Historical Setting: Jarrow, 794 C.E.
The Viking raid on Jarrow was swift and the tragedy was mostly on the Vikings’ side. All of the preparations for attack worked: the rocks across the river at the place of the tidal rise; the guards hidden in monk’s clothes; the swords and daggers sprinkled throughout Jarrow. Lindisfarne’s painful warning served Jarrow well. In the stillness of aftermath, Ousbert is in his glory, and by his very nature he is well rehearsed in glory. He rallies his men for a headcount. He stops the killing of the last of the captured Vikings, holding them back from the Halls of Valhalla, this time, because he has an earthly use for them.
These prisoners are bound and waiting with the beached longboats. Ousbert’s soldiers disarm the dead, collecting up the swords and shields, stripping the bodies of helmets and chains. Then the last living dregs of these marauders are set loose to dispose of the corpses at sea.
Even among these Christians ordained as holy monks, there are no bodies anointed and no prayers needed for these dead. The prayers are only of gratitude. The deaths are bleak and unforgiven. The survivors take the oars of their burdened boats and slip away into the deep. Ousbert glories.
Dear God, may my own prayer not begin with my usual gratitude because just now, the thanksgivings I hear around me, maybe rising for you to hear, seem to be about saving the treasures of the monastery and sending the dead Vikings away for burial at sea. I’m not grateful for a win for one side or the other. I’ve seen enough crucifixion, warring, marauding, angry spears and deaths at human hands to know violence is no different from any other plague or mishap, except that this hurt is by the hands of the very species that also suffers the grief of it — your own beloved humankinds. Guide us in your wide loving way, Amen.
It is still an intimate secret that God is the Creator and the love force that set the stars in place and moves the planets. God’s judgment lifts up the beauty, the life and the love; it does not diminish it with punitive measures. It isn’t the nature of an omniscient God to sort people into teams of righteous winners and wicked losers. In this euphoria of release from fear, the prayers rising thank God for the win. But in all the lifetimes and deaths I’ve known, God’s compassion doesn’t choose sides.
(Continues tomorrow)
Lazarus Ink 