Post #15.9, Thursday, December 17, 2020

Historical setting: 6th Century C.E. Somewhere in the Pyrenees

         We stopped at a place with houses hoping to fill our grain sack, but we have been escorted into a most unusual world. In this place the people carve Roman pagan gods and goddesses from stone to be sold at a summer marketplace.

         Nic takes notice of a stone carving of a popular Gallo-Roman fertility goddess. She is a design of rounded, smoothed and meticulously polished spheres of stone. Her abundant thighs spread to hold a bowl of grain in her lap. Unfortunately for us who are seeking grain, it isn’t real grain; it is just a likeness of grain carved of stone. Her long tunic drapes across her knees to her ankles. The broadness of her arms and the fat of her chin and cheeks speak of plenty and of course, it can’t go unnoticed that her breasts are abundant.

         Just imagine the prayers that some lean and longing farmer may bring with his sacrifice to her amid a drought, bowing deep before her knees to speak his wish or at least a hope for a better harvest to come.

         Antton notices Nic’s interest. “If you would like to order such a carving it can be hewn in dimensions to fit your need, perhaps as a personal charm to carry with you in your travels.”

         Nic answers with his rural simplicity. “No need. It’s just that I’ve never seen this goddess so ample, and particularly in a time when I am the one who is hungry for the grain in her dish.” 

         “I understand. And such a carving would hardly be appropriate for a man on horseback. This one was made on order for a particular client — a man of great wealth who maintains a private temple in a distant villa. But she will just have to sit here until the weather is better for travel.”

         “Of course.”

         “If you order a goddess for your own wishes her bowl of plenty can contain whatever may be the benefits of fertility you long after: grain, fruits, whatever — and we can even render her tunic folded back in any style you wish.”

         “No, no. Any fuller revelations of this goddess would surely be disturbing to me. And of course we have no use for statuary. Laz and I are of the Christian conviction so we don’t make wishes on stone.”        

(Continues Tuesday, December 22)

Post #15.8, Wednesday, December 16, 2020

Historical setting: 6th Century C.E. Somewhere in the Pyrenees

         Our immediate search to replenish our supplies and our hope for hospitality led us on a path and into a community of round thatched houses in the style of the grass houses we see often in these mountain places. On hearing our horses, a man steps out of the larger central house.

         “Good morning Brother Stranger” Nic begins, “We are travelers on our way to Gaul, but just now we are looking to make a trade of two little winter furs for a sack of grain. Our supplies have run low.”

         “You should have thought of that when you started your journey.”

         “Of course. But we aren’t beggars. We come with a trade in furs or if you are one who values the likeness of the Emperor we can trade with coin.”

         “Coin, you say?”

         “Yes. We can trade in coin if you have use for coin.”
          “We do use coin. But we don’t trade in grain. We buy our grain, and we only buy for our own need.”

         “What is it that our coin may buy then?”

          “Oh, you are buyers.  My name is Antton, and in these winter months my family and our artisans create great works to sell in the summer markets. Sometimes we also take orders. So you can get anything you may wish for. Let me show you what we have!”

         We tie the horses, and follow the man walking passed a heavy-wheeled ox-cart parked now. It seems ready and waiting to use on this roadway paved in broken stone. It seems to be for larger loads than a sheep or two bound for a near-by summer farm market. We cross over a footbridge spanning a creek passed a row of strange, yet intentionally carved rocks – demons and devils — winged goddesses of Roman origin — legendary creatures of every ilk. The path takes us to a circular thatched portico surrounding an enclosure with benches and a central warming fire. All around us are the kinds of things that can turn a cave or portico space into a pagan temple with an altar honoring any random stone god or goddess who may be receiving sacrifices in exchange for wishes. In fact here is the complete soul-source of Roman temples still in the making.

         Nic seems awed by a very large statue of a seated woman flanked by two horses.

(Continues tomorrow)

Post #15.7, Tuesday, December 15, 2020

Historical setting: 6th Century C.E. Somewhere in the Pyrenees

         Our rain-soaked cloaks are nearly dry this morning, but now our tarp is ripped and muddied, flattened into the soft earth with the hooves of many sheep trampling across it. And we seem to have made another shepherd angry with our insensitive intrusion unto his traditional pathway for sheep.

         The shepherd passes by us muttering curses to pagan Roman gods. At least we know he speaks the vernacular. We’d hoped to find a person somewhere soon to make us trades and give us a night of shelter but we don’t seem to make friends easily in this way we’ve found. It’s as though all we are doing is plundering the middles of murmurs of sheep.

         “So Laz,” Nic starts with his teasing tone, “You were going to tell me all about the time when you and Jesus ventured off to meet some shepherds.”

         “We were kids.”

         “Sure, but I’d have thought with all your ancient wisdom and experience around sheep you could offer us some useful guidance for avoiding these mistakes.”

         “Well, really, we didn’t learn much back then about shepherding. We were of an age when simply seeing sheep and shepherds empowered us with attitudes of already knowing everything.”

         Now we heap our muddy things onto the horses and ride back over the same sheep trail we followed yesterday through this pass. Our hopes are of finding a source of human hospitality or at least a trade of useful grain for our two tiny furs. The ermine might have enough worth to feed us for a few days. I don’t suppose the rabbit skin to be of much value.

         This path will probably take us to the daytime pastures for these sheep. We are learning a few things of the patterns here, or at least we thought we were. We’ve caught up with the sheep and the shepherd now as they ford the creek we were following onto a path we hadn’t noticed when we came this way in the rain yesterday on the other side of the river. This path forks into a gated enclosure for the sheep to the left, and the right fork heads into a larger yard with several round thatched houses and a couple of open-sided shelters for the beasts. That seems it would be a better to take that path since we have already riled that shepherd.

(Continues tomorrow)

Post #15.6, Thursday, December 10, 2020

Historical setting: 6th Century C.E. Somewhere in the Pyrenees

         Mostly it’s rain, wind-driven rain, ice fringed rain, blinding, sleety rain always in our faces affirming we have chosen the northerly way. Ah, yes! We aren’t lost. Thank you God.

         We are watching for a sheltered lee to be a stopping place, but now The Rose has found a footing that seems was traveled before. The muddy slog is pocked with the tracks of a flock of sheep moving in this same direction. This trail takes us through a narrow pass with the creek on the west side of us, narrowing in the space between two vertical walls of stone into a faster flow, a swift current that leaps the rocks then froths with foam into rapids and falls.  This path was a very good find. For quite some time we follow it around the hefty base of a vertical rock. The rain is subsiding when we reach the spread of grasses and sky beyond the pass. We make our camp. Our outer wools need to be wrung out before we spread them over the winter-bare bushes to dry. And it doesn’t take a very large fire to melt our shivers and boil up a pot of the last of our gruel with the beets and parsnips added.

         Now, the dark, backsides of the clouds ravel apart exposing the naked depth of blue that is a peaceful afternoon sky. It was there all the time behind the storm. And right in the midst of our glimpse of late day sky is a white pearl moon, come early for night, a full round of brightness and quietude just waiting to dazzle the dark for these travelers drifting into peaceful rest.

         “Wake Lazarus! There are flocks of sheep coming down on us!  We have to move.”

          The morning light is a narrow glow of crimson under the clouds. Our fire is cold, but all these sheep aren’t at all shy about trampling our tarp, and they would have put their many hoofs onto our fleeces and blankets as well, had we not grabbed up these few things before them.  They come through our camp, each with curious glares, wondering what these human kinds are doing in the middle of their daily passage. At the last of this great march through our camp is another angry shepherd. He gives us an irritated glance as though we had sang a familiar psalm with a new tune. We seem always to be the intruders in some tradition that belongs here that we hadn’t noticed.  Didn’t we even think in the fog of yesterday’s rain this is a sheep’s path? 

(Continues Tuesday, December 15)

Post #15.5, Wednesday, December 9, 2020

Historical setting: 6th Century C.E. Somewhere in the Pyrenees

         Nic explains his amazing good fortune. “I went across the river to the snowy side of the valley. I was reaching for a stick for the fire which I had seen from the other side, when I caught a glimpse of something on the move. It was clearly a rabbit, a rabbit sliding on its side moving in jolts and jots, then still, not even perking ears toward me, but leaving a trail of red on the snow. I went closer to it, and still I wasn’t noticed. Then I realized this large and meaty rabbit is being dragged by its small captor — a weasel. It was hard to notice the weasel against the snow, nearly all in its winter white. The ermine was so much smaller than its prey it took all of its might and power to haul the large rabbit toward the opening of its den. So intent it was on keeping such a big prize for itself that it never even noticed a man the size of a tree watching it all happen. That weasel completely overlooked this giant human casting a monster’s shadow so I drew my sword. I collected that little white ermine fur with hardly a blade mark at the neck.”

         “I guess, Brother Laz, there is a lesson from the weasel for us all to heed. Let’s not become so wrapped in our riches we forget to take notice of the world around us.

           “So likewise, I was reminded that God’s priorities are not material wealth when I heard the farmer say that all my Roman coins, my lifelong work, is meaningless to those who don’t also trade in coin. I mean, think of it. Material wealth is null if the market has no imagination for it.”

         Dear God thank you for a wide view. Though our prayer aloud was “Thank you God, for this food that is enough for both of us this night. Amen.”

         Yes, the rabbit is plenty for us. And I have yet to eat a weasel. Hopefully I never will try that.

         It was a good night’s rest, and this new day comes with the north wind surging through our valley. We ready the horses and pack up to start headlong into the winter’s wind.

(Continues tomorrow)

Post #15.4, Tuesday, December 8, 2020

Historical setting: 6th Century C.E. Somewhere in the Pyrenees

         The flat place we find for this night is barren of trees or bushes, but higher than the river should the river be raging with a new storm before morning. It’s on the leeward side of the valley in the shadow, but also protected from the wind. We set the horses to graze in the grasses by the river and go in search of fuel for our fire. I scour back to the south for wood and brush I noticed when we passed along the way, and Nic goes north.

         I loosen a winter-dry tangle of gnarly wood from its root and prepare it for a long drag back to our camp. This will blaze long into the night, with warmth for our sleep and a signal to night prowlers that this camp is guarded.  But no sooner am I within sight of our tarp than I see there a cooking fire, already blazing with a rabbit on a spit.  How could Nic have hunted and skinned a rabbit, found kindling and started the fire all in the time it took me to capture one dead bush?

         “How are you so industrious my friend?” I call to him.  “I have only a twist of fuel, and yet here you have set before us a whole feast.”

         “Better yet, Brother Lazarus, I have two furs for trade. We should say a mighty blessing with our thanksgivings to God for food and warmth and days to come.”

         “Amen. But how did you…”

         “I have a sword my friend. Take a look. This skin of the winter weasel is a perfect unblemished fur for trade and the rabbit – a few tears in the neck of its fur — but its still a fine thing for trade.”

         “How did you hunt both a rabbit and an ermine in that short time?”

         “I should just let you marvel over my gift. Let’s add that wood to this flame so that we can eat sooner.”

         So we break up my find of wood, and now the fire is blazing so high  we have to raise the spit so our rabbit won’t be ash before it is meat.

(Continues tomorrow)

Post #15.3, Thursday, December 3, 2020

Historical setting: 6th Century C.E. Somewhere in the Pyrenees

         Nic knows my silent prayers are anxious prayers. He assures us both that all the shepherds and all the sheep have only happiness before them by the grace of God. And he mentions also, that our donkey will be in the care of the big white dog and the donkey will serve even these neighbors trotting the wares to market for all the rest of his donkey days. It is happy endings all around. But we both also know the adage of the sour grapes.

         We ask this neighbor for his knowledge of the trail before us. Will our mountain crossing soon bring us to Gaul? Are there villages or farms ahead of us? What is the best route for our winter travel?

         The farmer’s mate and his eldest daughter come near with an abundance of garden roots in a bag for carrying — a gift for our journey. We’re grateful. Nic takes out coins to pay them but the father says they have no use for Roman coins; they only trade in goods. So even amid Nic’s riches we must receive this as a gift.

         “Thank you.”

         “You’re welcome to share in our plenty. But until you reach the Frankish Roman villages of Gaul you will have to trade in goods, not coin. Furs are valued in this season so should you happen upon a fox with a worthy pelt to be traded take it with your blade carefully, not to damage the fur.

         “Now the highest of the mountains are behind you with the cliffs and high edges.”

         We hear that to be good news. With horses we’ve had to seek longer winding paths around such obstacles.

         The farmer continues, “But these seemingly more gentle slopes are also high hills and they will seem to stretch forever to the north, deep into Gaul. This time of the year some of the shepherds with flocks that graze the high pastures in the summer are already at their houses in the valleys and lower reaches so I would suggest if you’re looking for the traveled route where people are, follow the middle or lower paths. The weather may even favor a journey following the river beds.”

         “Thank you, friend. This is helpful.”

         The horses seem ready to move on now, out of the sheep pastures and on to grasses that are not so sheep-gnawed and more for a horse’s liking. Now as we continue on our way our only day’s destination is a leeward flat place for our tarp and fleeces. But of course, all sorts of hopes and mysteries still may be wintering ahead.

(Continues Tuesday, December 8)

Post #15.2, Wednesday, December 2, 2020

Historical setting: 6th Century C.E. Somewhere in the Pyrenees

         This elder farmer speculates, “I suppose that boy is always in danger of hurt. His own father bittered and turned. That father turned a pain in his tooth to rage, then over and again douses his rage in sweet honey nectar only to wake and rage again.”

         “You seem to know him well.”

         “We were friends, then we were neighbors, now we are strangers living near one another. The boy, Boda, is nearly the same in age as my eldest, Gret. When the boy’s mother was living with them up there our children were always together. We fathers talked of betrothing them – Boda and Gret. But then Boda’s father turned to fits of rage. The wife’s father came and took her away, but the boy was left with that angry man and no mother to make it a worthy nest of it. Sometimes we creep into their pantry cache and refill the bag of gruel so the boy could find food where his father only kept mead. And sometimes Gret says she looks to the hill that divides us and catches a glimpse of Boda watching from behind the rocks. A hill never makes a good hiding place. We fear for the boy, but when we go calling the father accuses me of using the betrothal as a ploy to steal away his flocks. So Boda and Gret are barred from seeing one another.”

         “Well, we’ve come with news of the father.” Nic begins. And so we tell this man what we know of the father’s death and the son’s angry grief and desperate loneliness.

         “What will Boda do now, all alone up there?” This farmer, father to daughters and owner of goats seems to be a wellspring of hurt-binding, healing compassion.

         Thank you God, for stringing us humankinds together like beads on a jeweled chain, naming the next near one – a stranger first, then a neighbor then an essential friend. Amen. We are always in some state of belonging to one another.

          Now Nic and I don’t need to return to the shepherd to quill our consciences. We are assured now and can continue our journey without abandoning another’s need. But we know rivers of rage when dried in one season return to follow the same beds in another.

         Dear God, please intrude in these cycles of rage, so that Boda and Gret and all these people and sheep and goats and even me and Nic too may choose to see that fear and its senseless anger really have no power. Thank you for shining ever on us the surprises of creative grace. Amen.

(Continues tomorrow)

Post #15.1, Tuesday, December 1, 2020

Historical setting: 6th Century C.E. Somewhere in the Pyrenees

         We’re not hiding on this hill even though the shepherd told us it was a good hill for hiding. We are clearly in view from below — two men on horseback. We must be a strange sight for these two shepherds looking up at us, no doubt these are two of the daughters of this neighbor. Nic waves a peaceful greeting to break their gawking stares. One of the girls runs back toward the house either to summons help or hospitality. The other girl, a long slender stalk of a young woman, is just starring up at us offering no gesture of greeting or any sign at all. On our horses with careful steps, we ride down the hill toward her.

         “Greetings.” Nic says.        

         “My sister has gone for our parents.”

         “No need to fear us we are just passing by here. But it would be helpful for us to speak to your mother or your father regarding your neighbor.”

         “Boda?” She questions. The shepherd has a name.  We wait a few minutes in awkward silence until the younger shepherd returns with her father.

         “They said they’re travelers passing by, but that they have word of Boda, Father.”

         “So you have seen our neighbors?”

         “Indeed, we have news.”  The father sends the girls back to their task and we follow him, leading our horses. He takes us outside the gate from the pasture so that he alone may be the one to hear whatever news we bring. Now we are in sight of the house and we can see it is a busy farmyard. And yes there are several more daughters here and goats too. The wind brings a whiff of wood smoke from their hearth and the scent of freshly turned goat cheese ripening, souring to flavor. And even the distant silhouette of the woman of the house affirms every rumor we’ve heard of this neighbor. The abundance of daughters continues even into the days ahead.

         “So what news have you heard from our neighbor?”

         “There is a shepherd up there with eighty-seven sheep and a big white dog.” And Nic adds, “And now that young man rides on our donkey because his ankle was recently injured and he can’t walk very well.”

         (Continued Tomorrow)

Post #14.12, Thursday, November 26, 2020

Historical setting: Along the ridges of the Pyrenees, 6th Century

         Nic and I finally make a plan not to make any plan until we see if this neighbor has compassion for this shepherd. Maybe our consciences will bind us here to care for him; or we might find we can continue our journey knowing that the shepherd and all his sheep will be looked after by a caring neighbor. Surely we can’t avoid winter anymore. It is coming now with every breath of wind colder than the last. The black tinge of the hoarey frosts marks the lost growing season, now turned to the bleak and timeless season for waiting.

         We leave the donkey and a few supplies that the shepherd will need here in the upper pasture shelter and we pack our remaining supplies and fleeces behind us on our horses as we head north. The young shepherd barely acknowledges our departure. He doesn’t even ask where we are going or even if we will return.

         “Nic, did your old tribal priest tell you of the ancient Hebrew adage that ‘the father has eaten sour grapes, and the son’s teeth are set on edge’?”

         “I’ve heard that. For all that poor fellow’s fighting words he must have been incapable of standing up to his father’s senseless beatings. No wonder he wanted the leathers from my saddle bindings to make himself a whip.”

         “That’s the same thought I had. He wept with his longing for the beatings he will miss.  In all his grief and sorrow he yearns for thrashings because, he said, he would know his father ‘noticed him.’

         “I imagine only the love of God can loosen this bondage of hurt and lead him beyond the cycle it is.”

         “How will he ever notice God’s love? He hasn’t even a notion of a parent’s love.”

         Dear God, Are there any simple miracles of love waiting to be scattered down on earth from heaven?  Please let the snows of grace fall on this grieving shepherd and his sheep. Amen.

         This hilltop I was told is within sight of the neighbors, and here we find the longest view. Directly below us is a small pasture area, with a flock of about twenty sheep being tended by two who are surely these neighbor’s daughters.  Not much further to the north is that spiral of hearth-smoke rising from behind a knoll, undoubtedly the home-fires of these neighbors.

(Beyond that… continues Tuesday, December 1)