Puddleglum's Pensees

I wonder what it would have been like to be among the crowds pressing in around Jesus in Peter’s house that muggy day in Capernaum. Wanting to see the new rabbi, maybe hoping for a little shock and awe, noticing the religious leaders standing off in a corner, huddled among themselves muttering. I wonder what it would have been like, as I strain to see Jesus, when I feel something falling on my head. I reach up. It’s a piece of mud and thatch. I look up and notice daylight where there shouldn’t be. Then hands. Four pairs of them widening the hole in Peter’s roof. “Why on earth are they doing that? Who’s going to fix Peter’s roof?” I wonder what questions I would have asked.     And then a shadow—is that a bed?—something is being lowered through the hole by ropes, each attached to a corner. I imagine being anxious as one corner is lowered a little more quickly than the rest. It looks like the poor fellow is going to slide off!    But he doesn’t. He re...