Historical Setting: 793 C.E. Past lives on the Loire
This horse was borrowed for a fee from the public stable on this edge of the sea. He goes wherever I lead him, while an owned horse only seems to know his way back to his own stall. If there is a fire, the horse who knows his stall will go back in even if it is his own hay that is burning.
And here, Christianity is an owned horse that only knows its own stall. In a crisis it goes back to the old barn even when it’s burning to make things the same as they were before. What is discovered in tragedy? Is it sin or grace?
Riding toward the sea, along the Loire from Marmoutier Abbey, I pass the Christian-basilica at Tours tucked among the ancient Roman stones. The old paganism of the Romans flavors all this burning hay of Christianity, so the bishop asks the teacher to find the sins so that the Christians may offer due penance and make amends with some kind of angry god crafted from the very ancient, sometimes pagan, root of a wrathful faith.
In danger Christianity returns to the old ways that built this barn from paganism. If only Christianity had a petty little god that could be appeased with gifts and ritual — good people could more easily manage a god like that. It would only require good behavior not the deep love for even an enemy.
I come now to the place on the Loire where I raised a family – taken back from paganism after the Justinian plague. All these centuries later the foundation stones of Eve’s house are still in place. This was Eve’s little cottage, with critters on one side of the central wall and people on the other. In this family Christianity was snatched back from paganism.
When the horse who is owned, Christianity, comes back to the burning barn of paganism he might not even notice that the depths of the foundation are a different kind of god – God, invisible, unspeakable, gracious, forgiving, with us, longing for love. This God who is God, whom monks whisper too in secret, and who answers back with voice and touch, is not just an ancient human totem appeased with gifts and rituals and superstitious sorrows.
Here is where my grandchildren once played. They noticed the rainbow and chased after dragonflies. Ezra’s vineyard was here where the vines grow wild into the trees now.
Thank you, God, for the meadows where the horses graze together. Amen.
(Continues tomorrow)
Lazarus Ink 