Historical Setting, 610 C.E. The cottage in the Vosges
It is the season for epiphanies. How will we see all things new in the new light rising? What will become of all that we’ve nurtured and things we still cherish? How will we set our sight on new hopes for the goodness, always walking toward the healing place? What will draw us close, and when will we know to travel on?
Dear God, we miss the random forests that hid both hunter and beast, the summer fields spread out wide meeting the need for grain, now parceled and owned. Thank you for constant and present love regardless of how we seem lost and always wandering. Amen.
The communities of monks and nuns saw their founders leave them, and yet they go on.
In Metz, Bishop Algulif is gone now. The house of Waldalanus sees their hope for an heir ride off into the unknown places in the east, exiled with his lover. Greg and Gaillard leave here with light packs. They will go first to the tribes to whom we gave our charity and they will gather supplies as they go on.
Maybe it is the golden age that has passed, or maybe the golden age is yet to come. History comes gifted in golden ribbons, wrapping up the remembrances of the last, lost golden age. I’ve always heard the ancient stories, the history of God’s people leading them forever to the brilliance — the shinning temple of Solomon, before the people were captured by an empire in the East strewing the temple to shambles and dispersing the nation. Then it would rise again and they would build a second temple, then… for those who live in mortal generations there is always a longing and the grieving for the golden age that once defined us.
Now I see the evening skies, ruby streaks across the clouds and the great golden orb brighter than human eyes dare see, and every hill and stalk of grain leftover in the field, every stone, every road is golden for a time, a moment, an hour, a golden age until the long shadows after the gold become the night. And we know that God uses this vesper poetry of Creation to speak of the pattern of it, the coming and going of each golden age beyond our mortal view. We are always promised a new morning rising with the golden eve always behind us. Over and over again, not just once.
(Continues, Tuesday, January 2, 2024)
Lazarus Ink 