“You embraced the knowledge of good and evil, judgment, which blinded you to the light you are and have always been. You’re the light, only lost in darkness, that’s all. But you can be reborn into the perception of light. Jesus called that perception ‘seeing the kingdom of heaven.’ Like being born all over again into a different way of seeing and being. Becoming like a little child.”

I blinked. Then was everyone the light, just blind to it? What about other religions?

“Why focus on others when you’re blind yourself? The blind can’t lead the blind, and I can assure you, you’re quite blind just like most, regardless of religion. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be in fear.”

“This is madness!” Bobbie spat. “Heresy! Don’t you see he is trying to deceive you?”

“Still, I’m already born again,” I said, ignoring Bobbie. “Otherwise I would go to hell. I’m a Christian.”

Eli gave me a patient smile. “Seems to me you’re already in a kind of hell called fear and judgment.”

“I mean when I die.”

“Being reborn is a lifelong journey from darkness to light, blindness to sight, that has little to do with the next life. Until you’re born again, you can’t perceive the light, which is everywhere—the kingdom of heaven. You see darkness instead of light and are lost in fear rather than in love. As you’re reborn into the kingdom, you see light where you once saw darkness. Do you want to see?”

I could hardly imagine a more beautiful thing, but my mind was screaming danger at me. Or was that Bobbie?

“How?” I whispered.

“Simple. Surrender. Repent. But true repentance is changing what you’ve been taught to believe about reality. Everyone thinks they’re right. So changing your mind is much harder than changing your behavior by following a set of laws and saying the right prayers. That means nothing unless it awakens you to love. Changing what you think feels like a kind of death to the old self who rules your life in judgment, but as you repent, you awaken to the light you’ve always been. Being born again.”

“Enough of this!” Bobbie said. “He’s overturning everything you know!”

“And now you’re feeling the fear of being wrong, which is another kind of hell.”

“Heresy!” Bobbie hissed. “He’s deceiving you!”

Eli stepped forward and passed through the bars so that he was now standing in my cell, not three feet from me. Bobbie quickly jumped to the corner behind me. I took a step back, dumbstruck.

“Can we be rid of her for a moment so I can show you something?” Eli asked.

A look of stark terror had paled Bobbie’s face. Who was she, really? So wise in so many ways, but so full of fear. The opposite of Eli.

“Trust me,” Eli said.