-an interview with a reporter-

(recording starts - sounds of chairs being pushed closer together)

OK, you're a reporter and you want me to talk with you about my nephew, Johnny? Is this off the record?

(the reporter's questions are much too faint to be heard clearly, and are represented here by the gaps between the responses)

Tell me, is he in trouble again?

Well, OK, I'll tell you about him, but you can't use our family name. We don't want to get arrested. You know those occupying jerks don't even let us complain. If they knew I'd spoken to you, I'd get tortured to death, and probably the whole family with me.

Right... you want to talk about Johnny... what do you want to know?

Well, he's my nephew, my wife's sister's son. He seemed liked a great kid, till he started running around with that group of peace-nicks. Those guys kept getting all the foreigners mad. We were afraid we'd all get killed!

You know, when he was little, he was really impressive. He even had this pet sheep named Dolly, or something like that. Some jerks from their army stole it, though, and roasted it one night. I bet that was when it all started. Some of his buddies and he got together trying to find some way of dealing with the injustice of it all. Maybe they lost valuable stuff to those foreign bullies, too.

Odd thing was we didn't think they were going to cause any real problems till that peculiar guy got to be Johnny's best friend, and then became leader of their club. He was eight or ten year older than Johnny, I think. Johnny really looked up to him, though, kind of like the older brother he never had.

To begin with, we all thought it was beneficial. Johnny needed a best friend. He'd never had one before. We kind of hoped he might pick up some woodworking skills from his buddy. You know, it sure seemed like they all got sort of flaky when even more guys started hanging around with them.

I've got to admit, he's been an adult for a some time, so even though I'll always think of him as a kid, I probably ought to refer to him as "John" instead of Johnny. Always did seem like the innocent one in the family, you know what I mean? But, whenever the subject of God came up, that whole group of his got kind of worked up, and went on and on about how folks should act towards each other, and interact with our Creator.

Right off they started roaming around the country, trying to get folks interested in their cause, doing odd tricks, and performing magic, or something. Everywhere they went, they'd get a crowd up and get them really agitated. Lots of the local church people started complaining to the government, and you know they'll raise our taxes (at least) if they get involved!

Those guys sure had some odd ideas pertaining to the value of people! Seems they felt kids were great to be around, instead of thinking of them as near-parasites like most of us do. They hung out with women with low morals, and even worse, those despicable tax collectors! Who can explain it?

But, I think things will probably start getting back to normal, now that the main instigator (John's buddy) was caught and put to death last Friday afternoon. Hopefully, people will start to realize that he was just another guy, not some sort of messiah, or something.

How did Johnny meet that guy? I think it was when we bought those two chairs from the local craftsman. Hey! Hang on a minute!

(sounds of furniture being moved about)

Yeah, I thought so... underneath this chair is the signature of "Yeheshua bar..." never mind. In your language it says the craftsman was Jesus, son of Joseph the carpenter. He sure did good work.

Yeah... I guess it'll always be Jesus and John... BFFs!

(recording ends)