#76.6 Wednesday, January 14, 2026

Historical Setting: Monkwearmouth, 794 C.E.

What to do with this grieving mother is the issue. I could take her back to the nuns if they could listen without judging. Maybe they would receive her with pity, unless their own fear of a writhing demon overrules their holy compassion. Obligations to care for strangers are always weighed against the possibility of hidden demons.  Maybe the nuns would understand her grief because they know the Matthew story of the slaughter of the innocents. Rachel could be their name for her. They know that Rachel weeps, and Mary ponders. They practice the mother’s grief each season with the Lenten sorrow standing with Mary at the cross. Maybe the nuns could understand.

But I know something of this grief also, because I have been the grieving parent, and even then, when it was my own child, I didn’t know the depths of Ana’s grief as the mother of our child.  No one knows another’s grief, we only know our own and from our own grief, sympathy is born. We never have the same grief as another.

         Dear God, you already know her, you love her, and I know you also love her child. You love the love bond of mother and child. You have given her voice to speak of it though the words she gave it were crude. Help me listen-in with what I have so carelessly named sympathy, that I may, in some little way, help carry the burden of her sorrow.

She’s shivering, even wrapped in my cloak. Her only garment is a simple dress– an undergarment the nuns gave her to hide her nakedness. I asked her if she has other things she can wear.

         “Mister had fine clothes for his son’s mother, but he sent me off in my old beggar’s rags and what was left my old cloak, he used to wrap the dead baby in. The baby wore my rags into the sea. I meant to give that child more, but all he has in his death are my old rags!

         “I wore fine clothes in Mister’s castle. And yet, he saved my rags because he knew from the first, he wouldn’t keep me. If he had only noticed me, I could have been a useful slave for him all the years of that baby’s life.

         “I would be a good servant.  I learned the fine words of the castle.”

         “What do you mean?”

         “I used to have wildwood words like “trashed” and “crud.” Now I have castle words: “dismissed” and “filth.”

(Continues tomorrow)

#76.5 Tuesday, January 13, 2026

Historical Setting: Monkwearmouth, 794 C.E.
 

The Christmas story leaves Rachel grieving for her child.

There are lots of bits of the Christmas story. When the nuns read the whole of it from the gospel of Matthew, told and told again by the followers of Jesus escaping Romans in Judah it calls for pondering, not just celebrating. The early Christians sought safer places. In the Matthew allegory the angel visits Joseph in a dream, while in Luke the angel comes to Mary. Joseph is the name of the biblical dream-keeper, so of course it was a dream. In Matthew, Mary and Joseph escape, back across the Reed Sea into Egypt with the baby, while Rome works through their puppet King, Herod, to issue infanticide on Judah.  Matthew keeps a finger on the pulse of the Hebrew bible and remembers Jeremiah 31, and allegorically names the weeping mother Rachel, after the mother of Jacob (Israel).

We know who Mary is. She is the happy ending to the Christmas story. But happy endings all depend on where the story teller takes a breath and sits back and smiles and says, “and that was the story of…” to make the story seem complete.

So, we sit here by the river, a stranger just visiting Jarrow for its library and this young woman who escaped a brutal household, then escaped the sea, then escaped the chains, forged for demons…

         Is there a place where she is safe, Dear God?

         I ask, “Where did you live before Mister took you to the castle, ?”

         “I lived in the pauper’s wood.”

         “Is your family there?”

         “They says my ma gifted me to the olders when I was a babe, then she went on her way. In the paupers’ woods people come and go but the olders are forever there. When Mister come down, he traded with them — me, for a King’s letter of permission.”

I can’t leave this child and yet she seems to have no place. She surely can’t return to this powerful man, “Mister” who traded a “King’s letter” for her, then sent her away after she birthed his baby and nursed it for a year. And it seems there is no place for her in the paupers’ wood where they traded her for a letter of permission. Permission for what I wonder. And that is all I know of this place. 

         I ask again, “Can you show me where these places are?”

(Continues tomorrow)


#76.4 Thursday, January 8, 2026

Historical Setting: Monkwearmouth, 794 C.E.

The grieving girl tells her story.

         “The Christmas bells rang just then, same as when he was born that night when them nuns called me “Mary.” That baby were then, warm and wide-eyed, wiggling and wriggling alive; such a sweet babe he were. But then, the bells ring and Mister handed him back dead. I held him close ’til the bells stopped. I rocked him dead, and I sang to him dead.”

She starred off and sang and rocked herself.

         “Coo baby in the willow tops, tumbles down, tumbles down”

         “Used to, he’d smile back when I sing, but dead don’t smile. I poured my milk on him, but dead he didn’t put his mouth to me and pat me with that tiny little baby hand.”

Her tears flood every word now.

         She says, “I promised that baby I’d never leave him alone even dead, so I took him down to the sea where I could go too, to them pits of sheol. But I was dragged back to the rocky sand and now he goes on and on all alone, without a mother, all alone and so cold…”

Her sobs are all consuming.  She’s telling me, a stranger, all of this, because God already knows and yet she still needs to say it.  It is the season when the nuns don’t chant a lullaby. It is a dirge.

         “Herod the King in his raging …lullay, lullay”

It is the story that Matthew told all the way through.

It is the season now after the names remembered fled to Egypt, and now the song is for the weeping “Rachel.”

And here is this young woman who was snatched from the sea by men who would play the heroes. Her life was saved but she is inconsolable — consumed by a raging demon, or is it grief? I know its name is grief. The grieving mother is the story that also finds Mary grieving at the cross. 

What can I say to her?

I offer only silence and thoughts. The allegory of God’s love for all people is the bond of the mother and child. That love bond is every mother and child.

         “Yet, Rachel still weeps.”

         “Who is Rachel?” She asks me.

         “It is an allegory in the gospel. Maybe Rachel is any woman who weeps for her lost child.”

         “So, Rachel knows me?” She asks.

(Continues Tuesday, January 13, 2026)

#76.3 Wednesday, January 7, 2026

Historical Setting: Monkwearmouth, 794 C.E.

The young woman slipped out of the chains and she could have leapt from the tower to her certain death, but apparently, she chose to run toward the river. I’m following the tracks in the snow.

The rising sun flushes the sky behind me in the fresh light of a solstice morning and here, the brittle winter envelops the hedges along the river in ice. She is on the riverbank barefooted, in nothing but a linen under dress as nuns wear, now, with rust stains from chains. She isn’t raging with the demon just now. She’s standing quietly on the riverbank. I put my cloak around her and ask her name.

         “Them nuns at that church say I’m Mary but I’m no Mary. Then it would be Jesus, dead.”

She tells me as bluntly as it can be said. And that is all that matters.

         I say, “It is the season when Rachel is weeping for her children.”

         “Who is Rachel?”

         “It is the part in the Christmas story when God is grieving with all of the mothers who have lost their sons. Are you the grieving mother?”

She looks away and doesn’t answer.

         I ask, “What name do others know you by?”

         “I’m called Girl.”

         “Who calls you that?”

         “Mister.”

         “Who is ‘Mister’?”

         “You don’t even know? Everyone knows. He lives in the castle.”

         “I’ve just come down from Lindisfarne. So I am unfamiliar with Jarrow. Can you show me this?”

         “‘Course not! I can’t go back there. He put me out and his baby died.”

         “The nuns said they remembered you when you gave birth to your son a year ago.”

         “Mister kept it, said it was his. He only just let me be the nurse for the year of its swaddles. Then he put me out. In my pretends I could wait there at the edge of the wood for all the years to pass ’til the pretty young prince from the castle come down for the hunt. I’d be waiting there to see him pass by and I’d know that prince were mine. Even without a word ‘tween us he’d know his momma.

         “But now Mister come by with the baby, cold, stiff, wound in my old rags, and Mister ordered me to fix the baby with my milk. ‘Said I cursed it so it only screamed and never ate ’til death stopped the noise. Cold and icy white was all that was left of that baby. Mister didn’t say another word. He just left the baby off and went back up the castle way.”

(Continues tomorrow)

#76.2 Tuesday, January 6, 2026

Historical Setting: Monkwearmouth, 794 C.E.
 

I follow the Reverend Mother to the tower entryway. The arch is just the right height for the Reverend Mother to pass through, but I have to bend down. There is hardly enough light to see the steps immediately before us. This wooden structure of stairs and precarious landings creaks and sways as we climb. The Reverend Mother seems accustomed to this climb probably only intended for one small woman at a time to reach the belfry.

She says it took the full power of two strong women to get the demoniac up this stairway.  And I imagine if they had a chain to hold her the chain alone would weigh more than any of them.  It must have been a struggle. As we near the openings at the belfry more light floods in. 

Here on the top platform where the bell cord hangs is a huge heavy chain and manacles lying in a heap. The Reverend Mother stares, stunned.

         “She’s escaped.”

It was easy to see the manacles are sized for a giant, and the grieving girl was tiny. All she’d have to do would be slip her hands out and she’d be free. The Reverend Mother looked down the high tower through a belfry arch. We both feared what we might see on the ground so far below. But there is nothing but the fresh snow.

         “She must have escaped down the stairs, and now she and her demons are loose on the land.”

Now, I go down ahead of the Reverend Mother amid the creaks and clatters of the rickety stairs.  We both know the young woman is in danger.

         “She’s probably going back to the sea to finish drowning her demon.”

Am I the only one who finds a need to hurry to find this young woman?

         “Her tracks are clear. I’ll follow her.”

Only my own tracks lead toward this church from the sea. But at the smallest archway of the tower her footprints are as clear as if she was laying a trail for someone to find her.

         The Reverend Mother says, “She wasn’t walking toward the sea.”

        “She’s chosen the river.”

The Reverend Mother offers a prayer with genuflect and kneeling. She lists many titles for God, and I know the unspoken prayer behind the holy words is that the nuns can be free of this so-called demoniac once and for all. I slip away before the amen that I might find her before she reaches the river.

(Continues tomorrow)

#76.1 Thursday, January 1, 2026

Historical Setting: Monkwearmouth, 794 C.E.
 

Is this a magical time of year because of the particular songs and stories? I don’t think the season that Christians call the Christ Mass is sacred simply by edict or calendar. Now is when the sun begins a new light overtaking old darkness. There is no papal edict to set its day. It is an edict of Creation itself.  Lightness gradually returns gnawing away the edges of night at each rising. It would stay a Pagan thing, but Christians, also, keep the notion of the light overcoming the darkness. Epiphany marks this time of all things new.

Last night, at sunset I crossed back to the church at Monkwearmouth for the long night’s vigil of New Year. I was wondering what became of the waif I brought here on Christmas.

Now, after this Morning Watch, I knock on the study door of the Reverend Mother.

         “So, Joseph has returned?”

         “I am Eleazor, not Joseph. And I don’t believe the young woman I left at your door on Christmas would fit Luke’s ideal of motherhood. We’ve both seen her enraged.”

         “It’s been contentious. Her demons put us all to the test.”

         “The scratches on my face are quicker to heal than the scars on my conscience, were I intended to excuse myself from caring.”

         “So, she wasn’t just a stranger to you, washed up on the shore?”

         “She was a stranger then. All I know of her is what you told me. And also, that she was helpless and floundering in grief.”

         “This isn’t grief. This is possession of her soul by demons. We are equipped to handle grief here, but not demons.”

         “You mean grief is easier to manage, because it is a quieter infirmity?”

         “Grief heals with quiet prayers of sympathy. Grief has no comparison with this.”

         “Of course. I was just thinking, in her case, grief would simply drown its victim directly, but with demons, pigs are needed to carry it away for the drowning.” [Luke 8:32-33]

         She says, “We can pray for miracles, but while we wait, we have to do our best to deal with it any way we can.”

         “So, you have her here in chains?”

         “She is safe.”

         “May I visit her?”

         “Why? You said you don’t even know her.”

         “I know grief very well, and I want to offer a prayer of sympathy.”

         “It isn’t at all simple just to see her where she is now.”

I follow after the Reverend Mother to the doorway into the belltower.

(Continues Tuesday, January 6, 2026)

#75.14 Weds., December 31, 2025

Historical Setting: Monkwearmouth, 793 C.E.
 

The Reverend Mother, asks me how I know this woman I brought here to them.

         “The guards rescued her from the sea and I went down to help them but I don’t know her.”

         “We know her here. Last winter she came to us in labor and the Sister who is with her now delivered her baby. It seemed to us then, an allegory of the Christmas story but for the missing Joseph. We celebrated the birth of a strong infant, despite the deplorable poverty of the mother. She was a child herself, living as a pauper. We intended to keep her here and care for her and the baby properly, but she ran away and took the child with her.

         “No one could find her, and when we asked about her, there was no one who even knew who she was. All that we knew was that she once lived with the paupers in the wood. Alone, and with a child, they were both in danger. We searched for her and prayed for her. Apparently, someone took them in because no one ever saw her again.  But now, here she is showing up here again, now, a demoniac, raging against God. She is truly a child of the devil.”
“She is a child in grief.” I say.

         “If you say you don’t know her, how would you know she is grieving?”

         “You told me she had a child, and now she is alone. Any mother would be grieving at the loss of an infant.”

         “She was no mother. She was only a child who birthed a baby.”

         “You say she left here with her child, and now the child is gone, and now she chose to give up her own life to the sea. If there is a devil in this story, his name is Grief.”

The nun goes back into the little office and closes the door.

I know the girl will run away from here when she is able, and she will find a less guarded shore for her next walk into the sea.

         Dear God, I know my asking prayer risks that I will be sent to answer it, but this really needs asking.  Please be with this little girl, take her in your arms and comfort her in her time of terrible sorrow.  Send a Joseph, or at least some understanding of grief for this child. I know I am asking for a turning, again. Amen.

(Continues Thursday, January 1)

#75.13 Tuesday, December 30, 2025

Historical Setting: Monkwearmouth, 793 C.E.

The Christmas story is when the poor and weak are lifted up and the proud and powerful are cast down. It was the story Jesus was born into. And this too is that story. 

I take the bones of the near drown girl to the Reverend Mother of Monkwearmouth. She puts another in charge of the choir just as they prepare to process in, and she guides me to take this wailing bundle into her chambers off the sanctuary. This room is encumbered in brocades and velvets. I lay the waif on a golden upholstered couch. Then seeing the child is naked, the elder nun sends me away handing me back my cloak soaked and tattered. She asks me to fetch the tall nun, second to the last in the women’s choir.  So, I do, and now I step into the congregation late to worship but not too late for the reading of the Gospel.

In this so-called “women’s worship service” the Abbot of St. Peter and St. Paul rises to the pulpit fully adorned in his seasonal regalia: jeweled cross, silken robes and brocade chasuble. He proclaims the day. His voice is omnipotent, strong and powerful, quaking morning snoozers awake.

         “In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria.  All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the City of David called Bethlehem because he was of the house and family of David. … ” [Luke 2:1-4]

Thus begins the Christian paradox with familiar grandiose words –“decree” “Emperor” even the mention of “David” the nearly mythical greatest king ever — and this familiar reading ends with, “…they laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.”[Luke 2:7b]

         “The Word of the Lord!” And the song rises.

It is this calm of winter when we set the earth with spangles and candles and sing the songs and shout the toasts for the season, and clatter our mugs of ale with friends and strangers alike. It is the Christmas story, the same story as always upside-down. For every person born there is a birth story. It is one story when what seemed unimportant is suddenly all that ever mattered.

I see the Holy Mother at her chamber door, gazing over the gathered people, maybe, looking for me.

(Continues tomorrow)


#75.12 Thursday, December 25, 2025

Historical Setting: Jarrow, 793 C.E.
 

Some rise early for the mass. At Monkwearmouth the antiphons will be sung by the women’s choir this morning for this feast day celebrating the Christ birth.

The guards dressed as monks have their shift change at first light, so it isn’t just the monks stumbling through the Jarrow halls with a cloudy intention toward wakefulness which, just now, makes early seem contrary to the warmth of dark sleep. 

A guard I meet on the river path is breathless, hurrying to find a blanket because they just pulled a person from the sea near the river inlet. I run back with him to give my cloak.

         He said, “Keep this quiet, because the rescued girl sinned unforgivably by attempting suicide and the holy men will only chastise her.”

         “I’m sure the monks would only meet her need with kindness.”

         “You know nothing of the holy, my friend.”

Here she is, a frail waif drenched in icy sea, naked, shivering, barely living. We wrap her in my cloak and a guard and I will take her to Monkwearmouth for the nuns to care for her. In my arms she is like a child, so little burden as she is so frail. She finds consciousness writhing, angry, clawing at my face, barring her broken teeth like a rabid beast. I stop and lay her in the snow in order to reclaim some reason and gentleness. Isn’t gentleness how it is supposed to be on this holy morning of Jesus’ birth? The guard takes a different tact. He shouts, “Behave or the nuns won’t have you!”

Now hysteria empowers her kicking, biting, flailing and her howls echo across the snows with amazing clarity for curse words against God.

         He says, ” We should just throw her in the river and let her have her way. She meant to drown herself after-all.”

         “I can’t do that.”

It isn’t any kind of relentless heroism that keeps me from letting her go. I just can’t do that for the simple selfish reason that I have to keep on living after this and it would haunt me.

         “I’ll take her on to the church. You can go back to your duty.”

Now he leaves. I carry her shaking and sobbing, on to the church.  Nothing is silent and holy here, but this is the Christmas story too.

(Continues Tuesday, December 30)

#75.11 Weds., December 24, 2025

Historical Setting: Jarrow, 793 C.E.

The librarian, Brother Wilbert, said the sounds of the people’s celebration of the season escaped these guest quarters again and danced among the snows of the cold December night, then music-ed up and down the halls of the monks’ quarters sending shudders of worldly drunkenness throughout the holy chambers.

Now, tonight, I’m down the hall to join the singing, with my empty cup apparently begging for ale, though actually, I am longing for human company and song. No one is surprised a stranger here, dressed not as a churchman but a scholar, already knows every song for this season. They don’t ask who I am. They fill my cup and one song is everyone’s song.

Every song is one song.  It is the first song — woman’s song, even before the lullaby — the rhythm of the birth pangs, then were added Latin verses, and an ancient tune is unsourced because it is everyone’s tune.  Personent hodie — “Id-e-o-o-o, id-e-o-o-o, Id-e-o gloria in excelsis Deo!”

Tonight, the celebration is the same as the song, lifting up what was unexpected by humankind, yet, simply the very nature of God who is love. It is the song of reversal — the infant is the king. The poor are lifted up. The pompous are humbled. It was Miriam’s song of victory when the Hebrew people escaped the might army of Egyptians, when Hannah in her old age welcomed Samuel, new born. Of course, before that, Sarah answered the angel laughing. But then, aren’t we all laughing, singing, joyfully now at the great reversal?

The word the missionary, St. Augustine, left for the English people was that God loves everyone, and the Christ Mass is the celebration of the upside-down world where women are honored, and the poor are fed and clothed and beloved as royalty; the greedy, and power hungry are cast down, and love itself rules.

“On this day earth shall ring with the song children sing

to the Lord, Christ our King, born on earth to save us;

him the Father gave us.

Chorus Id-e-o-o-o, id-e-o-o-o, Id-e-o gloria in excelsis Deo!

His the doom, ours the mirth;

when he came down to earth,

Bethlehem saw his birth; ox and ass beside him

from the cold would hide him. Chorus” [Footnote]

[Footnote] https://www.classical-music.com/articles/personent-hodie-lyrics  retrieved April 16, 2025. Historians can only make histories of tangible things — written records, archeological finds and real things. Carols aren’t documented in the 7th century. When music and songs were at last written down for history to never forget, they were already well-remembered and often sung.

(Merry Christmas continues tomorrow)