to bring forth divine messages and revelations, to share divine counsel, to discern and interpret the signs of the times, and to speak of future events before they happen.”
“Prophets?” he asked.
“Yes, prophets, seers, priests, messengers of God, those chosen as vessels of divine revelation. In fact the word oracle itself appears throughout the Scriptures. It is written that the counsel given by a man named Ahithophel ‘was as if one had inquired at the oracle of God.’ 1 So the apostle Paul wrote that the nation of Israel was entrusted with the ‘oracles of God.’” 2
“So the oracles of God are . . . ”
“His revelations, His words, messages, and prophecies, that which is linked to the prophets. Their prophecies could be called the oracles.”
“But how did any of this help you in your search for the Oracle?”
“It gave me something to go on. I now at least had some idea of what I was looking for.”
“And where did it lead you?” he asked.
“Nowhere . . . not for some time. But I wasn’t going to give up. I kept searching, on the web, in libraries, in history books, in books on religion, in periodicals, on microfilm, everything I could search through, looking for any trace of the Oracle. And then . . . ”
“And then?”
“And then I found it.”
Chapter 3
THE JOURNEY
I WAS IN the library, going through an article preserved on microfilm. It was there that I saw it, in that article. It wasn’t even the main point but was a side note. It mentioned how in a certain region the locals told the story of a man who lived in the mountains and only emerged in the villages on the rarest of occasions. They called him the Oracle.”
“They called him the Oracle, why?”
“Because they believed he spoke words of divine wisdom and revelation. They sought his counsel. That was pretty much all it said.”
“So what did you do?”
“I narrowed down my searching to that region. I retrieved as many pictures as I could find of its landscape. That’s how I knew I was on the right track.”
“How?”
“The pictures of the region matched the landscape in my vision. It was then that I decided to make the journey. I didn’t believe I had a choice. If I didn’t go, I would always be haunted by the fact that I never did. So I would go to the land of the Oracle and seek him out.
“I wrapped up my affairs, arranged for an extended absence, and set out on the journey. I ended up in one of the villages spoken about in the article. I stayed in what could only, by the loosest of interpretations, be called an inn but which served its purpose. I figured I would start out by simply asking the locals if they had ever heard of a man called the Oracle. And if they answered yes, I would see if I could get anything more, any clue to his whereabouts.”
“Did you?”
“There were those who didn’t speak the language. There were others who said they had never heard of him. Then there were those who told me they had heard of him but only through others, who in turn had only heard of him through others. They knew someone who knew someone who had once encountered him. And then there were those eager to speak of him, but what they shared was so fanciful, the stuff of legends, that it was useless.
“Finally I came across the one person who was able to give me something to go on, an old shopkeeper. He didn’t claim to know much about the Oracle except for the region in which he was reputed to dwell. He was the one who directed me into the desert and to the most dangerous part of the journey. But he didn’t do so without preparing me. He sold me some used paraphernalia of the nomads of the region, survival gear, a small cloth tent, and rations of dried food. I did wonder whether he really knew of the Oracle’s whereabouts or if he just wanted to make a sale. But having nothing else to go on, I went with it.
“So I set off in the desert in the direction I was told to go in. I knew it was a risk. In the daytime my chief goal was to find a source of water and to preserve the little I carried. At night it was to stay on guard against the animals of the