The Record Keeper (Murphy Shepherd, #3)

by Charles Martin

when Jesus was carrying his cross up that hill, he stumbled ’cause they’d beat him so bad. When he did, the soldiers grabbed a man out of the crowd and said, ‘Carry that.’ So this man named Simon shouldered that crossbar and, although the Book don’t say it, Bones think he lifted Jesus. And the two of them walked up that hill. One man carrying a crossbar and maybe helping Jesus when he stumble and Jesus carrying, well . . . everything else. “Bones told me that man was from Cyrene.” Clay looked at me. “That’s North Africa.” He paused. Wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. “That means, according to Bones, the last man to touch Jesus in kindness was a Black man from North Africa. ’Cause the next to touch him drove nails through him.”

A name establishes a record. Drives a stake in the ground. Shouts across the stratosphere, ‘I’m here! I matter! I’m not invisible!’ And while you may think very little of me, God himself actually thought me up. What you see in the lens of your eye, this thing we call ‘me,’ started in his mind. He actually took the time to think me up. Imagine.”

A name is the singular thing that separates us from the ninety-nine. A name makes us the one.”