Dear and Glorious Physician

Dear and Glorious Physician
By Taylor Caldwell


I picked this book up at random. It was sitting on a coffee table and I knew not how it got there. I have great appreciation for Taylor Caldwell, both her work and the exceptional life she lived. In classic Caldwell style she paints every scene so as to place the reader in it. Caldwell is surely 20th a century rival to the likes of Hugo. You can actually smell the pomegranate in the Roman gardens while reading her book. You get a real sense from this book that the wealthy of Rome had many of the luxuries of today’s modern man. The missing mechanical inventions of the 19th and 20th centuries were simply replaced with slaves and servants. Lucanus, the Physician and main character was the son of a Greek freedman. From that perspective the reader gains a purely neutral view on the strife between Jew and Greek or Roman gentile. Caldwell never speaks directly to it; however the reader, late in the book, begins to sense that in too many cases that the Jews though good people were their own worst enemy when it came to integrating with other cultures.

As the story the story goes: Lucanus the young boy of a freed Greek slave still serving the son of his one time master Diodoris was a prodigy philosopher, though after reading his scripture not a very good writer, aspiring to be a physician. His mentors early on were a Roman tribune, a Greek record keeper, and a Greek tutor. The first two were both frauds in their association with their social setting which was a fraud in itself. In spite of those mentors, Lucanus pursues the one unknown God of the Jewish religion.

Mid way through the book, as Lucanus prepares to leave the Alexandria school of medicine, a graduate Physician, his Jewish teacher bids him farewell and tells a story of a boy born under a star in the East. The teacher predicts that Lucanus shall seek this boy and its only then that this reader of the book has the epiphany; Lucanus - Luke. It allows the author to make Luke an objective critic. An interesting twist of events exposes the Jews as the first to discriminate against the black man, by Caldwell's reference to the legend of HAM. It is also the Jew who doesn't recognize Christ as a messiah but is the Jew who is the early physician/scientist. Karmaiclly it is the Jew who has witnessed a millennium of Diaspora and its discrimination. In a few places the book Caldwell implies that the fate of the 'Diaspora' Jew was of his own making.

While early on Caldwell uses Lucanus to examine a merciless and hateful God, later she introduces the evil man as an alternative. Within the evil man is greed and envy where it's envy playing the evil role over a wealthy man who found his wealth through generosity? Generosity is hinted as being the channel to wealth as a generous person is a good steward of money. This reader was receptive to this hint because of outside influence. It is at this point that the light begins to come into Lucanus’s life that perhaps it is not the vengeful God, but vengeful man at the root of his depression

Caldwell provides a narrative, through the voice of Lucanas’s brother Priscus, the Roman Captain who supervised Christ's crucifixion the telling of that event. The story rivals all I had previously read in any Catholic program that I was raised in. This mainly speaks poorly upon my study. Lucanus's reaction is a revelation to the tormenting he had bore through his life. It was his 'born again' moment where, albeit only implied by Caldwell, that Lucanus became a Christian. Interestingly enough in that moment Lucanus tells his brother of the resurrection purely out of internal conjecture. Lucanus in Caldwell’s book had no fact or word from anyone that Christ had risen.

The first theme of the book is the search to define God. While the ancient people had there gods, Lucanus was busy examining the One God to the extent his challenge to that idea brings forward the notion that the word God is a concept and not a being at all. And so in exploring the concept of god, the second theme being developed is; there is no one philosopher or philosophy that is complete. Caldwell writes through one of her characters Keptah, Lucanus/’s tutor; many philosophers are not wise at all things. Keptah went on; "If a man were to live solely by the theories of the philosophers he would not survive, nor would he retain his sanity. I take this to mean two things. First man is incomplete…until his death.

A third theme comes to full maturation as Lucanus, a seasoned physician, treats the father of three wealthy sons. His illness is derived from a psychosomatic condition. In his analysis Caldwell, through the voice of Lucanus drives home the treatment of a person is more than the function of his body. The point stressed is your health is largely determined by how you both live and view your life. At this point the reader would be reflecting back on the death of an early main character, Diodoris, and contemplating the meaning of death with honor. While it may have not registered with the reader at than moment, Lucanas makes real clear that a physician’s role recognizes that death is every part of life and he must help the dying find comfort in death.

A forth theme may be Lucanas's philosophy that everything can be explained by science. There are many occasions where his treatment of a patient apparently on the brink of certain death, saves his life. In every life saving event Lucanus would say the patient was miss diagnosed. A physician would intuitively be of this mind. Its logical, reason of the mind. However Lucanas's loss of an early love to a fatal illness perpetuates revulsion to anything of the heart as well as a deep rooted contempt for those who believe in the unknown God; though he struggles with both. Lucanus advocates to the unlearned that they must trust the wise. Where as the wise reader knows that no collection of man, let alone any one man, knows everything; as this is the justification for science... what a paradox!!! The purpose of this theme I suspect is to discount all the life saving miracles of Christ and in the balance to poke a stick in the eye of science.


I was compelled upon finishing the book to read Luke’s Gospel and Acts. Specifically to Caldwell’s gradual enlightenment on this subject Luke directly writes the following in ACTS 10:28:
Peter to Cornelius: “You yourself know it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile, but God has shown me that I should not call on anyone profane or unclean. So when I was sent for, I came without objection. Now may I ask why you sent for me?”

My translation: From the days of Christ to 2012 follows this train of semantics. While the Jews associated with creature and man by nomenclature, naming, categorizing and applying rules of law to them; Peter a new Christian delineated between, clean and unclean [in spirit]. He then approached a man of unknown character, looking for the opportunity to recognize his Holy Spirit [‘clean’ intention’, spirit of whole man, using my term - w’holy, one man] in him.

Did Caldwell, by putting Luke's Gospel including Acts I & II in the context of his life put the whole story on trial? Is their divine coincidence in the undercurrent of the spirit of mankind? Is there an ethos that science has yet to discover? Could science and religion surrender their swords and come to an agreement that there is indeed a mystery not to life but in life. Luke’s was a life of long bitterness and then long searching for the One God. Apparently, according to Caldwell this search was a common place, though not necessarily of Romans, of Rome at that time. Luke's gospel is taken in a tone of mystic allegory, where Caldwell's reconstruction of Luke's life gives a rise to the story that was behind the author(s) that was behind the allegory. That rise takes the mysticism out and lends a sense of realism to the accounting of the life of Jesus Christ.

I am not sure to what degree Caldwell intended, she implies an unfavorable character in the Jews. To those early adopters of Christianity many of whom were Jews there is no admonishment of the Law. But rather a following of tradition and fervor of the rabble character of simple people that became the agent of the birth of the Way of which we know today as Christianity. Christianity came to man as the fulfillment of Jewish prophecy of which only the humble paid credence to. The Jews, who proclaimed only they to be chosen, were their own worst enemy. If only they lowered their adulation's to themselves, could they have avoided the following 1947 years of what became a Diaspora of tumultuous tragedy.

John the Baptist’s angry and vengeful announcement of the Messiah lit the fuse for Christ's crucifixion. Was that the way God intended the story to unfold? Or is this simply the nature of God...man? Is the nominal name we apply to nature, God? Praise be the nominalists, whether he/she be the High Priests of Judea, the Holy Imams of Mecca, or the Popes and Cardinals of the Vatican, that fall way short of their goal of simply stating reality, physical observation of our world including the psychology and sociology of man, is to be accepted purely as it is. This is the meaning of love. Between Luke a Gentile along with Paul a Jew, Christianity wins it's case in court, where the rabble continue the argument. In Caldwell's version she closes with a case for motherhood. Caldwell uses an allegorical story between Christ and a dark angel. The allegory tells of the virtue of mother earth...nature. Unfortunately it is the nature of man through his nominalistic character, with its dependence on the use of words, one required so far to communicate, a function of community, to argue. The argument is not of reality, but of their rendition of it.


Annotated Bibliography

Page 59: a long predicted Star is witnessed by Keptah he recognizes the message of love. He says to himself have been cleansed... I have been born. Blessed is the Name if the Lord.". A he knees dud have to see him for he knew he who had been born was with all men, in every place on earth, at this hour, and would never depart again.

Page 103: Diodoris, already characterize as one who despises the new Rome, remarks in a fit of rage “corrupt citizens breed corrupt rulers, and it is the mob who finally decides when virtue shall die....Rome's soldiery virtue died with Caesar Augustus.

My note: Caldwell spends enough time drawing a dichotomy between the virtues of a soldier and the decadence of the egalitarian society of the rulers that the read suspects either the weaving of a moral message or the drama in the plot.

Page 137: [Lucanus at the death of Rubria his child love vows to his mother Iris to defy God and not allow Him to snatch life from people.]. Lucanus murmured to Keptah, " surely it would be merciful to give him a potion and bring him death."

Keptah shook his head slowly, "Hippocrates has declared that is forbidden. Who knows at what instant the soul shall recognize God? Shall we kill the sufferer tonight when in the morning the recognition would come? Besides man cannot give life. Therefore it is not for him to give death. These are reserved only for Him, who is unknowable to our natures, and who moves in mysteries. "

My note: Caldwell wrestles as late as the 1950's with a physician’s decision of life or death. I appreciate she may be a clairvoyant in terms of regression. However examining the same decision in 2011, the physician’s role has become that of a scientist]. In this context has science and religion merged, or has the Scientist assumed the role of God? If he as assumed such, is he qualified? It begs the expression: 'only God knows.’ While medical science may have usurped God in giving life (cloning) and preventing death, has science overlooked the rest of the equation... A universe or at least an earth that can sustain a population explosion?


Page 149 [in the reconciling of the deaths of Aneneas, Lucanus' father, and Rubrea, Diodorus' daughter; Lucanus describes his regret for having treated his father in such a condescending way]. “I lost my father," Lucanus said ... " I am a son who came not to hate his father, but to be despise him lightly as a man if little learning and of many pretensions. I became arrogant and impatient, and condescending. I forgot all he suffered, all he had known.... I did not lose my father in those years, but my father lost a son. And now the son has lost his father, and I cannot reach him and ask his forgiveness for cruelty and impatience and pride of youth."

Diodorus' ... "Surely the gods do not reject contrition, and surely the shades in the regions of death are aware of repentance."

[Diodorus found peace in their dialogue. Lucanus, found in his youth only revenge. Revenge railed against a God who showed mo mercy for the one he loved. The dialogue and all of chapter 12 was about the dichotomy of selfishness and love for life].

My note: Does the scientist of 2011 have the moral compass to navigate the shoals of selfishness? Is it death itself that promulgates morality itself? Death being the prime variable to scarcity prompts moral thinking to choose between himself as though his body and spirit were inseparable and the living, all the living, mankind.

Page 153: comfortlessly, Lucanus would ask himself (If we are not immortal then why were we born? If I could only believe there is no God! But I believe in Him, and from Him I will have His victims, if not his answer! He haunts all men for the satisfaction of his hatred.

Page 186: says Diodorus; "Remember this, my children, that oppressive government is fiercer and more feared than a tiger.

My note: a common thread woven into the author’s moral message with Diodorous as the raw material.

Page 195: [in dialogue with a Jewish professor on a Indu professor of art, comparing Hindu to Judaism]. He has discussed with Joseph ben Gaiel [Lucanus poses the question on Hindu and Karma]. Then the Jew had said, "No. One only has to consider the illimitable harmony of nature, which is the reflection of God, it's precise laws which never deviate, its exactness. God is the Law and the Law is perfect and immutable."

My note: if the Jews has stopped there as opposed to writing the Torah and the Talmud’s their religion may not have run in to so much opposition...perhaps?

Page 196: As all patients were either slaves or destitute, experimentation upon them was sometimes merciless and quite often the experiments had no relationship to the immediate disease at all. This Lucanus found intolerable and hateful, and again only the Jewish teacher understood [not the other three in the room; Indi, Egyptian, or Roman]. The others kindly laughed at Lucanus. “Is it not justifiable that one man die so that others, multitudes, may live?" they would ask him. To which he would reply, while the Jewish teacher listened in searching silence, "No. One man is as important as a mass, and perhaps even more so."

My note: With the Holocaust in mind; why did Caldwell write this? She implies that only the Jew understood the concept that one life was as valuable as many. She clearly in context of the pertinent chapter condemns directly the Hindu, and then non specifically draws in any other than Jews. This is before Christ, so Christians get a pardon so far.

At this point this reader is dedicated to reading Luke in the Bible to see where one mans life equates to One Man as this Christian of Unity Doctrine sees it.

And finally to this point, I have to ask; has modern medicines challenge to death lost its moral compass? There was once a role where physicians allowed man to die in dignity. Have we evolved to ongoing experiments in biology to the advancements of medical research and the material rewards that come to the physician that breaks through?

This queer attitude did not diminish the affection and respect of the physicians. But when Lucanus would lament over mortal illness and work until he sweated to relieve its pain and to save the patient, all but the Jew were puzzled. Truth, knowledge was the object of
medicine. Death was the fate of all men, and pain also. "Yes, men must die,” Lucanus would say bitterly. "But is it not our duty to be most greatly concerned with pain? Even the pain of a slave?

My note: We know Caldwell is well researched and clairvoyant. What is her source on this philosophical question?

My note: This passage also speaks to the mission of doctors that would form the view of the American Founding Fathers. The scope of medicine then recognized death and at the same time looked to preserve life. But first and foremost was the dignity of the life while living, knowing death is inevitable. What is today's scope of medicine? Is it to prolong the biological term for the sake of medicine, as could be the case in Mary Schiavo? Does today's medicine exceed or deviate from the scope of our Founding Fathers. This question is most pertinent with the onset of Obamacare. Tying this to the other theme Caldwell explores through Diodorus, can government be so big to be oppressive through egalitarian excesses? Example IRS employees get free mass transit passes for work, so as to sponsor the government mass transit system. Would government employees, ie Congress and their families continue to get special medical care over the masses? These are moral questions that challenge not only medicine but also society. At present medical advances are out in front of our moral consensus as a society. Should we wait? Or shall we proceed and throw out the compass, as well as the rudder and sail into uncharted waters and leave the fate of man kind to chance? With 300 pages to go, I am hoping Caldwell speaks to this in more broad terms than the specific chapter, which speaks directly to whole medicine rather than specialized medicine. Was Mary Schiavo kept alive by medicine so as to study her organs? After all the current television series House speaks exactly to this subject.

Page 249: said Diodorus: "Listen to me Keptah! A mans first duty is to God and his country. Nations are God's expression of spiritual realms. When those nations become abandoned and debased, given up to bloody pride and debauchery, to war and tyrant, then they have deaaced the kingdoms of the earth, and penalty is death. Rome will inevitably
die unless many like me shall speak, and where are the voices raised in her behalf? Who shall cry out to Romans, 'You have destroyed what God has built and you must return to freedom and purity and virtue at once, lest you die'?"

Page 276: Keptah to Cusa on Lucanus; He said Rome was already lost, but man is not lost, a sophistry I did not refrain from pointing out to him. Man is his own executioner; he hangs himself in his own cross; he is his own disease, his own fate, his own death. His civilizations are an expression of him.

Page 281: Keptah says to Lucanus: Civilization to you is man's pathetic attempt to bring order to nature, to regulate it in to some form of meaning, to guide it's pointlessness in to some semblance of significance To you nature in it's seeding, it's growth, it's death is
a sum without an equation, a circle encompassing nothingness, a tree that flowers and bears no fruit and dies in a from desert. Such thoughts are lethal; they are frightful with death.

My note: my first thought was Godell, Escher, Bach. Most importantly was Godell's incompleteness theorem. Nature is incomplete and therefore we live on as a species. Science's penchant to remake nature under the pressures of society to be first more comfortable and then to defy death is a slippery slope with a frozen pond o tf thin ice at its foot. Yet in this conversation both Lucanus and Keptah are only half right, yet rather than merging thought to complete a beautiful interpretation of life; they part company of different views, the drama in the dichotomy of science and religion.

Page 282: Again Keptah shook his head. “You are wrong. Nature is absolute order, rules by absolute and immutable laws laid down at the beginning of the universe by God. Civilizations, so long as they agree with nature and it's laws, such as creation, freedom of growth, the dignity of all that lives, and beauty of form, and reverence for the being of God and their own being, survive. Once they turn to rigidity and anonymousness under State , and regulation of large and small forms to one flowerless level, the degradation of the best to the fruitless masses of men, the rejection of freedom for all - then nature must
destroy them, through wars or pestilences or quick decay. You are in the midst, in these days, of the workings of the Law.

My Note: Rome fell and it gave way to Dark Ages, then Renaissance, then Enlightenment, now? Are we again in the midst of the working laws of nature, often referred to as God?

Page 296: of Tiberius Caesar’s mind: He was trying at the time to save Rome, to restore some of the qualities that made her great. But a depraved people would not accept their liberty and former discipline and their character. [The dialogue continues to dwell on the faults of Christ's time Rome and the meaning of life, which was lost on Romans]


My note: Caldwell published this in 1959. Disclosed in her preface, She actually wrote it in a period of American history that found supremacy over all other nations. How is it at this time that Caldwell could have the premonition to draw a parallel to the United States and Russia, and then discount it in her peace?

Page 310: If man dies valiantly in armor on some battlefield of principle or patriotism or in protection of what he held most dear, then he had not lived in vain. But those who won battles and baubles lived ingloriously and died as ingloriously, the object of later
satires or a warning to the ages. It was strange that empires never learned that lesson, thought Lucanus. It was stance that man never learned anything at all.

Page 312: Lucanus thought [of the Roman elite]. Cicero had lamented that though the forms of the Republic were still celebrated the Republic no longer existed. Among these men and women there was no love for their country, no celebration of freedom, no honor for the mighty dead who had founded their nation and their institution.

My note: I instantly thought of Lincoln. If he knew he'd be followed by the likes of FDR, LBJ, BHO, would he have ratified the fourteenth amendment? Or would he have recognized that as imperfect as man is; the Constitution as it stood would be preferable to the democracy of debauched society that prevails in 2011 American society. My evidence lay in the TV show Entertainment Tonight where the antics of the debauched Hollywood celebrities invade households of the easily
lead only to entrance the multitudes across this once great Republic for which we once stood.

Page 319: So this was what the emancipation of Roman woman had led to, this vulgar and unabashed wantonness, thus witless shrieking, this half-drunken quarreling, thus continuous chatter of business, gossip, and politics, this effrontery, this noisy insistence! He thought of Aurelia and his mother, Iris, skilled in household duties, gentleness, the care of children, the cherishing of husbands. They might have known little of Virgil or Homer, nor could they have discussed military campaigns or legal suits of prominence of legal suits of prominence in the public courts, as these women had done earlier, but they could bring peace and joy to a home, and honor, and their children and their husbands revered them, and divorce and adultery were unknown. Lucanus mused. Did a nation decline and decay when women won dominance and when no doors of law, business or
politics were closed to them, or did the dominance of women merely indicate the nation was decaying?

My note: I marvel that Caldwell wrote this passage in the 1940's. Well before the women’s movement of the 60's and 70's. She wrote it at America's zenith. We have fallen from there since, I feel. I do know in my wife that she display's along with her friend the traits of this passage. Traits of a marriage, a family, and hence a nation all not in decline but decay. How does Caldwell reach so vividly in the past and foretell the future with such clairvoyant perception?

Page 351: Lucanus looked at the tablet for a long while. Finally he shook his head. "I understand the Jewish religion. It was Noah who upbraided his sons for finding him in his drunken nakedness. He particularly laid the curse on his sin, Ham, of black countenance. It is true that the black man has been truly cursed, but not by any deity, but only by man. If there is a God, and I know there is a God, he has cursed any of His children. Nor to any man has He given the command and to curse other men, but only to do good to them.

My note: obviously one would draw suspect on Jewish doctrine to a degree. If we were to accept Caldwell's research. Do we find here a root to anti- Semitism?

Page 395: [the centurion Antonius and Lucanas’s thought ] Nevertheless, I believe all these lips of the centurion, Antonius, is doubtless true - fro his point of view. Perhaps that Jewish rabbi, the teacher, knows some secrets which seem supernatural to us, but which ate part of natural law we have yet to discovered. And again this seems most reasonable to me, the physicians who attend the servant of Antonius made an error. The servant was not mortally I'll; he would have recovered in any event.

My note: Oddly enough today we call the study of nature science and find science in opposition to religion and this story is making reference to Jesus Christ.

Page 405: [Sara to Lucanus after he realizes he has been running from love and asks for Sara's hand in marriage] You gave been made empty in order that you may be filled with joy an peace beyond al your imaginings, Lucanus. Love tells me so but love does not tell me how. No Lucanus I cannot marry you, for in marrying you I will keep you from your destiny. That which you must find is not in my arms. God calls men from outbid the cities, from their own firesides, from their wives and their children from all they love, and his voice cannot be ignored. He has called you.

My note: People criticize those who use the phrase "its Gods will". But in this example Sara is only pointing out what has been Lucanas’s will for the past 404 pages of the book. Sara is saying to Lucanus it is in your nature to answer to a higher calling than love of Sara

Page 407: [Lucanus Rubria younger brother Priscus] I know that it was inevitable that Rome become what she is. Republics decay into democracies, and democracies degenerate into dictatorships. That fact is immutable. When there is equality - and democracies shall always bring equality - the people become faceless, the lose their initiative, they lose their pride and independence, they lose their splendor. Republics are masculine... [The rest of the paragraph is worth capturing] ...[on page 428] Priscus, you ad a husband and a father, and most particularly a father, can cultivate the masculinity
of free and noble men in your children; a man must always begin with his family, and then reach forth for his neighbors. He may fail, but at least he has tried. It is not in his failing that man is judged, but by the lack of his efforts. At last man is judged singly, and never in mass.

Page 446: [Hilell a wealthy Jew who admonishes first Jews then others to Lucanus to]. "And then there is the rabble, the marketplace rabble which afflict all cities and all nations, demanding always, greedy, eager for sport, with lusty animal appetites, quarrelsome, milling restlessly, incapable of learning anything, contentious and
dependent. Have you not such trouble in Rome, and will Rome not die of them, and the taxation they impose on their betters for their idle support.

My note: I am sure, have done some background reading on Caldwell, there is no 2011 agenda here. She wrote this in the 1940's. Yet my oh my, the ominous parallels.

Page 447: [Hilell continuing] "So you have the priests, frightened for their people and their faith; you have self appointed guardians if the Law, the Pharisees, who detest the humble; you have the shrill rabble, always searching for a victim. And you have Rome, ever watchful for signs of a rebellion against her power. Considering all these, it is a marvel that He was denounced to Roman officials, and that was the end. Or in the beginning" added Hilell.

Page 475: Lucanus. Looked down at the sleeping man and murmured;

" Oh You who have brought me from the wasted spaces, and the darkness, and barrenness, out of Your love and Your eternal mercy! Oh you who are companionate beyond imagining, You who know the suffering of men, because You have suffers them! [How profound a statement. Caldwell is actually saying that God, Nature has suffered man]. Oh hallowed are You in my soul, and I implore that You will accept my life that I serve You! Always have I loved You even when I contended with You out
of my lack of understanding.

My note: Profound to say God has suffered man. A world without that reality made apparent was a world where Lucanus witnessed the suffering of one mans actions upon another only to discover that the omni presence of God included suffering. A simple expression of 'it is what it is' absent a trait of the nominalist’s interpretation. How often have you heard the expression, 'it's beyond words'. When it's real, a revelation, it's beyond words. Or better said words are not necessary.

Page 482: Lucanus put his hand to his forehead and rubbed it dazedly. "I do not understand ", he muttered. Then he flung the coverlets from his brother's body and felt over his stomach and liver, and his glands. The ominous tumors have disappeared. The flesh was thin and emaciated, but also firm, and the pulse was strong.

Lucanus straightened. "It is not possible!" he cried. He looked at Nicias and Joshua imploringly. "We made an error."

"No," they said, and smiled at him.

"Through you God wrought his miracle, as a witness to us." said Joshua. [this was Lucanas’s revelation, his baptism in to Christianity]

My note: Up to this moment of all other 'miracle cures' that Lucanus witnessed, he was certain he made an error in his diagnosis. This time he implores two other physicians who confirm it was no mistake. The message I get is not so much the miracle, as that men of medicine at time accepted the concept of miracles for things of biology that they could not explain. Science and religion were not as adverse as 2011's current of pagans have us conceding to.

Page 508: [Lucanus] thought of Rubria and Sara, the dead he loved with such tenderness, and he said to himself that in reality there was no age, no weariness, no pain, no despair, no parting, no death. The world and the planets, the countless suns, rang with immortal youth, and the constellations and galaxies rejoiced in it. An exhilaration filled him. All he had ever loved was with him forever.

My note: I genuinely related to this passage. As death separates Lucanus from his first love, life's stories separate me from mine. I have always known in the physical world that physical aspect of love is long past and never to present itself in the future. I take extreme solace however knowing in spirit the immortal youth and the love that goes with it lives on... nothing more nothing less, just what is and it's acceptance...love. This is my reality. It is what makes the memories cherishable.

Page 535: [as Lucanus come upon the Sea of Galilee]. The foliage of the olives had the aspect of fettered silver; the green palms did not sway in the pure and windless air; the pomegranates bore their red fruit on their branches Luke jewels. Sheep slept about the olive trees, their wool pale gold. There was no cry of bird here in this aureate effulgence. The peace beyond understanding, the light that never lay on land or sea, was here caught as in glowing crystal, eternal and unchanging.

Page 546: [in the story of Zachary, father of John the Baptist]. Visions were no rare things to these simple and pious people; legends of the appearances of angels and portents ran through all their conversation.

My note: to the skeptic anti Christian, here lay a notion to your argument. While Luke was a physician of legend, wise of the world; his gospel was a recording of events among these simple people.

I wonder if it's like that there.

Page 562: [top] John [The Baptist] was a man of furious temporment.
Jesus knew he was his kinsman. John...

Cool Metaphors

Retreated like the moon behind a cloud
Pure as a cows milk
Soft as a doves call
Murmurous as a softly struck harp
On feet that moved no heavier than a breath

An interesting contrast; greed & envy
Interesting trivia: the fish symbol is a Greek anagram for Christo.