“Peter? I don’t know, I kind of like, Simon, calling you Peter would just seem strange, especially when I was whispering sweet nothings in your ear, I’d feel like I was cheating on the Simon I married.”.

“As long as it’s me you are whispering sweet nothings to, you can call me anything you like, but I don’t think the entire Peter thing is going to catch on.  I’d have to wear a sign, “The fisherman formerly known as Simon”. 

I had been telling Esther about my encounter with Jesus the night before and she was bubbling with questions. 

What was he like?  Do we have any friends in common?  Is he married?  What did he mean by changing the world?

“He’s just a guy, kind of average looking, but with mesmerizing eyes, I know that seems a little strange to be talking about another man’s eyes but there was just something there like he had looked into eternity, and when he spoke, it was riveting.  He wasn’t loud or angry sounding, but everyone one in the room was hanging on every word that he said.”

“I knew most of the others in the room, but I didn’t get the sense that they were long-time friends of his, it was like we were all just getting acquainted, except maybe the other Simon, the one he kept calling “The Zealot”, they seemed to have some shared history. 

And there was no talk of a wife or a girlfriend and don’t go playing matchmaker. ”

“But. . .”

“No buts and I probably won’t be seeing him again, Andrew will move on to the next messiah and this Jesus will go back to making tables in Nazareth, and probably for the best.  From the little, I heard last night his teaching is bound to make some people cranky.”

And it seemed like I called it right.  Everything seemed to return to normal, whatever normal was.

John continued to preach, but Andrew had connected with the group who met with Jesus and their talk revolved around where Jesus was and what the future might hold for him.  The consensus was that he was “it”,  Whatever “it” was and that a brighter future lay with him.  But nobody had seen him or heard tell of him since that first evening.

So, I spent the nights fishing and the days sleeping and doing the stuff that always needs to be done around the house, but my thoughts kept going back to Jesus and our conversation.  Could he be the one who would change the world?  And what would a changed world look like?

Andrew started calling me Peter, but I think it was just to get on my nerves.   Sometimes pillow talk with Esther would drift to the carpenter, and I wondered why I couldn’t get him out of my thoughts.

And the days turned to weeks and still no word of Jesus, but there was a niggling thought that I hadn’t heard the last of him.

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