Post #4.3, Tuesday, January 7, 2020

Historical Setting, 562 C.E. Gaul

Colleta welcomes this journey to a farm so near her family and Ezra is always glad to be useful to others in need. They carry an extra bag of things for her family and some fresh rags and supplies for a new baby. They have planned a visit of several days. As I hear Eve’s directions to that farm I realize she had a very long walk for herself alone last night in that ice storm. She is not the frail eight-year-old I remember. And her own chill reminded her to fill a pot with hot coals for setting by Colleta’s feet in the wagon. It’s that thing about turning her pain to empathy for others which is Eve’s gift. Why do I criticize her for her dauntless mercy?

         God surely must know this human version of parent She created who would hardly know how to manage relentless love with all its turns and tangles. I struggle to shape my mother/father gift into earthly purpose like order and wisdom. I know I could choose to be a father who rules behind a veil of pretend omnipotence to keep my hurting love smothered in pomp. But I am just not that man. So be it.

         Last night I lay under the warm blanket letting myself imagine the sounds I was hearing were a bad dream. If it were only a night terror I would soon wake. Last night I failed to enter into her world and chase the troubles from her door with all the grand splendor of a patriarchal enforcer. If I had only been a harsh papa I would have demanded her safety. I clearly failed my duty as a heart-hiding, “responsible” father turning away that needy fellow at her door. But I was simply terrified for her courage so I hid in my sleeps.

         Dear God, who is mother and father to each of us you have burned your own ilk of love onto the heart of your image and we hardly know how to handle it. You answer so simply, “When you love others, do it as you love yourself.” Yes. That’s the lesson I need to tell her! Or, is that the lesson you are telling me?

         Thank you for life and children — pain and all.

         Amen.

(Story continues tomorrow)

Post #4.2, Thursday, January 2, 2020

Historical Setting, 562 C.E. Gaul

“Papa, I’m okay. I’m feeling stronger already.”

         Eve is pushing back the cover and pulling herself to sitting on the edge of the bed platform.

         “I can send Ezra for the burial. I can stay here with you.”

         I feel an urgency to send Ezra on.

         “Papa, Colleta should go too. I’m okay now. I can stay with the children if you want to go with them.”

         “Why would you think Colleta and the baby should go for a long ride in this winter’s wind? This is surely a task for Ezra and I.”

         “No Papa, I was too late to save the mother but a sweet baby boy is swaddled and in the arms of that father who has no idea what to do next.”

         Dear God, thank you and keep us useful in your rescue. Amen.

         “Do you pray silently, Papa, because you know I don’t want to hear it?”

         “My prayer was that we could be God’s hands in this time of need.”        

          “God surely needs more than hands today. I don’t really suppose you are offering to be God’s paps. Bring little Margey with you when you bring Daniel and Celeste. Colleta will be a help to the new father and then they may also wish to pay a visit to her own parents and sisters since her family’s home is nearby.”

         I understand the urgency. “How will a new baby live this day with no mother?”

         “Well, Papa, please know I didn’t leave them helpless. The father knows to give him small drops of water. And he also knows, but it would not be good for a new baby to get too much of a liking for sucking mead from his father’s fingertips. That new father will surely have to borrow a fresh cow or maybe a goat — a nanny with its kid – that will quickly turn his grief around.”

         The warmth melts the ice on the thatch and water is dripping down through the roof.

(Continues Tuesday, January 7, 2020)

Post #4.1, Wednesday, January 1, 2020

Historical Setting, 562 C.E. Gaul

Despite Eve’s plea, God is with me as I carry her back in my arms as though she were still a small child. 

         Dear God thank you for this strength.

         She is wrapped in a mud-soaked blanket but her cottage is well supplied for needs so it is not hard to find dry wools to warm her. I wrap her in a bunting and tuck her into bed.

         She wakes and I have a hot broth of herbs for her because she has supplied her cottage well with things for the sick.

         “Papa, are you still here with me?”

         “What can I get for you Eve?”

         “Thank you for bringing me home Papa. I was too cold and tired to walk that distance. I feared I would fall and turn to ice.”

         “You had a hard go of it in a fierce storm.”

         “That farmer’s house was nearly to the St. Martin’s shrine and it was all such a hurry. Then it went so badly.”

         “Eve, why did you ask me not to call to God? What is this tiff you are having with your Creator?”

         “The mother died. I came too late to help her. When we got there she was so alone in a dense stillness amid the chills of death. She was as icy white as winter’s remnant. The father fetched me believing I had power of pagan demon spells to bring her back. But I don’t. There is no power. He had already begged help from family but the church was having the Christ Mass this night so no one could go with him. And there was a storm. With Christians abandoning, who but the troll would care? So he came to my door.”

         “Did you go with him just to help him rake vengeance against God?”

         “Of course not. And I didn’t go to honor God either. I went because I wanted to help. But I was too late. She was so alone. Oh Papa, did I sleep too long? I have failed him again! I told him I would send someone who could sit with him and who could help care for his wife’s body. I need to let Ezra know.”

         “It’s morning still. And you have done all you can. Ezra and I will go right away. Maybe Colleta can come up here and stay with you until we return.”

         “No Papa. You stay.”

         “Let me help Ezra ready the cart. Then I will stay.”

(Story continues tomorrow)

Post #3.13, Tuesday, 12-31-2019

Historical setting: 561 C.E. Gaul

         This day of the longest night I waken shivering in the hayloft to the roaring torrents of cold sleet tormenting this frail roof. The longest night was surely inflicted with terrors – a man yelling above the storm at Eve’s cottage door. Fully awake now I’m aware it was no loose demon at play in my dream. Even in this morning’s waking I know it was a very bad night.

         Waiting now at her door while she doesn’t answer I notice the walking tracks deep in the mud of the roadway sculpting yesterday’s ruts with forms of footsteps — a man’s, coming and going, and a woman’s smaller foot following over the top of the larger ones going away from here toward the east.

         The commotion in the dark of night was surely not a mere night terror. I did hear a man knocking and calling to Eve, summoning help for his wife who was alone in a long ordeal of childbirth. He was panicked and tearful and Eve’s voice was strong and calm, assuring she would go with him and see to her. It was calming enough that I could sleep again not even wondering what my own child’s needs may be.

         Now I set my pace into the tracks in the mud and follow to find wherever she may be. I take no time to put the donkey to cart, and besides it would be hard to follow these muds in the deep and sinking ruts of rain. Better, to be sure that I too am on foot.

         The sameness this wash, rain rendered, was only shadows of roadway and farmlands, hills and trees all a monotone of drear, but for one silhouette at a distance on this road. The slender stalk of woman is coming toward me slowly slogging in the unrelenting waters flooding up from earth.

         “Eve, is that you?”

         She stumbles in the mud as I reach her. Shivering, quaking, and nearly silent except for a moan, I take her in my arms.

         “Dear God, please stay near…”

         “No Papa! Don’t summon God. This was all God’s fault so I cursed God for it. God is surely angry with me.”

         My prayer is silent. Dear God, stay close, amen.

(New Year, new chapter – “Light May Come” starts tomorrow)

Post #3.12, Thursday, December 26, 2019

Historical setting: 561 C.E. Gaul

Thank you God for giggles of children, for beauty shining through old pox. Thank you God, for riches of life and for family to share in all of this.  Amen.

          Echoing through imagination is the dark tune of the Jesus birth with all its angels, the bold star and the glare of glory and here below I know the rarely spoken verses are hovering in the story too of royal jealousy sending soldiers pounding on doors, bringing the world back from hope’s magic into normal and believable fears.

         Today the task is to empty the caldron of feasting and return it to its usefulness for the stirring of remedies. Yet the church, that everlasting body of Christ, will name the new season Epiphany for the Creative Ah-ha.

         These frail tentacles deep in the earth that root the predictable plantings of traditions drink from the subterranean silence, the ever-flow of God’s grace tickling root, sprouting up a new thing growing here, and maybe an idea over there. The herb garden is a plethora of whims. Everywhere there is a mingling of creative variety: some for healing, but also some for savoring, some for fragrance and some just for beauty. The spirit of the thing is in the cacophony – the chaos.

         In the dark, into the new light rising we will fill again, this caldron.

Eve will stir in recipes of traditions for healings: earth things of plants and animals caught in a moment between life and death. The pre-determined ingredients for rescue in this healing brew are purposed with easing mortal hurts and ailments, stretching the physical being of a human sort around snatching more time for earthly continuance. That is what healing is, is it not?

         I know healing well. I live in the unique promise of always healing to earthy life, over and over again. If I am to consider this a blessing and not a curse the choice for life I must make is not for healing but for the creative power, the driving inspiration, the ah-ha of love. Without the creative source I would live into a surplus of years simply by clinging to the promise of oldness. But brewing a kettle of beauty, fragrance, relentless love, life is driven by the always new, the Spiritual image of Creator of life.

         In the beginning is the Ah-ha. Thank you God. Amen.

(The story continues Tuesday, December 31 – Come again.)

Post #3.11, Wednesday, December 25, 2019 (Merry Christmas)

Historical setting: 561 C.E. Gaul

Why do these old-time earthy details of numbers and politics even matter? All anyone needs to know is that the angels sang, the shepherds searched and the baby Jesus was found. God is with us, so what else matters?

         The last berries of autumn and the honey and cream are delivered to the table in the dark by Eve—now fully unveiled; and one child asks for light in this darkness.

         “Aunt Enola, do you remember we made candles from the wax of the honeycombs? We took that wax and wrapped it around a stem for burning. Do you not have a candle yet?”

         “Of course I do. But I have them set aside.”

         “We should have a candle now to light our table together here.”          Celeste suggests it. Eve wants to dismiss it.

         “I keep the candles in my bag to take to the sick. When I am called out in the night I might need a candle at a bedside.”

         I ask the hard question. “Did you save no candles for people who are well?”  Eve accepts her father’s query as reprimand and obediently lights a candle for the center of the table. The flicker pours light spreading from core flowing out a spilled goblet of light flooding onto the table and the people and onto all the faces — all the smiling faces and shining eyes – all of us together.

         It’s Daniel’s childish truth-telling that reminds us this family finds the miracle this very night and tonight we each have eyes for seeing it.

         “Aunt Enola, you have such a beautiful face tonight.”

          “No, she’s the same, Daniel.” Celeste explains it factually.  “Maybe you just never saw her smiling.”

         All eyes are on Eve. Even Coletta leans forward to see passed Ezra. And Eve is still smiling, barefaced, scars and all, aglow in the flickering light.

         “Yes Eve, you are indeed my beautiful child.”

         Thank you God. Amen.

(The story continues tomorrow – Merry Christmas)

Post #3.10, Tuesday, December 24, 2019

Historical setting: 561 C.E. Gaul

“Where would you look to find God’s own baby Jesus?”

         Daniel answered, “I would ask Aunt Enola. She always goes to help where the new babies are.”

         His answer draws smiles all around the table. Eve hides her smile bowing her head because the veils are drawn behind her now.

         “So, Eve” I asked, “Where would you look to find baby Jesus?”

         She’s heard this story before. “I would go straight to the animal shed.”

         Daniel laughed and that ignited a spate of giggles from Celeste.  Eve played with it.  “I would say that baby would be wrapped up tight in baby rags and laid right there in the middle of the empty food trough for the beasts.”

         We were all laughing then at the children’s laughing.

         I affirmed it. “That’s what the shepherds saw when they found that baby – Mary the mother and the baby Jesus.”

         Ezra added, “And there was that other guy there, Joseph who just kind of came along to pay the Roman taxes.”

         The children didn’t enjoy that oddity as much. Colleta gave him an elbow and a scolding, “Who would think of taxes at time like this – except for Ezra?”

         “Ezra remembers the story well.” I affirmed. “The whole thing starts out where Joseph and Mary went off to Bethlehem to be enrolled for the tax census during the reign of Caesar Augustus, when Quirinius was the governor of Syria.”

         “See Colleta, I do know my Roman history of taxes; and furthermore that would mean Jesus weren’t born in the year they say Jesus were born, because Quirinius weren’t appointed governor until the year six. So that confuses everything doesn’t it Papa?”

         “It’s that gospel thing again. It just sounds right, but then you find out things. So Ezra, my son, you are correct. And Joseph was there also to be the ‘rod and the stem’ of Jesse be it metaphor or anatomy. But it was the political message du jour. In that telling of it Jesus is supposed to be a Pharisee in the lineage of kings.”

         “What does that matter?” Coletta asks.

(More tomorrow)

Post #3.9, Thursday, 12-19-2019

Historical setting: 561 C.E. Gaul

         We’re shuttered from the winter so not the slightest starlight seeps here. The silence in darkness owns this table of Eve. Sure the stew is steaming but in six separate bowls. Wafts of fragrant herbs rise in six individual mists, one for each separate person. The bread is still a warm body, unbroken. The baby is sleeping. The six who are us on these benches are much too silent for such a feast as this. Maybe a habit lingers here of the mundane. Is there nothing to be said among six people at a feast?

         I plunder the silence with the story.

         “So what do you think the angel told the shepherds to do?” I asked. “Just a hint, if it was an angel it was probably a message from God.”

         “I think I know.” Daniel was reluctant to say it. “The angel said God wants you to stop picking on each other.”

         Ezra and Eve know this story well. Ezra laughed aloud and Eve drew her veil over a smile I nearly glimpsed.

         “That could be what angels would say on most any other night, but this was a special night and the angel told the shepherds they had to go that very second and look for God’s new baby because it was a gift to the whole world. Then before the shepherds could even figure out how to do that the whole sky was full of singing angels. For a few minutes they just stood there listening until the angels faded back into the sky!”

          “I think I saw that myself one night some years ago. It were in the northern sky and I can’t forget the sight of it.” Ezra added his truth to the story. “It were all light and color, filling that entire part of the sky, bright pink sky with pillars of white light, dancing, nearly dancing. But what I now think I was seeing were the angel choirs from the back of them. They had no faces toward me and no one told me not to be afraid so I feared even though it were all so beautiful.”

         “So,” I asked, “How would they find that baby in all that glory and bright? Where would you go look to find God’s own baby?”

(Continues on Tuesday, December 24)

Post #3.8, Wednesday, 12-18-2019

Historical setting: 561 C.E. Gaul

Nightfall, and Eve is inside preparing and I’m out here tending the fire and stirring the pot. I hear them coming – Celeste and Daniel are racing up the hill, playful and chattering. Ezra and Colleta with the baby are taking their own good time for the slow trudge.

         “Daniel, Celeste come with me away from the garden so we can gather more sticks for the fire!”

         “Gra’papa, how will we see to find the sticks? It is so dark.”

         “It’s not too dark even with no moon. See, the stars make a whole trail of light. Look up.”

         Looking up we stop in the frosty night, just the three of us overcome with the ancient awe – the eternity of angel source is spread before our eyes.

         “Tell us the Jesus story of this, Gra’papa!”

         “The story I know of the winter sky was there before any Jesus story was ever told. When they wrapped the Jesus story in baby rags for the gospel telling of it the sky had already made a song of it for the stars to dance too. When the shepherds saw the sky, even when it is the same sky they knew so well they were still amazed. They stood up to watch – and that night an angel walked right down that glittering pathway of light you still see there and then what do you think the shepherds did?”

         Daniel was clinging to me with his shivers. “I think it was so dark and so strange that they just started screaming and running away!”

         “Probably that would be what would happen except that the angel with a very bold voice thundered the words from God, ‘Don’t be afraid!’ They just froze in place because they knew they couldn’t run away now that the angel saw them. ‘I bring you good news of a great joy for all the people!’ the angel said that.”

         “So they were all happy again,” Celeste suggests lightly as she discovers a stick for the fire.

         The spell is broken. We gather sticks and put off the story until later.

(The story continues tomorrow)

Post #3.7, Tuesday, 12-17-2019

Historical setting: 561 C.E. Gaul

The first winter snows are a blank slate for new projects and for following fresh rabbit tracks to find the tastiest roots and leaves most hidden.

         Ezra and I felled a solid tree and from that I honed boards for table and benches. It is raw and warping from so much newness but it will heal with use and a few more passes of the plane and some wax. It fits right into the middle of Eve’s little room with a bench for three on each side of the board.

         The caldron for remedies is on the bonfire in the garden now serving as a cooking pot for a feast when no one is begging at Eve’s door for medicines and mixes.

         On this night the gathering will be in Eve’s cottage and it won’t just be Ezra and Colleta and the children – Eve and I will be there too. It will be a grand celebration! I have great hopes and a prayer.

         Dear God, let joyful giggles bubble through the empty tonight. I love you too. Amen.

         Eve seems to be facing my plan with uncomfortable courage and anticipation.

         “You know Eve, you will have to draw your veils back to eat with us. So perhaps you will wish to sit on the same bench with Colleta and Ezra so that it will be the children and I who are across from you. I don’t mean to intrude when you are hosting us, but I just wanted to suggest that seating plan.”

         “I was going to sit on the hearthstone and eat after everyone is finished.”

         “That won’t due for this party, Dear Child. You are not the servant tonight — you are the host. And we are not the sick for you to feed; we are the well. We are the happy people. And tonight you will have to meet us in our joy.”

         “I suppose, Papa, this is how you plan that miracle of healing of the pagan with the dreaded skin disease. The veil of your intention is thin so I too easily can see what you are trying to do. We both know it can go very badly.”

         Dear God, stay close.

(Continues tomorrow)