A Grain of Mustard Seed

Eric W. Tilenius

Copyright (c) 1987

Tom sat, admiring the craft, and contemplating. His thoughts were as big as the craft was small, his plans for it as enormous as its interior was cramped. This was no ordinary craft. It was the craft that would forever kick Him -- not God, for to Tom there was no such being, but Him -- out of his place in the sky. He broke the bottle of champagne and dubbed the machine ``The Missionary.''
The long years before had taken their toll on Tom. Tremendous pressures, numerous disasters, and emotional stress. As he stared at the peanut butter sandwich that lay half-eaten on his workbench, its light brown wheat crust flaking onto the floor in small dry pieces, he recalled how his wife and family -- oh, but how he had loved them! -- had left him, with Mary calling him an ignorant self-righteous zealot. It had hurt, but he would never turn back. All the wars, all the strife, all the killing in the name of religion would cease. He would prove it wrong. ``You persist still?'' The voice came from Minister Sol, who had entered into the room, his trim black outfit moving only as it was hit by the silver cross which dangled from his neck. Sol, taking his golden pocket watch of which he was so proud from his side, exclaimed, ``My InfoLink said your call was urgent, so I came right over. I do hope I am still in time? I take it this is not for dinner.''
As Sol finished, and slid his pocket watch delicately back into its place on his side, he surveyed the room. It was quite different from when he had been here last, a scant year ago. Amid the old fashioned tools lying scattered around the workbench were some new higher-technology devices. The floor was spotless, though, and clear, except for the highly visible object in the center.
``By the Lord,'' started Sol, ``What is this monster? You can't be serious! I do hope you plan on moving it soon!'' For the first time in what seemed like ages, Tom was about to speak, to truly speak. He had been alone for such a long time, he hardly seemed to know how to speak at first, but such a task was made easier now that he saw his old friend again. It had been ages since he had seen Sol last, but it always brought a gleam into Tom's eyes to see him. Sol and Tom had been excellent friends back in high school, a friendship strengthened by their diametrically opposite views on practically everything under the sun. They would spend countless hours debating, and Tom had listened to many a ``sermon'' from Sol. But, invariably, their thoughts would return to the one topic that seemed to most separate them -- whether God existed. Back then, Tom had put forth an argument that had society not been brought up on the Bible, and taught it by others in society, man would not know about any supreme deity, and thus it would be unnatural to assume one existed. ``Say you were raised in the backlands,'' he had argued, ``and no one ever told you about Jesus or Moses or Mohammed. What then? You'd likely grow up believing a different myth, a different explanation of how things work. The only reason so many people believe is because they've been told 'this is true' or 'that is true'. What would rationally define a deity? Your background. And there's nothing to prove otherwise.''
Sol, never one to let another get the better of him, had countered, ``But there have been proofs! And signs! God sent Jesus into the world that we could see what is true. Living proof, that died for you, Tom, yet you refuse to accept it!'' And so it went. Tom would never accept it. Nor did he think others should. It was blind, heathen mythology. Others never accepted Tom. He was the heathen, and suffered. A scar on his hand where Mary had slammed the door bore proof of this. ``I must go about the business of stopping all this madness,'' he had told her in one of his more passionate moments. ``Look at all the ills because people are deceiving themselves! If they would realize their situation and better it. But no -- deception, and willfully so.'' She had kicked him out, screamed at him. And he had wandered, hungry.
Finally, he met up with Lucy. Beautiful, rich, popular Lucy. She seemed to just have everything, yet even when he saw her first, he had felt the deep insecurity, the questioning, the vulnerability. It had been on one of his reflective journeys, visiting the Grand Canyon on the little funds he had left. They had been talking, looking out over the edge, when Lucy had told him about the great confusion inside her. ``Somehow, Tom, I feel I can talk to you about this. I usually can't stand to bring it up, it torments me. No, don't ask me what -- I'll get to it. Really, I've made up my mind that I will tell someone. Oh, you'll probably think me silly and all, but... look out there.''
She pointed out across to the richly colored, jagged canyon wall, sparkling in the late day sun that was just beginning to set. The clear afternoon breeze ruffled her fine hair and blew some of it up against the deep blue sky. A bird, flying overhead, piped out the most beautiful song as Lucy's trembling hand pointed to a flowering bush in the distance. Tom, in jeans and a sweater, merely looked and said nothing. ``It's all so lovely, Tom. It couldn't have happened all by chance, now, could it? I was raised in a strict background, taught that God made everything. Sometimes, like today, I can almost see that, yet most of the time I'm so unsure. It's such a material world, how can we say that God exists? Are we looking at a proof here, Tom, or an accident?'' The man in jeans paused, looked out over the canyon, and spoke to the woman who would be his benefactor for the next hellish, in the mythological sense, years of his life. ``Neither. It's nature. It is, beautiful, but not because some unseen power has made it so. Nature, life, is naturally beautiful. It needs no outside force. Who would have thought 100 years ago that we would have accomplished the things we did? We must let go of these myths and be free to grow even more.'' Lucy looked uncertainly at Tom, as though she wanted to find that he was telling the answer. ``I'm so afraid when people start talking about religion and beliefs and all that. They debate them, and discuss them, and defend them. But when they come to asking what mine are, I shrink from it, seek any desperate plot to change the conversation.'' Here she looked imploringly at Tom, as if not to force her into a similar situation, and continued, ``How can I defend mine when I'm not even sure what mine are? It seems that everyone but me believes in something, even you. I can't defend my thoughts against belief. God, Tom, if only I could know.'' That, of course, was when it all happened. The crazy scheme of Tom's unfolded, and Lucy grabbed at it like a baby grabs for its pacifier. Lucy would have her proof, and Tom would finally prove to all the world the lunacy of all these myths. So, today, when Tom kneeled by the machine in front of Sol, he felt as though he had rehearsed for the moment for ages. The seclusion, the pain, the criticisms, the government condemnation of his project which had forced him, with Lucy's help, to bring it underground were all about to pay off. He spoke. ``Yes, Sol. This machine will move. It will move itself, and in doing so, move mountains of 'faith'. For tomorrow both of us, and my benefactor, and the whole rest of the world will have proof that the Bible is nothing more than a story --- or any other document.''
``What the hell are you saying?'' cried Sol, now becoming a bit more excited, ``Does it test the air for proof of God? What devilish plot have you cooked up to despoil the name of the Lord now?''
Tom rose, and looked at his friend's flushed face. ``Nothing of the sort. It's a time machine.''
``Now you're really loony! Nuts! Is Lucifer growing inside you? You know that's physically impossible. It would create infinite paradox. You just can't go and change the past!'' A grin crossed over Tom's face, and such a grin it was that one would very likely have thought him devil-ridden, if one were so inclined. His composure soon returned, though. ``It can't change the past, Sol. But it will let you see it. Any place, any time is there for the observation. We can see, now, the whole tale -- of how the Bible was fabricated, written; how the tales of your favorite `hero' Jesus came into being.'' ``You're mad,'' Sol repeated, dumfounded. He fingered his watch nervously, silvering an already worn area in the gold covering. His blackish hair seemed to stick up at a higher angle than before, and the white roots near his scalp became slightly visible, as though someone had planted white-hair seeds their and they were just beginning to sprout.
But there was to be no doubt. The machine worked. Tom showed Sol how the mytronic crystal had to be twisted to energize it, after which a tremendously precise time/place indicator could be set to see anywhere, any time. ``Once there, you can get out and walk around, but you won't be physically there -- anything that touches you will go right through you. You are an observer only, they can't see you and you can't effect them. It's about the closest to a god you'll get.''
And observe they did, Sol and Tom. Taking turns testing the machine in the near past, for only one could fit in the machine at a time. One stood on the podium as Lincoln gave the Gettysburg address, the other jumped in the way of the bullet at Reagan's assassination. They saw all, and affected nothing. Hours later, they decided to call it a day. ``You see, Sol, tomorrow, I will go and get pictures, evidence that your God exists only in people's mind, now as then.'' Sol, who seemed a bit whiter despite his obvious excitement with the technology, merely said, ``It will change nothing. You cannot shake what people believe. They will never believe you. And, what if you discover Jesus, preaching, what then?'' ``I won't. Of that I am certain. And I will bring evidence.''
With that, the two friends went to bed. Oh, what a changed world it would be in the 'morrow. Neither of them slept well, and Sol was up most of the night, moving around restlessly. Tom tossed like a child before Christmas, eagerly waiting to open the present which had been hoped for all year. It was decided that Tom should go first in the tiny machine. He took with him a camera and tape recorder, and entered the craft, shutting Sol and the rest of the world outside, and entering his own little universe inside. He carefully adjusted the dials, and pressed the button to start. The world went black. A faint acrid odor permeated the chamber, and Tom went faint for what must have been half a minute or so. But when he recovered, he was there. He shakily, rose and lifted the latch of the door.
What he discovered outside was a completely different world. An arid climate, with sand, a few trees and bushes, people in biblical dress. Damn, but he would prove this his point now! Camera and audiocorder in hand, he set forward, traversing this land. How he longed to talk with these people, to ask them if they had ever heard of Jesus! To track down the lye to its origin! But, how?
As he was deeply engaged in thinking about this, his feet moving over the sand and over a rise almost by themselves, he saw up ahead a crowd of people, gathered around a figure who was standing on a small rock and looking around them -- a meeting! Here, Tom might pick up some dialogue that would aid him in his quest.
But as he approached, something inside him began nagging, bugging him. That childish superstition that comes to any man when entering a dark cellar and causes great anxiety, even though the man knows there to be no monsters lurking in that darkness. So, too, something ate at Tom now. Could it be that... He put the thought out of his mind -- he had always had an overactive imagination.
But the feeling would not go away. As he came closer, he made out that the central figure had a beard, and a rather holy, commanding appearance. ``A leader, preaching,'' thought Tom, ``there is nothing unusual in that. Perhaps he even tells the story of Jesus to those who suck it in.'' So, Tom walked up to listen.
Straining to make out the foreign tongue, which was actually easier than Tom had expected, he heard the bearded one speak, and promptly froze. The words could hardly have made a more chilling impression if they had ordered his very death. ``The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: which indeed is the least of all seeds: but, when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.'' The bearded one held up a handful of the fine mustard seeds, and scattered them for all to see. For a moment, Tom stood, stunned beyond belief. Then he regained composure -- how silly it was, to assume that there would be no religious preaching. There always had been, and this was no exception. False ``religious'' teachings had made up the Bible, had they not? He was getting jumpy.
His thoughts raced on ahead of him, trying desperately to overcome the surge of anxiety that was overcoming him. But now the nagging had turned into full scale fear, washing over him as the storm did the disciples before Jesus had quieted -- but NO! There WAS NO SUCH PERSON! Or, he was blown out of proportion, if he existed -- he couldn't have...
There, in front of his eyes, a cripple walked towards the bearded one. Tom dropped his camera. He wanted to run, to cry out, to yell. His whole life, the pain, the suffering, his conviction, the scar on his hand, Mary! The bearded one bent down and spoke to the cripple. This time Tom yelled. He was sorry, but he couldn't help it -- he just couldn't. This wasn't happening! God, his life, please, God it wasn't all wrong, no, it just wasn't.
As though J--- the bearded one had heard his cry, he turned, and looked right into Tom's eyes in such a knowing glance that Tom felt his soul being read. Every facet, every crime, every treacherous statement was known. At that instant, the cripple was made whole.
Better than Tom had taken the cripple's place than for this. For now, God, what had he done! A revolting heave came to his stomach, and he found himself unable to keep his breakfast down. He passed out moments later, lying in the pool of his own vomit. When he awoke God knows how much later, he could hardly walk. The cracked camera that lay by his side, the camera that sought to disprove the face of God, was stained in vomit. No one else was around. Dizzily, he staggered back to his time machine, and wrenched himself inside and barely managed to hit the return button before passing out again.
The immediacy of his panic had left him when he regained consciousness. It was now more a sense that an inadvertent murderer would have after recovering from the initial shock of killing a man, and now wanting to hide the evidence. Tom's mind worked furiously, and his body quicker. He wrenched himself outside into his lab, and grabbing a stick of explosive, hurled it into the machine as he dragged himself away. Moments later, a blast rocked the lab as the machine sat smoking. As the shock waves wore down, the faint rumblings of a truck pulling away could be heard in the distance. Sol came running in, and looked at the smoking mess, and his war-torn friend. ``Sol,'' Tom gasped, ``help me, please.'' ``What on earth happened?'' the other asked, coming over and embracing Tom. Tom, events, images, his whole life reeling through his head tried to get the words out, but couldn't. Now that he knew, he KNEW the truth, he had to tell it, didn't he? But to give in? To admit complete defeat? To admit that his whole life had been decadence and sin? He had to beg forgiveness to Jesus, to God, to...
``Ship,'' he groaned, pained -- yet how much less than the pain Christ suffered on the cross! -- ``can't go that far back in time. Explosion.''
Tom slumped, then blacked out again for the unbearable torment. To have lied on top of everything when God was looking on!
Sol held him for a moment, and ascertaining that his friend was unconscious again, gave a brief frown and brushed a mustard seed from his debating partner's sleeve. ``It seems we have both lost today, Tom... You see,'' he addressed the unconscious one, ``I set you up. I couldn't trust your machine. I shorted it out. I hired actors. I... I was afraid of what the truth might be as much as you were.'' Sol ripped the silver cross off his neck and placed it firmly in Tom's hand. ``You are me now,'' he wept, ``and I you.''

Eric W. Tilenius is a Senior majoring in Economics at Princeton University. He is President and Founder of the Princeton Planetary Society, a group dedicated to promoting an active space program. In his spare time, he writes about bizarre things or bizarrely about things.

He can be reached at the address EWTILENI@PUCC.BITNET