Letters of Myriam - Chapter 6 - The lost chapter
Episode #73: Letters of Myriam - Chapter 6 - The lost chapter
Jan,16 2026
<-#72: Letters of Myriam - Chapter 5 - More Quotes from Christopher#74: Letters of Myriam - Chapter 7 - Letter from Daniel ->(found among Myriam's letters, unnumbered)
- On the likeness between the field and the face of God -
1
One evening I asked Christopher
why he trusted the soil more
than the arguments of men.
2
He answered,
"I do not trust the soil.
I listen to it."
3
"And listening," he said,
"is the nearest shape of prayer
that a working man can hold."
4
We were standing at the edge of the barley
where the wind made a low music
like breath passing through a sleeping house.
5
He said,
"Look how the stalks bend
without breaking their promise to rise again."
6
"God speaks that language more clearly
than any book stitched by ink."
7
I asked,
"Do you mean the Bible is less than the field?"
8
He shook his head.
"The Bible is a map.
The field is the country."
9
"Maps are honest," he said,
"but they cannot carry the smell of rain."
10
Then he knelt and took a handful of earth
as if greeting an old companion.
11
"This is how God hides,"
he told me.
"Not behind clouds,
but inside ordinary weight."
12
I said,
"Some would call that blasphemy."
13
He smiled.
"Only those who fear that God is fragile."
14
We walked among the rows
and he spoke of Genesis,
how the first command was not worship
but tending.
15
"To keep and to dress the garden,"
he recited,
"before there was altar or priest."
16
"Perhaps," he said,
"we were gardeners first
and believers second."
17
I asked whether storms were also God.
18
He answered,
"Storms are questions
the earth asks the sky."
19
"And drought?"
20
"Drought is a long sentence
written in dust
so we remember thirst."
21
I felt uneasy
for the words sounded like hymns
without permission.
22
Christopher noticed and said,
"Do not be frightened
when truth borrows beauty."
23
He spoke then of Christ walking by the lake,
choosing fishermen,
not scholars.
24
"Water and nets," he said,
"are easier to trust
than syllogisms."
25
The sun was falling
and the field turned copper.
26
He whispered,
"If God had wanted us to know Him
only by argument,
He would have made the world
out of paper."
27
"But He made it out of roots
and stubborn seasons."
28
I wrote these things later
with trembling hand,
afraid they were too tender
for the book I was building.
29
Christopher ended by saying,
"Love the earth
and you will not mistake God
for a rumor."
30
That night I could not sleep
for the wheat kept talking
outside the window.
31
And I wondered
whether I had heard wisdom
or only the noise of my own heart.
<-#72: Letters of Myriam - Chapter 5 - More Quotes from Christopher#74: Letters of Myriam - Chapter 7 - Letter from Daniel ->