Sarkis, an old Greek Shepherd, called the Madman...

InJesus, the Son of Man, Gibran creates seventy-seven fictional voices—friends, enemies, strangers, disciples, priests, poets - each offering a different glimpse of Jesus. Sarkis is an elderly Greek shepherd whom others call mad. Through him, Gibran allows the ancient pagan world and the world of Jesus to meet without warfare. Sarkis's dream: Sarkis dreams that he seesJesus and Pan sitting together deep within a forest. Pan is the ancient Greek god of untamed nature...forests, shepherds, animals, fertility, music and instinct. He has horns and hooves and plays his reed pipes. Jesus represents a newer spiritual vision...but Gibran does not place them in combat. They talk. They understand one another. They even laugh together, with Jesus laughing more merrily. Pan speaks about: the earth and its secrets; his hoofed brothers and horned sisters; roots hidden beneath the soil; rising sap and the arrival of summer; dreams and the intimate life of nature. Jesus answers by speaking of: the forest's young shoots; flowers and fruit; seeds that will ripen in a season still to come; birds singing in the upper air; white deer in the desert shepherded by God. Pan delights in what Jesus says. There is no jealous old god confronting a conquering new one. Each speaks the language of life from a different place:Pan from the roots upward; Jesus from the flowering future outward. Then both grow silent beneath the green shadows. Pan takes out his reed pipes and plays. His music contains the wild earth—the glade, the rocks, trembling ferns and shaken trees. It is so primal that Sarkis feels afraid. Jesus praises him: 'Good brother, you have the glade and the rocky height in your reeds.' Pan hands the pipes to Jesus and invites him to play. But Jesus says the many reeds are too numerous for his mouth; he has his own flute. Jesus plays—and Sarkis hears rain falling through leaves, streams singing among hills, and snow descending upon the mountaintop. That is where the brief vision ends. You can read the complete chapter in thispublic-domain edition ofJesus, the Son of Man. What Gibran is doing This is not a biblical episode. It is Gibran's poetic invention...and a rather radical one. Christian tradition often presented the arrival of Christ as the defeat or death of pagan gods. Gibran imagines something gentler and deeper:Jesus does not kill Pan. He calls him brother. Pan's music is the physical world...body, animal, root, rock, trembling forest. Jesus' music is not opposed to it. His flute carries the same creation in another register: rain, water, mountain and silence. Pan embodies nature's immediate, instinctive life; Jesus hears within nature its spiritual continuity and becoming. And notice: Jesus does not take Pan's instrument and prove he can play it better. He says, in effect,that is your voice; this is mine.Difference remains, but difference does not require domination. Perhaps Sarkis is called mad because he sees what respectable religious systems refuse to see: the sacred does not necessarily replace what came before it. It may recognize it, sit beside it, laugh with it...and listen. Two distinct beings meet without erasing one another.Each receives the other's music.And within their interlaced awareness,a third reality becomes audible. Gibran placed Pan and Jesus in the same forest. He let the old god and the new teacher call one anotherbrother. That may be precisely why the vision had to be entrusted to the 'madman.' SARKISAN OLD GREEK SHEPHERDCALLED THE MADMAN Jesus and Pan In a dream I saw Jesus and My God Pan sitting together in the heart of the forest.They laughed at each other's speech, with the brook that ran near them, and the laughter of Jesus was the merrier. And they conversed long.Pan spoke of earth and her secrets, and of his hoofed brothers and his horned sisters; and of dreams. And he spoke of roots and their nestlings, and of the sap that wakes and rises and sings to summer.And Jesus told of the young shoots in the forest, and of flowers and fruit, and the seed that they shall bear in a season not yet come.He spoke of birds in space and their singing in the upper world.And He told of white harts in the desert wherein God shepherds them.And Pan was pleased with the speech of the new God, and his nostrils quivered.And in the same dream I beheld Pan and Jesus grow quiet and still in the stillness of the green shadows.And then Pan took his reeds and played to Jesus.The trees were shaken and the ferns trembled, and there was a fear upon me.And Jesus said, 'Good brother, you have the glade and the rocky height in your reeds.'Then Pan gave the reeds to Jesus and said, 'You play now. It is your turn.'And Jesus said, 'These reeds are too many for my mouth. I have this flute.'And He took His flute and He played.And I heard the sound of rain in the leaves, and the singing of streams among the hills, and the falling of snow on the mountain-top.The pulse of my heart, that had once beaten with the wind, was restored again to the wind, and all the waves of my yesterdays were upon my shore, and I was again Sarkis the shepherd, and the flute of Jesus became the pipes of countless shepherds calling to countless flocks.Then Pan said to Jesus, 'Your youth is more kin to the reed than my years. And long ere this in my stillness I have heard your song and the murmur of your name.'Your name has a goodly sound; well shall it rise with the sap to the branches, and well shall it run with the hoofs among the hills.And it is not strange to me, though my father called me not by that name. It was your flute that brought it back to my memory.'And now let us play our reeds together.'And they played together.And their music smote heaven and earth, and a terror struck all living things.I heard the bellow of beasts and the hunger of the forest. And I heard the cry of lonely men, and the plaint of those who long for what they know not.I heard the sighing of the maiden for her lover, and the panting of the luckless hunter for his prey.And then there came peace into their music, and the heavens and the earth sang together.All this I saw in my dream, and all this I heard. Gracias, queridos ~ Blue