Cousin Jesus

Essay

A Southern Family’s Proud Pedigree

Better than 'The DaVinci Code'

Poor white Texans claim miraculous descent from a Roman Soldier and unwed Jewess

I nearly drove the car off Interstate Highway 35 when my grandfather told me, “I have discovered that our family might be related to Jesus of Nazareth.” I had been paying little attention to what Granddaddy had been saying, up to that point. We were nearing Selma, a tiny jurisdiction and notorious “speed trap” just north of the city limits of San Antonio, to which I was driving my grandfather from Austin for an appointment with a medical specialist. Focused on making sure that I was under the speed limit, so that we would not be pulled over and shaken down for a huge fine, I had been ignoring my grandfather’s discussion of his latest genealogical researches. Tracing his ancestry had been his hobby since he had retired. A brilliant but half-mad engineer, he had concocted a fantasy genealogy for his ancestors that connected them with Scottish lairds and Norman barons. On the basis of dubious etymologies, like linking the French city of Rouen to the family name Hearon, he had persuaded …

Field Notes

Boundaries

Nature is fluid in nearly every expression

There is nitrogen from the ocean in the trees

Where do I stop, and you begin?

By Heather Heying

Walk along a ridgeline in summer, and waves of heat contort your view. Distant trees shimmer in the hot air separating you and them. High overhead, a hawk rides the thermals. Below, a silvery strand winds through the valley, large lazy curves of water that have found the path that is easiest, for now. It is hot out here, exposed. Your feet catch on the uneven ground, and you kick up dust. A rock slides out from under your shoe and bounces down, down. Your feet carry you onwards. You pay good enough attention to them, but more so to the trees, and the river, and the hawks. The longer you walk, the more attention you pay to the thoughts in your own head. In reverie, you soon realize that you are cool for the first time in a while. You are not on the ridge anymore, but in its shadow, indeed, in the valley. The stark horizon is gone, as are the waves of heat, replaced with a softness, trees muffling noise all around you. Needles are underfoot now, rather than dust. When did ridge become …

Cousin Jesus

Boundaries

Critic's Corner