Historical Setting: Jarrow, 794 C.E.
Ousbert and I return to our cells in the guest quarters. Tonight, I don’t light a candle. There is nothing I need to read and nothing else that needs to be written. I can just sit here in the darkness and sort through the shady corners of this day — the ealdorman’s empty house — the pauper’s wood– the letter, bartered for a girl giving permission to the paupers to hunt rabbits. But for the illiterate, a letter could be anything. So, the paupers believe it is from the king and it gives them dominion over the whole woods.
I know so little about dominion. Is it God who assigns kings their dominion? Or does God just get blamed for the fact that the most ruthless one on the battlefield wins the throne? Or why, in that Genesis story, did God hand off dominion over all of Creation to mere humankinds? Dominion over all the earth would, it seems be far better handled by the gentle sea creatures. But who am I to judge? Or maybe this is a case where humankind miss-read the letter, believing we owned the whole woods, when actually, all we were given was permission to hunt rabbits. We do seem to assume human beings rule over all the forests and the sea as well.
My questions become my prayer.
Dear God, once again, I guess you are reminded of human striving whenever you hear our prayers: we humankinds try to make ourselves sound favorable to you by bowing low, and addressing you with superlative honorifics fluffed to be whatever we can only imagine is beyond our own understanding. Awed we say, “Creator,” “High King of Heaven,” “Wonderful counselor,” “Almighty,” “Your Majesty,” always high and above. But I know you also as knowable love — a loving parent or the hen who stretches her wings to cover the chicks sheltering us from the shadow of the eagle.
I see that even through my own ignorance I don’t need to yield to any high rank simply to create humility. I am already humble. Now I’ve come here to this land of the Anglia and settlements of Saxons, and I see with every division of land, people seem to think a king is necessary. And with every king comes more definitive divisions between kingdoms — borders and defenses — us and others.
So how can love prevail with so many little human kings always in need of enemies as proof of power?
Surely, we miss-read the dominion permission.
(Continues tomorrow)
Lazarus Ink 