This blog is a serial story in the genre of historical fiction. It posts on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays in installments of about 400 words.
Catching up on the continuing story line.
The February Chapter (and before) concludes the 6th century part of this saga and sets the scene for Ana and Lazarus to enter a new era. The magical wonders of tribal Paganism and the Celtic influence on Christianity continue to exist into the 7th century and even today, but are less evolving having been etched in stone as tradition. Symbols of Christmas, popular adherence to Creed, liturgical practices and structure have become the foundation stones of a religion.
The March Chapter “Passing Time” begins twelve years after the February chapter ended, and now it is 602 C.E., with Laz and Ana’s boys, Gabriel and Gregory, twelve-year-olds, nearly adults in that time. Now there are seven children in all. Going forward this family of farmers picks a pathway through new power structures rising from the dank tunnels and dungeons called, by some, the ‘dark ages.’
Discovering Lazarus-Ink.blog beyond story…
THE HISTORY: The non-fictional historical setting of this saga is chosen to follow a single strand of first century teachings throughout the centuries to unravel and observe the shifts of Christian church history. Through heresies, judgments, wars and witches the question is always: “So then, whatever happened to the ancient universal love of God?”
THE FICTION: The What-If of this fiction is the character who is a literary device reincarnated from John Chapter 11, (That’s the story of the raising of Lazarus by his friend Jesus.) Lazarus is used in this blog as the fictional time traveler and the first person voice of the narrator. In this fiction Lazarus was bestowed by his friend Jesus, with the super-power of extravagant physical healing, so that at every death he endures he is eventually restored to life through slow and reliable healing, brought back as an ever-thirty-something man of ancient Israel whose memory of Jesus is never flawed.
THE BIBLE STORY? The Fourth Gospel (John) offers the amazing works of Jesus using “signs,” not “miracles” as we find in the other gospels. In John, the signs are physical metaphors for spiritual truths. As a sign, Lazarus is used in John’s Gospel as the physical example or metaphor for the spiritual truth of resurrection.
Bible scholars and close readers of the gospels will tell you that the fourth gospel differs from the synoptics (the other three), in that the story is told from the setting of Bethany just outside of Jerusalem, while the others are perceived to be grounded in Galilee of Nazareth with visits to the Temple and places nearby.
THEOLOGY: This Protestant seminary educated, unorthodox, mystic blogger believes that John was written from a point of view that reality is spiritual, and the whole of the physical creation is God’s creative work of art, offered to all the ever-living spirits of us to be as a sign, to speak of this reality of Spirit and allowing good mental health and healing into a nature of God’s universal love. Seeing the physical world from the spiritual reality is like seeing from Jerusalem when everyone else views the story as rooted in Galilee. It is the same basic story, but an alternative point of view.
Lazarus Ink 