I Meditate in the Woods

Christianity has persevered just over 2,000 years. Prophesied by John the Baptist, to arrive imminently, Jesus started preaching about his Father and called forward Apostles. Since then, we, the faithful, have endured every deceit that evil could derive to knock us back and prevent the prophesied Second Coming. Despite countless setbacks, Christianity has become the predominant religion in the Western World built on the collective faith of millions of true believers in the return of Jesus the Christ to redeem the fallen. I am one of them and my name is Ken. I often wander the trails of my property near Neepawa, Manitoba as I head to my special place. A place to meditate, pray, and think of Jesus and his imminent arrival.

It was during one of those forays that I had my faith tested. I had just started my day’s trip and was still thinking of work. Working as a Power Electrician Technician with the local electrical utility and making a good living leading to an honest blue collar lifestyle. I was not on call, but still there are always a thousand things left to be done and I was making mental notes of things to do after my weekend was over. Stock the truck. Sign off on closed work orders. Hand in last week’s Tailboard Conference sheets. Then it happened... My thoughts drifted away from work and closer to God. I thought of Jesus and his Ministry, Faith, and our human nature.

Lack of human civilization clears your head of the rigours of society. It seems all humanity offers in the News is stories about people’s suffering. Their hardships. Houses burning, abused children, livestock neglected, monuments desecrated, things that people need to know, but always too late. It’s only news if it happened and there was no taking it back. There is no Superman who can make the relative world spin backwards and undo Lois’s death, but there was Jesus and his Father, God Almighty, to help us through the hardships.

When I go to the woods, I meditate and contemplate faith. Faith in you, Lord and Saviour. I believe fully in your promise of redemption - through your Father’s will - to change what we cannot, will not, should not, NEVER WILL accept as decent human beings. Beings shaped in His image. The one who created Himself. The one through who all things exist. My understanding is to live as you did. We should attempt to be the perfect being, to do unto others as we’d have them do unto us. Then I get distracted and remember the News headlines in our local paper... Is it you, Father? Are you telling me something through your subtle, mysterious ways?

Maybe I’m meant for something and you are strengthening me. Preparing me as you prepared your only begotten son. You made flesh. The sickness of child abuse keeps drawing me in. Why is it that way? Why do children have to suffer? When will you return to save us? I realized the fact that here on God’s good green earth, we the faithful have suffered because we once offended you, but it will end during the Second Coming. Then I realized... Footprints. When things got tough, you walked with us on the beach. The Apostles carried us through to the finish line. You never let us suffer alone, even when in solitude. You have never left us alone as we have already won back your good grace.

I go to my sacred place to contemplate the world and His sheep. The tender, loving, grass munchers, both gentle and meek. There is nothing more meek than the wee ones, the innocent children. They are to be guarded with the utmost of authority and we should smite anyone who transgresses them like a millstone cast at an egg. Jesus loves children, in their innocence, and said the Kingdom of God belongs to them.

There is a large rock upon which I meditate. It reminds me of your makeshift pulpit when you delivered the Sermon on the Mount. The moss growing on it was soft and cushy on my buttocks, almost comforting. It stands in a clearing filled with Lady Slippers, Saskatoon bushes, and Juniper bushes. The thick poplar, ash, and occasional evergreen trees don’t seem to encroach too closely. The connection to nature was divine, soothing, irreplaceable, and impeccably mine. I have never seen, nor heard anybody while the

re until that sickening, fateful day.

I walked out to my rock, thinking of Jesus delivering his famous Sermon from the Mount. Fish and bread miraculously multiplied to feed them all. The same one where Jesus taught his disciples to pray. To keep it simple, short, and succinct because He already knows what you're thinking... What you wanted to say. He just wants to verify that you think consciously about things, at least that’s what Jesus tells us. The sermon where he tells us to turn the other cheek, to egg on your aggressors and defy them fully. Take their abuse again and again. I tripped over what I thought was a small rock.

I laughed at my misfortune and wondered if I should turn the other cheek to nature and let her have the best of my pride when I caught sight of what I had stumbled over. It was an animal skull. Sweat dripped from my clammy palms despite there being a cool breeze on a calm sunny Autumn day. A sudden burst of wind caused the leaves to stir enough to draw me in to a slight hollow in the earth. I turned ashen grey as if an enemy had walked across my grave, cursing the hallowed ground they buried me in. I looked closer, slowly taking in reality. There was something jutting from the earth.

I bent my knees and shakily lowered myself down to the soon to freeze earth. My heart pounded in my chest as I used my hands to wipe away the leaves for a closer look. Predators don’t bury dead prey, so this was bizarre. I cleared away some of the dirt and inspected what I had unearthed. In a heartbeat, I had revealed a neatly laid out child-sized skeleton. It clicked. The skull came from a dead person. It felt like something from a movie. Then I realized, the local University had filmed a horror film out here last year. It must be a prop.

Annoyed, shaken, and worn, I dug the now deemed fake corpse out of the ground and cursed the University film crew for forgetting it. When I grabbed the torso, I keeled over and blacked out. When I regained my vision, I looked up and seen the cause of my blackout... Jesus was standing there with the twelve Apostles. He was solemn and grimly determined to get through to me. His mouth moved, but nothing to be heard as the darkness surrounding him swallowed up His words. I felt a flutter in my heart, and my knees grew weak as a small child joined them. She spoke freely.

“You died in the Lord’s presence to be here with us, and one of the Lord’s enemies has martyred me. He chose me as a sacrifice to Molech because my family would not give in. My literal family and Christianity as a whole. That is my decomposed corpse you are touching at this very moment. Jesus begs forgiveness that he could not be the one to deliver this important message to you, but the desecration caused by my death took away his presence and he may not speak. You are to eye the following vision carefully and report to the police what you remember.”

As quickly as the little girl, Jesus, and the Apostles appeared, flashes of her life replaced them. Suddenly my focus became clear, and I was told I would have full recollection of what was to follow. Images of my rock flashed through my eyes. Seated upon it, crying, was the girl. A little girl with blond hair in a sundress that had sunflowers on it. She was asking someone when they could go home. There was an older male with her. He replied in a harsh, raspy voice we would soon find mommy in paradise.

The girl explained to the man that her daddy would be mad if she was late and recalled a story about how he once explained to her they were worried when she didn’t come home after she went to a friend’s house to see her friend’s dog Pattie. Her father told her they loved her so much that they couldn’t bear to lose her and if she ever went missing, they would never, ever, stop looking for her. They didn’t want harm to come to her. She should grow up healthy, wealth, and wise. Again the rock appeared, spattered with blood, and there was yelling and screaming.

“God dammit, kid! Why did you scream? Why did you resist? You all were so stupid! I’ve never met a kid smart enough to give in... You just should have. It would have saved your life.”

Suddenly I saw through the eyes of the child’s severed head. I saw a rough shot man who was wild with rage. His long, scraggly hair was unwashed and tangled. A thin beard, as if he hadn’t shaved for a couple of days, covered his chin and cheeks, partially hiding his description. Glossed over eyes looked unfocused and had differing-size pupils. He wore a tan coat, a checkered shirt, and was holding a set of Rosary Beads that dripped with blood. He strangled the child with the beads and then beheaded as an afterthought. As suddenly as the vision started, it ended, leaving a lasting chill running up my spine.

I had just seen the Christ, and this corpse wasn't a prop. Sickened, I pulled out my cellphone, knowing who to call and what to say.

“Hello, RCMP. How may I help you?” asked a patient, soothing voice.

“Hello, I have a crime to report. I’ve found a child-sized skeleton in the woods.” I said.

“What is your name?”

“My name is Ken Wilkinson.”

“Where did you make this discovery?”

“Out in the woods, near the edge of my property. I was out for a walk and I tripped over a skull. I live in lot 1092 along Highway #6.”

“Alright, I’ll send a cruiser immediately. Try not to think of the remains.”

“Should I go back to my house to wait? I can guide you to the remains when you get here.”

“Yes, that’s a good idea.”

“Okay, I’ll wait at home.”

As I walked back to the house, I contemplated what had happened and why such a young, innocent girl as herself had to die before there could be justice. Her life had ended because of a pedophile who was out of control. He brutalized her. He probably had done it before and that was why Jesus gave me the vision... To put a definite end to him. If police care and can find a culprit, my swaying faith would restore, but right now that dead young girl weighed heavily on my mind, and I wondered about the validity of our system.

Wondering why we suffer as faithful Christians, I remember my childhood and how happy I was growing up in the local woods. A safe place where me and my friends would, for countless hours, play hide and seek. I had a sense of safety here and stayed behind. The reason I continued my forays into the woods was I found solace in God out there. Now, after finding the remains of a child, it may take a while, but I’ll venture forth again and try my rock. My faith has shaken, I feel bad for the family, but if they see their girl reborn like I feel she has the courage to do, I bet they too can find renewed faith to fight the good fight. All it will take is catching the culprit.

I guess in hindsight, we shouldn’t have offended you. We should not have transgressed that garden. But we would have continued to live like the animals. Never learned to tame fire or build houses out of earthen materials. The Gutenberg Press wouldn't have given us the news. We never would have so widely spread your message. Look at our modern culture, I mean the good things. Cinema. Theatre. Education. Electricity. Space Travel. All because Eve bit that apple and prompted Adam to take a bite, too.

Is that transgression worth the dirty, sick, low down, disgusting stuff that we have endured? Things like paedophilia, rape, incest, and bestiality would not have been a thing, but neither would have been mathematics, astronomy, or medicine. We may even still be sleeping in trees as primates, not have evolved as many times as the various species dared to set forth as Charles Darwin puts it. What would life be without culinary arts, music, computers, and classical art? Still, paedophilia destroys the lives of the children before they have lived life.

When I finally returned to my house, I boiled some tea, wondering what headlines would spawn from this. I imagined: Local Man Makes Gruesome Discovery. Turning on the TV, I saw the Noon News had a feature story about missing kids and the growing problem it was becoming in our society. They never came home from school, disappeared from malls, disappeared at public events, or even kidnapped by an ex-spouse. The announcer said there were over 50,000 missing kids reported to police every year. The majority where found within twenty-four hours, 92% of cases solved within a week, and they have not found the rest. Time is a factor in these cases. Disguised and secreted away are the children. This one did not live.

She fell to her abductor and did not make it beyond childhood, a terribly awful fate undue to any upstanding Christian, but thus is the case in the dark times of Christianity before Jesus arrives on his White Steed. Then the returning Saviour, God Almighty. The Fallen Martyrs will clamour at His Throne for justice and finally feel safe enough to live again upon their earth, free, and redeemed. Sad that they had to sit out life sometimes, but they chose to instead of turning cheeks anymore and wanted the toughies to fight for them. I know it might sound bad to our Christ back in the day, but since He is eternal and omnipresent, some of our most faithful have fought back with Him. We try to stick to lawfulness as best we can, but once in a while, laws are bent. I hope they bring the horrible monster who preyed on that child to justice either way.

News can be good. But seems to be increasingly unrestful the closer we get to knowing you again. I believe these times are unrestful because the self-chosen enemies of our combined faiths have realized that their time on earth is ending. They panicked and are making one last push to convince us to give in, to let the evils have their wicked ways, to let their Molech rule over us. Molech’s minions have molested everyone they can. The wicked have murdered key individuals. The tide has turned against us for so long now, but they cannot break all of us at once. We continue to fight back through laws, through civility, through governments, just like Moses started, and we are winning by now.

They have done all they can to break our spirits, but they will never completely undo the good we have sown into our fields. The chaff will separate from the wheat. Jesus will take one brother above the other. We will have our ultimate victory. One day, I would like to look back at the macabre scene that unfolded today and know Jesus has won. To know society redeemed the young girl enough to try life again. She should have had the chance to be a young woman with her own budding family. Father, one day we will regain your faith and the pit of Hell will seal forever.