Historical Setting, 626 C.E. Luxeuil to borrow a horse
This morning I am at Luxeuil which happens to be one of these monasteries built on a Roman ruin. Here my own son, Brother Gabriel, takes the messages from the leg of a bird to the abbot in this community.
So here I find Gabe at his work in the dovecote.
“Papa, Greg told me Brandell is leaving with them on their next journey.”
“You’ve heard right. He has a whimsy in his heart that won’t let go of him until he has found a way to tell his perceptions of gospels to those who can’t read. Now that his songs are banned, he wants to make paintings of the stories.”
Gabe folds his hood back, and looks right at me. “It would be a noble cause for a poet or artist if it were possible to change a person’s understanding. But I fear he isn’t being realistic. I can’t see how stories and pictures can turn any hearts.”
“Well, Gabe, maybe it’s not much different than kings and emperors believing baptism can change Jews into Christian. But I’m sure that journey will change Brandell, himself. Whether or not it will be a tool for him to change the thinking of others is yet to be seen.”
“So, you aren’t worried about him, Papa?”
“Of course, your mother and I are terribly worried – Brandell, setting out on such a long and dangerous venture — a young man alone with nothing but a whimsical cause. Yet considering his obedience to Spirit how can we argue? I imagine his long-passed grandpapa is celebrating in whatever way our buried ancestors can rejoice. And of course, you know, we are proud of him.”
“So where are you going, Papa, that you need to borrow a horse?”
“I’m kind of finding myself on Brandell’s same mission. I’ll be riding up to talk with the vintners on the Moselle. Mater Doe alerted me to a controversy over baptism, and we are concerned the group of vintners are looking for an excuse to keep Jewish families from settling across the river from them, now that the emperor’s edict is sending so many Jewish refugees off this way.
“So,” Gabe asks, “are you taking them songs or pictures?”
Gabe has indeed learned the rye humor of a monk. “Maybe just a leavening for conversation. You know I’m a talker.”
“Stay safe, Papa, Via con Dios.”
(Continues tomorrow)
Lazarus Ink 