Traveler's Tale-Third Book: Amendings

by Roger Fiola

Overview

Traveler's Tale is an adventure series. A contemporary man, Jack Castro, feels that something is missing from his successful business and family life as he enters middle age. Although living on the idyllic central coast of California should be enough, he senses something more awaiting him. Several triggering events spur him suddenly and deeply into the first-century Levant, where a mysterious and beautiful guide leads him into direct encounters with the holiest and the unholiest of biblical characters. In the face of these experiences, or what he believes are true experiences, Jack discovers the traveler that he is. This catalyzes profound changes in him?changes that cannot be reversed or even stopped. Th rough them, he understands the revelation of God to him and how he is a manifestation of that revelation. He becomes the hollow instrument through which God plays His music into the world. In this this third book, Traveler walks the road to Calvary with Yeshua, the man later called Jesus. Through his participation with the disciples in the profound and horrific events of the Passion, he finds God permits him to enter the very mind of Christ. Traveler?s Tale is a readable spiritual series using a page-turning narrative to inspire the Divine mystical experience possible for every man and woman.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781546201809
Publisher:	AuthorHouse
Publication date:	09/12/2017
Pages:	390
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.87(d)

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

AD 2013 an d the fifth year of the presidency of Barack Obama and the first of the Roman pontificate of Francis,

A cottage on the grounds of the Monastery of the Angel, Big Sur, California

Crash!

"Jesus!" I shout reflexively. From the plaster wall, we see a wooden icon of the Madonna and Child suddenly free-fall from its sturdy hook. A hard landing on the cottage's Spanish tile floor splits it cleanly in half.

Startled, Father Abbot jumps. As does Sheriff Noah Davison. His considerable frame jerks sideways toward the wall, automatically placing his hand on the holster. He's still a little shaky from the thick oak bough falling outside a moment earlier. It sideswiped his patrol car, just missing him. His aunt, Gramma Fontaine, is cool, steady; only her neatly-bunned gray head pivots in the direction of the accident. She remains standing, copper-skinned, bony hands clasping the straps of her shiny, orange-brown purse in front of her, no register of surprise. Instead, she regards the broken icon with a slightly satisfied look — as if this might be the appropriate end to another piece of papist idolatry. Yesterday, Sharon, my wife, and I had hung it securely on the living room wall of our small cottage on the grounds of the monastery.

"Jack, did you do that?" Sharon asks. I look out the window briefly at the morning view of the ocean. A stationary cloud that had hung like a portent throughout breakfast moved overhead a few moments earlier and dropped some rain. An anointing. An unseasonal wind now pushes it toward the mountains behind us and brilliant sunlight dapples the ocean mosaic, dazzling blues, and luminescent greens.

"No. Well, I don't know actually," I say remembering the oak bough suddenly crashing down, "Could be something else."

Gramma's pale brown eyes snap to mine as if I'm on to something. There's a strange chemistry of elements at play this morning with the unmoving cloud followed by the unexpected arrival of this petite and properly dressed lady. She rode from rural Mississippi on a bus for over two thousand miles to meet me but, having arrived here, didn't want to enter our house immediately, not until she was ready. Gramma, whose full name is Doctor Helena Laprairie Fontaine, earned her doctorate in divinity from a Jackson seminary at the youthful age of sixty; she seems to possess the same measured sense of timing as did Yeshua and Miramee. She's amazing, this eighty-nine-year-old African American who's lived below the poverty level her whole life and still has accomplished so much. Our eyes turn to Sharon who limberly bends down, scooping up the two pieces.

"Look, it split right down the middle, separating poor Mother Mary from the baby." She carefully examines the Madonna, a stylized rendering of the person who, two thousand years ago, asked me to call her Eema, the equivalent of Mom in Aramaic.

"She looks so sad, like she knew ... even then," Sharon says.

Gramma and Sheriff Noah stand waiting respectfully as she pieces the two wooden halves back together. The break is clean, the line barely noticeable. She shows it to the tan Father Abbot. He nods slowly, white teeth gleaming in a cinematic grin.

"One of the brothers wrote this icon last week," I say to Noah. "You write an icon rather than paint it."

Noah inclines his head politely. A firm Baptist, I'm sure he's wondering what the fuss is over a graven image.

"He just has to glue it and it'll mend perfectly," Sharon says decisively, setting it on a simple wooden table with great tenderness. She smiles, satisfied that the artist-monk could reunite Baby Jesus with his mother again.

"Amending," I say, mostly to myself.

"Amen-ding," Gramma repeats with a different emphasis.

Turning to her, I introduce her to Sharon. Gramma glances a brief smile in her direction and then her eyes narrow as she stares at my bandaged wrists.

Okay, lady, the whole world knows I have the stigmata wounds in both wrists and ankles.

They've bled several times, mostly in the mental hospital, always unexpectedly and spontaneously, always when experiencing a powerful emotion — but I haven't had a manifestation for a long time now. Videos of me bleeding at my mother's funeral Mass in Carmel three years ago had streamed virally throughout the inhabited world. They're still out there in cyberspace so I live with this questionable honor daily. The wounds were inconvenient, pretty painful, yet they brought doctors and psychologists abundant joy as they put me under the microscope. So far, there's no satisfactory medical explanation. Psychologically, most practitioners find my case intriguing but, regardless of how lucid I am most of the time, they consider me quite ... well, nuts.

But I'm not.

The stories we human beings live by make up our operating systems, inform our world. People like me are always considered insane if our stories don't match the operating system narratives shared by the majority, which, let's face it, are equally as crazy — just socially acceptable — for now anyway. Grabbing some chairs from the kitchenette, I invite them all to sit.

"My apologies, but I must return to my duties right now," Father Abbot says, then picks up the icon, "but I will take this and ensure it is properly repaired."

"Oh, thank you, Abbott!" Sharon says as he moves toward the door. The sheriff's radio cracks out a command for Noah and he responds to the code and gives us a helpless look.

"I was off duty but they're calling me in," he says. "Sorry Gramma, I'll have to bring you back later."

"I came two thousand miles and I'm stayin' put," she says as she sits down on one of the dinette chairs, keeping her back straight, crossing her slim ankles, and plopping the purse on her lap like it was a boulder securing her to that seat.

"Gramma, now come on," he says, but the woman sits eyes front and jaw set.

"Oh, it's okay, Noah," Sharon to the rescue, "We'd love it if she'd stay here with us until you return."

That was gracious, but I knew half-hearted.

"The call is in Monterey. That's a three-hour round trip not including the call." Noah scans both our faces to discern sincerity versus politeness. I nod my sure-why-not. How much trouble can this prim old lady be? Besides, I feel like something's up with her, something that intrigues me, like we have business together.

"It's fine. Really," Sharon says, "We'll all get along perfectly. Just go." Noah steps closer to the door.

"Gramma, I'll be back later. Are you sure you want to stay here with these good people?"

"No fussin' over me now. Y'all go to work, Noah. I'll be fine as the woman says. Now, shoo!"

I like her voice. It has a melodic quality combined with the rhythm or meter of her speech, which makes it remarkable. It reminds me of Miramee's voice. The pain from my hands knifes through all of me and as I sit down, I rub my left bandaged wrist. A little concerned, I haven't felt these sensations for a long time. Noah leaves, a bit reluctantly, and Sharon shuts the door. Who am I that this matriarch feels compelled to travel so far just to see me, making herself stay in a stranger's home without the support of her nephew? Invisible forces seem to surround us and I feel as if we three are like a trinity of sorts, plugged in, completing a circuit of energy. Like those small, dried oak leaves scratching on the concrete porch outside, swirling around in an eddy of breeze, all this appears random, unpredictable. But I know it's not and feel caught up like the leaves, necessarily riding along until the powerful, invisible wind finishes with me, brings me to rest where I need to be.

Sharon opens a window nearest our kitchen garden. The short rain earlier brings the scent of herbs into the room. They're already thriving in these first days of spring and the fragrance of rosemary wafts in.

"I saw a movie of you bleedin' in the Catholic church at your po' mother's funeral. Ev'ryone in Indianola did. The whole South, the whole world did. Y'all know that. They was callin' you Saint Jack back then. Ha! Funny. You bleed and you're rich and white and you a saint all of sudden like."

Nice recap but what does she want?

"I'm gettin' there, son. My, my, you're impatient for a saint!"

Sharon looks quizzically at her then at me. I can almost hear her asking, What the hell is this all about?

"Yessir, the whole world was goin' nutty about it. We heard they stuck you in a crazy hospital somewhere in Los Angelees."

"They did. And now we live here. In peace, Gramma," I say. We don't need anyone shaking things up. Sharon and I already know our story.

"You act like you can tuck it away somewhere in the basement of your life," she chides, "What's the matter with y'all?" She stares at me, hazel eyes aflame.

A fascinating presence. Sharon glances at me, knowing that I don't take that tone well.

"You knooww," Sharon says slowly, "I think I'll go for a walk and let you two talk."

It's cool really and I know, with her natural antenna, she understands that there's something happening even if she can't put her finger on it. She'll open the sacred space for it by leaving us alone for a while. She makes a quiet exit, looking at me as she leaves, shooting me the Be Careful glance.

The door latch clicks shut.

"You should know by now. It continues forever, Traveler-Man," she says with some sadness in her voice. "Long after these tired bodies go into the ground. It never stops, what we must do. The Lord's never done with ya, once he calls y'all by name!"

Her accent has changed to Southern-Lite.

"What about resting in peace, Gramma? Is there no rest in Heaven after these bodies go into the ground as you say?"

"Resting and Working and Laughing and Dancing in Peace is more like it. Just resting means nothing if you don't do something between the resting. Our God is the God that moves then rests, then moves then rests, over and over. We're Him and He's us, so we move and rest, and move and rest, just like Him. That is how we have our Being. We are just like Him; we are the children of our Father God."

Gramma Fontaine transitions into speaking the King's English now just like the holy ones only with a southern accent. So this all continues, goes on forever. Once called, once Yeshua had touched me, I couldn't go back to the life I had before. I know that now. It'd be like a moth trying to squeeze back into his cocoon. Impossible.

"Gramma, I know what you are saying. But look at me. Look at who got called out by Santespri. I was practically an atheist. I liked money, having control — dominance actually — and possessing expensive things. If you had come to my office then and told me that I would be living in a monastery for a year after eighteen months in a mental hospital, I would have had security escort you out of the building. I don't know why you're here but I'm guessing something's pulling at you, too."

Gramma's strong accent vanishes completely, somewhat eerily.

"Paul the Apostle may have murdered many of the first Christians, yet Our Lord chose him, called him out from among many others who may have seemed worthier — whatever worthier means. Why do you think that happened?"

"'Why' questions don't have an answer with Yesh---"

"Then, I'll tell you why," she says mowing over my words as fast as a gardener barbering his last lawn on Friday afternoon. "He was the one to do that huge part of the Lord's work. Important work. Only the man Saul, known later as Paul, could do it the way Jesus wanted it done. Didn't matter how or what he'd done before. It mattered that he saw and believed, and then, trusted. After that, it all happened around him, he only had to open his mouth."

"I've learned God uses us when we see, then believe, then trust," I say, "It's the trinity of human power."

"It is a stairway," she replies. "Traveler-man, I know you've seen the Lord in the flesh."

"So, you read the transcripts?" I ask, already knowing the answer.

What Gramma seems to know — although I'm not sure how much — is that over two and a half years ago, when my dad was dying from stomach cancer, in the last days when he was at home in hospice care, I told him of my first experience, how during a heart attack, I traveled back to first century Ephesus and Palestine, how I met Mary Magdalene whom Yeshua nicknamed Miramee, the Mirror-of-Me. For days, I told my father about my encounters with the human Yeshua and his disciples, Andreas (Andrew) and Johanan (John), as well as many others including Eema.

My mom had secretly recorded the conversations through a baby monitor and computer in her room. Later she transcribed them and sent them to the Vatican, which precipitated my going there under false pretenses. Later, a French cardinal confronted me with all this information in the catacombs under St. Peter's, resulting in a force shooting me back into the first century once again. Taking a desperate risk, Miramee fired me back to 21st century Rome after I'd been overwhelmed with the power manifested at the Transfiguration. On top of Mount Hermon, I went — well, I think I went insane.

My mother died while we were still in Italy and at her funeral back in California, I first bled from my stigmata wounds right in front of the main altar. After smart-phone videos of it went viral over the internet and news, my influential buddy, Bronson Pratt, arranged for me to be admitted to a private, celebrity-inhabited wing of a Los Angeles neuropsychiatric hospital. I spent eighteen months working through the experiences, although no one there could truly understand. Hell, even I didn't — and I was there. During that time, someone formerly working with the cardinal leaked the transcripts, crushing our privacy completely. Upon my release, Bronson worked with the embarrassed Vatican and local bishop to settle us here temporarily. In this remote monastery cottage, we have some semblance of a life without the energy drain of dealing with the public's remaining fascination with my condition.

"I have studied the transcripts prayerfully," Gramma says, "over and over, many times, but now that I'm here, looking at you, I wouldn't have needed to read a thing."

We sat a moment, silently scrutinizing each other.

"You then know, Gramma, that there are many doubts in my mind."

"Where is the remnant? Of his mantle?" she asks brusquely, businesslike. "I need to touch it."

I recoil back in my chair.

"No one touches it but me," I fire back — more than a little surprised at her audacity. Is she only another religious tourist like the others? When I left the first set of experiences, Miramee gave me a remnant corner of Yeshua's mantle that had accidentally been torn. His dried blood was still on it, flaking into small, fine, reddish- brown granules. I carefully placed it into a pocket of the tunic I was wearing then. When I returned home after the heart attack, I found it miraculously in the pocket of the shirt I'd worn that day. It's proof that the experiences were more than a series of hallucinations.

Or is it? Sometimes I doubt.

My mother had secretly sent some threads of it to the Vatican and their tests proved the approximate age and geographical location of the fibers. The blood test was inconclusive because they could not find a complete set of chromosomes. Some speculated there were not a complete set of chromosomes in the blood. After someone broke into our cottage looking for the remnant, Father Abbot had the shirt and remnant put into a specially built safe in the monastery chapel. It's secretly revered by the monks as a relic — the most important relic in existence.

If true.

"I am not a religious tourist, young man!" she says, eyes firing a smokier shade of gold. Another thought reader- like the holy ones.

"Then why are you here?" I ask.

"Are you going to show me the remnant or not!?"

Wow. I try to stare her down but she isn't intimidated; she bears too many battle scars for that. And she ain't fixin' to move — not until I let her touch the mantle of Christ.

No talking. A punishing silence.

I've been in sales long enough to know that the first one to speak after a closing question, loses. The glare-down continues. I picture her sitting on that bus for two thousand miles, purse on lap, reading her Bible. Something or someone is pushing us together. I know it is not the Tempter. I've felt the Evil One's presence many times, especially in the grove near Gat-Shemanin, which were the olive-press caves we call Gethsemane. No, Gramma has the light in her; I can see it surrounding her. Astonishing light. Like their light. Like Miramee.

"I'll be right back, Gramma."

She wins.

She relaxes, shoulders slump slightly, breath exhaling slowly, bony chest falling beneath the lace collar. She had to climb over a mess of cultural fears to be so insistent with me, but Santespri can embolden us beyond our expectations. Gramma needs to touch the remnant in order to complete the spiritual circuit here, so I leave her sipping the steaming black coffee and pound out to the chapel with my safe key firmly in hand.

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Traveler's Tale Third Book Amendings"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Roger Fiola.
Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Curtain up ..., ix,
Preface, xi,
Acknowledgments, xiii,
Before We Get Going ..., xv,
PART I INTO THE LEOPARD'S LAIR,
PART II IN THE GARDEN OF GRIEF,
PART III IN THE PALACE AND UPON THE HILL CALLED SKULL,
Epilogue, 343,
Appendix 1: Dramatis Personae, 353,
Appendix 2: Glossary, 361,
About the Author, 367,
About the Series, 369,