Historical setting: 563 C.E. Ascending into the Pyrenees
The fog clears. No words. Awe is a word too small. Dear God, was it your intention that human eyes would be given privilege to see so wide? Have we taken a step too far and now we see all of earth from a holy place? How is it that you can find any one of our human kinds in such a vast lay and yet you even know us each by name?
Nic offers words, “This flask is a fine infusion of olive oil and Rosemary. We should use it now to rub the beasts. The horses and the donkey have come this whole climb with us so far.”
Psalm 8 speaks here in every language, and in the silence too.
The garden fragrance of the oil seems earthy and soft rubbed onto the warm skins of our animals. And here are the rocks and the ridge of a mountaintop. But, also here is a spread of grasses sloping down both sides of this level ridge like a cloth lain onto a rough-hewn table. We set the beasts to graze and the donkey’s burden is laid out on the rocks to dry in the sunlight. It is a moment to nap on our fleeces setting our faces toward the silent promenade of cloud forms and fantasies in all their billows across the heavens.
“Laz, do you suppose the sky is so much bigger when we are on a mountain top just to remind us that even the great mountain we just conquered is but a tiny wrinkle in the fullness of Creation?”
“Yes, I suppose.”
“I mean think about it. The eyes of our animals are set on their noses, casting their gaze at the grasses as they eat. But our eyes are set on our faces looking out from the earth. Do you suppose the Creator wants to be sure these human kinds of us see the whole panorama – where we are going — where we have been, and mostly the vastness of it all and maybe even the smallness of us ourselves?”
“Yes, I suppose.” Thank you God for giving us perspective and not requiring any reality from our self-imagined excessive size of us. Amen.
Tomorrow we will ride this ridge until another path to the north is before us. This is a day to rest.
(Continues tomorrow)
Lazarus Ink 