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The key thing, which is true for all profound religious experiences -- not that I���ve necessarily had that -- even if you���re endowed with or are the representative of what everybody in places like AA call a ���higher power,��� this power is not always with you. It���s often, signally, not there. When people have faith, they often go through excruciating experiences when they feel the absence of faith. CB: Christ���s mood comes out when His faith wavers. The variety of religious experience corresponds to the variety of human moods that are mixed in any single character. A character is not just, say, a sourpuss, but may inspire a thousand different adjectives, equally accurate. It���s like the ups and downs of being in love. NM: Very good, it���s very much like being in love. There are times when there is no doubt in your mind that you are in love, and there are times when you assume the love has been withdrawn. Where is it, what happened to it? In that sense, I wanted to treat Christ the way I would treat, if you will, a saint. The first thing about saints is that they don���t know all the time that they are saints. CB: Your description of Capernaum, a town in ancient Palestine on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee, reminds me of Provincetown, where the mouths of men are also painted red. Simon Peter tells Jesus how Capernaum, ���though only a small city, was favored by men who did not know women but other men. So I learned that such men would cover their lips with the juice of red berries, and in the taverns they would speak of how the bravest of the Greeks were Spartans, who were great warriors but lived only to sleep in each other���s arms.��� Jesus��� disciples dispute this, and Peter says: ���Spartans also live with the sword. Whereas these men of Capernaum live with the coloring that women choose for HYLAND 17