Featured

#80.12 Thursday, May 28, 2026

Historical Setting: A stone hovel in an unknown time

We once had a direction to sail. But surely these rocks rising here from the sea are not what we intended.  We were following around the southern coastline of the English island, then we planned to go a good distance to the north expecting to one day to arrive at the community of Iona.

It was said to be an island with wide tidal beaches, and only soft sand would greet us. This place has no beach and this monk wears rough wool, woven with sticks and burrs as though it was uncarded straight off the sheep.

Here this little fellow who brought me up the rock side is shorn in the Celtic way, shaven across the front, from ear to ear, with his mane let down and flowing from the middle of the top of his head down his back. I wore this style myself in another age in Gaul. It is banned now, by the pope. The papalist tonsure is a crown, meant to show loyalty to Jesus with his crown of thorns. But it wears on earth, without the Jesus humility, so a crown to me, always seems a pretending to be king. I prefer the Celtic tonsure.

This morning the little monk is outside. I hear him at work nearby, chipping a stone. Maybe he is making a tombstone as I saw chipped in sandstone at Lindisfarne. Maybe he is honoring a burial.

The canine is watching me carefully for any breath or movement or sound.  I will continue to be very still.

I’m sure it wouldn’t be a tombstone for any of us here.  We are a tattered threesome of housemates: the bird the dog and the man. But all of us are more about healing than finding a grave right now. So, probably he isn’t preparing a grave marker for us.

***

The ears of the canine prick and twitch, and now I, too, hear human voices in the distance.  She growls softly then moves cautiously to my side of the cave.  This time her fangs are not directed at me.  She seems more afraid than vicious. She climbs onto my bedcover quivering with fear as though, I, in some skewed way, represent the safest place to be in the strange circumstance of hearing human voices.

As people draw nearer, I can sort the voices as two who are coming toward this place talking between themselves.

(Continues Tuesday, June 2)

Featured

#80.11 Wednesday, May 27, 2026

Historical Setting: A stone hovel in an unknown time

On this new day I linger in the straw thinking I’ll move but thinking doesn’t make it so.  I’m watching the nearly dawn sky, then a fog through the eyelet of the stones at what is surely the eastern arc of this hovel.  My clarity of mind today only muddles the memory of the circumstances that brought our boat to this tragic end. I’m haunted, but I know in my head there was nothing I could do to save Cloothar.

         Forgive me God.

And here I am, myself needy, but this little monk doesn’t fail me.

My ponderings terrify these nights.

In these glimpses of memory, I am with Cloothar in the little leather currach in that storm rising from the west. The wind was against the oars, as we were trying to make our way to a safe harbor. But before we could find any mooring, we turned broadside to the wind and the sea rose up and tumbled our craft in froth, churning and washing over us again and again. At first, I was floating free clinging to the empty coin chest until the sea filled it and it was gone. Then I drown too.

Neither Cloothar nor I survived. His coin chest he clung to was filled and heavy and sunk straight away.

Being as I am with this persistent healing, even from death to life, for me, rescue didn’t depend on capturing something left afloat. I’m always gifted back in some version of tedious but reliable healing, back into life. It is better explained with a “why” than a “how.” But here I am a captive of pain in this stone eye staring always into the eastern sky.

***

This morning, I’m awakened by two tiny birds outside the wall singing a loud dialogue of carnal love and probably preparing a nest. I believe these birds are planning for an egg and whatever may become of that.  Their raucous song of creature courting began the moment the sun broke into the darkness — and now there is so much loud singing. 

Spring is wrapped in the smell of fresh earth –clay or moss — laying hold of scent even inside this place that might otherwise stink of stable. Springtime hangs loud and heavy today.

I can only guess where this is.  At night I watch our tiny glimpse of sky for a familiar star, but to know a star one has to find its pattern with other stars. What I can see from here is very little use.

(Continues tomorrow)

Featured

#80.10 Tuesday, May 26, 2026

Historical Setting: a stone hovel in an unknown time

I’m laid out inside a cavern of neatly stacked stone with a large, boney canine guarding my every move while the little monk, who rescued me is away. When the wooly little man comes in the canine hobbles on her three legs into the dark to her own straw bed.

Also, inside this shared shadow, nearly as high up as the sky hole is a large black bird with a dangling, loosened wing. It is perched on a broken driftwood limb leaned against the wall nearly at the apex of sky. Surely this bird was recalled from the skies just as I was recalled from the sea. Just as I am broken in many pieces, this bird has dangling and disheveled bones amid the leftover feathers of its wing. It clings to a branch placed near the sky hole, safe from the canine this bird longs for the full sky. It appears to be a shag, like the many who wait on the rocks for the glint of a fish at the turning of the tide.

The little monk returns with a pail of sea stuff and so the bird feasts. Like the canine and me, also, the bird seems relentlessly tethered to life itself; incessantly testing that broken wing, faltering on a frail leg shifting, then catching balance again. 

The little wooly monk pours a bowl with oats from a small grain sack for the canine. He is boiling a cooking kettle on the center fire, while the thread of smoke wends out through the pupil of this stoney eyeball where we dwell. He adds several hands full of oats to the pot, and makes a fine gruel which he now spoons into a bowl.

He sees my famished need and comes to me and lifts my head onto a small bundle of woven rags and spoons the soft warm cereal into my mouth. It is a great kindness. 

I find I’m able to make a sound intended as a word of thanks for this human kindness, though he seems not to notice. I know I’ve made a sound because the canine rushes quickly over, intruding in my breathing space, watching me to maintain her guard protecting our little master from any possible annoyance I could cause.

This bit of food gives me a new strength and, in some way, affirms the possibility for healing though this part of healing seems like a lengthening of pain. It could be a good end.

         Dear God, thank you.

         A day of peaceful sleeps and wakings…

(Continues tomorrow)


Featured

#80.9 Thursday, May 21, 2026

Historical Setting: Yet unknown

How long had I been thrashing in the sea – days – nights – years – eons?  It is the same moon that comes and goes repeating its phases like old language prayers, void of first meaning but savored in reliable repetition. 

My shiver was noticed.  He looks my way and stops his groveling. He has with him a woven linen funeral bag tied up in the ropes of this sledge. He unfurls it, and spreads it over me as though it is a blanket.

Thank you, God, for such a shiver to speak life to us both. He clearly answers your empathy with his own. Thank you, God, for sending this little wooly man.

We move slowly up the incline away from the sea — it is a steep climb — the little man in his cumbersome wool towing the sledge with the rope and my useless weight.  I imagine myself to be twice his height.  He retrieves the log rolling toward the water and hauls it back to the place where he left me, angled and nearly sliding back down.  He lifts the rope end of the sledge and struggles to roll the log under once again, then tows forward and upward, until again the sledge drops back onto the rocks while the loosed log rolls back toward the sea.  Again and again, he takes me rolling and crashing as though the rocks were waves and the sledge an unworthy skiff.  I don’t know if it is the hurt or the shock or just the raw…

***

I awaken in a dark place with a circle of sky beyond rock — a hole left open in the top of this dome, as though I am inside a monstrous eyeball roof with squared-up sides. I struggle for a full view of that porthole of day sky because the warm breath that is only a foot’s length from my face, blocking my view is issued from the fangs of a silver beast seething and growling, drooling onto my face apparently hungry for a nice dinner of a man’s flesh — maybe mine.

A finger of daylight amid the dark probes from one side of this hovel, surrounds the little wooly monk, just come in from the outside. He closes off the light that follows him in the doorway from the outside, by leaning the sledge over the opening.  Now it is dark again, except for the sky hole.

The little monk makes a grunting sound and his guardian beast looks away from me.

(Continues Tuesday, May 26)


Featured

#80.8 Wednesday, May 20, 2026

Historical Setting: Rocky tidal waters, another time

Dawn casts light though I don’t remember sleeping. 

I must have been mentioned by the person who glimpsed at the leftovers of me, even with all the shudders and shrieks of his own fears of death, because now someone is looking for me.

He comes with a prodding pole and a threshing sledge, with a rope and a rolling log for heavy loads. May I be such a heavy load? All I know is my sense, my eye and the sounds and smells of sea. Maybe that is all I am now.

He finds my hand. He doesn’t seem afraid of this place that I am between life and death.  He holds my hand in his hands as though mine is a precious find. His hands are warm. Mine must be very cold. There should be speaking now. But there are no words.

He is a stout little fellow, smells of wool. Seems to be made in three rough round orbs stacked one on the next like rocks turned into a cairn or an altar. The hood of his head encircles the rosy orbs of his face — circle within circle — broad pink cheeks, separated by a red ball of a nose.  His little bright eyes glint steely blue from the deep tuck between his cheeks and the fold of his forehead. He grunts and pants with the work of pulling all of me onto the boards of the sledge, but he doesn’t offer any words. Even though we both look at one another exploring our likeness of species, one to the other, there is no word between us.

I mean to cry out with the pain of it all but I seem not to make a sound.

He takes his prod and returns to the edge of the water.  He turns over one clump after another of slippery black weed and drops them back into the tide pools.  Could it be he is searching for some mislaid toe or limb I hadn’t even realized was lost?  Or possibly he has a hope that others have washed up as well.  He is likely searching for another heap of bones and flesh leftover from the wreck.

But I know, I alone survived. Cloothar was clinging to his treasure, sinking fast, surely lost. I know no one will find him on this shore.

(Continues tomorrow)

Featured

#80.7 Tuesday, May 19, 2026

Historical Setting: washing on rocks in an unknown time

Dear God, how long must I be of earth? How long must I cling to tattered memories of human sounds? Dull, aching, cold — I know this healing hurt too well. Thank you, God, for the healing and hope and strength for the hurt.

The tide comes rolled tight and unfurls onto the rocks, then draws back over the sea-edge lying flat on the water, a hushed shroud on the sea to wrap what is left of me to be torn and beaten with the next slam onto the rocks.

Thrust of tidewater now against the tower of rock – a heartbeat then breath as sea fills the hollows of hard earth with ocean stuff. Splayed, I am on these rocks, broken between the impervious and the translucence of turbulence.

***

Waking on a wall of stone now, a loosened pebble leaps by me bouncing down this rock wall on a mad frolic to the sea. Yet a bigger stone is set loose from above, now bouncing down, down sending one vibration after another through the solid rockface.

It’s a human foot that loosens these rocks.  Someone is climbing down here from above. I nearly see him.  I’m sure my eye doesn’t suit his collecting basket of sea things.  He takes a look and hurries off.

***

In this waking a black bird swoops near, perhaps to pluck my staring eye from… from whatever else is left of me, living now, not carrion.

More rocks are rolling down all around me. Someone comes so cautiously as though I could possibly rise up as a roaring leviathan. I can’t rise up just now, nor can I even make a whimpering human sound.

I open my eye just as he is bending toward me — then a gasp and a curdling scream — the kind of howl of a man crying out in sleep with a bad dream.  Loosened rocks now are leaping down the rock face driven by the full might of human terror, howling horrors in wordless baying, fading in the distance and gone.

***

Silence again belies the void. The quiet would be complete except for the lapping of sea moving with moon pull, higher and higher water rising up.

Incoming tide surrounds me again, this opulence of seawater is intruding on my vision of sky. The wave rolls are upside-down, and I am rolling in a rub of rocks at the tidal edge here deepening into another night in darkness.

(Continues tomorrow)

Featured

#80.6 Thursday, May 14, 2026

Historical Setting: At sea, around Anglia, 794 C.E.

We are sailing on a northeast wind straight into a storm this night, and neither of us has traveled this way to recognize if this shadow of a distant land is the turning place, or just a dark cloud over this very wide bay. Cloothar finds this the best time to empty the keg. 

As dawn is rising red, the wind is roiling the sea, and we are already baling to keep ahead of the waves breaking on us with the rains only beginning. Baling may be futile, but we’ve finished the keg of ale so what else can we do.  I am seasick, which is mostly all I can think of, pucking in the bale bucket, since the edges of the boat are rollicking with the surf.

Now the roaring sea tosses us nearly over, then another rising wave breaks over us, and fills the boat, until finally a huge swell comes at us from the north, peaking and breaking and the little boat is sucked deep.

Now we are nothing but merciless twigs in the mountains of sea. The shadow we thought could be a land refuge, was mirage, or maybe debris loosened in the storm. There was never a safe mooring place there. The little craft of sticks and hides didn’t even offer a worthy wreck in this storm. I’m clinging to the empty chest we used for the rower’s seat which is filling with water, soon to sink. Cloothar was reaching for the hidden chest when last I saw him and he was sinking down after it. The empty keg floats beyond my reach. So, this is my drowning.

***

My heartbeat remembers rhythm. But I know nothing of the passing of time.  Glimpses of days and nights, come and go in this slow rising to life. Everywhere is the sea.

I have an eye for peering up from the waters into the blue and the darker dark.  My mind makes a frail lapse of memory trying to gather familiar fragments of the human core — touch — or sound — something.

I have only thoughts and prayers no flailing or calling out, nothing is left of me to touch or be touched.

But God is present here.

(Continues Tuesday, May 19)

Featured

#80.5 Wednesday, May 13, 2026

Historical Setting: At sea, 794 C.E.

Following the shoreline, we seem to have reached either a wide bay or open sea. Cloothar believes it a bay and we will shorten our journey to cut across. I’m on this rower’s seat, the empty chest with Cloothar’s dream to fill it with the trade of the stinky wools, now soaked in spring showers because the tarp doesn’t cover the stuff added from our stop at Ludonwec.

This is a mission of greed. This little boat is always a hefty row but now we sit ever lower in the water. Woe be to us if we should meet a storm at sea. And neither of us knows anything of these waters or even which skies will gather the storm clouds.

All through the night we are at sea with no view of land since Cloothar became impatient and chose to let go of the view of the coastline to cut across a supposed mouth of a bay. He tells me Iona should be straight up the shoreline, but when he saw the land curve to the North, he assumed it was only the inside curve of this bay. I fear we’ve strayed.  He probably does too, but he says he is sure we are making better time this way.

He takes a short shift at the oars, as darkness comes down on us. And now in a stillness in the winds, the row to the west is a bit easier for him. I see we have only four dried fish for food left — enough for two meals, maybe. But then, we still have a half a keg of ale.  I could eat and drink all of it and still have hunger pangs. But I’ll wait to share.

The wind rises again, lightly from the Northeast, so he raises the sail, and I can sleep for a few moments with Cloother at the tiller tacking us ever westward.

I awake to lightning flashes in the Western sky. Cloothar is scouring every illumination for the revelation of land. The flashes glimpse nothing but sea and the wide horizon.

Dear God, thank you for staying close with us on this journey.  I know you recognize the danger we are in, two men at sea in a heavily loaded little river boat. I know you know of the storm rising in the western skies. Thank you for keeping a close watch and may my next silence be in gratitude for a safe journey. Amen.

(Continues tomorrow)

Featured

#80.4 Tuesday, May 12, 2026

Historical Setting: At sea, 794 C.E.

I’m staying with the boat at the Ludonwec market port while Cloothar explores the city. While waiting here, I’ve discovered he keeps a chest of coins under the heap of black moldy monk’s robes he intends to sell in Iona. But I think he meant to keep me from knowing that we are carrying this abundance of wealth. It is probably his whole life’s treasure. So, instead of airing the robes just now, I put them back as they were so he won’t have to worry that his secret was revealed. Indeed, moldy black monk’s robes do make a fine deterrent against thieves. This also explains why, this little boat rides so low in the water.

It’s late in the day when Cloothar returns with a heavy load of goods, having made trades all day. The nearly warn out heap of linen tunics he took with him were all traded off for dresses and aprons in cotton fabrics. Some are dyed in colors. Cottons are not often available in the northern markets so he feels he has done well for himself.  He also has a keg of ale strapped on his back, and a basket of fruits and dried fish for the journey to come. 

He’s been asking around of others who travel this coastline and he’s learned that we are not even halfway to Iona by the way we are traveling.  When we sail on, probably tomorrow, we will come to the turning place where this part of the journey ends, and following the shoreline will take us westward for a short while before we turn north.  Then that journey northward is longer than the distance we’ve already come.

If we had possibly formed any bonds of friendship, they will be strained. The stories of our lives we never shared as friends would be old and worn from too much telling, if we ever just chatted — which we have not. And this keg of ale looks small compared to our need.

But thank you God, for Creation of days with the tender touch of springtime. May we endure the drone of sameness, as well as any storms that may threaten this hollow craft we sail.

It’s a good night’s sleep, moored as we are in the calm of a cove. Calm is good.  I would be rowing against the west wind today, if it weren’t for the calm. These are long days at the oars, and damp bug-bitten, itchy nights of sleeping on the beaches.

(Continues tomorrow)


Featured

#80.3 Thursday, May 7, 2026

Historical Setting: sailing at the mouth of a river, 794 C.E.

We are following a wide river from its mouth at the sea, upstream to a place Cloothar believes will be an established market in an old Roman city — Ludenwic — it has a name. This river does seem more marked with houses and all the other vestiges of human dwelling.  We pass by a church in clear view of the river. He notices my interest. Did I let my loneliness show? How does one, always focused on fabrics and markets, possibly notice what interests me?

         “Eleazor, there are churches all along this way.  You should be so happy to find that Ludenwic has turned Christian.  I’ve heard from others on the river who know, and this place has a grand church.  In Ludenwic there is a palace for bishops. You will love the Christian nature of this city!”

I answer his advertisement with a grunt.  I know he’s trying to sell me on this side-trip where we are. And I know we are only further from our intended destination on the Celtic Island of Mull.  For me, finding a palace of bishops is completely the opposite of finding humble monks inhabiting the thin places of nature.

We come to a wide bend in the river and here is a mooring bay with other small river craft. I row to the pier, and Cloother climbs ashore taking with him some samples to sell. He instructs me to stay with the boat, since he hasn’t secured a safe mooring here.  So much for my visit to this new city.  He trudges down the path toward the city markets. 

To make good use of the time I string a line from the mast to the prow to hang up the black wool robes in the sun and air them out before he tries to market them. It is a perfect day for airing fabrics. Cloothar will be pleased I’m only airing them and not soaking them in lye water as I would prefer.

Now I find, under all the monk’s robes, is another chest just like the empty chest I’ve been using for a rower’s seat.  But this chest is locked and weighty, apparently already filled with coins. Of course. This is why Cloothar protects this spot with the heap of moldy fabrics, never sorting or airing them while he continually cares for the commoner’s rags. He’s been guarding this chest from my sight.

(Continues Tuesday, May 12)


Featured

#80.2 Wednesday, May 6, 2026

Historical Setting: London, 794 C.E.

 These weeks are mostly spent rowing, rarely sailing along the wooded coast of Anglia. This journey seems to yield little in new markets for Cloothar. Yet we make our stops on land wherever he catches a glimpse of fishing buoys or a whaft of smoke rising, marking the presence of people. He trades fabrics for firs and perhaps a meal of whatever was hunted that day. And if the hunt failed, we join people in sharing a pot of thinned stew. [footnote]

Cloothar is good at finding us food and shelter, but he is no brother — neither by family or monk’s vows. I would like to call him a friend, but he has trouble quantifying friendship in his way of understanding. He doesn’t expect me to be a source of comradery and he assumes that any friendly chatter must be purposed with some material ending. Yet I yammer on.

         “Did you learn your merchant’s trade from your father?”

         “What matter is that to you, Eleazor?”

         “I was just wondering the source of your gift.”

         “Knowing things of a person gives you power over them. Do you hammer me with questions because you think it will make you the captain of this ship?”

         “No, of course not. I was just…”

In this silence between us now, I can only enjoy the humor of his miss-understanding, imagining myself taking over control as this so-called ship’s “captain.” That would only mean I would be privileged to tell him when to draw the oars.

Since I am longing for conversation, I find our stopping places a reprieve. I’m already comfortable with the language of the Saxons and we share stories.

One would think my prayers without ceasing would satisfy my need for conversation, but neither does the merchant offer me his own company nor does he yield the tranquility of sanctuary. When I put my complaint in a prayer I ask God for solitary time, and also, to retool Cloothar into a friend. I believe that prayer was answered, but not by changing Cloothar. Rather, God answered by changing me to accept him as he is.

After this long journey following the shoreline south, the rivers flow into the sea with the fresh water mixing with the brine, and each river entices Cloothar to follow it in search of a market.  Rumors among merchants tell of a town rising from the old Roman walls of a city, now a thriving marketplace. [Footnote]

[footnote] https://www.thehistoryoflondon.co.uk/ (retrieved 9-2-25) organizes the history of the rise of settlements and urbanization in Southeastern England broadly by periods of occupancy. The late eighth century after the Roman occupancy crumbled, and before the Vikings made their lasting settlements in the mid-ninth century and on, this area was under Saxon rule.

(Continues tomorrow) 

Featured

#80.1 Tuesday, May 5, 2026

Historical Setting: The Eastern Coast of Anglia, 794 C.E.

Setting out with Cloothar, I know this fellow’s purpose is the market yield. Always used clothing needs airing, not cleaning.

I planned to travel to Iona on the other side of this island of Anglia. Like Lindisfarne, Iona is an island monastery. Most would travel between Jarrow and Iona on land, but I have no horse, or purse or coin, and Cloothar offers me this journey and a silver penny for my help at sea. He deals in gold and silver in the major markets, so I am pretty sure I won’t have to take my due this time, simply by trading up my own cloak for a better one.

Neither of us has taken this sea journey along the eastern then southern shores of Anglia and north again to Iona. But he has choosen this route hoping to find new markets along the way. Today, on the first leg, we find long forested stretches sparsely inhabited. The clusters of houses are at the mouths of rivers. In these villages Cloothar trades in simply spun fibers, with no tailor’s touch to any of the garments. Most of his bounty is in the center of this little craft as heaps of moldy rags.

But he knows his customers well. At first glance he can see if someone is a buyer or a gawker. He recognizes people by their wants and takes account of their station and wealth even before a word is spoken. All he really notices of people is the bulge and brim of their pockets. His guise of empathy is always purposed with making a deal. As Cloothar’s traveling companion, I should simply consider myself alone. He spins no stories that don’t end in a deal for him. He sheds no tid-bits of wisdom of life and love… And he sails south when he means to go west.

I guess I shouldn’t expect him to fill my need for a companion. All he needs of me is help in rowing when the winds are calm. I suppose I just have to let him be as he is. And in the silence, I have my prayers.

Dear God, thank you for all these new wonders of the lands and sea. For the tender season, newly green and flowering simply by nature I am grateful always, I know you are near in the beauty of new places. 

(Continues tomorrow)

Featured

#79.14 Thursday, April 30, 2026

Historical Setting: Jarrow, 794 C.E.
 

I’m not sure I need a merchant to fill my emptiness. My spiritual need isn’t like a cloak or a hat. I am missing the thin places, or the beautiful window where I meet God.

It’s Cloothar who tells me of Iona, a monastery founded by the Irish that is set apart from the politics of kings.

         He says, “Iona is a place that needs these black monks robes I’ve collected. Some brothers on this side no longer find refuge with the saints, and are shedding their holy ways as well you understand.”

         “And Iona needs you to supply them with monk’s robes?”

         “Just come with me to Iona.  You will like it.  It was the school that sent the first Celtic fellow, Aiden, to establish Lindisfarne.” [Footnote]

     “And you need an extra hand to sail that far?”

     “You read me too well, Eleazor. I’ve never sailed that far west. I don’t know what it will be. I may need a hand at the oars.”

     “You would think a monastery as old as Iona would already have a trunk of old monk’s robes.”

     “Ah, but they aren’t the newer standard of black. Their robes are just anything. You see how it is, Eleazor, they have the Celtic Rule still to this day, and it doesn’t follow the rigors of the papal communities.”

     “You mean it doesn’t follow the Benedictine rule.”

     “And oh, how I’ve heard you argue against that rule.”

     “I didn’t know I’d been so vocal about it.”

     “Don’t you remember how you were wound so tight on our little trek from Lindisfarne when you wanted to wash the old robes in lye water, and shrink them up into useless rags, when all they needed was a good airing?”

     “I remember our arguments over new monks in old robes. And now you want to go to Iona and trade the black robes for whatever the novices happened to have on when they took their vows?”

      “Not exactly. The rumor among the markets in the north lands is that Iona has riches.  I will meet with the abbot and make one good trade and sell all these black robes for gold coins.”

Cloothar has an empty coin chest just waiting. I can use it as a rower’s seat. He said he learned of Iona’s riches in the north lands. So, apparently Iona is already a target for a Viking raid.

      Dear God, watch over Iona. Amen.

[Footnote] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iona retrieved 8-27-25

(Continues Tuesday May 5)

Featured

#79.13 Wednesday, April 29, 2026

Historical Setting: Jarrow, 794 C.E.

Weaponry and wars make no happy endings, because there are no endings, just changes in populations and power structures. But, of course, mortals, by the very nature of mortality, draw conclusions, set goals of completion, grope after legacy and prepare for whatever afterlife their religion dictates. No mortal person has touched an angel strutting among the clouds; but even I, in my persistence in earthly life, often experience being touched by the Creator love that surrounds us. Thank you, God for being present with us.

So, now, as a repetitious mortal, I imagine a destination. It is a place where the earth ends and heaven begins. It is a thin place shared in the Irish way of mysticism. I know of thin places, and I once knew an Irish mystic who established monasteries across the land of Gaul to offer the tranquility of thin places far and wide. Now, again, I am looking for this veil of heaven as I do in these spiritually needy times. It feels like the vision of mortal life has come to a solidly opaque barrier — an ending, as though there is nothing more. Then I find a spiritual place, and this seems to be the translucency of mystery allowing me a contemplative passage through. What is thin in a thin place is the barrier between me and God, not between life and death, or good and bad, or any of those other mortal walls.

I didn’t find it in the library of Jarrow. So, I come now, down to the little harbor where boats await the rising tide to access the river. And as I’d hoped, Cloothar’s little craft is still moored here.

He seems welcoming, as though he thinks he knows my need. Maybe I am allowing myself to fall into the snare of this professional profiteer. But Cloothar, the merchant of used dry goods, first told me of that distant place I’d never been.

         “Eleazor, my friend, what do you know of Iona?”

         “What is there to know?”

         “It is an Irish monastery on the other side of this island, a long haul by donkey on land, but with the right wind, it can be reached by sea, in days counted on fingers.”

         “More simply, you mean ten days.”

         “But you like the obtuse do you not? It is my business to read the minds of men, and know their naked need. Afterall, I am a highly successful merchant.”

(Continues tomorrow)

Featured

#79.12 Tuesday, April 28, 2026

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)

Featured

#79.11 Thursday, April 23, 2026

Historical Setting: Jarrow, 794 C.E.
 

At matins I chanted with the monks. Now in the full light of dawn, I walk with the monk-clad guards from the river to their posts at the sea. The tide is high and the river into the sea is roiling and deep. The heap of rocks that become the footpath at low-tide are deep under the tidal waters that will soon surge against the river’s flow. On the sea, the swells from the depths heap into shore — waves, peaking, breaking, foaming then rising again, churning up from the depths to again break on the shore. At first, I think the dark lines on the sea are debris from a distant storm, then I realize what we are seeing.

The guards shed their monks’ robes and draw swords. I turn and run back to warn the people in the monastery and the woods and the villagers of Jarrow, but faster than I can run the longboats are slipping up the river past me.

I shout it at the monastery, and the monks are going into hiding, except one nimble young novice who joins me in alerting others in the countryside. Our warning was meant to give people a chance to hide, or run, but everyone along the way is drawing swords and taking up knives.  When we hear the bell ringing from the tower alerting all of the danger, the warning is complete and we return to the monastery.

Some of the Viking ships are abandoned on the shore at the place where the Don runs into the Tyne. The tide is receding carrying ships sparse of men at the oars smashing them against the rocks laid across the river exposed in the ebbing of the tide. [Footnote] At the monastery, it was said thirty swords greeted the marauders and now many are dead.

The watchman posted at the sea this hour killed the Viking leader as the marauders came ashore, leaving the attackers driven by nothing more than personal greed. As one, who is a stubborn pacifist, I would think that lives on both sides could be spared with letting go of earthly treasures for the sake of saving lives. Maybe there is the necessity of taking prisoners and holding trials. But fear offered no place for conversation. Any kind of reconciliation did not happen, and now Jarrow celebrates keeping some of its treasure.

Prayers of thanksgiving rise over the bodies of dead Vikings. I have no understanding of warfare on either side.

[Footnote] https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=1579441&resourceID=19191

(Retrieved 5-28-25)

Only one footnote is needed here, because the noted source analyses a variety of theories about this attack. This blogger, being a fiction writer, considered the discrepancies among the later written accounts, and the lack of archeological evidence of storm battered ship wrecks, based this telling of the story on the likely preparedness of Jarrow, after Lindisfarne, and the excellence of the ships and the seamanship of the Vikings, inventing the notion they were snagged on a low-tide rock wall used as a walkway to Monkwearmouth. 

(Continues Tuesday April 28)

Featured

#79.10 Wednesday, April 22, 2026

Historical Setting: Jarrow, 794 C.E.

I’ve been listening to the talk of the old fellows who gather here in the mornings to consider the state of all things.  Some come disgruntled, regardless of the events of life. But Tam comes with a resilient, joyful spirit despite his losses. It is the simple allegory of Job.

Here in this place where people gather, the murmurs and gossip are not about Job and the trials intended to threaten his faith. Here the talk is of Tam. Here it is Tam’s friends and neighbors who envy his good life and expect his faith to be tested when he faces difficulties and grief. But, Like Job, Tam is persistent in faith. And Like Job, his neighbors don’t fully understand the source of his gratitude.

The real tragedy that visited this deposed ealdorman’s house, or call this a “castle,” was the abuse of a young pauper and then the death of her infant. Apparently, the ealdorman who served here made it his task to sit in this place and measure the wealth of the neighbors, accepting bribes in place of fair judgement, leaving him envious of achievement that seemed beyond his reach — made more conspicuous with the simple joyful spirit of Tam. Envy set the ealdorman searching, and he thought he could name his emptiness “legacy.”

It is some weeks now, when we are well into Springtime.  Ousbert returns with the ealdorman, judged innocent and now restored to his place here. Ousbert and the ealdorman will find the coffers empty, because I’m not very good at collecting tithes, and I don’t make judgments based on bribes.  I suppose I’m not a worthy ealdorman. So, it is probably a good thing all around that I won’t be doing this task any longer. The ealdorman returns to an empty, but clean house.

Now, I am weighing a plan to visit another monastery that is rumored to continue in the Irish rule — Iona.  One of the regular merchants visiting Jarrow is Cloothar, with his traveling market for used garments. He brought me down here from Lindisfarne in his little boat, as he often trades among monasteries. He knows of my appreciation for the Christian communities rooted in mystical Ireland, and he came here to Jarrow making a plan for that long sea journey to Celtic Iona. He is inviting me to go along with him.

While we prepare for the journey, I’m staying again in the guest quarters of St. Paul.

(Continues tomorrow)

Featured

#79.9 Tuesday, April 21, 2026

Historical Setting: Jarrow, 794 C.E.

Comparing the things in our lives with others is always a false gauge for happiness. Envy and greed are closely linked to each other. It seems all these seven dwarves of “deadly sins” are false paths to love for self and neighbor, and these things leave us spiritually hollow, not hallowed. That is because envy and greed are always reaching, never grasping. Greed is always chasing after more, never with enough to fill the hollow space, and envy also sets an unreachable, ever-shifting goal based on what someone else has. Envy and greed are moving targets — a mythical leaping stag always escaping into the woods just ahead of the arrow released.

Defining one’s own actual needs and goals is a completely different way of thinking than these motives of persistent emptiness. Jesus explained the respite from this endless chase simply as the Kingdom of Heaven. [Matthew 5:1-13] But then frailties of greed words and envy words moved this kingdom from available here and now to a far distant place in the clouds. To assure it would always be distant and unreachable the Kingdom of Heaven morphed into the folklore of an after-death reward, like Valhalla.

The variety of happiness Jesus spoke of starts simply with gratitude — noticing the goodness of what is already. It is based on abundance, not emptiness.

         “Thank you God, for…” Like the child’s prayers.

         “For mother, father, family, home, enough food…”

Pretty soon all this thankfulness widens to cows and friends and trees and birds, and on and on, until all of Creation can be named, then the asking prayer is simple.

         “Give us what we need to live today.” (our daily bread)

         “Take away the worry so that enough is complete.”

The asking prayer becomes the opposite of envy and greed. The hollow space that isn’t envy is compassion and that becomes the healing power.

So, in the mornings the old men gather on the benches, some with hollowness, loneliness, hopelessness, anger at what is not in their control — like the tithes and taxes and the people who mandate them. They come to the benches to complain. But if Tam shows up with his gratitude in-tact for his sons and daughters, for his cows, and for the grass that feeds them in the spring after a bare-bones winter that left him grieving for a calf that failed, and of course his own father passed this winter. Even in his grief he comes with a sense of joy for his neighbors and friends, who are these other men gathered here.

         Thank you, God.

(Continues tomorrow)

Featured

#79.8 Thursday, April 16, 2026

Historical Setting: Jarrow, 794 C.E.
 

He asked about the infant, and I asked the question back to the three old fellows gathered on the benches here. 

         “Why would an ealdorman keep a baby here?”

The man with no teeth answers first.

         “He thaid it were hith own thun.”

The owner of cows, Tam, still smelling of fresh milk from his morning chores has an explanation.

         “He envied those of us with children, and said he also needed a ‘legacy.’

         Toothless said, “He took one look at Tam’th richeth — cowth and five thunth and nary a tithe needed pay for them and he envied.”

         Tam said, “He’d collect the king’s tithe from me in churned butter and straw bales, but my sons are a value far better than land or riches. Children are better than all the riches of earth. They promise a future. I think he saw I was rich in legacy and not even paying the taxes of a rich man.”

         “Let me guess” I added, “without the ealdorman here now, you’ve delivered the butter to the monastery.”

         Tam answers, “The monks came for it themselves.”

         The other says, “The ealdorman’s envy ate him up. He told everyone he thuffered from luthting for legathy.

         Tam added, “He weren’t seeing the value in the wife or daughters, just the legacy of sons.”

         I ask, “Didn’t he expect a son would come with a mother?”

Toothless belts a laugh.

Maybe they know what I know. The ealdorman had no comprehension of family. The tiny infant that was conceived, not in love, and most likely not even in lust, was the object of greed. Legacy through sons wasn’t a taxable treasure, and the ealdorman took this tax loop-hole very personally when his greedy eyes fell on Tam with three cows and five sons, and apparently, he decided the inescapable emptiness of his life could be filled by legacy. He had no notion of his own need for love.

Envy miss-leads us so easily.  We see simple happiness in another and we give our envy the name of whatever it is that person has.  Tam pays the king’s due for his land, and yet the ealdorman saw Tam was happier than others. And he wanted what Tam had. Tam had a legacy. Tam had sons.  But envy is always a flawed map to happiness.

Dear God, release us from the measure of the neighbor’s stuff, that we may see beyond the treasures and find the happiness in the love itself, for neighbors and selves, and for family.

(Continues Tuesday April 21)


Featured

#79.7 Wednesday, April 15, 2026

Historical Setting: Jarrow, 794 C.E.
 

At the ealdorman’s house, Ousbert left the desk and the chair, the empty shelves and the sleeping mat which I have washed in lye soap and refilled with fresh straw. And in the first room are also some benches lining the outer wall.  I thought the benches were for people waiting to make their required payments — but then, why would they come here and sit and wait to do that?

Now I find the benches are a gathering place each morning for the town elders. It was the baker yesterday with his bread bribe. Today some old men come in and sit and talk chewing long stems of green grasses. They tell their old stories to this new ealdorman, complaining over the power structures, and they fill me in on all the history and happenings in a whole different way than Bede told it, but with the same variety of bias. Here history comes as gossip.

The real work of this ealdorman’s post is supposed to be collecting the tithe for the king, while the Church manages collecting the tithe for the Church. It is all called a tithe, from the old land divisions naming the worth of these lands in terms of “hides.” [Footnotes]

How do I, a stranger to this land know of this? It is because these benches seat the tradition of the old men of the morning gathered and telling all there is to know of this place, truth or gossip, whatever.

Ousbert told me some things: that the ealdorman receives a third of these fees for the king; and that is how he’s paid. And I can see, that since the military and the monastery are exempt, this post thrives more on bribes for justice than on the portions of payments, since this doesn’t happen to be a wealthy corner of the earth for collecting a lot in tithes — and with the king and the church each expecting a cut, paying up the taxes is no simple inconvenience for these people.

I’m still waiting to talk with Ousbert again so that I can report to him the thuggish behavior of the soldiers he posted. Now I can also understand the tension between the abbot and the posted guards there. It is why Ousbert did not ask to have a monk temporarily assigned to this ealdorman’s post.

So, the first question these old men perching here have for me is, “Whatever happened to that other fellow’s little-un?”

Footnote: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithing — retrieved 8-17-25

(Continues tomorrow)


Featured

#79.6 Tuesday, April 14, 2026

Historical Setting: Jarrow, 794 C.E.
 

The baker came here with the sheer terror of Hell. I thought the issue was simply a matter of a miss-understanding about payment for bread. The abbot affirms the monastery doesn’t requisition their bread from local merchants.

So, who is it that shows up every week and demands an abundance of fresh loaves, then offers only a blessing?

         “Which blessing is it?” the abbot asks.

         “I don’t know one blessing from another. It is all in the — magical incantation–holy and unsuited to a simple layman’s understanding.”

         The abbot asks, “So what do these monks look like?”

         “Of course they look like monks. Monks always just look like monks, except the particular monks that order the bread don’t have shorn beards.”

         “Eureka!” The witness identifies these blessing giving, sword bearing monks as the monks with beards.

         I answer, “I will speak to Ousbert regarding the behavior of his men.”

I leave the baker with the abbot to make his confession.  I don’t find Ousbert in the monastery today. But I do find my holiday drinking partners. They aren’t disturbing the sacred halls with carols right now. In fact, they are slathering fresh bread with butter. They have a big pot of butter and their dagger tips are slimed in the oily sweetness.  The bread is common, though I know it’s source.  But the butter…the butter is nothing that is served in this place, even to the guests. And I’ve seen no monks at the churns with this rendering of butter from cream for this fine feast. 

Here is all this butter and only a few days ago I was hearing a poor man arguing with nuns over the availability of a fresh cow to be milked to feed the infant of a needy family. In the gapping chasm of miss-understanding between the rich and the poor, the nuns assumed borrowing a cow from a neighbor was a simple solution to nurture an infant, but the poor man knew of no neighbor from whom he could borrow a cow. And now, butter is wasted for the mere pleasure of soldiers.

(Continues tomorrow)


Featured

#79.5 Thursday, April 9, 2026

Historical Setting: Jarrow, 794 C.E.

         To the abbot I say, “Assigned as I am to temporarily fill the place of the ealdorman, this man has a concern that needs to be settled. He is the village baker and every week he brings bread to this place, and the monks receive it, offering him only a blessing, but no earthly payment. Yet the bread is of earth.”

The baker gave me bread as a bribe, of course, so he expects I will take his side in this dispute. But I don’t need to take his side just because I was gifted bread. This has a simply a matter of justice, regardless of the bribe. 

He presents his complaint to the abbot. I expected he will tell the abbot that he delivers bread to monks with swords at this monastery each week and that he is not paid for it. Then, I expect the abbot will know what has happened here, and will summons those so-called “monks” with swords to pay for the bread.

But the baker amends my simple plan to solve this.

         “It isn’t that I don’t need a blessing. In all your holiness you know I am a sinner. And that is why you’ve sent your monks to judge me and taunt me. Of course, the bread is my humble retribution for my sins. I know it is my required payment if I am ever to enter into heaven.  I should be glad in the opportunity to give all the bread I ever bake, freely to God as required for my sins.”

         “Have you come here to make a confession?”

         I say, “We came to discuss the marketing of bread?”

The baker is not simply awed by the holy, he is terrified. It is as though I brought him to the gates of Hell. To a layman looking at the church from the outside, the distinction may be blurred.  No wonder the abbot is confused, and my assessment of the problem is far too simple. 

I suggest we talk first, about the payment for bread, then I will leave and give the baker his privacy to confess his sins if that is what is needed.

         The abbot says, “It would be a simple issue, as Eleazor suggests, but for the fact that we raise and mill the wheat and bake all the bread we use. We neither buy nor beg bread from local merchants.”

(Continues Tuesday April 14)

Featured

#79.4 Wednesday, April 8, 2026

Historical Setting: Jarrow, 794 C.E.

The baker and I are waiting to meet with the abbot in the monk’s chapel of St. Paul. Here the window is leaded with pieces of colored glass. The places in this room where shadows would nestle are not shadows at all, but little patches of dancing light, though the room seems shaded in a solemnity and placid, like the cool depths of a summer forest.

Here the windows don’t reveal the awesome grandeur of vast panorama of Creation, rather the sun comes as a kind of inner light — a Spiritual presence. While I find it peaceful, the baker does not.

         “He sees us, doesn’t he?” The baker says. “God is watching. He sees us when we’re sleeping, he knows when we’re awake, and he knows every sin! There is no hiding from God.”

I let the baker reminisce over Psalm 139 finding God everywhere, even in the depths of Scheol. While my own prayer of thanksgiving is silent.

         Dear God, when I feel you near, I have a sense of peace. Thank you for your nearness in times of trouble, always present with comfort and assurance. But I am in here in your sacred presence with a man who has been harrowed with the rumors of Hell. I know that some people who represent you are known to find power in punitive abuse. So called, holy men threaten retribution for innumerable sins heaped onto a poor soul with mere human guesses threatening an afterlife filled with horrific punishments, though it has never actually been witnessed by any living person. He suffers an inescapable guilt gnawing at his conscience. Maybe he is only a victim of human power-plays and rumors. May your truth-filled judgment bring forgiveness and…

         “What? Are you praying? Are you bringing the Holy wrath down on us?”

         “Has ‘holy wrath’ come down, or is it mercy that surrounds us here?”

         “Devils lurk.”

         “God listens.”

         “God knows we are all born in sin.”

         “God set the land and the sea and the sky with life, and said ‘It is good.’ God didn’t create sin.”

         “Then, by one man, Adam, sin came into the world.”

         “Adam is only everyman. Original sin came into the world on the lips and the quills and inks of early church fathers — The once pagan Augustine remembered it and wrote it to be copied over and again.”

         “The Church Fathers were Christian Saints.”

         “They were also people — wise men, maybe, but people.”

The monk who showed us to this room comes to tell us the abbot will see us now.

(Continues tomorrow)

Featured

#79.3 Tuesday, April 7, 2026

Historical Setting: Jarrow, 794 C.E.

The baker and I are waiting in a monk’s chapel near the river, with the monastery gardens all around. Just beyond the wall is the place where the grasses grow and grains are harvested. 

But here I am with this commoner, a baker, a village merchant who has a very different notion of fearing God than do I. I think of the “fear of God” as the experience of being overwhelmed by grandeur, like seeing from a mountain top — the earth and the sky and even the oceans stretch out in one view, with the details of life, the houses and even the great towers of a fortress or a church become miniaturized by the wideness of view. Recognizing God in the grandeur is what I call awe.

But then, I suppose, the smaller view of awe could be fear. And this man truly “fears” God. He puts onto God the worst notions of an earthly tyrant. And the worldly view of the ordained humankinds — the monks and priests. This does nothing to dissuade the notion of God as a human-like earthly man filling in the office as a visible representative of the invisible God. I don’t share his fear.

We are assigned this empty chapel as our waiting place. It would be a large enough size for choirs of monks and a procession of people receiving the elements of the mass, but it is not a well-lit sanctuary where a priest can be clearly seen presiding over worship.  The window in this room casts an unusual light, filtered as sunlight but transformed by the window itself. Like a holy man, who speaks for God, but is not God, this window speaks of light, but interprets the light to cause earthly amazement.

This window [Footnote]  is itself, an art piece as fine as any glazier could set, with glass sections carefully cut and sized, and set together to fill the frame with lead between the sections. A glass window allows a Roman styled basilica with its arches for light but without a view beyond the room. It makes its own view. The sunlight streams in through the tinted glass in colors. It is as though a mosaic is laid in tile but with sunlight coming from the outside dancing the light in colors that fill the room.

[Footnote] https://stephenliddell.co.uk/2018/08/22/st-pauls-monastery-in-jarrow-and-the-oldest-stained-glass-window-in-the-world/    retrieved 6-23-25

(Continues tomorrow)


Featured

#79.2 Thursday, April 2, 2026

Historical Setting: Jarrow, 794 C.E.

The baker and I set out to call upon the neighbor in baker’s complaint but apparently, this neighbor is the monastery. And the baker suffers a dreadful fear of God. Worse yet, he can’t distinguish between God and men of the cloth. He walks behind me with his head bowed.

In this temporary assignment, this is my first venture into this kind of justice. It can’t be that complicated. But the baker has an apparent warped perception of holy wrath and fears God’s judgment.

         “Haven’t you heard of the wrath of God, Eleazor?”

         “God made us, and holds no more hatred for humankind than you have hate for the bread you bake. We’ll just talk to the purchaser of supplies and get you a fair settlement. And I always thought this monastery was self-sustaining, raising and grinding their own wheat to make their own bread.”

         “I know well where I deliver the bread. It is always received into the depths of God’s own chambers so well-guarded by monks with swords.”

I know this monastery has gardens and a grain field. It would make no sense for them to call on the village baker to supply bread. But his notion of “monks with swords” hints the clue.

         I say, “I’ve been staying here and as a guest and of course God is here as in all places, but I never thought of God hidden away in guarded chambers.”

We reach the abbot’s door. If Ousbert had been on good terms with him the abbot would have assigned a monk to this temporary task as ealdorman. We are invited to wait for the abbot in the side room — the monk’s chapel.

Ousbert thinks this abbot is unreasonable because he expects soldiers to behave as monks. But that is Ousbert’s issue. Here and now, I expect this baker can’t distinguish between monks with beards and swords and actual brothers.  Mostly the baker is terrified, awestruck and intimidated by any holy authority as he fears the omnipotence of God.

         “This is not like asking justice from the king.” he says, “When a king turns fickle, he can put an innocent man in the castle dungeon for the rest of his life but the king’s prisoner could always hope for salvation. Here, there is no hope at all if God is the fickle master?”

         “God is not a fickle master. I can assure you, in all my years I’ve never known God to be a fickle master, but of course, I haven’t met the abbot.” 

(Continues Tuesday April 7)

Featured

#79.1 Wednesday, April 1, 2026

Historical Setting: Jarrow, 794 C.E.

Today I rule a cottage known by the very poor to be the “castle.” It is the assigned post of the ealdorman. Ousbert, the king-appointed captain of the guard in this region found the ealdorman who was here to be corrupt, and had him removed to await the king’s judgment. So, I’m here temporarily, filling this post of the judge and tax collector. In lieu of any written laws I plan to simply rely on the love laws Jesus taught, as I do anyway.

Yesterday the baker brought me a fresh loaf of bread just when I was hungry for bread. And today, the baker comes for his basket to tell me his side of an issue he has with his neighbor. Before I even have a chance to obtain ink and quill to make a report for the king, he’s at the door.

         “I appreciated the bread” I tell him returning his basket empty now.

         He says, “I have a wicked neighbor who demands I supply bread without payment. We’ve just come through a terrible drought and wheat is scarce. It is costly to meet this demand.”

I wonder if this bread was delivered to me yesterday, not as a bribe as I had assumed, but for me to provide the payment for it. I worry the ealdorman receives the bread regularly and actually was that negligent neighbor, so I ask.

         “Was the ealdorman the unpaying neighbor?”

         “Of course not. I gifted that bread to you so you would rule in my favor and demand that my neighbor pay for the bread.”

Good. It was just a bribe. And it hardly seems a complicated issue. May all my judgements be so simply solved. We should just visit the neighbor and I will demand fair payment.

         I say, “Although I appreciated the bread, I don’t intend to rule by bribes. I promised the king’s man I would try my best to be fair, so if your plea is righteous, I will freely judge in your favor. Now let me go along with you to your neighbor, and I will speak up for you, and demand the payment for the loaf you bring him.” 

         He says, “It isn’t one loaf now and then. I’m required to deliver two score loaves, every week.”

         “That seems like a lot for one neighbor. So why do you continue to deliver it?”

         “They have swords and they own my soul.”

(Continues tomorrow)

Featured

#78.13 Tuesday, March 31, 2026

Historical Setting: Jarrow, 794 C.E.

The ealdorman’s assigned house, (or “castle” if you are a pauper and have never been in a simple cottage) was purged of the fellow who had been appointed to this seat. The log book he kept for the king was taken away as evidence against him, along with all his personal belongings — all loaded onto a wagon and gone now. 

There is a tattered broom left in a webby corner, so I sweep out the floor of cob webs. What else was left here was more dust and dirt, table, chair, oil lamp and straw tick for a sleeping mat. First thing, before nightfall I shake out that linen tick and acquire some fresh straw from the public stable. The stable hand also lends me a rag for wiping down the near empty book shelves, and he offers advice.

         “When your work is as mine, dealing with the public, you have two masters: the king who owns the building, and the strangers and villagers who come to you. Do as the villagers say because they come with food and the gifts. The king just demands things from you.”

         “Thank you.”

Listening to that, I can understand how it is complicated serving two earthly masters.  For me, I serve only one master who is God. It would all be so simple if I wasn’t famished and didn’t just now find the baker bringing a fresh loaf of bread, then asking if he might come tomorrow to speak with me about his complaint against a neighbor. I find I am enjoying the bread, though maybe it was a bribe.

The bread is so fresh and soft the fragrance of yeasty warmth fills the house and overtakes the rancid of the old dweller who was here once. When the baker comes for the basket first thing tomorrow, the bread will be gone and I will be completely at the mercy of hearing his side.

On this new morning, the baker is at my door again and I return the basket he brought, empty now. But I tell him I will need to listen to his complaint with his neighbor later, because this morning I have to go to the monastery for supplies of parchment and prepare the inks and quill to begin this work. He says I really need to know who his neighbor is. He will be back.

         Dear God. I intend to judge fairly. Enable me to see beyond the tastiness of the loaf. Amen.

(Continues Wednesday, April 1, 2026)

Featured

#78.12 Thursday, March 26, 2026

Historical Setting: Jarrow, 794 C.E.

Asking Ousbert for a King’s law written for ealdorman to know and use, he scoffed at what he calls an “outdated” reliance on books, reminding me in these times kings are made on the battlefield, not amid the dusty law books. Kings are, after-all. appointed by God.

We differ.

I can only wonder how history can advance if books are outdated and rulers are only named by wins in war. If we don’t value the old, a book or an ancient tool or a story repeated and kept from one generation to the next — the foundations for future good will simply be lost. Building new ideas on old wisdom is how human beings are different from the wolves and the whales. Books have a power that wars fail. Wars don’t keep us human.

         He argues, “The really good books tell about wars.”

Dear God, in your holy ways every creature and individual is beloved, but humankinds accumulate ideas from one generation to the next. We are always striving, reaching, building those towers of Babel. Forgive us, and give us peace.  Maybe remembering is our human nature, if the tower rises to heaven or if it crumbles into a stinking heap of bitumen we still gather up the understanding and pass it along. We so easily lose sight of goodness and justice, empowering the novelty of the shiniest oddity. Teach me the endurance of simplicity once again, that I may see more clearly…

Ousbert interrupts my silent thoughts and prayers just now.

         “Surely, Eleazor, you can make righteous decisions without the use of a book. You have far more wisdom than that man who was taken to the dungeon and is awaiting his trial for grift.”

         “I guess I was looking for a higher standard. But if the king didn’t choose to write down his law, knowing books as I do, I guess I can just rule by biblical mandate of love for neighbor.”

         “That sounds good. Just use whatever the old bible says is law. That’s what a monk would do if we had a monk to fill this post.”

         Ousbert leaves me here to go manage the work of this office until the king sees fit to send a newly assigned ealdorman, or perhaps until, sadly, the previous ealdorman would have his charges dismissed and returns.

(Continues Tuesday, March 31, 2026)


Featured

#78.11 Wednesday, March 25, 2026

Historical Setting: Jarrow, 794 C.E.

Ousbert wonders why a temporary ealdorman, whose task is to settle minor disputes and send everyone’s taxes on to the king, should want to find a dusty old book of laws?

         He asks, “Why a book, when we have a God appointed king?”

         “How will I know what is considered fair? Take the case in the log book where two villagers were seeking a fair settlement over using the King’s road for a livestock path– how can I know the king’s mind on that without any record of the King’s law?”

         “The king’s righteousness derives from his divine power to access God’s righteousness.”

         “I would think it should be God’s rule first, then the King’s interpretation of it. But even that seems random and fickle when it is this earthbound human, who I am, trying to discern righteousness.”

         “And you think that if the king wrote a book, and if every ealdorman over-seeing every little forest and village had a monk’s copy of this book, that would make a difference to how you fill the ealdorman’s place here?”

          “I was thinking a book of King’s laws would be usual here.  I was reading in Bede’s The Eccleasiastical History of the English People that already two hundred years ago, king, Æthelberht, who ruled over Kent, at the cusp of English Christianity, wrote down a Code of Laws so in his new holy rule he would follow the Roman way. [Footnote] I guess I assumed that every king thereafter would provide a written law for the subjects to know and follow.”

I can see this request is nonsensical and exasperating to my friend.

         “And you think a two-hundred-year-old notion is useful in these new times?”

         “I guess I was expecting something I knew of history to be a grounding for these times, so that when one thing is useful we could build from that and we would always be bettering ourselves, from one generation to the next.”

         This soldier argues, “We better ourselves across generations because Kings are chosen by God, they are winners in wars, so they are always stronger and bolder than the last, so kings are always better than before.”

         That is exactly as I had feared.  Here in this raw nature, humankind believes human advancement can be made through warfare. But if people don’t use books or runes, or works of art, inspired, to carry forward the advances made from one generation to the next, the goodness of old isn’t a  foundation for betterment in the new. We simply relive old hates through wars.

[Footnote] Bede, The Eccleasiastical History of the Englis People, New York: Oxford Classics, pp 78

(Continues tomorrow)


Featured

#78.10 Tuesday, March 24, 2026

Historical Setting: Jarrow, 794 C.E.

The king’s man, Ousbert, assigned to Jarrow to protect this monastery and village from Viking attack is now focused on saving the village from the graft of an ealdorman also assigned his post by the king. Yesterday this ealdorman was carted away to the king’s dungeon along with the evidence of his injustice to await his trial before the king. The immediate need for Ousbert to properly serve the king requires a temporary replacement for the vacated post — someone honest, fair and literate.

I think it would be best for Ousbert to speak to the abbot of St. Peter and St. Paul, and fill this vacancy with a monk. But Ousbert is on tenuous terms with the abbot after he placed his soldiers as armed military guards over the monastery. Dressing them in monk’s robes didn’t really preserve the tranquility of the monastery. Regardless of their misfit appearance, the presence of swords is anathema to the abbot here.

So, here I am, a foreigner with a Hebrew name, Eleazor, dressed as a scholar and a guest of the monastery just to use the library.  I’m surely exempt from local politics. But Ousbert sees me as the perfect temporary ealdorman. I remind him I am a Frankish foreigner here.

         I argue, “How would I know these people to judge them fairly?”

         “Knowing the people only tangles the grift.  It’s good to have a stranger in that place — fresh eyes. You can be fair.”

         “And I should stay in that tawdry house the paupers call a castle?”

         “What? You think an ealdorman’s mansion is beneath your dignity?”

         “I already know too much of the hurts and horrors of that place.”

He ignores my reluctance. And now I find a temporary assignment here more and more repugnant as I learn the duties not only entail being a fair judge for disputes among neighbors, but I am assigned the task of tax collection. Ousbert shows me the method for keeping that record. This is a different book than the log book. This is a property ledger noting the land parcels and the taxes that are due from each of these peasants.

         “But, Sir Ousbert, the book I don’t find here is the one that tells me the king’s law. How will I will know what is fair? I really need to know what the law is.”

         Ousbert asks why.

(Continues tomorrow)  

Featured

#78.9 Thursday, March 19, 2026

Historical Setting: Jarrow, 794 C.E.

         On this morning, my new “best friend,” Ousbert, is tapping on my door.

         “Eleazor!  Wake up!  I have a great idea!”

         “I was already awake.”

         “Let’s walk back to the ealdorman’s quarters and I will tell you what I have in mind.”

         I wonder, why me? His mind is always on the assignments for soldiers. So why am I the first one in a morning to hear this military officer’s mind, inspired as it may have been by the matin hour of inspiration.  Of course, Ousbert isn’t a holy man, so how would he know that inspiration is assigned at the darkest hour?

         “What’s on your mind, Captain Ousbert.”

         “Well, yesterday I spent the day picking through the ealdorman’s log book, knowing what I did about his untamed ability for discretion.  I worried all night about that vacancy, and the present king’s lack of concern for justice in a simple peasant village.”

         “Yes, I would suppose the king has more immediate and deadly concerns, being thrust, as he was, from battles and murders into the seat of divine authority.”

         “Yes. Whatever, but I fear he will be slow in appointing a temporary ealdorman as busy as he is. And what’s worse, anyone who knows that post will assume the nature of the work is to use that charge for his own personal advantage by whatever means he wishes.”

         “I know what you mean.  If he decides he needs an heir to extend his power, even though no woman would have him, he just plucks a girl from the pauper’s woods to serve his purpose.”

         He explains, “And what would stop the substitute ealdorman, knowing the history of that post, from himself taking similar advantage? I considered begging the abbot to loan us a monk, temporarily, to fill the vacancy. I know he won’t. But then I had a thought!  I could take the post myself. These guards I’ve posted know well the pattern of their duty. But then, how can I abandon my duty to the king and my true assignment.  But here you are, literate with the clarity of a stranger’s vision. Think of the good that can be done by bringing fairness to this post that only requires someone who can read and write; and I already know that your own handwriting is so fine as to impress the king.”

         “I can’t take that post.”

(Continues Tuesday, March 24, 2026)

Featured

#78.8 Wednesday, March 18, 2026

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)

Featured

#78.7 Tuesday, March 17, 2026

Historical Setting: Jarrow, 794 C.E.
 

Ousbert and I are walking back to Jarrow passing through the pauper’s wood, this night. This is the path no one chooses. It is that dark place, imagined, but never visited — a wilderness of poverty that wilts the wings of angels and dirties the hems of their gowns.

We’ve been confronted with an elder in this tangle of vines who claims to have a letter from the king granting him dominion over this place. He unrolled a scrap of parchment he claims is from the king.  It is written in the scrawling hand of the ealdorman. This letter was apparently traded for the orphan girl and now, this fellow claims the letter gives the paupers dominion over this entire wood — “to rule every tree and beast and man crossing over this path.” By the light of the lantern, we are able to discern what it actually says: “Permission is granted to hunt rabbits here.”        

And who would deny them that privilege particularly when the dead rabbit he has draped in his sash is actually a rat?

The pauper begs a “toll” from Ousbert and me, claiming that collecting tolls is his privilege of dominion. So Ousbert picks a sticky blob of beeswax off his sleeve. It was sticking to him there after cleaning out the drawers of the ealdorman’s desk.

         “What’s this?” the pauper asks.

         “It is a valuable seal that we can give you now to grant us passage on this path.”

         “It’s all sticky.”

         “This once had the stamp of the king. It was a seal used on an important document. And now it is yours. You can use it to seal your letter.”

The gnarled hands of the pauper are ill-suited to sticking a blob of gooey wax to the letter. Ousbert helps him. And now he seems pleased that his precious letter sticks closed, and it unsticks for the unrolling. This was a valuable toll to collect from us, and it allows us not only to walk the path through the wood, but allows me to ask the questions I have for the pauper.

         “Who is Old Ma? And was the orphan girl beloved, here?”

I learn these people are glad to be rid of her. When she was an infant here, she was adored. But the elderly paupers were not prepared to deal with the needs of a teen. They’re happy she is gone and apparently, the letter traded for her was a blessing all around. They await the return of her as a wealthy princess now.

(Continues tomorrow)

Featured

#78.6 Thursday, March 12, 2026

Historical Setting: Jarrow, 794 C.E.

We are approaching the pauper’s wood, now in the dark. It is our instinct to follow the river more closely here to avoid crossing through this dreary wilderness at night. Watching our steps with the light puddle of the lantern, Ousbert’s soldier’s boots and my finely stitched shoes seem ill-suited for a visit to the paupers. Yet we carry a lantern and speak in our normal chatter so we must be a bold bright noise interrupting anyone who would be sleeping here this night.

We are confronted immediately. An old man is standing in our path, leaning on a stout, pointed stick, either a cane to support him, or a weapon to ward us off — I’m not sure of the purpose of that stick — but it is a solid branch.

     “Ahh!” He speaks. “Not the King’s wood now. ‘Tis ours nee!”

Ousbert hands the lantern to me, as his right-hand rests on the hilt of his sword. He answers calmly.

     “These forests are all the King’s lands.”

     “Nay, no more! See this letter from the King?”

He reaches into his sash as though he has a dagger prepared for a confrontation. But Ousbert chooses to listen before he brings out his sword. And that’s good, because what the old man fumbles to finally bring forth is no knife. It is a scroll of parchment, dirty and tattered as is the man himself. He unrolls it and holds it up for Ousbert to see. Oustbert reaches for it, but the man pulls it away from him.

     “It’s upside down.”

     “It is a writing from the King.”

     “May I see it?”

He holds it closer to Ousbert. By the light of the lantern, even though the man is holding it upside-down, it is easy to see it is written in the same hand as that ealdorman’s log book we’ve just been reading.

     It says, “The king permits paupers to hunt rabbits in this wood.”

     The man says, “Ye can’t read? It’s them scrawls in King’s ink that say the woods is ours. It were a deal we made.  We traded the orphan girl for a King’s litter given every tree and beast in this wood to us. So let any man or beast that walk this path, beware!”

     “It says the rabbits, in particular, should beware.”

     “No, it says now we takes the toll from thems that passes this way.” 

(Continues Tuesday, March 17, 2026)

Featured

#78.5 Wednesday, March 11, 2026

Historical Setting: Jarrow, 794 C.E.

Ousbert and I make our way through the dark, step-by-step with only the light of his lantern. We are considering the nature of the King’s justice.

         “So, you would say that the people who know very little of this king trust him to judge righteously; while you, who are his own man don’t trust that judgment to be fair?”

         “It would be so fine if every soldier could trust his king.”

         “But that isn’t so?”

         “It should be. It should be true that if a man defeats a king, or even his brother, in a battle, the will of God can be seen in that victory, so the King has the divine rite; and the proof of it is that he rises to take the throne. It was true for Clovis and Constantine.”

         “So, whoever has the throne, represents the will of God?”

         He answers, “So they say, but who am I to know the will of God?”

         I say, “In the old stories from the days of Samuel, God’s prophet, visited the house of Jesse, prepared to anoint one of his sons, apparently pre-selected by God to be King. David was anointed by Samuel, [I Samuel 16] then in the next verse David slew Goliath [I Samuel 17].”

         “I know. I’ve heard those stories.”

         “But in Christian times the sequence seems to be the other way around. First comes the win in the battle, then comes the anointing by the bishops. So, this supposed holiness of a king is won with the sword, not given by the grace of God. I have to wonder why anyone would trust a King to rule justly.

          “The people don’t see that. They believe a King’s justice is the same as God’s justice, simply because it is the King who makes the rule. They think the king speaks for God.”

         “And you don’t?”

         “I obey the king because I’m a soldier. Then I live with that gnawing issue of God’s will. I sometimes worry I am like Uriah chosen by a king’s human greed to die a hero in a battle. But gratefully, I don’t have a beautiful wife, and I am not a threat to take the power a king would want for himself, so maybe the King’s orders I obey actually are the will of God. I guess I just have to trust.”

         “And yet you make your reports to the King to appeal to his compassion and care for the poor. You did trust his judgment and this time it was righteous.”

(Continues tomorrow)


Featured

#78.4 Tuesday, March 10, 2026

Historical Setting: Jarrow, 794 C.E.

Ousbert finished emptying the ealdormen’s house and now his men have left with the full cart of the squandered and pilfered remnants of his loveless evil. All the people’s losses were the shabby little treasures that this ealdorman had collected from people seeking justice in their times of hardship.

It is getting dark and I need to return to St. Paul. Ousbert is staying there also so we walk together with the light of his lantern revealing only the next step before us and only as we need it. Empathy gnaws for the wrongs done to the people here by their own protector, this ealdorman.

Evil is reality even on God’s love-born earth. It isn’t a demon, to be exorcized by holy magic and driven into the sea. And it is a different neediness than the cold and hunger of poverty that can be resolved with empathetic generosity.

Evil is the greed that occupies the hollow place in spirit which was once a child’s longing for love. True evil is the warp of the golden lie of greed, empowered to obscure love’s healing power. It is as impossible for a rich man to enter that kingdom as it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.  I didn’t just think that up. [Mark 10:25]

Ousbert and I stumble through the darkness with no words spoken. We are both mulling in silence all that was revealed in that log book until Ousbert breaks the silence.

         “When I came with soldiers to take that ealdorman away the people came out of these houses and hovels thanking me. I told them we were only taking him to appear before the king. The king would need to rule justly. I’m not even sure that King Ethelred can rule justly. He, himself, may believe mere power makes one impervious to evil.”

         “I know when we prepared that vellum page to unfurl at his court, you were concerned over the appearance of the page, saying that the look of it mattered more than the truth of it.”

         “I never trust this king to have empathy for the poor, so the commendation had to have the lovely appearance, regardless of the truth of the story.”

         “And you still think if the document had simply been jotted roughly on a cleanly scraped piece of parchment the king wouldn’t have cared about the heroic rescue of the girl from the sea?”

He smirks.

         “The people trust the king to rule justly. But I am the king’s man. I’ve seen things.”

(Continues tomorrow)


Featured

#78.3 Thursday, March 5, 2026

Historical Setting: Jarrow, 794 C.E.

I make my way through the scribbles of an untrained, barely literate scribe, in order to read these cases and judgements brought before the Jarrow ealdorman. The log book is page after page of squabbles over sparse material things. Who owns the fishnet woven with stolen string? Is it the poacher or the land owner who is entitled to the rabbit? 

The judgement made by this king’s appointee is always won by whoever gives this ealdorman a coin, or a fish, or the skin of the rabbit in question. Therefore, the judgment always goes against the poor and his descriptive words for the poor and needy are also a euphemistic degradation. He has names for those who can’t pay for his favorable judgement: “paupers,” “urchins” and “leeches.”  The use of judgmental euphemism made this house a “castle,” and it tells how he continually brought suffering down on the poorest of these people.

         Ousbert says, “Did you notice the lock on the door to the bed chamber?”

         “‘Tis odd to lock a bed chamber. He must have had nightmares of angry villagers coming to get their revenge in the night.”

         “But the lock is on the outside of the chamber — it is where he kept the girl who birthed the infant. The box where he apparently kept the infant was a simple crate — with no blanket or toy. We found it pushed under the bed.”

         “Did he have a good excuse for all this?”

         “When confronted he had nothing to say. He just stood there in the chains I ordered for him, and watched us gather up the evidence. I have plenty of evidence to hand to the lawyers to support the girl’s story.”

         “Did he seem embarrassed or ashamed of the things you found?”

         “He had no remorse, only blame. He said, ‘the kept girl stole the life of his legacy. The baby died soon after he dismissed her because she had ‘put a curse on it.’ He wanted the King to put her in chains. Even though she wasn’t there to speak for herself it was obvious it all happened as she had told you, and that the baby died because he had no idea of how to care for an infant.”

         I answer, “It was one terrible thing to hear her story, and another, to know that was how it was.”

(Continues Tuesday, March 10, 2026)

Featured

#78.2 Wednesday, March 4, 2026

Historical Setting: Jarrow, 794 C.E.

At the house of the ealdorman, the furnishings and personal items are being loaded onto a cart. Inside the house I’ve found Ousbert in his full military garb in command of this project.

He says after the proclamation was read in the King’s court, he was appointed to investigate the work of the ealdorman assigned to Jarrow. That led to the ealdorman being summonsed, by King Ethelred, removed from this post to await his trial in the King’s dungeon. Now Ousbert must fill this post with a temporary ealdorman until the King hears the case and decides to replace him — may it be so.

Among the things taken for the trial is the logbook.

         Ousbert says, “If you want to know any king’s weaknesses look at the ones he appoints.”

         “So, what does the appointment of this ealdorman say of the king?”     “It is a whole tawdry tale, my friend, of power stolen with brutality and lies, not by rank or righteousness. You’ve not been in Northumbria long enough to know of the power battles of the kings.”

         “I’ve known of the Merovingians, though, so I can guess.”

          He says, “Ethelred won a war against King Osred’s brother and he slay the King’s sibling who had been the king’s guard. Osred was unprotected thus forced to relinquish the throne and Ethelred ordered him to be tonsured.” [footnote]

         “You mean, Osred was forced to become monk?”

         “Indeed.”

         “So, tonsure is forced on a deposed of a king to render him powerless?”

         “Indeed, ’tis the crown of humble suffering for a failed King.”

         “But I would think it would require more than a haircut to make a monk of a king.”

         “Tonsure imposes humility and obedience with God the enforcer.”

         “But how is it possible to force someone to literacy and prayers and keeping the hours. Forced ‘tonsure’ would seem an impossible path to sanctity.”

         “I guess the King leaves the sanctity in God’s hands.”

         The logbook on the stand before us reveals the festering need for sanctity.

         Ousbert says, “The man was barely literate. His hand with the inks is worse than mine, and I’m only a soldier. But the appearance of the letters do correctly define the content of the log entries. They are messy.”

         I stand here at the logbook, deciphering the scrawls to read the stories of these villagers while Ousbert’s men finish the task of removing the furnishings from this house.

[footnote] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86thelred_I_of_Northumbria     retrieved 6-18-25

(Continues tomorrow)


Featured

#78.1 Tuesday, March 3, 2026

Historical Setting: Jarrow, 794 C.E.

Usually, while at St. Paul, I end the day taking a walk at the vesper hour, following the river to the sea.  But this evening my thoughts are on the little village just beyond the paupers’ wood, so I walk the other way up the river to the place where several little houses make a village. The woods are just a few old trees, with the undergrowth of thorny vines and now it feels uninhabited here. The very poor hide in hovels of leaves and sticks and rags. I see no one here though the smoke from their fire rising smells of rotting meat.

In Deuteronomy [15:11] it is said the poor are always with us. So, it is always the responsibility of those with more to care for the poor. It is a given, not an exception. But maybe we also always let the poor hide from us, at least until there is a horror that can’t be hidden, a plague, or a drowning mother rescued by the watchmen.

I want to take a long look at the house of the ealdorman in the village. The child of this poverty called it a “castle,” because it had a horse tied at the rail and a fine roof as she had never known before, sheltering her as she was in her nine months and a year with that cruel man.

Here, now, that house at the head of this village is bustling with activity. Where once a horse was tied, here is a mule team and a wagon. Men are in and out of the opened door of the house removing furnishings and chests of personal belongings. I stop a short distance away to watch. Ousbert, commanding this project, is wearing his breast plate and helmet as though he is on a soldier’s mission. Should I ask?

         “Good evening, Sir. Has some ill befallen the ealdorman?”

         “The King ordered his removal.”

         “Why?”

         “You know why. The proclamation commending the guards was presented at the court of King Ethelred.”

         “The heroes were acknowledged?”

         “At first reading, yes. Then the king asked that it be read again. Then he read it for himself. He pondered it.”

         “He commended the heroism of the guards?”

         “It was the story of the rescued woman that stirred his ire so he ordered me to investigate the ealdorman.”

         “And you found him lacking?”

         “I didn’t have to look very far.  I only had to examine the log book.”

         “You mean, he kept a log of his transgressions?

         “Have a look.”

(Continues tomorrow)

Featured

#77.12 Thursday, February 26, 2026

Historical Setting: River Tyne, 794 C.E.

Talking politics with Cloothar, I’d been wondering what makes King Charles great, and apparently, the easy answer for that is that he baptized the Saxons.  He is Christianizing the world.

And I was thinking about the drastic change in baptism. In these times, war victory seems “cleaned up” by conquering an enemy on the battlefield. Now, rather than annihilating the remnants of wars, they are baptized.

Christianizing a people is how wars against pagans are righteously won, though the “win” in warfare is still preceded by the slaughter of many. But now victory is declared with a Christian sacrament.

It was the Roman nature of Christians to make the cross into a banner of victory — to turn that Roman torture tool used to crucify Jewish Jesus — into Christianity’s sacred logo; but the irony continued when Emperor Heraclius ousted Judaism from the empire by demanding baptism or death. Only a few hundred years after my sister and I were baptized in the Jordan river by John, repenting, turning away from the competitive warring ways of the world and back to the always love Jesus taught, then the instrument of Jesus’s death became the most celebrated icon. Baptism, at first, was a radical, personal choice to put love first.

But now in the eighth century, the king, not a bishop, performs baptism on the enemy to seal the win. King Charles is the great Charlemagne, who earned his stature on the battlefield against the Saxons and the Lombards.

         Cloothar says, “Who needs a bishop when you have a king? You know, a King is just one square in the game of chess and not the whole diagonal.”

And I thought, from what I’d learned from Alcuin in Francia, that Charles was great because he valued education. He had the best scholar to teach him and his children, and the best architect, Odo, to renovate the ancient traditional palace at Aachen. Footnote  It was all new wisdom built on old tradition. But now I learn the pragmatic purpose is imperialism — Christianizing the world. It all seems to be working very well for Francia and maybe for a new empire rising.

A commoner is not restricted from using a monastic library. Literacy is becoming more widely spread, escaping the walls of the clerics. Cloothar uses his own merchandise as an example of the rising quality of material things and he touts the benefit of a consistent ruler.

I still take my gratitude to God. Thank you, God.

Footnote: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Aachen  retrieved 6-14-25.

(Continues Tuesday, March 3, 2026)

Featured

#77.11 Wednesday, February 25, 2026

Historical Setting: River Tyne, 794 C.E.

In the long view of time, even things most reliably unchanging — like rocks and rituals — change. Over time rocks wear down and mosses own them, and the forever and always of our human habits and rituals edge away or sometimes quake abruptly but these seemingly most stable things always change.

Changed are Jewish cleansing rituals going from pond to mikvah, but always confirmed by Temple priests. It was still Jesus’s and John’s tradition.

There John came with a big splashing change into the deep dip river of cleansing, shouting for repentance, a turning around. It was an abrupt change, a rock splitting change, with the priest, now, in the wilderness, shouting, not chanting. We came in our youth seeking this turning from the old edicts to the new relationship with God. Shouting down the old — finding new was popular and youthful.

But even as the change was personal, the old Jewish traditions were also flexing in new ways. Synagogues were being built in the outlands to extend the access to the Temple and Torah. New ways of knowing God were rising up here and there within Judaism, some mystical, some midrash with new stories and budding traditions often change as reinvigorated adherence to the old. Questioning was as fresh as our own youth. When John was baptizing, the cleansing ritual was not our father’s rule, but a personal choice to enter the waters.

This was all going on in our community, while the Romans doubled down on outward obedience, holding fast to their ancient gods, with their own purification ceremonies, Lustratio, [Footnote] which had dried up into a procession with sacrifices. The pools of water, Lustral basins, were already losing their luster by the time Christian became Roman.

Then, Christian baptism repented and turned again from a personal cleansing into a tool for proselytization.

Christians replaced the briss with the baptism, and it was no longer a rebellious, teenaged personal option, but a holy demand managed by the polity of the Church. In fact, baptism became the head count for measuring Christian popularity.

As weird as it is to have a torture tool (the cross) once used by the Romans against the Jews, become the sacred symbol of a religion based on the Jewish love laws, the irony of change goes on. Always turning, always changing, even ritual and rocks are organic and always changing.

Footnote: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lustratio    retrieved 6-13-25

(Continues tomorrow )

Featured

#77.10 Tuesday, February 24, 2026

Historical Setting: River Tyne, 794 C.E.
 

I am chatting with Cloother over the ways of Vikings and Christians in these times. I came to him with a coin and bought back my fine cloak.

         He says, “So, you’ve found riches since you were my assistant, when we sailed down from Lindisfarne.”

         “Riches? I have one coin earned preparing a document for the King’s court.”

Clouds are heavy, threatening a cold rain, so I help Cloothar baton down the cover over the heaps of goods in his boat and we walk back to the main hall of Jarrow.

It is nice to have my fine cloak back again.

         “So, you have been hobnobbing with nobility?” He asks.

         “Not really.  I only did that little task for the Northumbrian king’s man Ousbert, who wants to set a guard around every holy place in Anglia to pretend he is saving us all from Vikings.”

         “It sounds like a good plan, but I’ve not seen any guards here.”

         “Have you not wondered why the Northumbrian royalty is buying up extra wide monk’s robes? The guards have swords under those robes — but that is a secret from the Vikings.”

         “It’s not a very good secret if you tell it to me. I deal with the Norsemen in the markets you know. But they already assume the monks’ robes hide swords. And now that’s true.”

         “I think the swords and soldiers hide in monks’ robes so the monks won’t feel guarded, rather than it being about soldiers finding ways to surprise the Vikings. Ousbert is initiating lots of protections against the Viking incursions, and so far, everyone applauds his success. Jarrow hasn’t been attacked.”

         “It’s winter. Of course, the Vikings haven’t attacked.”

         “We both know that.”

Distant thunder rolls as we reach the shelter of the library outer hall. Cloother is not one to value books, not being fully literate, but he does keep his ear to gossip for rumors. I ask, what of the rising king of the Franks?

         “You ask me that? Even though you are here in a monastery in the midst of a churchmen’s huddle.”

         “Does King Charles always take the pope’s side?”

         “You’ve been gone for a long while. It is well-known he is the pope’s finest sword, demanding baptism of the worst of the worst pagans even among the Lombards and the Saxons. He will soon beat the missionary bishops at the work of baptizing the whole world.”

(Continues tomorrow)

Featured

#77.9 Thursday, February 19, 2026

Historical Setting: River Tyne, 794 C.E.
 

Cloother doesn’t say it, but I am sure he’s been to the markets where the Norsemen trade and he has seen the displays of stolen wares.

        “Do you think the Vikings are enticed by Lindisfarne to strike again on this coast?” I ask him.

         “Of course! Even the booty from the raid that was obviously stolen from God was an easy sale for them. The space your parting left in their ship was much more valuable to them than keeping a cantankerous Christian slave. Now, they’ve had a fine, fat winter.”

         “I know they had a good supply of ale and a whole winter’s larder taken from the monastery.”

         “Even the conspicuously Christian gilded wood carvings reaped a healthy gain. Christian merchants, of course, could guess the source and they bought up the art works anyway, because the French king, Charles, sets this whole world in a new time of learning and prosperity.  There are castles going up — great manor houses for the lords and masters — and wilderness lands are soon to be tamed into fields to benefit the lowliest serfs.”

         “So, you don’t see anyone holding back on buying the stolen loot? You think the vicious Vikings are getting rich selling Christian chalices and bishop’s thrones on the Christian market?”

         “You make the good rewards of smart deals sound obscene.”

         “It is obscene.”

         “Judge as you are judged, man. The rich Christians rising want Christian art because they want it to be known that they deny the pagan gods and trust only in the Triune, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

         “That sounds like a benediction on the Jesus love.”

          “It is the Christian prosperity– God’s reward for loyalty.”

There is no goodness in this. What can I say? Is it the holy nature of unearned grace that is the silenced lesson?  The devil still argues that Job’s loyalty to God is only because Job is blessed with riches and health. But the meaning of the allegory dissolves away in this world where Job isn’t like everyman any longer, when trust in God is grounded only in abundant earthly prosperity and where gracious gifts are perceived as just rewards regardless of the means of acquisition. The wealthy receive God’s gifts, as God’s judgement naming themselves righteous. Then the heirs of wealth turn that notion of judgment onto the poor and label them of lesser value. Thus, greed becomes the moral judge. Job’s example of loyalty to God looks ridiculous when judged by greed.

And now the world grows rich.

(Continues Tuesday, February 24, 2026)


Featured

#77.8 Wednesday, February 18, 2026

Historical Setting: Jarrow, 794 C.E.
 

Ousbert and I are working on a proclamation to be read in the king’s court. This begins, “Proclamation of Commendation for the Military Guard Posted at Jarrow” the “P” in proclamation is my best work in creating a decorative illumination, but it’s nothing to match the standard of the Lindisfarne gospel. The illumination of those pages is truly magnificent; but then, that is a gospel. This is just a note to a king to provide a list, generously spaced, naming the guardsmen.”

In the end, he rolls the document, and closes it with his seal. And for my work with the inks, he gives me a coin.

February is the tween time of the year when one day is cold bright winter — white earth — blue sky. And the next, is today, drear grey, but softening earth anticipates springtime. Who would think it is the gloppy mud that promises all things new?

The guards, walking their post from Jarrow to the sea have worn the path I follow hoping to find that Cloother has his boatload of merchandise still moored at the mouth of the Tyne. So, with the coin I buy again, my cloak once traded for the clothing for the young woman who gave of herself to help a needy family nurture a new infant.

Ousbert still wants to find her, to have her appear before the king at the reading of this document.  I tried to tell him she is needed by the family who provides her food and shelter and she can’t just leave their newborn baby to starve.  And, probably, he also needs to know she doesn’t always present herself as the demure, helpless victim he imagines will invoke the empathy of the king. She has a deep core of, should I call it, strength? On one hand, she might seem to have any mother’s single-minded inner drive to care for an infant. But on the other hand, she can be foul-mouthed with face-scratching talons that lash out with demonic intensity that no king would welcome to his court.  I warned Ousbert, but he is still planning to ask the nuns to guide him to the household where she can be found.

Cloother is moored here, and he does have my cloak amid his wares, so I buy it back from him, and he shares a loaf and a flask over a bit of conversation as we catch up on things he knows from his travels.

(Continues tomorrow)


Featured

#77.7 Tuesday, February 17, 2026

Historical Setting: Jarrow, 794 C.E.
 

Ousbert made arrangements to use a monk’s cell as a scriptorium, with me the only scribe. He supplied a very fine swath of vellum. It will unfurl to an impressive length when it is read in the king’s court. He’s chosen to have me use the Merovingian hand which allows a bit more flourish than the script used copying the books produced here. And I find that style most familiar. He provides the ink and quills though I prefer to trim the quills myself for the nicer line, and I have asked for some scraped remnants of parchment, so we can prepare the content of the document before it is copied onto the finer medium.

He shows up this morning to begin work on this document. Today this king’s captain chose not to wear his armor under his tunic softening the military edge, though he still has the poise and posture of a officer.  I can understand why the guards he sends to this monastery speak kindly of him.  And this letter to the king reporting on their perseverance and adherence to duty speaks especially well of his method of leadership. At least it is fine with me, as I am now, also working for him and I am one who appreciates a leader who uses more carrots and fewer sticks.

Ousbert’s original plan was to commend his guards on guarding, but now he is aware of the story of the young woman grieving the life of the child she was forced to bear by the abusive ealdorman for this village. It was the guards at their post, early on Christmas morning, who saw her in the sea and risked their own lives to rescue her from the cold waters.

         “And in the end, let it be known, these heroes are also protecting the whole land from the attack of Vikings.”

So, the first hours of the first day, we have this full content of the proclamation.  It does what is needed — makes heroes of the guard, updates the king on the good work of Ousbert, and notes the moral flaw of the king’s appointed ealdorman. So Ousbert and I spend these next days arranging this simple message to fill this large scroll of vellum.

This begins, “Proclamation of commendation for the military guard posted at Jarrow” the “P” in proclamation took a whole day of handwork creating a decorative illumination.

(Continues tomorrow)


Featured

#77.6 Thursday, February 12, 2026

Historical Setting: Jarrow, 794 C.E.
 

Ousbert, the king’s man who oversees the guarding of Jarrow against the Vikings is asking me to do the abbot’s or an ealdorman’s job of writing a report to the king. He wants a letter that will make a fine display before the court and that has good words commending the guards he has placed on duty here. He tells me something I already knew of the ealdorman, though I have only heard stories. The ealdorman here is known to be a cruel and self-centered fellow, who would prepare the letter putting himself in the role of the one who assigned the guards in making all these preparations for a Viking raid.

         “So, it isn’t the abbot’s letter you would have me write. It is the letter from the ealdorman.”

         “It will have my name and my seal.” says Ousbert.

He mentions payment, and I could buy my cloak back from Cloother with that coin. And also, I would like an opportunity to inform the king about the unfair treatment of a pauper by this very same ealdorman excluded from this assignment.

         So, “Might this commendation of the guards also include a denunciation of the ealdorman?”

         “What are you thinking?”

         “Maybe just an explanation after the signature like, ‘Ousbert, in leu of the local ealdorman.’ Then a note could be added in smaller letters, of course, than the commendations, that would give examples of the ealdorman flaunting of his power over his district.”

         “You have examples?”

         “I’ve heard a story of it.”

So, I tell Ousbert all that I know of a woman rescued from the sea by these royal guardsmen who are being commended.

         “Yes!” He says, “This is very useful! Might we find this woman again, and dress her up in courtly gowns to go before the king to tell her own story explaining why justice isn’t available from the cruel ealdorman.”

I fear I’ve said too much. He was just looking for an excuse to replace the ealdorman, perhaps with himself, and now I’ve put the troubled young girl in the midst of their own power play. And not only that, I can imagine her audience with the king, outfitted as a perfect stereotype of a helpless waif, that will end with her being dragged from court, howling curses at the king. She does have that strong core of self-reliance and she has very little regard for glitzy powerful rule makers.

(Continues Tuesday, February 17, 2026)


Featured

#77.5 Wednesday, February 11, 2026

Historical Setting: Jarrow, 794 C.E.
 

Ousbert, the envoy for King Ethelred of Northubria, called me to meet with him here in the entrance hall for the library. He was here before the Christ Mass asking me details of the Lindisfarne raid and has since learned that my information was accurate. But I’m sure the reason he’s called me here isn’t just to commend my accuracy.

         “So Eleazor, the librarian tells me you are a scholar as literate as any monk, and you have a rapport with the guardsmen I’ve assigned to this place.”

         “We shared a Christmas song and a pint of ale.”

         “The abbot here does nothing but complain about these heroic guardsmen. He has no regard for their living conditions and their needs, even though they are here to protect this community. I don’t trust the abbot to provide accurate reports to the Kings man.”

I can guess where this is going. Ousbert is looking for someone to spy on the spies. I ask him if that is what he wants of me.

         “More than that.  It would be very useful if I could carry a document to the royal court of Northumbria commending the fine work of these guards in protecting this outpost against the Vikings.”

         “You want to report commendation for these men? That really should come from the abbot?”

         “The abbot won’t do it. It could be on a long strip of vellum, with flourishes and proper lettering so that when it is unfurled and read in a royal court it will be well known that it is a worthy commendation.”

         “Can’t you just go and tell whatever royal court the guards are keeping their watch as ordered?”

         “It needs embellishment fit for a king. At the top it would announce, ‘The good works of the loyal subjects of the ruler of Northumbria. Then you would write something to say we have had no Vikings raid Jarrow since the guards have been posted!”

         “I can’t pretend to be the abbot’s scribe. This is his task.”

         “Indeed, or this could be the task for the local ealdorman, but..”

Oh, yes, now I know why he chooses to by-pass the ealdorman here.  This ealdorman is the ‘Mister’ in the ‘castle’ who abused the young pauper, and then he sent her away and let her baby die. Apparently, even a king’s military general doesn’t trust this ealdorman. And I actually do have some information someone needs to know; and it isn’t about the guards.

(Continues tomorrow)