Historical setting: 589 C.E. when Brittany was forest
Asking prayers aren’t forbidden by Jesus. But as I think of these things I recall my own asks for food or shelter and often I pray and ask for someone else’s healing. God who speaks in shared love sometimes answers with the coincidence of that thing I ask being given immediately. Often God answers my prayer by giving me empathy for others with my own need, so by acting on my love for them, both needs are met. At times my asks teach me through kindness from others. And sometimes God’s answers seem delayed, ‘wait and see.’
Dear God, Thank you for your always answers. May I find in your love signs, not magic, always and ever. Amen.
This new morning is the February tease of spring. The thief is still here this morning. He is trying to catch a fish without a net or a hook. So I have time to go on alone over the top of this hill and arrive at the next campsite of the pagans well ahead of him. The noontide sun is barely edging westward when I arrive at the next abandoned campsite.
Again, the coals are still warm and a gift for the fairies was left. This time it would’ve been a fresh rabbit with the arrow but the crows are already gnawing at the meat. Now the arrow with the iron tip is another useful thing to add to my riches — the fishhook and the line — that child-sized sickle I found in the ashes made from Nic’s blade — all little iron gifts to let me survive without community in this wilderness.
By the time the thief arrives it’s nearly dark. My things are hidden in a scant shelter I wove from brush in a place out of sight. And I’m waiting by this fire turning a new rabbit on a spit. I can share the meat with this man, and I’ve already set aside the skin so he can make his own winter shoe.
He blames me, “I’m so late coming because I was looking for you! You just seemed to vanish into thin air, along with all your goodies – your fleece, and your warm shoes.”
“And I thought, good thief, that you had no regard for those who vanish into thin air – the elves and fairies and such.”
“You’re nothing like the myth of one of those, Ezra. You are Christian; Christians don’t vanish; they elude.”
“And so I did, and so I shall.”
(Continues Tuesday, February 8, 2022)
Lazarus Ink 