Historical Setting: 793 C.E. Lindisfarne Monastery
Brother Ealdwin finds me digging graves in this field. He has with him some garments for wrapping the bodies. And he tells me he walked the width of the island from one shore to the other shore and found two more bodies by the water. One is Brother Jabari.
“You only saw two others? Did you see signs of anyone surviving?”
“I saw no one. It was high tide when the marauders came, so no one could escape by walking on the pilgrim’s path on the shallows. We have three currachs that we keep on the shore. A few men can drag them to the sea and I did see the marks in the mud bank where they were dragged. So clearly some escaped by boat.”
I lay the shovel aside to go back with Brother Ealdwin to bring those two bodies back for burial. We stop first at a donkey shed and find the donkey was unharmed but braying for his morning grain. He’s glad to see us. It is a pleasant reprieve to find this little creature waiting so calmly here with his simple need amid all this devastation. Brother Ealdwin takes his time with this chore, rubbing his hands over the fur of the living creature. Thank you, God for this one thing, living.
It is something I should pray aloud. “Thank you, God, for finding the life gift amid the losses, thank you for the lives of this donkey and Brother Ealdwin.”
Brother Ealdwin melts into a heap, sobbing now as he tries to speak the proper psalms of the hour which doesn’t fit this moment. The donkey stretches his neck to the brother to offer a tender nudge – maybe this is just to take notice of the one who gives the oats, or maybe it is truly compassion. I’m only human; how would I know the heart of a donkey?
I do feel the shared grief with this man and with God’s love for him. I kneel down where he is sitting and rub his shoulders. “God shares our human pain.”
“God let this happen! Why is God punishing us like this?”
Like a child with two parents and grandmother’s spirit, just now I can kind of see a need for humans to pray to a triune God.
“Brother Ealdwin, God weeps with us, because God knows the grief of a cruel death of his own son. God shares our sorrows.”
(Continues tomorrow)
Lazarus Ink 