#48.12, Thurs., Sept. 28, 2023

Historical setting: 602 C.E. The Vosges Mountains

         Those who were once hunters will soon be bent into farmers who will have no safety from wars except for a landowner’s castle walls.  The legends haunting the Samhain fires of the dwindling tribes of pagans remember the ghost riders across the sky, the soldiers of Theodoric I, and the fires of the old wars with the Huns. Our own house is a heap of stones from a Roman fortress ruin. Once guard towers watched to the east from these mountains, guarding against strangers crossing the rivers. In the end the Huns just dissolved into people wrapped in winter furs gathered around the fires the same as all the tribes that are us.

         And here we are again, building higher fortress walls, sending out spies, keeping watch on the wide rivers and borders for others. We name them enemies. Wars require enemies so any others might be them. That’s the first requirement for war — someone to call enemy. If we don’t label our enemies, we could discover the strangers beyond our rivers are us. They are hungry and homeless, not because of scarcity, but because of the fear of sharing.

         So, what if our kings and autocrats, or even just our hunters and farmers were to savor the gospels?  What if we go with empathy, not enemy? Maybe empathy is too expensive. It leads to dispersing our winter stores and dividing our fields. Is war less expensive?

         Dear God, thank you for these great stores of plenty for the winter I, myself, alone, have set aside. May crispy autumn days keep it cool and safe from rot…

         Oh wait, God answers my prayer even as I think of it — no heart searching or revelation is even needed. I’m not deaf enough yet, or too numb to hear God shouting back, “just listen to yourself, Lazarus!  Just listen! You’ve only had one good season, and already you pray like a greedy man!”

         Well, I would plan for solid walls to keep this abundance just for my own family. It’s easy to believe this good fortune and good earth are deserved and are mine, just mine, for the hoarding and the rotting. It’s so easy to think I need bigger barns and fortresses, when maybe, really, I just need wider doorways.

         Dear God, thank you for plenty. Help me recognize that this scarcity I would fear is imaginary. Amen.

(Continues Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2023)