#58.7, Tuesday, July 16, 2024

Historical Setting, 629 C.E. The monastery, Luxeuil

         Here in the garden at the monastery where Gabe is a brother, I told him of Ana’s health worry hoping our prayers together could give strength and peace for all of us.  And here is Gabe, well-practiced in the psalms and prayers and heartfelt concerns for any stranger needing prayer. Yet, prayers for his own mother thrusts him into a dizzying need for making a bargain with God.

         “Gabe, I don’t think God picks and chooses targets for healing according to who is most deserving.”

         “So, you don’t think it matters to God that Momma works so hard for goodness?”

         “I think it matters to God immensely. Your mother is generous and loving. I believe love nurtures God as God nurtures us with love and your mother is very good at all varieties of love. Surely God cares.  But that kind of boundless love as God has for all of us and all Creation too, is unconditional. Unconditional means without conditions. It is grace. All the distributions of strength and healing, hope and courage, all the good gifts from God we so desperately need now aren’t really rewards for good behavior but free gifts.”

         “I know God hurts with us, Papa.”

         “So here we are, in this place made just for healing prayers and you and I know God is with us, thank you God, and yet…”

          He finishes my words. “Yet it seems we should just have some power in our prayers to demand a miraculous healing because Momma deserves it. I know a brother here who prays making deals with God all the time. We could ask for his prayers.”

         “Bargaining prayers thrive on the edges of superstition.  They are intended to control God, as if God were something that could be controlled by people. This calls into question the nature of God. Are we created in God’s image, or is God a human contrivance under our rule?”

         “I know the God that is, Papa. I know God’s love and I hear God’s answers to my prayers and I sometimes don’t hear the answers I would have invented, had my imagination invented God. So, I know God is.”

         Gabe, do you want to speak the prayer in our hearts just now, or shall I say it?

         I’ll say it, Papa. It’s what I do. I say prayers.  “Dear God, you know our hearts. Be with Momma; and give us all the strength and courage we need for healing.  Amen.”

(Continues tomorrow)


#58.6, Thursday, July 10, 2024

Historical Setting, 629 C.E. Serf’s farms at Metz

         Will and I work most of the afternoon securing deerskins to the roof beams, “just for now,” he says. Actually, putting my thatching pride aside for a moment, I can see he’s right in the short term. Hides on the roof framework would be more useful than a patchwork of unfinished thatch.

         So, we work until sundown to add more roof tresses and secure several hides.

         This new day comes with sunshine – the kind that blurs the storms of yesterday into mist-rising, and reveals the great cleansing of earth.

         The hides above us worked well enough to keep out the rains through the night.

         Ana walks with me to the castle to get our horses but more purposefully to remind me that it might be more useful for me to commend Will on his plan for the roof, rather than chastise him for poor thatch-work.  She’s right. He’s never had a proper parent to teach him.  And taking Ana’s advice to heart, our farewell hugs are, more truly, “happily ever after” than “glad to see you gone.” Ana and I both needed to see that this family is getting along well enough. It was good to have come. Thank you, God. I promise Will I will return when the reeds have had more time to dry out, and we can thatch all of his house if he would actually want to learn the skill of it.

         Ana is anxious to go on to Luxeuil for the advice of Colleen regarding this worry which is casting every dream in darkness for us now.  While Ana is in the women’s area meeting with the nuns, I stable the horses, then go on to the dove cote to find Brother Gabe.  He’s surprised we are visiting here so soon after all the family was gathered for the wedding.

         I ask to walk with him into the gardens here so I can share our need for his prayers at this time. I should have realized he was our son before he was a monk and what I was telling him touched his human core deeper than a monk’s robe could cover. He is sobbing. I told him we needed him to share in the prayers for this.

         Of course, Papa. God knows if anyone deserves healing it is Momma. But I’m just not as good at those bargaining prayers as some of the others here.

(Continues Tuesday, July 16, 2024)

#58.5, Wednesday, July 9, 2024

Historical Setting, 629 C.E. Serf’s farms at Metz

         Will and I walk back to his hut even through the last of the rain. The tragedy he feared isn’t that the oats bend over. Here, the deluge has poured through the roof of the little house of reeds, and washed away the mudbrick sides and Layla and Ana are huddled with the baby inside under a tarp of deer hide. Everything in the little house is soaking in wet mud; it’s the same mud bricks that were intended to seal the house from pouring rain.

         The first priority is keeping the baby warm, but Will doesn’t organize things according to priorities.  He shouts a blaming prayer into the heavens, and like a great cyclone in human form, he tears what is left of a roof from the house.

         “Wait!” I stop him. “More storms are coming. If we just double over the roof you already have, it will be smaller but more weather tight, just for now.”

         I can see his frustration rising and any suggestion I can make becomes the opposite of what we do.

         Meanwhile Ana and Layla are cleaning the mud from the places that aren’t covered with the hide. They’ve set up the hide as a hunter’s tent within the walls of the mud brick house.

         Now Will is laying the blame for the chaos on the women saying they made that little shelter with the hide too small, when the whole thing needs a roof.

         I see it is best for Will to be useful, so before anymore blaming is spewed I suggest he and I go gather more reeds for future thatch before the rising creek tears up the reeds still available in the creek. Already it’s a challenge to wade in the roiling current, but once we get to them, the reeds are easy to gather. We return in the drizzle with lots of wet and heavy bundles tied on our backs and we spread them out to dry by the supports for the mud brick walls. It’s one of those days. We can’t start the thatching until the reeds are dryer so Will just listens to my lessons on thatching – a hypothetical project – not something he would really do.  But it is something that all my sons hear from me, for ever and ever I never stop insisting my sons learn to thatch.  It is what it is.

         Ana commends Will on his “good listening” in spite of the emergency.

(Continues tomorrow)

#58.4, Tuesday, July 8, 2024

Historical Setting, 629 C.E. Serf’s farms at Metz

         “Will, your oats have full heads already! Your field is thriving!”

         “I’ve learned the secret of growing things.” He is bursting to tell me.

         “Really? There is a secret?  I thought it was just lots of work and care.” 

         “You see it there, in the clean diapers hanging on the bushes. Everything needs both the clean and the dirty. You can’t have one without the other.”

         “Yes, there’s some truth in that.”

         “It’s all about knowing what to water and what to bury.”

         “You make us proud to be your family, Will.”

         Layla comes out with the baby and Ana is delighted to see them both looking so well. Hugs all around. Ana relishes her turn to hold the baby – that’s why we came. Dear God, let this time flow slowly.

         With a storm gathering I need to seek shelter for the horses.  Will suggests we walk them up to the castle stable, but he isn’t sure of the cost.  Yes, he did say, “walk” them up.  I would suppose he doesn’t ride. So, we walk.

         This is the stable for the Waldelenus guards of course and the horses we borrowed from Greg know this stable as their home. The stable master thinks I am Greg, and expects no boarding fee from me. I explain I am a relative of Greg visiting family. The stable master decides the horses are also visiting family. Guests stay free.

         The rain starts hard without any tender vanguard of droplets, so Will and I stay inside the stable until the deluge recedes a bit.

         We make small talk with the stable master.  “I see there are meadows here for pastureland. Yet Greg and Gaillard bring the horses and mules up to our farm for pasture.”

         He looks at Will who is starring into the rain and not really listening to us. The stable master whispers to me alone, “Greg and Gaillard have their secrets. If they prepared horses for their journeys at these castle pastures there would surely be a serf to tell other armies where they were going. It only takes one disloyal serf.”

         I guess I never really considered the clandestine nature of Greg’s work.

         I can see Will is very worried over these heavy rains. I assure him, “Even if a rain like this lays your oats over, as long as the stalks aren’t broken they can rise up again. Don’t worry.”

         “There are lots of worries, Grandpapa Laz, lots of worries.”

(Continues tomorrow)


#58.3, Thursday, July 4, 2024

Historical Setting, 629 C.E. The Farm in the Vosges Mts.

         “Horses?” Ana dreams.  “We could go and visit all our children in their own places now.”

         “After all these years would you still want to try a long journey, Ana?”

         “We won’t have to go hard and long with just the two of us having no obligation to carry messages on time.”

         “Of course, we can go softly Ana and take our time.”

         “That will surely confuse Greg’s war horses. But if we can go softly, I would love to go riding off again.”

         I don’t think the horses will be confused at all.  Ana already has an itinerary – a firm and solid plan.  The journey will have purpose, not simply the horse choices of random searches for grassy patches.

         “First, we will go to see the new baby Willinod, then we will ask the keeper of the birds at Luxeuil to show us the mural Brandell is painting at the healing pools.  And we will be back here in two days to see if Hannah has remembered to return to her family.”

         “Hannah is the wanderer now. She’s the one we never thought would leave.”

         “And she’s the one I need to see most immediately,” confides Ana.

         We set out westward on the creek path, and even at a slow pace we are turning onto the road to the Waldelenus castle by afternoon.  The first time I came up this road it was easy to discern which was Will’s sliver of field. The land was untilled and the house was just a leafy lean-to.  Now the house has all its sides and a roof.  It seems woven of river reeds and I am sure Will would like to impress me with his skill in thatching.  He is a beginner, so I will have to shelter words of truth in my honest appreciation for the challenge my son-in-law has taken on.  Now, the field of oats is even and green, with stalks and stalks of perfect grain heads.

         We meet Will outside and he seems sober and ready to help us with the horses.

         “We hope you don’t mind our surprise visit.”

         Will answers, “It’s a good surprise, Grandpapa Laz, and Grandma Ana. Layla and the baby are resting just now, shall I wake them?”

         “No no,” Ana tells him, as I help her dismount. “We aren’t in a hurry.”

         So, this baby who can’t even speak in words has already taught her father familial names for us. It is an amazing child who can make me the same family as Will. Thank you, God.

(Continues Tuesday, July 9, 2024)


#58.2, Wednesday, July 3, 2024

Historical Setting, 629 C.E. The Farm in the Vosges Mts.

         Haberd said Hannah wasn’t at the farmhouse today. He suspects she left after the clean-up from the wedding with that Avar fellow she met there.

         “Don’t worry, Papa, you know Hannah – she’s the very measuring stick of healthy rules.”

         “She’s an adult, of course. I never worry about Hannah.”

         I ask Haberd about the horses that are here. “Are Gaillard and Greg being any more considerate in using your pastures these days?”

         “They aren’t going off with an army just now, and these few horses are fine here. Greg and Gaillard are here too, just now, so they didn’t leave me to tend their beasts for them this time.”

         Haberd is back at his chores.  I would help him, but my mind is on an unspoken worry.  I need this moment to notice better things. The purity of contentment, that happily ever after flows rich in the winds off this hilltop. The beautiful beasts graze naked of their war armor in these peaceful days of midsummer.

         I’m thinking of that summer so many years ago, when Ana and I rode horses through the island sandbars in the rivers of Gaul. She was a fair maiden then on her quest for learning all the newest things of medicine for women. Now, after all these children, she sends me up to the farm to find that one daughter who is the physician herself, now, growing and learning in the shadow of her mother. She wants Hannah’s blade to pierce her breast and capture that pit of death that looms before us. She knows full well what this means, and how rarely a surgeon’s blade can lessen the threat. But it is something to try. Dear God, stay close.

         Somewhere in my thoughts, here is Greg standing next to me in person, not just imagined.

         “Is everything all right, Papa?”

         “I was just thinking about horses.  You know, before you were born your mother and I rode all through Burgundy with messages from Father Columbanus to the Frankish bishops.”

         “I know. The Celtic Father was hoping to make a peace with them but it never was.”

         “Well, regardless of the failed politics of that mission, it worked out quite well for your mother and I.  But now, I don’t even know if your mother still dreams of beautiful journeys.”

         “Do you want to borrow two horses for a journey, Papa?”

         “Thank you, Greg, I’ll ask her.”

(Continues tomorrow)

#58.1, Tuesday, July 2, 2024

Historical Setting, 629 C.E. The Farm in the Vosges Mts.

         “Happily-ever-after’s” are the leftovers and dirty dishes and a certain emptiness rarely celebrated. There is a need for the reassessment of hopes and dreams and a new look back at the unsorted and cluttered of it all, not to mention, the daunting requirement for forward looking into the strange, unknowable world of new. 

         With the tunes of wedding still stuck in our heads, the old familiar songs of last season seem stale and yet the new doesn’t fit the chasm old has hummed into hearts.

         This peaceful night in our own little cottage near where the creek runs down, always with the music of its flowing just outside our summer windows, the owl’s song and the last twitters of the day birds, the tender softness of Ana in my arms is the warm and familiar. This welcome sameness amid all the newness is a comfortable blessing. Thank you, God.

         As always and forever my hand wraps her breast, still soft and smooth as the day these breasts first nurtured our infant sons. But for a moment now, … I just thought I felt something else — a hard little pit. I can’t tell her this secret dread that completely pours over me just now, but maybe she already knows, maybe she has pain from this. She must have noticed my fingers turned cold.

         “Laz, what’s the matter?”

         “I just had a worry.  It is nothing.”

         “We can talk in the morning, Laz.  Just for tonight, let us allow everything to be beautiful.”

         And so it is.

         This morning I ask her.

         She answers with her clear and controlled physician’s voice. “I’ll ask Hannah to use her blade. I have a theory about this.”

         How can Ana, who knows the heart of medicine, speak of it in terms of a blade and a theory? “So, what is your theory?”  I ask.

         “This is something that happens when there is an emptiness. Everything is perfect now. We have everything we need and our sons and daughters are loved, even our grandchildren thrive… “

         “And yet there is an emptiness over your heart, in that same place that once nurtured our babies.”

         My tears fall first. Ana has a brave face, until she looks right at me. So I hold her close now to share our weeping where words won’t go.

(Continues tomorrow)

#57.12, Thursday, June 27, 2024

Historical Setting, 629 C.E. Vosges Mts.

         Foggy morning softens the first light of day dispersing the wedding into a yawning dawn. Stretching our tired aches to the edges we start the cleanup, keeping useful leftovers and digging a pit for the rest.

         The monks of Luxeuil left when the moon was still reflecting off the creek. Those with the long journey along the Moselle left early also. Except Vizsla, the Avar physician. He stayed, maybe to marvel at the serenity-piercing, organizational skills of Hannah. To keep himself useful he is gathering up fire wood to replenish Mater Doe’s supply.

         Haberd is returning from farm chores with the mule and wagon ready to drive his sister with the baby, and Will back to the castle fields. He’s also taking two of the elder nuns as far as Luxeuil. Other nuns scurry to help with the clean-up so that they can follow close after the wagon. But Hannah urges them to go along immediately to save walking those miles unescorted.

         The musicians and most of our family are still here for this new tranquility. But now Thad and his little band of musicians are circumambulating the little round thatched house, chanting. “Brandell, Brandell,” Then the chant morphs musical with “Gaia, Gaia, Gaia,” actually, that seems like a dancing song, and these hungover Roman Christian fellows hear it as nearly the same as that Jewish toast to life. So now they are singing a lusty toast, “LeGaia, LeGaia” [spelling, random] and the noise is scraping my memories of the ancient Hebrew joy over the rocky earth of Gaul.

         Brandell and Gaia emerge from the little house hand-in-hand, leaving Brandell his other hand to bring out his kithara. Gaia takes a seat and he drops the harp strap over his head, taking the center to sing the happy ending to the grandpapa song that once so unsettled the Church.

         “My grandpapa was a Pharisee, fine,

           A God beloved, obedient Jew!

         He feasted on lamb and sipped blest wine

          “Shema Yisrael” — love renews.

         “From Jesse springs the sacred shoot

           It’s awe of universe above

         flourishing from that ancient root

           The vine we share in Jesus’ love

         Touch my shoulder take my hand,

           We’re one together as the vine,

         Dancing feet on every land

         Let all our daughters sip blest wine!

         It’s a foggy morning when the musicians think this new dancing song needs a bit more reference to the intimacy of a man and woman. Brandell smiles at Gaia. What can I say?

(Continues Tuesday, July 2, 2024)

#57.11, Wednesday, June 26, 2024

Historical Setting, 629 C.E. Vosges Mts.
 

         With all of the guests gathered around watching through the windows and opened door of the little thatched house gift, everyone was anticipating Gaia’s response when she discovers this is actually a house that Brandell and his whole family have made for them. This is her house.

         Gaia seems to have gone from the wonder of thatch, to the hope of one day maybe. And now Brandell sits next to her on the bed. A few drunken whoops and chants through the windows tell Gaia they are not alone in this house.

         Brandell asks her, “Do you touch only with your imagination? Or do your fingers tell you what is real?”

         “I do know some things, Brandell. It is only my eyes that don’t see. With my fingers I see a dream you have for us.  The women we traveled with, some are here now, had this same kind of dream.  When they came to their new land they would have houses filled with all the things for family and beautiful life. Now I see that your family has set up this house here in the middle of my string for greeting people, so that I, too, could nurture a dream for a real house for my new husband and maybe for a family of lots of children one day.”

         Now the whoops and cheers from the door and windows are raucous.

         The musicians are starting the dance and the distraction allows Brandell and Gaia a brief moment of solitude in the midst. Brandell draws the shutters closed, and from outside I close the door. I hear the bar on the inside of the door come down too. The solitude we’ve allowed inside that thatched house fills the imaginations of every guest and family at this wedding – memories of our own love bonds, lusts, and beauty, bare —

         Now, the new poet sings tender and familiar words touching depths newly revealed.

         My arms wrap Ana in gratitude.  Thank you, God, for the mother of this family, Ana, and for all these ways of love. Ana offers her own amen, “So be it, Laz.”

         Ana is quivering in the night air, as on the day we first came to our hill cottage. She was a little bird, soft in my arms — yet all of these years with its tender, lavender scented, naked nights, and pangs of birth and infant wakings, have brought us to this abundance of family, children, grandchildren and the dance.

(Continues tomorrow)

#57.10, Tuesday, June 25, 2024

Historical Setting, 629 C.E. Vosges Mts.
 

         Wedding traditions forever use all sorts of imaginable metaphors to plot that moment when the newly married are surprised by something very sweet that feels so wonderfully good when fully revealed — opening gifts — being flung in the air by well-wishers — doused in wine — smeared in cake — so many ways to tease out the not-so-secret purpose of wedding. The seeing fingers of this blind bride lead Gaia and Brandell right into that place plotted as a gift to the bride by the husband.

         She touches the thatch of the walls, then the wood jamb and door. Brandell takes her finding fingers in his hand and opens the door.

         “Brandell, what is this? Did you know the string I set was torn apart, and here is this thing?”

         “Yes, Gaia.  As soon as you had your woolen yarn spread all around the clearing, I just came out here and cut it apart and tied it to the beams that make this doorway. Papa did the thatching so it is perfect.”

         She lays her hand on the thatched wall.  “What is it? Is it a roof?”

         I should explain, “No, this is a wall. I don’t suppose they make whole houses in Greece from thatch, and even here in Gaul we’ve been using more dob and wattle, but it is traditional for ancient tribes and some people, even today, make whole houses from thatch.”

         “Oh! So, we could use this thatch and someday we could make a house?  Thank you, Papa; it seems to be very well made.” She studies the tightly tucked reeds with her fingertips.

         Brandell now has to explain it, which kind of makes an underwhelming response to discovering a whole house as a gift.

         “Gaia, this is the door.” He guides her into the door as the guests crowd around the outside getting glimpses into the little house.  Gaia moves slowly touching each little gift – the bench — the table — the bed — the weave of wool for a blanket — the linen sheet gifted by the monks — pillows and pad stuffed with goose down — a gift from the garden ganders…

         With all of us crowded at the windows and door Gaia sits on the bed touching each layer of finery,

         “Brandell, this is a fine featherbed. It’s fun to imagine something like this – a little house of thatch with a table and a bench and a fine feather bed. Someday we could live in a house, Brandell.”

(Continues tomorrow)