oneself
...o rescue the just from shadow, were lesser travails than this: to break through earth and stone of the faithless world back to the cold sepulchre, tearstained stifling shroud; to break from them back into breath and heartbeat, and walk the world again, closed into days and weeks again, wounds of His anguish open, and Spirit streaming through every cell of flesh so that if mortal sight could bear to perceive it, it would be seen His mortal flesh was lit from within, now, and aching for home. He must return, first, in Divine patience, and know hunger again, and give to humble friends the joy of giving Him food--fish and a honeycomb. St, Peter and the Angel Delivered out of raw continual pain, smell of darkness, groans of those others to whom he was chained-- unchained, and led past the sleepers, door after door silently opening-- out! And along a long street's majestic emptiness under the moon: one hand on the angel's shoulder, one feeling the air before him, eyes open but fixed . . . And not till he saw the angel had left him, alone and free to resume the ecstatic, dangerous, wearisome roads of what he had still to do, not till then did he recognize this was no dream. More frightening than arrest, than being chained to his warders: he could hear his own footsteps suddenly. Had the angel's feet made any sound? He could not recall. No one had missed him, no one was in pursuit. He himself must be the key, now, to the next door, the next terrors of freedom and joy. Sojourns in the Parallel World We live our lives of human passions, cruelties, dreams, concepts, crimes and the exercise of virtue in and beside a world devoid of our preoccupations, free from app...