BuiltWithNOF
Interlude



                                             Interlude

                                           Three Scenes


   Scene 1 - Delaware Bay, Pennsylvania, October, 1682

     "All hands, reduce sail!" called the first mate.
     "Aye, sir, reduce sail!" the crew shouted back.
     The sailing ship Welcome proceeded up the bay of the Delaware River. The captain had sailors watching from the bow to help the navigator through the shoals that could wreck a less wary ship. And after a six- week voyage in which thirty-one people had already died, the captain was not about to lose his most important passenger.
     "Well, Mr. Penn," he asked the stout man standing at the railing and looking towards shore, "What do you make of your new property?"
     "It makes me humble," replied William Penn with a smile. "And I thank the beneficence of God and your good skills [the captain bowed his head slightly] for letting me see the home of our noble experiment."
     "Huzza! Huzza, William Penn!" shouted a group of colonists on the shoreline. Penn waved his hat to them.
     "They are truly glad to see you," the captain said. "I hear even the old Swede and Dutch settlers believe you will bring a new fairness to the  land."
     "And so I shall," said Penn. "They may be assured of liberty of conscience and their civil freedoms. All I ask is loyalty to the King, sobriety and a loving neighborhood."
     "And the Indians?" asked the captain.
     "The king has given me this land as debt payment for my father's devotion and service," said Penn. "But the land belonged first to the Indian. I will seek out their kings and negotiate a treaty for our people's land. There will be no use of force and no bloodshed here. We will live together in peace under the one true God."
     "So you think their god is ours?" asked the captain.
     "Can it be otherwise?" replied Penn. "As there is one earth, so there is one God, regardless of His name. I know the Indians to be religious and of strong convictions. As Christians, we must act according to our faith and in better manner towards them than our English cousins have to the north and south of us.
     "I tell you, captain, Pennsylvania will be a garden where all people can live in peace. Even the lion and the lamb will lie down together," he said.
Then Penn turned back to the railing and raised his hat again to the people on shore.

 

         Scene 2  - 1708, Germantown, Pennsylvania

     Johannes Kelpius was dying and he knew it, but still couldn't believe it.
     "I am the regenerated Adam," he thought to himself, "Free from the  curse, taint and corruption of the Old World. I left that sordid place for this new, fresh, blooming garden, a true New World, where I could wait for my beloved Bridegroom to fill me. I have waited many years.
     "My disciples and I were sarcastically called The Woman of the Wilderness, but that was really who we were, fleeing the dragon to live in the desert, waiting every night, always watching, listening, praying, so that we would not be caught sleeping when He returned.
     "Oh, so patient have we been, so firm in the knowledge of our purity, knowing He would come and redeem us. Knowing we would not die but, like Enoch and Elijah, would rise bodily to that heavenly paradise and be transformed into pure spirit without death. We knew that. I knew it in my heart. And now I am dying.
     "My disciples look at me and I know they think betrayal, hypocrisy. But what could I have done differently? I followed the spirit as it moved me. I left the university, friends, career, all was left behind and joyfully, willingly, as I crossed that dark sea to this spot, this Pennsylvania, and this cave in the rock on a  ledge above a stream.
     "And here I have waited with those around me who felt the vision I felt. We waited together, wrote hymns, treatises, waited still longer, all in the promised optimism of divine grace, and of that inner grace that comes from being in the spirit. And now I lay dying. So human, such frail flesh. And I shall die without my holy lover with me, near me, in me. I shall       die . . . shall die . . . shall die . . ."
     There was a knock on the door.
     "Come," said Kelpius weakly.
     In came Christopher Witt, Kelpius' favorite and his best pupil. Of all his students, Kelpius hoped and thought that Christopher at least would be true to the vision they had shared.
     Witt was young, barely into manhood, yet Kelpius himself was less than forty. So much had happened so quickly.
     Kelpius saw Witt had been crying, for he smiled but his eyes were still red and gleaming. From his bed, Kelpius held out his hand. Witt came and took it in one hand and felt Kelpius' forehead with the other. After a moment, he looked at Kelpius then glanced away before speaking.
     "Your fever has gone down. It won't be long before you recover."
     Now Kelpius smiled.
     "Christopher," he said, "You cannot lie well to me."
     Witt glanced at him once more, then, again, looked away.
     "Christopher, listen to me. I am dying."
     "No!" cried Witt, and got up from the bed to pace the room. He put his hands over his ears and shouted, "I will not listen! I will not listen!"
Then he stopped, looked once more at his master, then knelt beside the bed and laid his head and hands on Kelpius' chest.
     "You cannot die," said Witt. "You said so yourself. You are the renewed Adam."
     "I am a foolish man who doesn't know what he is," replied Kelpius. "I know nothing."
     Witt started crying. Kelpius coughed once, then laid a hand on Witt's head.
     "Promise me, Christopher," he said. "Promise you will tell the story of what we did here, of what we tried to do. Promise!"
     "I will," said Witt. "I promise. But don't leave me here. Please don't leave me!"
     "I must go," said Kelpius. "I do not understand why but I do know my time here is up. Perhaps we will meet in Paradise."
     "But you said this is Paradise. You said this is the Garden. That's why we came here."
     "And so I believed, and so I still believe, really. But if it's so, then, like Moses, I must only look across to the Promised Land but never reach it."
     "But we are here," urged Witt. "You have indeed reached it."
     Kelpius smiled again. "So you say that Paradise is a cold monk's cell carved into stone on a hillside above a stream? I don't see that in Revelations."
     "But you had your own revelations," replied Witt, "Revealing visions beyond the Bible. The spirit speaks through you. You cannot deny that."
     "No," said Kelpius. "I don't deny that. My pen moved across the page speaking divine messages. But perhaps the spirit needs more than me to make those visions real."
     "That's why I am here," said Witt passionately. "That's why all of us are here with you."
     "Then honor me by letting the spirit move you to write and act still  more," said Kelpius. "There's so much to do, so much that is left undone."
     "I promise, my master, I promise, but please do not die."
     "My death," replied Kelpius, "Does not negate the truth of the vision. It just means I misinterpreted my own role here. Many will use my death to criticize and destroy our achievement." He grasped Witt's hand. "Do not let that happen."
     "I will not, master," said Witt, "I promise."
     Kelpius held Witt's hand tighter, then let go with a gasp. **"Ah!" he cried as his back tensed and bowed up in an arc. He grasped Witt's hand and pressed it hard. Then he collapsed back onto the bed, apparently unconscious. Witt rushed to the door to get help when he heard Kelpius speak again but not, he realized, to him.
     "My Bridegroom! My Bridegroom! Why do you forsake me? I have waited so long for you to come and still you are not here. Why do you persecute me so? Why do you reject me? Is my love  not enough? I offered my life to you and now I offer my death. My lover, my Bridegroom, come to me, come to me," said Kelpius in a hoarse, gasping whisper. "Do not forsake me. Don't let me die without your touch."
     Kelpius held out his hand but not towards Witt, still standing at the door of the cave. Kelpius, looking up, reached his hand toward the ceil- ing, fingers open in supplication.
     "Do you hear me?" asked Kelpius. "Do you hear me?"
But there was silence, just silence, until Witt could not bear seeing that hand wavering in the air any longer. So in a voice deeper than his natural voice, he said, "I hear you, Johannes, I hear you."
     "My lover! My savior!" cried Kelpius. He tried to struggle up but fell back against his bed. "I hear you. Come to me! Come to me!"
     "I am coming for you at last," said Witt. "I always told you I would."
     "Yes, yes, you did," said Kelpius, his head moving from side to side, his breath coming in jagged gasps. "But I waited so long. I was so pa- tient. But you never came."
     "I am here now," said Witt. "I am with you."
     "Yes, yes, I see you!" said Kelpius, his eyes now closed. "I see you so clearly. Come, my lover, touch me. Touch me!" Kelpius again raised a hand. Witt took it in his own. Kelpius gasped with a deep inhalation of breath as his fingers held tightly to Witt's hand. Then the breath was slowly let out as Kelpius said, "Kiss me, my lover, kiss me."
     And Witt leaned over and kissed his master's mouth, then again and again. Kelpius' fingers slowly loosened from Witt's hand. Witt heard the last wisps of breath leave his master's body, then opened his eyes to find Kelpius' own eyes were now open but sightless. Witt gently closed them with a pass of his fingers, then kissed Kelpius one last time. He folded Kelpius' arms on his chest, then stepped to the door to tell those outside of their master's death.

 


   Scene 3 - 1796, Altes Christiansbrunn, Pennsylvania       

     Opening the cellar door, he stepped inside, shut the door and went to the far wall where the spring poured from a low stone arch.
He knelt beside the stream that ran in a trough through the building and spoke: "So, this is the end, my Christel. It has come to this. All our hopes and dreams and labor ended today when the ever-so-beneficient bishop officially disbanded our order. Disbanded. Gone. Disbursed. Scattered. The few old brothers with me are being sent to other communities and the church will rent out the land.
     "And so it's over, Christel. I am being sent to Salem and know I'll never survive the trip. I have no wish to survive. My life is over. I am too old and I've seen too much.
     "The church we tried so hard to keep at arms' length has ended by swallowing us whole. They never understood, did they? Or maybe they did, for a while. I remember those days so well. We were all on fire. We burned in the presence of the spirit. Our Bridegroom has come, we said. The long wait is over. Our holy marriage is consummated.
     "And you were our Bridegroom. Christ lived within you. We knew that. There was no doubt. You entered us and filled us with the spir- it. Even after that night at Herrnhaag we knew the spirit would continue. Even your father only stopped us for a moment because we knew you'd survive.
     "So we came here to Pennsylvania and built a house where you could come and live. I planted the peach trees myself. I knew they were your favorite fruit and I wanted them bearing by the time you arrived.
     "But you followed your father meekly to London. You recanted the very beliefs you gave us. We remained true, three-thousand miles away. You remained the obedient son, true to your father, while we remained true to the spirit. You could have come, but you were too weak. I see that now and I blame you for it. For we were a crew without a captain.
     "We waited and waited, then you died and we simply fell apart. Something cracked. The foundation was never whole after that. The walls split, crumbled. We built an entire community for you, and then we watched it die.
     "When passion leaves, what is left? What can sustain the center but faith and work? Work we did. We made the desert bloom. You would have been so proud of us, Christel. The largest barns, the most productive farm, the finest cattle in the colonies. Buildings so beautifully built with our own hands they still bring me joy each day. But the center was gone and the walls began to crack.
     "This spring was all we had left, your blood pouring from the earth. Then we knew you were not dead but lived again, that you had been true to your calling after all. You fulfilled your earthly duty to your father, then your spiritual duty to your self. But how could we make people understand? We told your story, sang your hymns, came here and drank your blood, but they didn't understand. They wanted something else. And they went away, searching for it.
     "America is that way and we found we could not fight it. Over time, even our own brothers broke rank, especially the younger ones who never really knew you. They wanted to be on their own. They wanted legitimacy.
     "Well, the church gave them that because it became very legitimate itself. The old beliefs we cherished were said to be false: no more blood, no more Holy Spirit as Mother, no more you. We didn't listen, of course, but it kept us apart from those who once supported us until we no longer had any support at all. And we simply couldn't keep going. We were getting too old.                                                                                                       “The church became modern, American. But we never  did. People looked at us as relics of a distant age and so we are, the handful that are left. We remained true to you, drinking your blood at the spring. Singing your hymns. But the hopelessness of our position grew clearer and clearer. We had no future, barely a present and only a past.
     "It was that knowledge that led us to the beer casks in the cellars. Deaden, deaden, feel no more. That was what we sought. No wonder the church looked at us with such contempt and disgust, as though we were untouchable, alien, and so we were.
     "But now that is all over. We'll never be an embarrassment again because the good bishop has officially disbanded us. After fewer than fifty years, the community is gone. Oh, the buildings will remain, but for how long without us to maintain them?
     "We were a family, a large, loving, caring family and now we are being torn from our hearth, our home, our soil and our spring. But I do not go willingly, Christel, know that. I do not go willingly. And though it be unchristian, I do curse the church for its weakness, its failure to be true to the spirit, to settle for less than it was because of ease and security. We worked so hard to retain your truth within us. But we live in a time when such truth is no longer desired.
     "And so, my Christel, even I must leave you now. I remember clearly my first sight of you, coming through the village with your brothers, all in white linen. And I had my metal armor and sword still on from battle. But you stopped and looked at me.
     "'Come,' you said. 'Come with me and we will live in the light together.' And I took off my armor and sword and followed you, never once looking back. And they think they can take you from me. They never understood us."
     He bent over, touched his lips to the water, and drank deeply before speaking again.
     "Come, Christel, come inside me. Stay with me until I die and we join again, forever."
     Then he drank again and again, not noticing the man standing in the doorway, waiting to take him to Salem.

 

[Contents] [Part One] [Part Two] [Part Three-A] [Part Three-B] [Interlude] [Part Four-A] [Part Four-B] [Part Four-C] [Part Four-D] [Christian] [Bride] [Bridegroom] [Mother Earth] [Postscript]