Devotional Stories told as Historical Fiction

561 C.E. Gaul — October Chapter — “Scars” (10-15-19 post 1.1)

            “…because it was not the season for figs…”  The nib is dry; the ink is spent. The sharp edges of afternoon shadows steal the light. There is longer darkness reaching into each day and now in dimming light the abbot brings news from the village of Saumur. The priest of them sent word so many deaths there are of plague. Someone must go now to the hag of healing to collect what remedies there may be to take to them. If I leave now a good part of my ride will be in the dark but I’m familiar with the way and I can reach the garden of remedies by dawn.

         I know this road well. Nineteen years ago in the time when Justinian was Emperor and these shadows were muffed in optimism and glittering hopes for Rome to endure, the first plague came up with the soldiers and visited this valley. So many died. I had to leave my own children untended in their sickbed when I could do nothing more because I myself had become ill.  I spent my waning breath walking the road from our farm to Civitas Turonorum to find help for them. When I was healing from the death and plague I went back hoping for a sign of them. There was nothing and no one. The graves I dug were not marked. The house was gone and the place was covered over in grass.

         Still when I am nearby I place flowers where I buried my wife even though unkempt grasses try to smother memory of it.

         Blessing or curse this strange variety of healing once bestowed on me by my dear friend Jesus allows my times of healing to continue always — even after death. So it is that from that death of plague my earthen self has healed. My spiritual self just is as it is always and forever in love with the invisible Creator God and always and forever collecting so many griefs for each earthen person I love with touch and senses. So many are gone.

         These directions put this garden of remedies on the very land as once was mine. Here is a new clay cottage with a shed attached at one end, and a garden with lots of varieties of herbs.

         These hours of darkness left before the sun and after the moon would be best spent in sleep. I nap in the mow of the shed before I wake the hag to gather remedies to take to the sick.

Premise of these tales told by Lazarus the Bible Guy

         Was it blessing or curse that Jesus bestowed onto me, his Bethany best friend? Either way I was intended as a sign. I am the poetry on parchment, the physical metaphor of the spiritual resurrection. (John 11) So take me now as myth or message, I am simply an ever thirty-something-year-old man born into a first century Jewish family then bestowed with an odd physical condition of always healing into life even from death, into the perfection of earthbound human form.

         My memory is the fullness of these 561 years of griefs and creative whims, of loves and wives and children, of prayers and joys and friendships, songs and always new dances —- and I am still showing up for the wedding party where the water turns to wine. Come with me my new friend, clogging, slogging, blogging in your own joyful mornings.

         These days I’m in Gaul mostly occupied by Rome. And the faith of my friend and teacher is also, mostly occupied by Rome in these days; but I know I am not alone in knowing Jesus and the teachings despite the order and organization of religion. Please come along with me into an on-going story.