The boy lifted his hands. Inside them, he cupped a sparrow. Its feathered head lolled loosely to one side. Its small, pale eyelid was drawn, like half a seed, over its eye. A drop of blood stained the end of its beak. Tabitha wiped the boy’s tears with her robe. He turned his face up to Jesus. “Can you bring him back to life? Like the magician?” he implored.

A gasp rippled through the crowd. Everyone knew that Jesus could not resist the request of a child. A charge ran from person to person. Surely their healer possessed more power than a magician! Everyone was convinced that soon they would witness a miracle.

Jesus patted the boy’s shoulder. He caught Ruth’s eyes and intuited her thoughts. They had heard much lately of a magician who performed amazing acts. His miracles were so impressive that he was attracting large crowds wherever he traveled. In their journeys, the three companions had encountered many prophets and profiteers. They knew that the parading of miracles greatly tempted the hungry and hopeless. This realization filled Jesus with an urgency to confront the magician’s empty tricks. He cleared his mind, then turned to the crowd and began to speak.

“Friends, this child’s desire is right in its innocence. But tell me, why do the rest of you seek vulgar miracles when you are blind to the genuine ones before you? It is not the raising of the dead that is miraculous, but the life of the living!”

The crowd became silent. Tabitha wrapped her arms around the boy as he clutched the dead bird.

“Everyone, please sit with me,” Jesus requested. He lowered himself slowly. His leg aching from the strain of their journey. “We have spoken of Communion before,” he began when all were seated. “But perhaps you think it is only a morning activity? Or something done at a designated time? I tell you, it is neither of these things. Communion is a way of being aware in your world that can become as natural and reflexive as your breath. All it requires is that you remember. And sometimes that you remember to remember all that surrounds us. When you do this, you will feel the power that resides within and around you. Then you will see the magician’s miracles for what they truly are.”

When everyone had settled, he encouraged them to “live into the miracle” of the bird, to run their thoughts along each tufted fiber of its feathers, to follow its flight backward over the valleys and treetops to the time when its very song had been hewn from sunshine and rain. After an hour, the crowd sat peacefully, rapt in their own experiences. The boy lifted the bird, eyeing it with attentiveness.