#47.1, Tues., Aug. 1, 2023

Historical setting: 602 C.E. A cottage in the Vosges

         All night last night, we sat at the table with a candle and the book. Ana and I took turns reading to one another through warm tugs and tears. We read the scribbles of words in Simon’s journal. [Footnote]

         The pages are the story of his secret. He couldn’t speak it to God, because he feared God would tell us that he knew our secret, so he wrote it in his book. He wrote that he knew the soul of his twin. Though he knew nothing of his name and had never heard us speak of him, Simon knew his brother. And he also knew we loved his brother.

         The intangible nature of Spirit is something that living, physical people try never to speak of, even though each of us probably has known Spirit since our infancies. When we learn language, we learn what we can talk about and what is ours alone. If we speak to others of the nature of Spirit those ears that don’t hear assume we are speaking of childish fantasies, or maybe we are pretending some kind of holy ordination only offered to saints. Personal communion with Spirit is kept silent.

         In Jesus’ time the Greeks and the Persians had ways to speak of Spirit. And Jesus led us into Spirit in every way spoken and unspoken, through metaphor as signs, through words of prayer “on earth as it is in heaven,” through touch for Thomas who needed touch, through vision walking on the water, through love, through air, through wind, all things invisible yet known to us all.

         For centuries bishop’s councils have met and met again, and even warred over it in Chalcedon, to come to some earthly concoction of Spirit conjoined with tangible being in order to fit into a world where belief is a dictum, not an experience.  But encounters with Spirit are always personal and never prescribed.

         Spirit is what nurtures the ascetic – that lone monk perceived as reclusive and alone. Maybe when we are well-fed and safely tucked in from the wind then it is easy not to know we yearn for Spirit because Spirit is invisible and we can pretend not to notice.  But Simon knew Spirit as the vast, all-encompassing love – the flowing waters where child spirit mingled and he found his brother, and where we still find both of these sons who seem lost from earth. Death is only for the living.

[Footnote] This journal is “How Still Waters Run” available as a pdf on the homepage of this blog.

(Continues tomorrow)

#46.12, Thurs., July 27, 2023

Historical setting: 602 C.E. A cottage in the Vosges

         Commoners don’t record their begottens. No one but God and the memories of old grandmothers keep this lineage. But with my oddity, having an ever and ever perspective I’ve come to know that the human record of history is only as good as the keeping of names. Precious relics are really only old stuff with the name remembered.

         Yesterday a terrible tragedy visited our farm. Yesterday there was nothing to say that wasn’t spoken through tears.

         Today, Ana and I are trying to sort through it and now we are finding blame.  Blame is everywhere. Forgiveness is yet fantasy far from today’s grief.

         Yesterday, Charlie came rushing up the hill from the creek shouting for help because Simon was in the deep water of the creek. Ana and I rushed down. I pulled what was once little Simon from the water. It was only the pale wet form of a child who once lived. If only I’d taught him to swim. And Ana was sobbing too.

         She found the little handmade papyrus book by the rock. [footnote] She held it close to her, as though it was a newborn — but it was not. She blames herself for encouraging him to take quiet time alone with this book she made for him. “If only we had insisted he never go off alone…”

         I dug a deep grave in the place where only flowers may grow – these daisies aren’t food or healing for physical sustenance. This is only for flowers. They bloom fresh in late spring and bob in the summer winds, then, the gardener, who, a few days ago was Simon doing the chore, pops the withered heads off the daisies to give them strength for fall blooming. When Simon and Samuel were born, a few October daisies bloomed wild here, where we buried the tiny Samuel.

         We never speak of Simon’s twin, Samuel. He was born too frail for life and died on his birthday.  It happens. That’s what Ana tells other mothers when she’s called to help in dangerous births. But to happen to her own infant was devastating.  She blames herself. Maybe it was guilt, along with grief that kept her hiding this sorrow. Or maybe she meant to protect the children from hurt. But she wanted the children never to know.

         Don’t children know grief? And when they see a parent grieve, they surely know a parent’s love is deep and children are valued.

(Continues Tuesday, August 1)

 [footnote] In this story, Simon’s little journal is the Novella “How Still Waters Run” by the author of this blog. As an e-book, it is a free download to readers  posted on the homepage of this blog. https://lazarus-ink.blog/

#46.11, Weds., July 26, 2023

Historical setting: 602 C.E. A cottage in the Vosges

         Late summer days on this farm bring so many changes – geese and goats added and the earth yielding a full harvest. The root crops are particularly abundant and if we store them properly, they will stretch well into winter, maybe even to spring.  The old cow was traded away, and the goat cheese is different. Ana is talking about adding sheep for the wool. Everything comes with different chores, and things that would seem changeless on a farm, come with new patterns, always.

         Our oldest sons are new places at new ages. Simon, nearing eleven-years-old, has taken on extra responsibilities.

         Hannah emulates her mother in everything and I expect one day she will be a fine practitioner of healing, even though, right now she’s something of a bossy eight-year-old. The younger children still accept her voice of authority.

         My worry for this family is that we’ve been told we are “commoners” in this new world rising. The strivings of nobility demand ever-larger castles and greater gifts to monasteries with new churches everywhere named for some sainted noble. Gifts assure the newly rising nobility have met the obligations of the fearsome and invisible God. Their expectation may simply be that they will have God on their side in the next war.

         Once this forest was the hunting ground for kings, and once the clearings and rock walls were just ruins of Roman times where now the aristocracy pass by on horses without a thought of the land, where once in this wilderness, ascetic monks wandered for solitude.

         Now, while the power of kings wanes, the lesser nobility proliferates. Human “owners” of Creation are called lords. The land stays the same as always, but somewhere in a castle drawing room or a far battlefield all these hills and rivers have been divvied into small parcels. The people who live on the lands farming and hunting for food have been sorted out and redefined. Most are common. Commoners are peasants and serfs, slaves, servants, indentured, or taxed, whatever name they may know us by and we are required to provide our wines and cheeses, meats and grains to those who say they own the land. Our farm was good this year so the amount of our tithe is very high. If next year we have less, this same high mark will again be demanded of us. I fear commonness is easily abused by people who name themselves lord.

(Continues tomorrow)

#46.10, Tues., July 25, 2023

Historical setting: 602 C.E. A cottage in the Vosges

         Gabe and I share this private conversation as we brush down the horses Greg and I borrowed and Gabe wants to discuss the issue burning through the night whispers in the novice quarters. “Fear of the Lord” whether required or optional, or interpreted through abuses of power, or skewed by translation of languages, or fraught with misunderstanding it is a humbling confusion. “Fear” as in Psalm 103, is offered with the simile of ‘compassion like a father’ but depends on the nature of the child’s earthly father to give it meaning.

         “Maybe Psalms are confusing because sometimes they are intended to speak to a whole gathering of people at worship, not purposed for the quiet spirit of a child in his homesick prayers before sleep.

         “So, the command to fear God rings through the crowds at worship to say, ‘even though the God who is God is invisible and intangible God truly is God.’ Fear is offered by the psalmist as a way of separating those who can only recognize a statue or a tangible god, from those who have been opened to recognizing the vast invisible Spirit as the power source of all Creation.”

         “So, Papa, are you trying to say that ‘Fear of God’ simply means we should recognize God’s power?”

         “Yes! Maybe.”

          Gabe continues, “And you need to have that beaten into you in case you are following a nobleman into war as a soldier, and you were thinking kings are more powerful than God?”

         “I guess that would be implied. But Gabe, to know for sure what way of God is really God, just make your private prayer that question. ‘How do you love me God? And ‘How should I fear you?’

         “When you know God’s answer the only thing confusing about it is that the psalmist tried to say it so many different ways.”

         Our time to talk is measured by the time it takes to brush the horses. I take one more moment to tell Gabe that his brother was accepted for training as a guardsman for the Bishop of Metz. I choose not to mention the terms of his brother’s indenture.

         My prayers for my sons fill my full thoughts through these six miles walking home. 

         Thank you, God. What more could a father want for his children than a place in life where prayers are still spoken? Amen.

(Continues tomorrow)

#46.9, Thurs., July 20, 2023

Historical setting: 602 C.E. A cottage in the Vosges

         The novice here on stable duty this morning is Gabe. That was probably a kindness by the brother who assigns duties to the novices. I can see Gabe is well and finding his spiritual nurture in this place. He tells me he has a better appreciation for his preparation at home growing up because others around him are finding this transition much more difficult. Gabe also tells me he misses his brother and all of us, but he adds, missing your birth family is forbidden here.

         He says, “The teacher here wants us to know one another as brothers. The reason, they say, is to give up our earthly ways for God’s sake, but really, I think these rules are made to heal our wounds of loss.  

         “I hear other boys weeping late into the night. I think they don’t find comfort in God always being with us, even here. I whispered to that poor fellow next to me and I told him not to worry because God is with us. God’s Spirit carries silent and invisible love, like a messenger dove, even for family far away. But for him, that was the worst thing to say. He thinks God is some kind angry, humanlike monster looking for excuses to punish boys for their tears. And it doesn’t help that the monks who rule here in the night tell us we should all ‘Fear God.’ because it makes us properly humble.” 

         I ask Gabe, “What does it say of the fear of God in Psalm 103?”

         Gabe knows his psalms well, and he answers,

         “As a father has compassion for his children, 

           So, the Lord has compassion for those who fear him.       

         For he knows how we were made:

                  He remembers that we are dust.”  

         “So, what do you think that psalm and all those like it are intending to say about fear of God?”

         I can see him thinking through the psalms he remembers – even including Psalm 23 that he whispers as he considers fear, “for I will fear no evil…”

         I intrude in his thought, “Fear of God comes with lots of human interpretations: punishment, dread, terror, awe, appreciation, relationship, faith.”

         “Yes, Papa, that’s why it’s so confusing. Maybe when it is my turn to copy scriptures, I will use more words of awe and less of fear.”

         “Oh, that it was so easy to just reword the human spirit.”

(Continues Tuesday, July 25)

#46.8, Weds., July 19, 2023

Historical setting: 602 C.E. On the road between Metz and Luxeuil

         It was a different kind of authority that Jesus taught in a time when Romans kept the order and Pharisees kept God’s law. Jesus opened that old Jewish vault of always knowing that God is love. He remembered the ancient stories of the father welcoming his lost son, regardless. And Jesus taught us prayer as conversation with a personal parent, sometimes to God as a mother who told us who she was, and when we forgot she let her children suffer consequences but loved us through it all anyway. Jesus reminded us of God arguing with Abraham like a papa to an obstinate son, a father begging for a strand of goodness from his children. Sometimes this parent was perceived as the maker of law and also the authority in keeping the law. [Genesis and on and on]

         I remember that first part in the ancient tale of human –

         “If you eat of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil you will die!”

         Then they ate, but by God’s kind of justice, they didn’t die. They lived to tell the story. They lived to love one another. They lived to bear children. They lived to make bad choices and maybe even good choices. They lived to the continuance of the generations of humankind. They lived on to participate in the fullness of life. They even lived to grieve. They live. They die. They live…

         Maybe it is the design of God’s big everything kind of love that sets us each into earthly life as infants surrounded in parent love, already knowing that despite the howling pains of birth, God is love like a mother. 

         Yet, humankind seems to be on this eternal quest to let go of the grand invisible universal love and keep only earthly control making human divisions of order and chaos, of rule and disobedience, of naming noble or common, of knowing ally from enemy. It is all so Roman of us. So now Gabe follows the rule and Greg follows the orders.

         Dear God, so much bigger than my imagination, how is it you can notice me among all these stars and number every sparrow of every nest of every earth under every sun you watch over? At yet, you are here to assure me that my parent love is useful even to my wandering sons. Thank you. Amen.

         This morning I returned the borrowed horses to Luxeuil.

(Continues tomorrow)

#46.7, Tues., July 18, 2023

Historical setting: 602 C.E. Metz

         It seems as though I should be grateful that my son would be indentured to a man who, as bishop, has placed his own commitment to God above his noble need for expanding earthly power. Thank you, God.

         And maybe this chaffing at my conscience is only my own stubborn nature. Help me God. But I fear when next I lay eyes on this child, he will be tall and shining in borrowed armor, head to toe, shield on his arm, sword at his side, fully prepared to obediently slay some unknown nobleman’s guard. Or maybe his orders will be to drive a polearm through a messenger who brings unwanted news.

         My choice isn’t to change anyone else.  All I can choose in this is either to let him know that he has the unconditional love of his parents or I could hide that from him forever.  Actually, I don’t have this choice at all. A punitive withholding of love — a father sending his child off without his blessing – is a spear through the heart of the father regardless of the harm it brings the son. Really, I can only choose to let him know his father’s love is unconditional, as I also know God’s love is for all of us on earth as it is in heaven.

         So, I tell him the same as I told his brother as I am leaving.

         “Always know I love you, and I speak for your mother also, because we love you as you are, regardless of where you go and what you do.”

         But as I ride back to Luxeuil on a borrowed horse, leading the borrowed horse Greg rode, this emptiness is raw.  

         Dear God, of course I’m grateful for these beautiful sons.  Help me to know the difference between owning them and loving them. Amen.

         I consider the differences between these two who are so like one another that others can’t even distinguish between them. Yet we’ve always known their unique personalities. Gabe is at peace in solitude and when he is with others, he simply works along with them, side-by-side. But Greg is a bit more like me. What I call leadership, Ana calls controlling. Greg would soon chaff under monastic rule. He probably wouldn’t argue issues of creed and trinity, but like me, he will, no doubt, always make his own choices. Will he prefer orders to rule? I’m not sure.

(Continues tomorrow)

#46.6, Thurs., July 13, 2023

Historical setting: 602 C.E. Metz

         The bishop only scoffs at my suggestion that a Christian birthright assumes pacifism and apparently, he doesn’t see that as courage.

         “But your holiness, wasn’t Christian pacifism taught and exemplified by Jesus? And wouldn’t you say that Jesus showed great courage calling out his forgiveness from the cross?”

         “The crucifixion can hardly be compared to guard duty in the service of a bishop.”

         “Of course, your holiness. I just mean to say, Ana and I have raised these children to be men of conscience, skilled in academics and versed in the gospels. The courage of pacifism is bound in the Jesus message to love even one’s enemies.  That would preclude killing a person even for the sake of duty or personal safety.

         “It happened recently in Châlons. A nobleman fit for war fled. But Greg and his brother procured my rescue.  Which kind of guard are you seeking in the face of danger — the one who runs away, or one who retaliates death for death, or the one who rescues without violence?”

         The bishop takes a pause, as though his own sermon must start with a silent prayer. “You understand, Ezra, Christianity is more than just the gospels. St. Paul fits the Christian guard with the whole armor of God.” [Ephesians 6:13-17]

         “Yes, your holiness, with a breastplate of righteousness, and a belt of truth… is that how your guards are prepared?  Your holiness, I wouldn’t object to his drawing from that truth belt, if it were sword of the Spirit — the Word of God. Maybe you will find his usefulness in the shoes spreading the gospel of peace?”

         “Papa, but I’m already good with inks and words I really need to learn the actual iron sword.”

         Now this bishop smirks at my argument, as he seems to grope for some kind of legendary wisdom.

         “Ezra, good man, I’ve seen so many youthful guards in training, flashing swords crimson in fearsome enemy blood, and when these guardsmen are fully grown the luster of the sword tarnishes. Then what use have I, for them? They are either failed warriors or they are murderers. But when this child matures beyond the sword, he may become the trusted messenger of peace to meet your expectation and he may still be of service. What better guard could a bishop have? Even though Gregory is a commoner, and only indentured to me for a decade, I can promise his many gifts will be valued here.”

(Continues Tuesday, July 18)

#46.5, Weds., July 12, 2023

Historical setting: 602 C.E. Metz

         Bishop Agilulf is receiving visitors this morning.  It seems he had heard the news of the violence in Châlons from Baro Dithrum. So, it was not a surprise for him to learn that one of my sons was especially enthusiastic about finding a place with the young boys preparing to become the Bishop’s Guard. But it was a surprise to the Bishop that Greg’s father hadn’t actually perished while acting as messenger to the disgruntled bishops, and that I have come with letter from the overseer of gifts for the monastery.

         The bishop opens the letter, noticing, as I had, that the abbot’s seal was skewed so the letter was closed but not sealed. Of course, he knew I had read it if he any thought that I could read.

         The bishop spoke first to Greg. “So, you were one of the boys who accompanied Baro Dithrum on the journey to Châlons?”

         “Yes, your holiness,” answered Greg.

         “We received news here about the unfortunate happenstance of the abbot’s messenger, Ezra.”

         “Yes, your holiness, that is my father who is here with me today. And as you can see, he has recovered from his injury.”

         I need to speak here, “And I’m only here today because Greg and his brother rescued me, obtaining a wagon, and taking that long trek homeward into the Vosges all on their own.”

         The bishop continued speaking only to Greg, “Very commendable son. And this letter says that your brother is fully literate and he is entering the monastery of Luxeuil as a novice monk.”

         Greg answers, “Very true your holiness, and I also am literate if that should be helpful to you, as I hope to enter training as a guardsman here.”

         “In this letter the holy man of Luxeuil tells us that you are prepared to accept the terms of indenture in order to provide the gift for your brother’s entrance into the monastery.”

         Greg answers, “I just want to work with horses and learn the sword.”

         “Yes, that is what we supposed.”

         “As his father, may I speak to this?”

         “If you must.”

         “It is with a deeply wounded conscience I yield to his wish. But possibly you will understand my plea for Greg’s assignment to reflect the pacifism which is his Christian birthright.”

         The bishop seems intrigued at least.

         “This child has a ‘Christian birthright, you say? And it is ‘pacifism’ …as in cowardly soldiering?

(Continues tomorrow)

#46.4, Tues., July 11, 2023

Historical setting: 602 C.E. Arriving in Metz

         Ana and I were in Metz the year before the twins were born so I know where the stable is and I can find the church where Bishop Agilulf still serves.

         Roman works in stone idle here as a distant civilization is now overlain with the dour shadows of suffering sisters. The nuns have a hospital and healing pools where water nymphs were once danced in godly bliss. The suffering come now, to be sorted into the withering and the healing.

         I know Bishop Agilulf receives visitors at this church named for John the Evangelist. Greg, who has only a hint of the meaning of my strange circumstance of life and life again, asks me if I once knew that writer, John.

         “The author of the gospel of John? So, you’re asking me if I know who wrote a gospel that tells of a family in Bethany?”

         “Yes, Papa. Maybe you knew who wrote about Jesus’ feasting with Simon the leper, and who wrote that Mary poured precious ointment onto his feet. Didn’t you see who was writing down the story when Jesus wept and his friend was healed?”

          “You know, Greg, if I did know this, I could never tell. If it were known it could wash away the mystical presence of the gospel. The Gospel of John would just be one person’s little journal, with lots of Roman edits added later.”

         “But Papa, I was just thinking, what if you really are the bible guy, Lazarus? That would make me true nobility, wouldn’t it?  I would be the son of a saint, and surely that is a higher ranking than son of a baro or a dux or even a king.”

         I ask, “Don’t all these distinctions of privilege make you wonder what any birthright really is? What makes a nobleman noble?”

         Greg thinks he knows. “The kings and nobleman are better warriors than common people.”

         “Well, maybe that’s because the wealth and land they inherit sets them into tension with others who would battle with them over the wealth. Privilege is uniquely driven to warfare for the power lust at the fingertips of the highborn. Kings are even known to fight their own brothers just for power.

         “And if you were the son of a saint, or better yet, as you surely already are, a child of God, how could you defend that birthright?”

         “Papa, I’ve seen how your peace thing works, and I think learning the sword would be more useful in the real world of kings and dukes.”

(Continues tomorrow)