Post #2.10, Tuesday, 11-26-2019

Historical Setting 561 C.E.

Ezra continues his story. “We are only family again because Eve was so patient in bringing me through my selfish thoughts and fears. In my mind I could tell myself the horrific visage was indeed my beautiful little sister, twisted and re-formed by hard pits of pox scars. But were I to accept her, the actual monster of the rumors as my beloved sibling I would need to dismiss my own ignorant howls of fear simply to save my honor. Others would righteously excuse me from my rebuke of her if I claimed this was no sister of mine but a cruel hoax of a demon. Throughout my thoughts of abandoning her again she simply held my hand and begged me not to look at her face while we talked. I could do that. We were alone in the garden. I didn’t have to account to anyone but her for my fears.

         “And so we talked.

         “It was no different than when we had last talked in the shadows of a rainy day, two children on straw mats lying side-by-side in the healing place where we had been delivered to grasp onto one more thread of life.  We shared our hopes to see our father again, and even our mother if there were a heaven and we would be there.

         “Then a priest came. He spoke to the hag outside; then she came to us and touched us each for fever and pronounced us well. She told Eve they could only use a boy because the work was tending vineyards. I just felt proud and chosen as I marched out of there with the priest.  I could hear Eve crying out to me not to leave her alone, and the hag comforting her – ‘you will be fine.’ ”

         “And now here was Eve again, Enola, all grown up and changed, but still begging me not to leave her alone. How could I? I helped her gather the starts for her new garden and took her with me in my cart.

         “My new wife was horrified.”

(Come again tomorrow.)

Post #2.9, Thursday, 11-21-2019

Historical setting: 561 C.E., Gaul

Ezra continues his story.“I was moving all the things of a bride and a dream from my wife’s father’s home in the area of Tours down to my cottage in the Liger valley, and the journey took me right by the garden of the hag. 

         It were a dreary day, brightened with a thought to stop and dig out some of the herb-starts to put into our own garden in the place where Eve and I were once children. I thought my sister would take notice of it the next time she brought flowers and she would realize I had been the one to plant the garden because of the plantings I was choosing. Then she would come seeking me as I have been seeking her.”

         “That must have worked as there is also a garden now.”

         “Oh that it were so simple.”

         “That morning was a blustery day and add foreboding weather to the rumors I’d been trying to un-imagine of trolls and goblins haunting the earth, or worse yet, the spirits of evil seeking revenge for all the healing that had happened in this pagan place. I had to muster my courage. I know those stories are just superstitious threats spun to garner holy obedience but they were hanging in the air that day. I started to sing what Eve and I would sing in the scary times.  ‘Though I walk through the valley of shadows…’”

         “You remembered that song?”

         “Of course, Papa. I was singing it loud and slow and suddenly I was not singing alone.  Eve’s beautiful voice was singing like a bird above my song. I was completely washed of my fears, headlong into joy as I turned to see the woman standing, singing next to me. Then from deep in my gut I let loose a most horrific howl! There where Eve’s beautiful face would be framed in black hair was the face of a true ogre. I was shivering with fright. She took my hand in hers, and turned her face from my sight and said, ‘Lazarus, I have been so alone.’  And all I could do was to tell her I was called Ezra now.”

         “It must have been devastating for her.”

         “I wasn’t even thinking of her, only myself. But then she told me not to call her Eve, but call her Enola – alone, backwards and forwards and always alone.”

         “It must have been a great hurt for her.”

(Story continues next Tuesday, November 26)

Post #2.8, Wednesday, 11-20-2019

Historical Setting: 561 C.E., Gaul

“How did you find her?” I asked Ezra.

         “It is a long ride.” He observed, “So I will make a long story of the short one.

         “When I was first tending vineyards near Tours I started my search for her. That was near where we were taken to the Hag of Healing. Do you remember the charcoal drawing you made when the twins were wee little babies?”

         “Of course I remember. I marked a rock as a gift for your mother.”

         “I have that rock in our cottage even to this day. I carried it in my search and showed it to anyone who would listen. I was searching for the beautiful child with long black hair named Eve. No one had a whisper to share.

         “Then years after the hag died of pox and her cottage had been demolished, I was working again in vineyards for the owner of the idle lands and I noticed the hag’s gardens for healing were being tended.  I thought of Eve, and couldn’t let go my search. This time I was asking about the gardens and not the child. I heard rumors of demons and trolls, since, of course the hag was pagan. It was well-known by Christians that whatever was happening there could only be omen of evil. So there I was, seeking a woman named for the Original Sinner among the pagans and trolls.”

         “She was not named for the sin, but for the Creation.”

         “Sure Papa. All the while, I was gaining coin with work so I choose to make myself a landowner. I read that if I paid the taxes owed on abandoned property it would be mine to farm, but I would also have to take on the neighbor’s burden of tax as well and that had a house and fields ready to till. I believed I were a rich man. Even with my lame leg a strong and beautiful wife would be mine simply because I had land. Everything was amazing. Then I went up on the hill of graves behind our old farm to meet with the angels and shout my gratitude for such a good life and there I saw the bouquet of flowers. I believed Eve was nearby.”

         “So you found her near there?”

         “No. Were it only that simple. And now I learn it wasn’t even her that left the flowers.” 

(Story continues tomorrow)

Post #2.7, Tuesday, 11-19-19

Historical Setting: 561 C.E. Gaul

Bright November morning sun – cold and crispy all blaring golden.

         I have so many questions for my newly found son. There is so much I want to know.

         “So, you have a wife and children?”

         “Yes, Papa you are a grandfather. Celeste is the oldest. She is seven years old and Daniel, he is five. Margey is still a suckling babe. And we had another who was born too soon and we laid him on the hill next to his grandmother and the others of my brothers and baby sister.”

         “Oh, that was the new grave I saw there. I visit that hill to place flowers when I’m nearby in my travels. On my first visit back, when I had a hope of finding some one of us I saw our house was torn down and buried.  So I was no longer searching. I was only grieving. Then these years later I saw a new cottage where ours had been; there was a vineyard, the fields were being tended and children were at play so I thought our neighbors must have a new generation of family in their cottage which was the same. It is a wonder for me now to realize I was seeing my own grandchildren. I thought it was my crazy wishes that made the little girl appear to have your mother’s eyes and her smile. And now I realize I wasn’t imagining.

          “Celeste does resemble her grandmother. That is such a gift. Yes Papa. I have had that same thought.”

         “I have always kept a secret hope that the monk I met would have heard my plea on that terrible day when I passed into death and he would have come immediately down from Civitas Turonorum, or Tours as you say, and find you all alive and able to mend to healing. And I would understand if you wanted no part of a father who would abandon his children when they were sick and most in need. Really all I wanted was to believe there was a way for you to be cared for. I could do nothing but to try to find someone to help you.”

         “Was it you that left yellow flowers on Mother’s grave?”

         “Yes, I did place yellow flowers when I was nearby in a season when the yellow flowers bloomed.”

         “I thought it was Enola. So when I saw the flowers I felt sure I could find her nearby. I didn’t know what had happened to her but I kept searching.”

         “Where was she?  How did you find her?”

(Story continues tomorrow)

Post #2.6, Thursday, 11-14-2019

Historical setting, 561 C.E., Gaul

“Yes, my son, this has been a very long journey for you.”

         “A day it has been and into night and now it will be that back to day again.”

         “If the donkey is tired you must be exhausted.  Let’s stop by the river and rest. I’ll take coals from the foot warmer and fan a watch fire. I will keep watch while you sleep and we allow rest for the donkey also.”

         Dear God, thank you for keeping this watch with me. Thank you for bringing me to know again this beloved son of mine. Amen.

         So here I am with a fire and a river and my son whom I thought would never be mine to know as an adult — all great blessings of this night.  The privilege of long life is only gifted through healing – changing, learning, growing in spirit and mind and often in loosing and grieving. What seems the constancy of life into age is really an endurance made up of many little healings day by day.

         And yet my waking this night, with the visage of the abbot masked to shield him from an imagined fear of stench still riles my rath. The plague is horrific. Just the fear of plague sends us clinging to guesses at cures and blames for causes, trampling out any human instincts of compassion and transforming us into creatures who can only answer evil with greater evil. And he said it was I who was belligerent.

         Of course, it may have actually been a kindness that he sent me out before my cell was sealed with the heavy fear of plague. Milan seems less afflicted by plague so everyone looks there for the cure. We have heard rumor from Milan that when plague visits a house the doors and windows of the house are bricked up with both the sick and well still inside. What had been a place for a family’s life with all of the daily encounters – meals, prayers, births, deaths, celebrations, joys, struggles – all sealed in, dark and stagnate with those who were nearest death suffering the least. Surely if my cell had been sealed I would have starved slowly and my son would be sent back alone this night.

         He stirs. I cover him with the blanket. How many years have I longed for this?

(Continues Next Tuesday, November 18)

Post #2.5, Wednesday, 11-13-2019

Historical Setting, 561 C.E., Gaul

No stars, no moon — the stillness of dark has no dimension – no goodness, no evil just void.

         Dear God were it only true that the one who gathers the dead had come for me this night. Stay near me. I would rather not be discarded alone. Amen.

         “There you are Papa!  I was waiting for you at the front gate.  I should have guessed they would send you out a hidden door to the churchyard. My wagon is just beyond the wall. Are you well?  Can you walk with me?”

         “I am well. Didn’t I tell you I wasn’t in danger from this plague?”

         “You did say that, but your story were so strange I choose to think otherwise.”

         “So you came all the way down here to find me as a dead man?”

         “I came to take you back in whatever way I could find you.  I wagered with Enola, who still thinks you a ghost, that you would have plague by now. I bet her I would find you suffering or dead. But now I’m so glad I lost the bet, even though I still think you are a flesh and blood mortal man and not a ghost.”

         “I am that, as I told you.”

         If there were any hint of light this night it falls on the pale coat of the donkey waiting outside the wall. The cart is filled with blankets and straw with a large bundle of fragrant herbs.

         “Enola promised me I would find you well, as I have, and yet she filled my wagon with comforts for you ailing so perhaps she also didn’t believe her own wager.”

         “It was kind of you both. I truly wanted to see you again. And perhaps Eve or as you say Enola will shed her bee nets that I may lay my eyes on her beautiful face as she is now grown up.”

         “She has no more beautiful face, Papa. That’s why she wears the nets and why she chooses to see no one. The plague only left her with two scars on her neck, but the pox disfigured her monstrously.

         “My wife can’t even bear to look upon her though my children are accustomed.”

         “However I see her will be better than never seeing her.

         “This road seems longer at night behind a slow donkey, is it not?”

         “It is a long road. We won’t be there before dawn.”

(Continues tomorrow)

Post #2.4, Tuesday, 11-12-2019

Historical setting: 561 C.E., Gaul

“Wake Lazarus; you must go now! The one who gathers the dead of plague has come for you. Go quickly so you don’t bring plague down on all of us here.”

         The abbot has his face covered in a cloth as though I bore the stench.

         “I’m not ill Father Mark. I assure you, I am not bringing the plague down on this place. Really the one who comes for the dead of plague – he is my family and he has likely just come to take me to see my daughter.”

         “The hallucinations and belligerent disobedience are the first signs. Go now or we will seal you with this cell!”

         “Very well.  I will just gather my work from the scriptorium and ready my horse.”

         “There is no time. This cell is to be sealed now.”

         “I understand.”

         I can only take the few things I brought with me and go away into the dark of this night. Surely I can understand the fear of the plague that sucks up any Christian vows of love for one another.

         Nineteen years ago a small battalion of soldiers from Constantinople arrived by ship and came up the valley of the Liger reaching only as far as the cluster of cottages by my farm before some of the soldiers were overtaken with plague. My wife went to tend the sick and it was soon after that she, herself, sickened and died, then it came down on all of us. Plague must be a natural turning because surely the judgment of God could not be so harsh and misplaced.

         It was not like the pox with scars that stay to mark the safe ones. The scars of plague are hidden under hoods or tunic or they last on only as a limp or a lisp. We knew nothing of this sickness before it took so many. People from the important cities, they already knew — a hag from Milan – the missionaries who traveled the roads – they knew; and now in all these nineteen years it is well known everywhere. It rises up here or there with reasons only in guesses and the cures must be in godless magic.

         I can understand why I am sent away only on rumor.

         I walk out into the darkness of this wretched night.

(Continues tomorrow)

Post #2.3, Thursday, 11-7-2019

Historical Setting: 561 CE, Gaul

“Know I love you Eve. Know you are loved.”

         I learned those rich and true words of a parent to child by listening for answers to my own gnarly and riled prayers. In times when I believe the world hates me I unfurl my ugly smudge of self to the Creator of love itself, and pouring back over me like the whole river un-damned comes flooding, cleansing, lifting, floating me like a fallen log, flowing me in God’s love – ‘know I love you Lazarus – know you are…’ There is no end or boundary — nothing I can do or say can take me beyond God’s reach. That is how I know to love my own children. Now that nineteen years have passed between us I still wish more than anything else that they may know well this parent’s love.

         Nineteen years ago it was when my wife nestled the new baby, and I took the three boys and little Eve, just eight then, to the river’s edge to skip rocks and explore the wonder of water running through. Young Laz would take all his 10-year-old muscle and fling a flat stone across the still water in the center of the river and Eve would giggle into a fit of sillies each time it popped up and skipped again. The little guys, the five-year-old twins would follow the lead of their big brother and plop a stone right down into the depths with no magical skips at all. Just a thud and a splash. But that was fine. I mean, what else is there ever, but to make a splash?

         It was odd that day when a ship of soldiers came up the river and dropped anchor at our doorstep. We wondered at its size and fearsome bow. We thought they came into our valley by mistake looking for a war that wasn’t. Then we met their enemy face-to-face and it was plague.

         I have longed to touch my wife and hold the baby, for one more giggle of children – I have grieved so for lost splashes and murmurs – the  “I love you’s…” and now I learn that Laz and Eve lived through all of it, alone without a mother or even this father to love them no matter what.

(Story continues next Tuesday Nov. 12)

Post #2.2, Wednesday, 11-6-2019

Historical Setting: 561 C.E., Gaul

What can I say to her?  The huge chasm between us is more of deaths than of measured time. She keeps enough distance between us that my longing arms would not reach her for hug in case I should follow my impulse.

         I try to fill the hollow silence with words.

         “Of course you are no longer the child of my memories. You are a grown woman now. Seeing you and your brother is such a joy for me. I’m overcome with the gratitude for it all. You both have taken the tragedy I left you in and reshaped it to loving-kindness for others who are themselves, in the same need as were you. A father who can see the changes in his children from child to adult has a gift of God’s Creation. But the greatest blessing a papa could ever have through his children is to see them grow up caring for others, quenching the thirst of their own sorrows at the great well of empathy.”

         Dear God how many ways can I say thank you? I love you too. And like you, I too long to wrap my arms around my children and dry their tears. I’m grateful for this odd turn of grief and for hopes. Amen.

         “So my dear Eve I should ride back to Poitiers soon.  If you or your brother would want to see me again just send word to the monastery at Poitiers.”

         “What are you, a priest or a monk?”

          “No. I have no Holy Orders from the Roman Church. I’m a guest at the monastery for prayer and I use the scriptorium.”

         “Oh. So why would you do that?”

         “My work is as a messenger of the teachings of Jesus so I copy scriptures onto scraps of papyrus or scrapings of parchment then I take that to the those who are yet meeting in the old ways of Jesus which sometimes seems far from the Roman order.”

         “So you have become pagan?”

         “You already know my faith; I’m sure it is also deep in your own child’s heart. But in these times I would be called a heretic with every ilk of heresy changing with the winds.”

         “Christian is different now. So I suppose you are a pagan, Papa.

         “If my brother wants to see you again I will tell him you are at Poitiers.”

         “Know I love you Eve. Know you are loved.”

(Story continues tomorrow)

Post #2.1 Tuesday, 11-5-2019

Historical setting: 561 CE, Gaul

I call through the cottage door, “Eve, don’t be afraid. Please come and walk with me to the hill to your mother’s grave and we will place flowers together. Let’s go now and cut a bouquet from the yellow bobbing heads that fill the wild meadow so late in this season. She always loved those flowers. Come along that we may talk as we go.”

         There is no answer and no sound. Maybe she isn’t here. Or perhaps she believes me a ghost so she would expect I could ignore the door between us and surround her with a nimbus spiritual nature. But I’m simply made of earthen flesh — strangely healing — but always just a man of humankind.

         I wait long by this door.

         “I have waited here. If you are waiting inside not knowing what to do with me waiting out here I understand. I will go away from your door now. I will go on alone and gather the flowers then I will go to your mother’s grave alone. You will see me there if you look. Or you may come even if you choose to hide from me in your bee veils. That will be fine. I so much want to see you again. You are such a beautiful and cheerful child in my memory.”

         I gather the flowers and trudge the hill. I try to give her a distance and not to look back to see if she follows but I do take a glance. I catch a flit of bee netting before she ducks to hide. Lithe and lean she is quiet like a wisp. I kneel where the rocks are piled for the graves.

         “Papa I can’t let you see me now. I’m not beautiful and I’m not a child; I am always alone so if I would be cheerful that is only for God to know. The Eve you once knew and called wonderful Creation and gift of God is no more.”

         She places a large bundle of flowers next to mine then she stands and steps back from me. The bee veils waft in the first winter’s breath around the pillar of a woman’s form.

         What can I say to her?

(Come again tomorrow, Wednesday)