Exuberance from “The Adventures of the Teen Jesus”
“I want to give you a wonderful word, Jesus.”
The day was warm. There was a pleasant wind. Desert smells wafted about. It was what one calls a nice day. Even a good day.
Jesus had been working more than usual and had not come to the customary place for a few days. It was a rare break. But Abba did not seem to notice. Indeed, his presence for Jesus was constant now. There was no obligatory time or practice.
“What wonderful word?” Jesus asked.
“Exuberance,” Abba said. “It means being excited. Stimulated. Seized by something.”
“Who is excited?” Jesus asked.
“You. Everyone. All the time.”
“Oh?”
“Oh, indeed. Exuberance is good reason to stop and think. Exuberance is a tickle, an excitement that wells up. It is what moves us to say and to do things.”
“Am I exuberant?”
“Absolutely. It is life itself, motion, movement. It is the churning energy inside all creation.”
“I didn’t know.”
“It is a how things work. It’s what got you mad when your pain vanished?”
“I felt all sorts of things. I was worked up, I guess. Is that exuberance?”
“Yes,” Abba said. “But note this. You knew that anger could hurt you over time. So you let go of it. It served its purpose. You let go of your feelings about the men in Jerusalem. No feeling is ever wrong, Jesus. But there are some feelings that can lead to trouble if you can’t let go of them.”
“I cancel debts all the time now, even of people I don’t know.”
“Excellent,” Abba said,
“But I still don’t understand about exuberance. It is not like seeing or hearing or understanding.”
“Do you know what makes you speak, Jesus?”
“My voice.”
“Your voice is just a device, like a hand or an eye. What makes words emerge?”
“Feelings? The heart?”
“Yes, Jesus and exuberance is what stimulates the thoughts that turn into words. Exuberance is a person’s energy dancing inside. It is good or bad depending on, what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Of course you do. Why are you here. You got here because exuberance seized you. Cain killed Abel because exuberance got hold of him. What is the difference? What?”
“You?”
“Yes, Jesus. Yes. When the feelings of anyone, the things that make you do and say things, the signs that lead to expressions and actions, are just freely caroming about, the results will be harmful sooner or later. When a person looks within and accesses me, even modestly, the chances of reason and decency are increased. Exuberance is there Jesus, just like your heart beat. What it produces depends on whether a person has learned to look within and to call on me.”
“So I need to go back to Jerusalem and tell the men to call on you again.”
“The alternative would not be good, Jesus.”
Ω
Stephen C. Rose writes daily. Medium is his drafting board. Kindle his marketplace. You the reader his hopeful supporter. He promotes his thought and art on Twitter and has his own publication on Medium calledEverything Comes which any new writer can join on the way to finding his or her way. Drafts of his fiction completed and in progress can be found onCoffeelicious which is also a Medium publication.
