My Reflections on the Pope

And What I Learned About Christ as a Jewish Writer

The news of the Pope’s passing struck me not only as a global moment of mourning, but also as something strangely personal. Not because I’m Catholic. I’m Jewish—culturally, ancestrally, spiritually. And yet, as I sat with the stillness that followed the headlines, I realized just how much time I’ve spent with Christ these past months—not in prayer, but in prose.

My novel, The Seven Seeds, began as a metaphysical reimagining of history, a “what if” whispered through the corridors of Rome: What if Christ had never walked the Earth? What if Rome never fell? But it evolved into something far more intimate. It became a journey of uncovering what Christ-the soul, the archetype, the spiritual presence—actually means in the context of human destiny.

Writing it as a Jew was an unexpected act of reconciliation.

Not with a church or doctrine, but with the deep, universal idea of the Logos—the Word made flesh. The bridge between the divine and the human. The seed planted in darkness that seeks the light.

I didn’t write The Seven Seeds to make a theological point. I wrote it to ask a human question: What is lost when we forget the sacred roots of virtue? Compassion, humility, justice, forgiveness, courage, wisdom, sacrifice—these are not the property of any one tradition. They are universal truths, carried across time in story, symbol, and soul. What matters is not the religion, but the remembrance—the path walked by those who choose love over power, and meaning over control.

And though I grew up with a different language for God, I recognize that path. I’ve walked echoes of it in Hebrew blessings, in desert parables, in quiet moments where something greater pressed close. I’ve also felt it in traditions not my own—in chants, in incense, in crosses carried, in prayers whispered in languages I’ve never spoken.

So perhaps it’s no surprise that as I wrote The Seven Seeds, I found myself not resisting Christ, but listening. Not converting, but remembering.

Because if reincarnation is true—and I believe it is—then I have not always worn the garments of Judaism. Perhaps once I was a monk. A mystic. A nun sweeping candlelight through stone corridors. Perhaps I, too, once gazed at a crucifix not with confusion, but with longing.

We are older than our bloodlines.

The Pope’s death reminded me that no matter how fractured the institution becomes, the mystery still pulses beneath. The soul of the world is not owned by any religion. It is carried by those who tend to the light.

The Seven Seeds was my way of tending. Of asking,

“What happens when the soul of virtue is lost to empire? What does it take to remember?”

And so as the white smoke clears and a new figure steps into the robes of Peter, I return to my work—seeding stories not as dogma, but as remembrance.

Because I believe the sacred still walks—perhaps not in a single form, but in the courage of every soul who dares to love in a world that exalts conquest.

And if we are brave enough to listen, we may find that the seeds of light and remembrance are still waiting to grow within us all.

Even me.

Even now.