that when you were younger you wanted to be an artist... I know that when you sing you pretend you're standing on stage in front of a thousand people, I know that you hate your Uni degree and wish to change courses, I know you haven't spoken to your parents in over two years, I know that right now you're hurting so much and that you are numb to the damage it's doing to you..."
I looked at him in shock, trembling. "Who are you?" I asked in barely a whisper, but he shrugged almost in dismissal, once more adopting the childish, innocent facade, taking one of my hands he pointed over to the little copse of trees that surrounded the clearing.
"I am waiting for my family to call me... Just a little way out of this clearing is my mother and father's house. Today is Passover and we are going to Jerusalem..."
"But... we are not anywhere near Jerusalem," I said pointedly, still shaken, wondering what game he was playing at.
"I know that," he smiled up at me. "This is my garden. It is a place of happenings... a place of beginnings... Many lost people wander in here from time to time..."
"Then why am I here?" I looked at him, still confused.
"Are you not lost?" He leant his head to one side imploringly.
"I..." I bit my lip and frowned. I thought back to him reading my mind so easily; like a knife slicing through melted butter and decided against arguing with him.
"Then why are you here?" I sighed.
"Because..." and he looked at me seriously, "I have been talking with my Father and he has been telling me many things..." Here a certain sadness came over his face, and it was suddenly as if a cloud darkened the sky.
"How is that you know so much about me?" I asked, "Are you a magical child...?"
He looked at me sideways and laughed, and his laughter was like sunshine, like clear, running water. The stalks of clover wavered about as if attuned to the sound of his voice.
"I am human, if that's what you mean... I am the eldest child in my family... I have two brothers and two sisters... My father is a carpenter and I am learning his trade..." He sat up a little straighter as if proud about this fact. "But sometimes..." Here a far-away look came into his eyes, "sometimes I dream I am in a different home... that I am standing on golden steps..."
I stared about me in shock as my surroundings suddenly blurred and rearranged. All around me the sky melted into gold and pink, a blinding white streak of lightening struck the ground and I realised that it was a staircase and that there were people walking up and down on it...
He waved his hands around and seemed to paint pictures in the air "...and angels come forward and take me by the hands, lift me up on their shoulders and sing to me, hug me and kiss my hands as if they miss me... and are sad about something..." I looked at his face, alight with memory and there were tears in his eyes.
"That's... that's... incredible." I whispered, moved by his sincerity.
"And sometimes I dream about the Dawn of creation..." And here his voice was awed and he moved his hand over the tops of the clover which rippled about as if in a faint breeze. "And there is darkness all around and suddenly I hear my Father's voice..."
"Your Father's voice? I looked at him strangely. "What does he say...?"
"Let there be light!"
And I sat back in awe as bright streams of blinding light cavorted across the sky along with stars and constellations, galaxies and solar systems, rivers and mountains...
"And why do you think you dream about such things?" I asked curiously.
He looked down at his hands and said quietly;
"Because it is my destiny..."
"I don't understand..." I leant forward and looked at his face, aching to understand more of this strange and amazing child.
Suddenly all around us the sky darkened as if storm clouds were gathering like a broiling storm. And from out of nowhere a fearsome looking shadow loomed up against the sky, menacing and black on the hillside. The child cringed and clasped his hands over his ears and I wondered at his reaction.
He looked at me with huge eyes. "Sometimes I have bad dreams..."
Then I gasped as blood seemingly flowed from his hands and feet.
"You're hurt!" I exclaimed jumping up from where I was sitting. He shook his head and held up his hands for me to see.
"No... no... see...? They... they... are only phantom visions... They are not real..." But his face was pale and he was shaking. My heart pounded in my chest as the sky thundered around us and when I looked at him, there were tears on his cheeks.
"Will you hold me?" he whispered.
Wordlessly, I held out my arms and he came into them and I rested my head on his soft curls, biting back tears, wondering what sort of child this was that he endured nightmares of such a kind...
"I often get bad visions like this one," he whispered, "and sometimes I am frightened... Mother cries when she thinks I'm not looking because she does not know how to comfort me..."
He looked at me with serious eyes and said softly, "but something is to happen in my future... something I cannot change..."
I looked at him wordlessly and clasped his small hands in mine. "That big black shadow on the horizon... what was it...?"
"I don't know," he trembled, "but sometimes I have visions of someone hammering nails through my hands and feet... I do not know everything... but I am beginning to understand..."
I shivered and hugged the boy closer, pressing my cheek against his, wondering who could be so cruel as to hammer nails through such small hands...
"But I am never afraid for long..." He looked up at me with serene eyes, "because my Father is with me..." Again, I was aware that this 'Father' he talked about with great emphasis was different to his carpenter father from Nazareth.
"I'm sure he is very proud of you..." I whispered, at a loss for words, because tears were streaming down my face.
The boy looked at me and asked, "Why are you crying?"
I looked into his calm, brown eyes.
"Because you make me feel things..." I answered truthfully, pressing a hand against my heart.
He looked at me and smiled and then he tilted his head to one side as if he was hearing something from a great distance, "I am being called... It is time for you to go now..."
"But I don't want to leave you here alone..." I cried, looking at the shadow of the cross still looming against the bloodstained sky like a lopsided scarecrow.
"I am never alone."
I nodded and smiled through my tears, wondering at his strangeness.
"I will miss you..." And I kissed his face, wondering why, after just meeting him; I could not bear to be out out his presence...
He smiled at me sweetly. "You will see me again one day. I promise..."
I pulled on his arm and looked at him earnestly. "Come with me... break free from this dream world... or whatever it is..."
He looked at me with compassion, "But don't you realise? You are the future. Whatever I do here and now... is for you..." And he kissed the palm of my hand.
And before I could register his answer, he walked off into the clover patch and over the next rise and I followed him with my eyes until he disappeared into the sky. I shivered as an eerie wind came over the clearing and I wrapped my arms about me, experiencing at once, a sort of premonition of things to come; of darkness and struggle, of beauty and pain, and things too amazing and too wonderful to comprehend. And in that moment, I fully believed that this child could save the world.
As I turned to walk back the way I came I saw a pure white flower that had sprung up amongst the bed of clover, and it suddenly struck me that the flower had grown on the exact spot where the child had buried the plants I had destroyed. I smiled, because it resonated in my mind like a promise of sorts.
In the days that followed, I often wondered what happened that day. For I woke up on the grass near my pile of scattered books and realised I had missed all my afternoon classes. I even went back to the spot where I had wandered off the path, but I never found the path or the field again, it was like I had imagined or dreamt it all... or maybe I had truly walked into a time warp, if such things existed... And I had not even thought to ask the strange child's name! All I knew then was that after my encounter with that amazing child, things were not quite the same... everything changed subtly overnight... I began to see the world through different eyes, I changed courses, I enrolled in a Creative Arts College and one unusually warm Christmas night, I arrived on my parent's doorstep.
It was also on that same Christmas, that I stood in front of a nativity scene for the first time since childhood, observing the radiant look on Mary's face, her husband's gentle hand on her shoulder, the three wise men kneeling in reverence to present gifts to the child King, who opened his arms to receive them... And looking into that small face of light and love I finally understood the meaning of that precious encounter not so long ago... and nearly wept for have being blessed in such a way...
Surely, it was a thing most beautiful and beyond comprehension to think that I had met the Christ child that day... that I had talked with him, witnessed the birth of creation, witnessed his humility, his passion and his strength at even such a tender age, that I had held the Saviour of the world in my arms, kissed his hands and his face... And as long as I lived, I would never forget his words...
"Whatever I do here and now... is for you..."
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Merry Christmas everyone!