Historical Setting: Monkwearmouth, 793 C.E.
The Reverend Mother, asks me how I know this woman I brought here to them.
“The guards rescued her from the sea and I went down to help them but I don’t know her.”
“We know her here. Last winter she came to us in labor and the Sister who is with her now delivered her baby. It seemed to us then, an allegory of the Christmas story but for the missing Joseph. We celebrated the birth of a strong infant, despite the deplorable poverty of the mother. She was a child herself, living as a pauper. We intended to keep her here and care for her and the baby properly, but she ran away and took the child with her.
“No one could find her, and when we asked about her, there was no one who even knew who she was. All that we knew was that she once lived with the paupers in the wood. Alone, and with a child, they were both in danger. We searched for her and prayed for her. Apparently, someone took them in because no one ever saw her again. But now, here she is showing up here again, now, a demoniac, raging against God. She is truly a child of the devil.”
“She is a child in grief.” I say.
“If you say you don’t know her, how would you know she is grieving?”
“You told me she had a child, and now she is alone. Any mother would be grieving at the loss of an infant.”
“She was no mother. She was only a child who birthed a baby.”
“You say she left here with her child, and now the child is gone, and now she chose to give up her own life to the sea. If there is a devil in this story, his name is Grief.”
The nun goes back into the little office and closes the door.
I know the girl will run away from here when she is able, and she will find a less guarded shore for her next walk into the sea.
Dear God, I know my asking prayer risks that I will be sent to answer it, but this really needs asking. Please be with this little girl, take her in your arms and comfort her in her time of terrible sorrow. Send a Joseph, or at least some understanding of grief for this child. I know I am asking for a turning, again. Amen.
(Continues Thursday, January 1)
Lazarus Ink 
My field of study is Church history, but this blog is helping me expand my understanding in areas not taught in seminary. I am becoming more aware now that the early Church was acting more as a poltical autocracy than as a pathway to faith. This probably accounts for that portrayal in the blog. Thanks for bringing it to attention. It is not now, as it may have once been.
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Your character speaks from kindness here. I find it very sad, however, that you consistently portray those who meant to represent organized religion as heartless.
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