Historical setting: 589 C.E. Annegray in the Vosges Mountains
Now we are in the halleluiah season after Easter. The prayers of resurrection seem awkward for pilgrims among us who have come only with the heavy chains of Lenten suffering. The Irish monks celebrate Easter using a different calculation than the Roman pilgrims so the rhythm of the days is already disturbing for the monks from other abbeys. Now on this day the brothers of the Annegray choir call, “Christ has risen” and the response from the pilgrims is a nearly sorrowful, no I mean actually a tearful response, “Risen indeed.”
The Jesus teachings of love for neighbors and enemies alike, the notion of God as full spirit of universal love, the wisdom of a Creator of all beauty, life and light, seem as though the halleluiahs would be a rightful norm not just some irrelevant afterthought to the constancy of suffering.
I glance down the line of pilgrims, and there is Brother Crathius with the elder monks from his community. We are standing very near together here and I see him as leans forward also and takes notice of me, then pales with the shock of it. For a moment I wonder if it is my dress as that of a commoner in the midst of monks. But with all the halleluiah’s from the risen Christ I realize he had not anticipated my healing to go so well, and now he sees me as a physical face of resurrection. Maybe I am that as a physical sign like a dandelion seed I wander always into tangible life to be a metaphor for the spiritual forever.
Shall I pass a message down the row to tell him of my strange circumstance, that I am simply a metaphor for the unseen nature of spiritual continuance? A physical resurrection is simply magnificent healing. Doesn’t everyone know healing? The spiritual truth for which I am a sign is the resurrection of the Christ, the universal Spirit and we all share in the Resurrection we celebrate today. Having no ink or parchment at this moment, and with such a long and complicated note I would have to make explaining it, I choose not to pass a note down the row to say in so many words as this whole story tells, that I am yet a living and healed man.
(Continues tomorrow)
Lazarus Ink 