He nodded understandingly. “So many of us must first fall into the darkest wells of despair before we learn to appreciate the sight of a single star. Were you writing your fine books during that time, Matthias?”

“I was writing but I was unable to interest anyone in my work. Failure and frustration are easily drowned, at least temporarily, with a few bottles of cheap wine.”

“Did you ever pray for help during those sad times?”

“Never. I despised myself so much, for wasting my life and talent, that I felt I deserved no help. And if there was a God, which I did not believe, I was certain that my miserable cries would never be heard.”

“You had forgotten those things you must have learned from your mother when she read to you at night—that not even a sparrow can fall to the ground without God’s notice and that even the very hairs on your head are all numbered by him, as Jesus told us. What was it that finally changed your life for the better so that you were able to apply your talents to earn worldwide renown? That must have taken more than merely sitting in a jail with self-pity and fear as your cell mates?”

“Three human beings changed my life, Joseph: the wonderful woman I married and the two handsome sons she gave me. Soon after she presented me with my second son, since I was still drinking heavily, she gave me a choice. I could have the bottles or my family, but not both. I quit drinking.”

“Ah, ha!” he exclaimed. “Then it was love that changed your life! And with it you found God.”

“I didn’t say that, Joseph.”

“But you did, Matthias, you did! When you discovered how much you truly loved your wife and sons, you found God. God is love! If we love one another, then God dwells within us. You cannot have one without the other. And when we know love we have also found the Kingdom that so many, who do not understand this simple secret, will never find. The Kingdom of God, Matthias, is not on a cloud. It is within you. That is what Jesus told the people, time and again.”

“And they killed him for his efforts,” I said cynically.