Post #23.9, Thursday, August 19, 2021

Historical setting: 584 C.E. Ligugè

         Brother August is telling me about the double monastery now called the Abby of the Holy Cross.

         August explains, “While I was in the infirmary some of the nuns assigned to patient care were always whispering among themselves about how they were mistreated by the strict rule of the order. The Rule for Virgins, (Regula virginum (512), [Footnote] was designed by a man of power many years ago, Caesarius of Arles. He was thinking that Rule was to be followed by his own sister, Caesaria. Apparently she had worse sibling trouble than I did. You can imagine the structure of any Rule for Virgins designed by a man who also had a severe passion for order. It required the cloistering of the women. Once they were in the convent they could never leave. This rule defining all of their hours and days is infinitesimally explicit.”

         My observation,  “It’s like all of those rules made in the time when the Church clings to the last thread of imperial power dangling into the empty pit of warring barbarians. It seems a futile grasp at the waning Roman order.”

         Brother August adds, “These sisters serving there were definitely feeling stifled by the rule and apparently not the least bit spiritually inspired by it. I asked them how they could know God’s love under these circumstances. One told me she thought the only thing that brought her close to God was that they could be helpful in people’s healings.”        

         “And there you were, your life in their hands. Wouldn’t you just pray their answer would have to be some version of Christian compassion?”

         “Yes, of course. But I wasn’t expecting so much honesty. I mean, how would they know I wasn’t a God-spy, or an angel reporting their bad attitude directly to God. They can deny liking the Rule, but the ultimate evil would be denying the love of God.”

          My assessment, “It seems no matter how thick the walls of cloister and firm the orders of human judgment a smidge of holy empathy always seems to break through. I’m glad the nuns were there for you with kindness.”

         “Thanks, Brother Lazarus. So what of your scars, have you also found the blessings of healing?”

         “Healing, yes. But I choose not to make the story of my life about the scars.”

[Footnote] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesarius_of_Arles (retrieved 4-1-2021)

 (Continued Tuesday August 24, 2021)

Post #23.8, Wednesday, August 18, 2021

Historical setting: 584 C.E. Ligugè

         Just before the silence Brother August was telling me of the women’s convent which I thought was named for St. Mary, Abbaye de Sainte-Marie, at Poitiers. He said it was renamed after a relic of the true cross that the abbess, Radigund, a queen, was able to acquire for the monastery. 

         Had I only known of the pagan ooze of belief in magical talisman that is seeping into Christianity in these times, I would have stuffed my travel bag with much more of the refuse of that earlier time. In my own grief for my friend and teacher I never gave a thought to chipping off a wedge of the bloody wood of that godless torture tool. Maybe the cup Jesus used when he shared the wine, simple pottery as it was, would have been a meaningful souvenir for me to keep. I mean, he did say, “remember me” when he shared the cup. And for a very long time I did have that washbasin from our house. As might be expected I used it as a washbasin never considering its significance as the relic of the washing of the disciple’s feet.

         The part I do keep deep and dear in my heart is Jesus. He is the resurrection, as I know it to be in spirit, and the life as I know it to be in spirit. Thank you God for the mystical bond I share with this forever friend and teacher.

         Silence lifts and Brother August continues telling me about the queen who established that monastery.  “She and her brother,  Thuringian princess and prince, were kidnapped by the Franks when she was only a young child. All of the others of her tribe were annihilated by this atrocity at the hands of the Frankish King. When Radigund was of age the king killed her brother to extinguish any possible Thuringian heir to the lands; and King Cloitaire married Radigund. That’s how she became queen and how she acquired the portion of land she gave for a holy purpose. [Footnote 1]

         August explains it, “Respected as queen, she herself took the responsibility as abbess. She requires literacy for the women, and is, herself, a poet. It is said that after the death of her brother she wept with a poet’s tears — words, naming the atrocities of King Cloitaire. In her eulogy for her brother and her people she writes, “Each one had her own tears: I alone have them all.” (Line 33, The Thuringian War, Translated by JoAnn McNamara[Footnote 2])

[Footnote 1] Armstrong, Dorsey, “The Medieval World” Lecture #6 (The Great Courses, © the teaching company, 2009.)

[Footnote 2]) (Following is a brief excerpt from “The Thuringian War”

https://epistolac.ctl.columbia.edu/letter/947.html retrieved 4-2-21)

For her brother she wrote,

“As your father’s blush plays prettily on your face.
Kinsman, believe, you are not gone while a word remains:
Send a speaking page to act as a brother to me.
Some have every gift while I lack even tears for solace,
Oh cruel fate that the more I love, the less I have!”

                                                                        Translator, JoAnn McNamara

Historical context: 

This poem was published among Fortunatus’ poems, on the assumption that he had written it for and in the voice of his friend Radegund. Translators of the poem, JoAnn McNamara, Marcelle Thiebaux (The Writings of Medieval Women [New York: Garland, 1987]), accept Radegund’s authorship, as do Charles Nisard, Fortunatus, Opera Poetica (Paris: Nisard, 1887) and Karen Cherewatuk, Dear Sister, Medieval Women and the Epistolary Genre, ed. Cherewatuk and Ulrike Wiethaus (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1993). Since Fortunatus himself speaks of the poems she has written and sent to him, and Gregory of Tours cites a letter written by her in his History of the Franks, 9.42, I [McNamara] see no reason to deny her authorship. The translation presented here is by JoAnn McNamara, …

(Continues tomorrow)


Post #23.7, Tuesday, August 17, 2021

Historical setting: 584 C.E. Ligugè

         As Brother August and I prepare to set the supper he chooses to speak to me about the whispers of the master of the scribes today in the scriptorium. He was asking of my training. Brother August, thinking I am my son, assumes I was taught to read and use the inks by Brother Nic. Of course that is one possible reason why a young man of humble heritage would have the skill of an ancient scribe.

         And I can set my pride aside to conform to a simpler normal. “Nic was a kind teacher.”

         “He was an excellent teacher,” Brother August asserts. “So I’m thinking you’ll be asked to put your own project aside and work with the rest of us on the gospel. I believe the abbot will assign you a bench near the front tomorrow.”

         In truth, neither blame nor recognition goes to a teacher. The teacher only offers the rudiments of craft.  True art comes in the instant of creative inspiration then the hours and hours of pondering and practice.  And here I am with all those hidden centuries of life and life again for so much time to practice.

         And apparently my ages of skill as a scribe stirred the curiosity about me. Now he chooses to ask about that which we agreed not to speak – scars. But to speak of these scars, still healing, would only confirm the rumor of a forever Lazarus, and that would separate me from the community here rather than strengthen our bonds.        

         He offers, “I apologize for making a mystery of my scars this morning. I have no shame in telling and I have no reason for hiding. I had a need of surgery and when I learned the abbess of the convent of Poitiers is known as a healer [Footnote] our abbot permitted me to go there and have the surgery which has left a recent scar.”

         I mean to change the subject. “I’ve heard rumors of that monastery which is known to be a double monastery – part just for women and the other part for men. I’ve heard rumors that say the abbess there is really the queen.”

         “Yes, Radigund, she is the last of the Thuringians, a tribe of people beaten in war long ago by King Clotaire of the Franks. Clotaire was the father of the Kings of the Franks who rule now.”

         Before August can ask me of my scars, I mention the others are gathering at the boards. “This is a time for silence.” 

[Footnote] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radegund  Retrieved 6-1-2021.

(Continues tomorrow)

Post #23.6, Thursday, August 12, 2021

Historical setting: 584 C.E. Ligugè

         The monks are seated at the boards spread for the meal in the oratory this morning. Some are here with hidden scars, some with pale echoes of “Gloria” still lingering, passing the basket of bread from one to another as we all are one great omelet of God’s love.

         These years later I find that Brother August has come into this community appreciating the spiritual union with others. I seem to be received here as my own son, which apparently only confuses me. But it is a good time for finding new beginnings here.

         The abbot assigns me a bench in the scriptorium where I may work at my own little project of copying Anatase’s marked passages in the remedies book.  He is being very generous with the materials and a place to do this work as he seems not to remember me at all. And he is assuming I am the young man I appear to be, having had no practice and perhaps no skill at all.  But if anyone did remember me here I would probably be expected to work with of all the monks as they seem so steeped in a major project today lettering a gospel. I would have to do the useful work for the good of the community and then, only if there was not other work to be done, I would be allowed to work on the little project I brought. I feel like a pickle in the omelet as I begin my own project while the monks all work as one.

         The master of the scribes, the one who oversees the quality of the work in the scriptorium passes through the room with the silence of a ghost, looking over each shoulder unseen or ignored, constantly measuring the quality of the work. I feel he is standing over me, though the abbot didn’t assign this project and the quality of it isn’t for assessment by this master. The master of the scribes now goes immediately over to August, and there are whispers. 

         Brother August is at a larger raised desk made for standing and adding artwork; he’s all the way across the room working on the little art pieces, illuminations of letters and trimmings painted into the margins in order to inform the illiterate and to capture the imaginations of us all. There are whispers between them.

(Continued Tuesday August 17, 2021)

Post #23.5, Wednesday, August 11, 2021

Historical setting: 584 C.E. Ligugè

         “We don’t have to hurry,” August explains, “the bread is rising, and the meal is eggs which will cook quickly as everyone is gathering at the boards.”

         We break each egg and beat it into the froth as Brother August shares another bit of Brother Joel’s wisdom.

         “He always said, ‘As it is in heaven, it is on earth.’”

         “So you think Brother Joel is serving eggs in heaven?”

         “No. He meant, things of earth are here for us to see as symbols of the unseen things of the Spirit. So he showed me the lesson of the omelet. Do you see how each egg is here in the basket before we break into these shells? Each is good in its own tangible way, some with speckles, some in pale shades of tans and whites. Good and fine they are separate, but eggs are neither food for people nor hatchlings for the flock until the shell is broken. When the eggs spread together on the griddle each only stays a separate egg for moment with its own yolk and white, then it spreads into another and another until the whole omelet is one great creation like a psalm sung in unison.

         “Brother Joel gave me this lesson because I was one who believed the individuality of my shell-self was how I was beloved. My self was my protection against, against what? Was I waiting for my chicken-self to hatch and flap off into a flock? Was I shielding myself, saving this deepest being from bonding into the great spiritual omelet of God’s love? It’s a simple lesson. Jesus tried to say it in so many different ways – the vine and the vine tenders — the washing of the feet – in so many ways he was walloping the shells of us against the iron skillet and pouring our all into the omelet of one another. Brother Joel said our spirits within us join with Spirit until we are all the one great and holy omelet of God’s love.”

         Jesus had a prayer for that. John 17:21-23 …”that they may all be one. As you, Father are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, … I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

(Continues tomorrow)

Post #23.4, Tuesday, August 10, 2021

Historical setting: 584 C.E. Ligugè

         As a guest at Ligugè I’m assigned to visitor’s quarters in a small room in the villa while the monks are outside the walls in caves and hovels. In my last life here as a monk my cell was made of a few stones but mostly of sticks and branches and I feel it was much too easy to burn down.

         Since the abbot saw Brother August and I talking together, he assigned him to be my mentor for chores and for learning the Rule of Ligugè. And this week we are tasked with serving the meals. Preparing to break the fast is a good way to start life in a new place.

         I come into this day in deepest darkness with the echoes of the chants of night haunting these matins and I am at the cooking hearth and ready to begin. Brother August hasn’t yet arrived so I just go ahead and lay the cutlery on the boards and put some wood on the fire, but I don’t know what else to do to prepare. I see bread is rising here. I need to find Brother August to learn the plan he has in mind for this. I know his cell was near the graveyard because he was at his cell when he saw me there yesterday. The early light is already in the east, so maybe I should just go tap on his door to wake him.

         Of course Brother August assumes I’m my own son and that keeps our past journey a secret. And here I find Brother August is taking in his washed clothing left to dry last night spread out on a bush. I’m a bit surprised to see him unclothed because he no longer has the breasts of a woman but his chest is marked with a surgeon’s blade. He sees me and quickly covers himself with his scapular as though a man’s bare chest were a secret.

         “Excuse me,” I offer, “I didn’t mean to surprise you; I just didn’t know when we needed to start the meal preparation. I really didn’t mean to impose.”

         August answers, “And I didn’t mean to hide myself so abruptly. It’s just that I have a scar I choose not to explain.”

         “Of course. I also have scars I don’t wish to explain.”

         So it’s agreed. I won’t mention the wounds still healing so that everyone can just go on pretending it was my father who was crushed to death in Bordeaux.

(Continues tomorrow)

Post #23.3, Thursday, August 5, 2021

Historical setting: 584 C.E. Ligugè

         The abbot is allowing me to stay here and work in the scriptorium to copy from Eve’s book as long as I follow the rule of this abbey. Having been here before I know the daily patterns they keep. But the abbot doesn’t remember me.        

         He argues, “No, you know nothing of the Rule of Ligugè. We don’t use The Rule of Benedict here. We follow older patterns for prayer. You must observe and learn, then obey.”

         Here they follow the old way in which the monk’s live in individual cells and private prayer is respected. But also, in the emerging patterns of communal life there are times when all of the monks and visitors gather for meals and worship. As a community we each take our turns to share in the earthly chores of preparing meals and tidying and scouring and working in the gardens.

         Our songs are psalms sung in the tradition of call and response, and our prayers are long and heartfelt – some from repetitions in unison, some in silence, some spoken anew both in times together as community and also alone in our cells.

         The rigors of communal order are not as firm as would need to be in a place where teens are also being trained and when the guidance of community as family is needed. Here the rule has naturally sprung from needs of community. It surely wasn’t laid down upon the gathered with the purpose to put some earthly person in charge and empowered to control the others. It’s said this place was established by St. Martin himself respectful of the ascetic hermit life as a church together not an earthly kingdom. May there continue to be this distinction I value.

         Brother August surmised that Benedict never understood the value of hermitage when he made his rule. So I sought out available reading from the books here as I await my task assignment. I learn that Saint Benedict was himself among the desert fathers of an earlier time. [Footnote] Knowing that of him gives me a better appreciation for The Rule. He must have known personally of the temptations of the lone ascetics for wandering from purpose. It must have been from his own self-knowledge he made his criticism; then he surely was overwhelmed as a bishop seeing all of the chaos of transforming a bevy of young boys into monks. So this Rule suited a need.

Footnote– St. Benedict spent three years as a hermit living in a cave. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benedict_of_Nursia retrieved, 6-2-21.

(Continued Tuesday August 10, 2021)

Post #23.2, Wednesday, August 4, 2021

Historical setting: 584 C.E. Ligugè

         Brother August and I are here where the old, earthly bones of the monks are buried. This sculptor’s image of a soaring bird incised on the stone marks this heap of earth for Brother Joel in the most fitting way. “As it is on earth it is in Heaven,” was a favorite phrase of Brother Joel’s.

         “I will let the abbot know you are our guest with us today.” August leaves me here in this bone garden considering the immortal natures of us all.

         Dear God, thank you for these brushes with life we are granted between our earthly births and deaths. Amen.

         The abbot here is an ancient man. He seems more kindly now, and doesn’t remember me at all. But he is the same one who, so many years ago, sent me fleeing into the dark of night because my son came for me with the cart and donkey that were known to collect the dead of plague. He feared that all my coming and going as a messenger had given me the plague and now this gravedigger had come to take me. So the last time I saw this abbot he was raging with the fear of death, chasing me off and burning down my cell behind me.

         “So glad to meet you Father. Brother Nic was a dear friend of our family, and I have come to visit his grave. But I have another matter I ask you to consider. Nic was teaching a child to read and write with a particular ancient book of herbs and remedies we’ve had in our family. That child was hoping to have some descriptions from this book copied onto a trimmed end of parchment.”

         “Oh, that isn’t done here. Scribes are rare in these times, and our commitment here is to the gospel.”

         “Have you inks and edges of parchment? I myself, am an able scribe and I will do the work of it.”

         He has to consider this long and hard before he can answer.

         “Brother Nic came and made his poverty here. He endowed us well, and perhaps his lessons for this child will one day yield another  worthy scribe; so I shall allow you to stay with us as long as you are obedient to the rule of this abbey.”

         “I am familiar with the rule.”

         “Here we do not adhere to The Rule of St. Benedict.” So you may only think you know.”

(Continues Tomorrow)

Post #23.1, Tuesday, August 3, 2021

Historical setting: 584 C.E. Ligugè

         Brother Joel is with us in soaring spirit, though maybe never really walked on earth at all. He is surely still present with Brother August and I in his ancient strand of wisdom.

         I affirm, “Yes, a suit of armor called ‘pride’ would impede love for others, and if it is forged from our personal fears and self-loathing it can obscure love for self. Jesus’ command to love makes love of self the pre-requisite to love of neighbor.”

         August wonders at Brother Joel’s nuance.  “But isn’t ‘love of self’ exactly what pride is?”

         “What did Joel say? Did you ask him?”

         “When Brother Joel pointed out that my iron suit of protection may be the flaw that separates me from love for my siblings I felt the pain of truth pierce that armor. First I wanted to argue then to hold back my tears from Brother Joel who knew my heart too well. Then he said, ‘God knows you and loves you right through your armor. God made you, and you are God’s.’ So my tears flowed freely and my armor of pride rusted away.        

         “Brother Joel stripped me naked of pride right while we were still in Bordeaux awaiting Nic’s return with the cart. At first I felt vulnerable, but then my prayers echoed around in the hollow with the answer in the old man’s voice and God’s love for me became adequate love to carry me through the moment between loosing my pride and allowing the kind of humility that lets me love of others. It’s nothing like the humility that others might see on me outwardly. An external, observable, pretend display of humility is all that is asked in The Rule. But stripping the safety of outward pride is raw. I thank God for the wisdom of Brother Joel, and that I was granted time to remove the war-irons before we left Bordeaux. I made amends with my brothers then.”

         Dear God, thank you for letting me find Brother August anew, repentant as he is, without that rub that has even kept me from seeing him in the way you see him. Amen.

         So here I find my own pride shields me from August’s assumption that I am my own son, and he thinks it was Nic who taught me to read. Why does this bother me? Am I the sort that believes a son is lower than a father? Or don’t I trust Nic to be my teacher?

(Continues Tomorrow)

Post #22.13, Thursday, July 29, 2021

Historical setting: 584 C.E. Ligugè

         Brother August explains, “Brother Joel gave so much guidance to take me through a sin which to others might have been considered personal pride. I’d so easily learned the spiritual moments of true prayer as art in carving stone. But Brother Joel noticed my tethers of pride were to be found, not in the sales, but in the presentation I made of my art to others whom I wished to have in my circle of love.”

         “And pride is sin?” I ask, inviting a nuance I’ve considered for centuries.

         “Of course. Everyone knows it is sin. Paul said so. And Rule #57 of Benedict saw the pride in the pricing of the art because throughout The Rule the measure is always based on how something is observed by the earthly witness who would be the abbot or the bishop. So a monetary price on something in a symbolic way defines worth, but The Rule doesn’t really address the bond between Creator God and creative artist. And placing a value in coin was nothing about my issue with pride.”

         I affirm, “I’ve read enough of The Rule to notice it has so much more to say about the opinions, judgments and punishments of earthly observers than it has to say about the ever-present love of God. So I would assume the rule would speak only in observable symbols of pride, such as wealth, rather than a deep in the heart kind of pride or humility.”

         August affirms, “Yes, I wanted to use my art to gain the appreciation by others, though not in the form of money. In fact, my need for this affirmation from others was beyond even my human-to-God prayer. It was something that stroked and tantalized my sense of pride, as much as any kind of lust could do. And Brother Joel pointed out, the problem with nurturing personal pride isn’t the money part or the lusty part; it is, he said, that my pride fitted over me like a coat of armor, shinning my whole form into something others notice, but also keeping me from actually connecting with others in the way of God’s love. Brother Joel noticed it was my pride that separated me from my earthly brothers. I so much wanted them to be amazed by my art, not because I believed myself superior in a prideful way, but because my strong armor of pride was protecting me from humiliation by them. Pride and humility are both the sides of the same coin.”

(Continues Tuesday, August 3)