“” Did you see that? ” Says Jed,

straightening the van, his eyes alight.

I saw it all right. It calls to mind… Saint Exupéry’s

drawing of an elephant inside a boa constrictor which in his story,

The Little Prince, all the grown-ups mistakenly believed

to be a picture of a trilby hat.

I had always thought that was just a charming joke.

…And that wild life special which devoted half an hour

of film to observing a pencil thin sliver of muscle toiling

in the undergrowth, painstakingly extending its mouth a

thousand-fold to fit round an ostrich egg.

I try to imagine what common household

item a young buck swallowed by a snake

might resemble… but it defeats me.”

***

“Joshua said, “When you see one who was not born of woman,

fall on your face and worship for there is your superior. When

you strip without being ashamed, and you take your clothes and

put them under your feet, and trample on them like a little child,

then you will see the living one and you will not be afraid.

Whoever is living from the living one will not see death.

Whoever drinks from my mouth will become like me, for I myself

shall become that person, and the hidden things will be revealed

to that person, and the heavens and the earth will roll up in their presence.”

***

The Living One:

Contemplations on the Gospel of Thomas

by Stuart France

Take a road trip through a far away continent… friendship strained to breaking point in the dead heat….

Take one of the Nag Hammadi scrolls, found in 1945 hidden in a cave over a thousand years ago…

… the two should not be ideal partners.

Yet strangely the two stories provide the warp and weft of a third, unwritten odyssey, a personal journey in search of a deeper understanding and the quest for truth.

Available in Paperback and for Kindle from Amazon worldwide:

ISBN-13: 978-1492378051

ISBN-10: 1492378054