Historical setting: 602 C.E. A cottage in the Vosges
Our family gathers at this table; but Gabe is gone from us. Everyone is celebrating the success that his good education brought. But now, I, myself, am reconsidering this unusual requirement for literacy that Ana and I have laid onto these children. We have no grand lineage — no king or baro or dux to entitle our children—so how does reading and writing serve them? We would need to draw from a family fortune to buy acceptance for our son; and, on the other hand, it’s probably good we have no earthly treasure worthy of warring over. We live by a simple peace. But in the ways of the world today that simplicity isn’t a choice, it’s a birthright, and as birthrights go ours is simplicity itself and not much earthly value.
Now I’m to take a letter from the monastery to the nobility of Metz and turn Greg over to learn the manners of warfare — the sword — the horses — the hierarchy. His servitude will fund an obligatory gift for Gabe to remain a novice monk at the monastery. Even my wife doesn’t understand why I don’t simply celebrate this offer. Both of my oldest sons are able to use their own fine learning, each in his own way, to follow childish dreams into worlds beyond their common birthright. Why should I be reluctant to offer my approval for this?
I, myself, was born into a household of privilege so many ages ago. Rejected by the Roman appointed power-mongers of the temple, then, with his dreaded skin disease, my father, a pox-scared Pharisee, went out and made a good life for our family anyway. Then he used his wealth to support an itinerate teacher of the old law ever teaching us to love God above all else and neighbor as self. Jesus, often a visitor in our home, was my source of goodness, and I might add, the gifter to me of life and life again. All that Jesus taught and exemplified, all that he was and is for us is the opposite of slaughter and warfare and destruction for nothing more than earthly power. But here we are now, commoners, and my son wants only to learn to wield a sword.
Dear God, I am thankful for the timeless clarity to know that love and peace are not just passing whims of these times. Help me bring my beloved family through this temptation to study war just now. Amen.
(Continues tomorrow)
Lazarus Ink 