Historical setting: 602 C.E. A cottage in the Vosges
Ana returned from the Village of the hunters with the news of the old grandmother’s death. This evening we, ourselves, are binding the edges of family together. Lately we’ve noticed the tapestry of sacred life is unraveling at the edge. The empty bench on one side of the table has a better place by the door now where the cloaks and boots will be heaped in the colder season to come. And where six of us around the table were once nine may our six begin to seem complete.
I say the prayer aloud, “Dear God, thank you for this abundance with plenty to share right here in the midst of our grieving. Bless our food with your power for goodness. Guide our grief. Just as we learn to let go, let us also learn to hold on to one another, trusting you to show us the paths of love as family, always. Amen.”
On this new morning I put the mule to the wagon and take my ax in hand to renew our stack of winter wood. The need to gather up a wagonload of fallen limbs also gives purpose to my own need for solitude. The old path between the creek road and Annegray has been abandoned since the monks moved to Luxeuil, so that is where I am.
The summer storms brought down several trees that were growing tall, though not old and solid yet. These straight trunks that struggled for the glimpses of light over this valley now make good firewood only because the straightest logs stack together best—neatly aligned and laid one on another like perfect soldiers waiting at attention until they are needed.
I lay my ax down heavily on a broad branch. The thwack echoes through the trees, and it forces a silence. The birds are silent. The creek waits permission from the cawing of the crow before it seems to resume its flow. The world is rudely, roughly, raw and soundless. The second thwack breaks the limb free, and I chop it to fit the wagon one after the next a battalion of tidy, straight logs.
Now the crows that guard the treetops and warn of hawks and intruders are hopping among to lower limbs overhead to get a better look, maybe at me, the stranger who takes away dead trees, or at the mule who pays no attention. But what is this? Someone else is here in this wood.
(Continues Tuesday, September 5)
Lazarus Ink 