Sister Carolyn asked her class, “I want everyone to ask a question about God, and work together to understand it better.” And she looked at Jeremiah Benton, who had his hand up, “Okay,” she said she, “you go first, Jeremiah…:”

“Why does God send his prophets, instead of him coming in person…” asked Jeremiah Benton, of Sister Carolyn and their classmates, at St. Louis Ecole, Elementary School, a small French Catholic school , built in 1888, in downtown, St. Paul, Minnesota, in the winter of 1957.

“That’s a good question,” the nun said, “I really don’t know, do I?”

“Oh yes,” replied the ten-year-old.

“Well then,” Sister Carolyn said, “what’s the answer?”

“He’s scary!” said the boy.

“Oh, but that won’t do,” the nun said, “how could a little boy like you know he’s scary in the first place?” the nun asked.

“I had a dream last night, and God took me back and showed me everything.” The boy said seriously.

“You’re not lying, are you Jeremiah?” the nun asked.

“Oh no, I’m not kidding, it’s true.” Jeremiah said, “cross my heart,” and the boy did exactly that, made a sign on his heart.

“Well,” said the nun, “okay, then come here in front of the class and tell us all about your wonderful dream, the same one that God revealed to you about why he sends prophets instead of coming himself.”

The boy hesitated, then said to himself, ‘Oh well, I guess,’ and got up, walked down the hall, around some desks, focused on the middle of the class, the teacher by her desk, her two hands, palms back, on the big wooden desk, and her sitting on the edge of it, the blackboard beside her.

“Come in,” said the sister, “we are all waiting.”

The class was still, and Jeremiah was on his feet trying to figure out how to start his story, he hadn’t planned on sharing it, but here it was anyway, then he said with a bang:

“Once upon a time:

“As God was taking me in his boat, while in my dream, taking me to a distant land, he called ‘The City of Adam’, he said ‘A prophet is a person who gives my people warnings, things that he points out to me that angered me, Elijah was one of those people, I even stopped the rain for him to prove a point to the people he took my message to.’ Then I asked God: why don’t you do it yourself and no one will be confused by your orders? He gave me a ‘hum…’ one of those things, not knowing what it meant at the time, and then he said, ‘I don’t want people to be confused, but there is only one God you know.’ And I said, I know, but people get confused.

“I asked him: when did all this secret business start, by sending the prophets to do their work?” (The nun looked at Jeremiah and frowned at that statement; then a classmate yelled ‘Abraham, he was the first prophet. ‘No,’ said another student, it was ‘Adam, he was the first.’)

“Anyway,” continued the boy, “I was in the boat with God, and he went to this city called “The City of Adam,” by the Jordan River, and he said to me: ‘It happened here Jeremiah, in those distant -Days off, before the Great Flood, I went down to talk to my people…”

(Jeremiah now tells the story in his own words, while his companions are doubly focused on him, not a peep, not a sound in the entire room, and even the nun, is waiting anxiously, almost holding her breath):

“God said that he was his own first prophet, but when he came to speak to his people, when he spoke and when the people saw him, he shook the earth, like an egg on the head of a needle, and the people were scared. , and his voice resounded from one side of the earth, through the earth to the other side, the people ran and hid, thinking that there was going to be an earthquake, it shook the earth, and when the face of God appeared in the sky, it blocked out the sun, and it was all you could see, and the people dug holes in the ground to hide, they trembled with fear. And God said, ‘It is only I, your creator, why do you tremble?’ And the people shouted, ‘Because you’re too awesome for us to see,’ and some even died of heart attacks, so God said, ‘I promise you, I’ll send my prophets in my place, so I don’t scare you.’ And people were happy.”

Sister Carolyn now looked at young Jeremiah, spellbound, “What a dream,” she said, adding, “You must tell us what your next one is.”

2-17-2009 (written while having lunch at the Wong cafe in Lima, Peru)