The Dreamseller_ The Calling - Augusto Cury [32]
He looked at her and calmly answered:
“I’m not a priest, a theologian or a philosopher. I’m just a wanderer trying to understand who I am. A traveler who once doubted God, but, after crossing a great desert, has discovered that he is the architect of all existence.”
Upon hearing him, I again fell deep in thought. I didn’t know that the dreamseller had been an atheist like me. But something had changed in him. His relationship with God troubled me; it wasn’t based on religion, tradition or self-pity, but was rooted in an incomprehensible friendship. Who is he, then? What desert had he crossed? Could he have cried more than the people at the wake? Where had he lived, where was he born? Before more questions could bubble up in my mind, he started to leave. Sofia extended both hands to him and wordlessly declared her gratitude. Antonio couldn’t contain himself. He gave the dreamseller a long embrace that moved everyone and asked, “Where can I find you again? Where do you live?”
“My home is the world,” the dreamseller replied. “You can find me in some avenue of existence.”
And he left, leaving everyone astonished. We, his disciples, were speechless. For the moment, at least, he quieted our uncertainties. We were beginning to believe it was worthwhile to follow him, little knowing the storms that awaited us.
We made our way slowly through the gathering. The people wanted to meet him, speak with him, open up some chapters of their lives, but he humbly passed them by. He wasn’t fond of praise. We, on the other hand, were starting to feel important. Dimas and Bartholomew, who had always lived at the edge of society, felt their egos swell, attacked by a virus I knew all too well.
The Eager Miracle Worker
THE DAY WOULD HAVE BEEN PERFECT IF NOT FOR THE surprise awaiting us just around the corner. The funeral home was large, and there were several enormous rooms, each separate from the others so several families could mourn their loved ones at once. When we left the hall where Marco Aurelio was being mourned, we passed through another wake, that of a seventy-five-year-old woman.
But a man who walked by caught the dreamseller’s attention. He was a young man of about thirty, curly hair, short, navy blue suit and a white shirt. He was good-looking, with a well-modulated voice, imposing. The dreamseller quietly followed him.
The man approached the old woman’s coffin confidently. Apparently he was some sort of priest. To me, he seemed harmless, but the dreamseller didn’t see it that way. The man positioned himself at the foot of the coffin and made a gesture of reverence. Little by little he revealed his face, and we soon saw his true intentions.
His name was Edson, but people called him the Miracle Worker. Edson had a penchant for “performing” miracles. Oh, he wanted to help others. But there was always a motive behind his aid: He loved attention. Edson wasn’t the spiritual leader charged with offering words of consolation at the funeral. He was there out of self-interest.
Incredible as it seems, the Miracle Worker desired to resurrect the old woman. He wanted to put on a dazzling show capable of making the spectators bow at his feet; he actually hoped to awaken the elderly woman from death and be recognized as the bearer of a supernatural gift. Just as Caligula used his power to be hailed as a god on earth, Edson hoped to use his knowledge of the Bible to invoke the supernatural and be treated like a demigod himself—although he never would have admitted it.
As a sociologist I had learned that there is no power as complete as religion. Dictators, politicians, intellectuals, psychiatrists and psychologists fail to penetrate the minds of others like certain religious figures. Because they represent a deity, these men can achieve a status the likes of which Napoleon or Hitler never could.
In our wanderings, the dreamseller would tell us that