Post #14.2, Wednesday, November 4, 2020

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

         This pasture is not just a random field; it’s the designated place the shepherd comes each night with these same sheep. Here, at the far end of the night pasture is a lean-to for shelter and he invites us under this thatch with room enough even for our animals to be safe from the storm; having them in here brings more warmth. The sheep cluster themselves against the wall of rock forming one barrier of this enclosure. Apparently the big white dog chooses to nestle in with the sheep rather than risk finding warmth with the man who has the rod.  The shepherd explains the dog prefers the company of the sheep and the dog will stay awake all night and watch so even if the shepherd himself should fall asleep, the dog will bark if we were to steal a sheep and run off with it. In fact, we learn the dog will bark regardless.

         “Really, my friend, we will not steal a sheep.”

         We unpack our fleeces and prepare to be warm for this night’s rest. Our supplies are plenty so we easily share some food with this fellow. The wind with the storm is coming at us with the full force of the spawning of winter from the north and the west.  Now, our whimsy to be helpful to the shepherd is looking like more of a benefit for us. Where would we have found a shelter had we not stopped to help with the sheep? Ahead of us would likely only be more peaks and valleys and open spaces for the wind to press sleet onto our faces.

           “We are just grateful to have the warmth of this shelter.” I try to console this fellow who is obviously uncomfortable both in imagining our potential to steal a sheep, and from the pain in his damaged foot. Nic takes compassion.

         “May I see what’s wrong with your foot?” Nic offers.

Nic moves over to the man, and moves the young man’s cloak back from his ankle to reveal his ankle is badly swollen. “It seems a recent injury. How did this happen?”

         “It’s not what you think! I wasn’t running! I was fighting!”

         Nic is simply blunt though his intention was not to challenge him, “It looks more like a bad twist of the ankle and not so much a bruise from a beating.”

(Come again tomorrow)

Post #14.1, Tuesday, November 3, 2020

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

So I asked a simple question, “What is courage?”

         Nic apologizes for my apparent goading argument. “My friend here, Lazarus, is a Christian pacifist so he is probably going to tell us meaningless things about courage.”

         The young shepherd backs away from me. He asks, “A Christian, what?”

         “He’s a pacifist. He doesn’t love the fight. In fact he doesn’t even fight at all.”

         Again, the shepherd takes a long gander at me — a slow gaze from my feet to the top of my head, and down again before he speaks, “So, you are very fast at running.”

         This fellow doesn’t seem to jest. And now Nic feels the explanation of pacifism has exposed my vulnerability so he places his hand on the hilt of his sword.

         “I neither run nor fight, I have a horse.” It’s established now; I’m defenseless and my pride is of no consequence either. It’s a good time to change the subject back to the sheep issue. This shepherd is exhausted after his attempt to limp up this hill; and now the sheep are off in all directions. Gathering them back will be a huge task for a man with a lame foot.

         “May we help you gather your sheep? After-all, it was our horses that caused them to scatter.”

         He is suspicious of us and worries if we help and he doesn’t pay us we will demand a sheep as our pay. “If you take a sheep my father will come for you.”

         “Let us just be helpful because you seem to need our help.”  Nic added, “We don’t need to be paid. Really we are simply offering to help.”

         The task here is guiding the sheep to a night pasture on the east side of the ridge. We aren’t shepherds and the sheep surely have no obligation to encourage our attempt; so the best we can do is bring the sheep up passed the ridge in small clumps of two or three at a time. It is slow work and the horses have no sense for it either so we put our beasts to pasture and do our so-called shepherding on foot.

         This seems to take a very long time and the longer night of winter is already upon us. The glinting light of November sun is lost under a storm cloud from Gaul. We will need to find shelter, and now the shepherd considers a kindness for us.

(Continued Tomorrow)

Post #13.13, Thursday, October 29, 2020

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

         The shepherd nears this ridge as the scattered sheep have forgotten their hurry away from mayhem and are distracted by grazing. The shepherd is a ragged young man in fleece, hobbling with a clumsily wrapped foot.  He seems reluctant to accept our offer to help him gather his sheep back, and at the same time seems as awed by our horses as was his dog. He just stares intently at the leather braids that tether Nic’s saddle to The Rose.

         “I need those leathers.” He finally speaks. These few words are barely Roman. He has mastered the Latin “I need” but mostly he uses gestures.

         “What do you mean?” Nic asks.

         Pointing again to the leathers Nic has tied onto the horse – “I need those.”

         “They keep the saddle on my horse so I can’t lend them to you just now.  But we have a twist of hemp rope; perhaps you can use a rope?”

          “Leather thongs would be better than a rod for training my dog. [note] Before I can strike with the rod and he runs off. If I had a whip of leathers I could…” he gestures rolling a whip in his hand. “I could whip him into finer courage.” He speaks that word clearly in the Roman vernacular, ”Courage.”

         “Courage?” I have to ask. “How can a whipping bring courage?”

         “It’s how I got my courage. Whenever my father sees me cowering or trying to run he gives me a good lashing. Now when I think I’m afraid I tighten my jaw and fight back. Before I got trained to courage I was a fast runner but a very bad fighter.”

         “And now,” I wonder looking at his broken body, “you are a good fighter?”

         “Better at fighting than running.”

          “I don’t think my friend Laz gets it.” Nic offers.  “I never knew my father, but I’ll bet he would’ve also been teaching the courage that comes with blades and fangs and lashes of leather.”

         The pasture grasses lean over in the new easterly breeze with a calm as a storm gathers in the north. The horses have forgotten their terror of a dog, and the dog is soft at the side of the donkey. The donkey isn’t braying just now. And the three human beings make a circle of conversation. So in the calm of the moment I ask, “What is courage?”

(The story continues Tuesday, November 3)

[Note (Thank you, Sandy for sharing your information on training a Great Pyrenees.)] “A Great Pyrenees would probably not show fear except by barking even more fiercely, though it might back away somewhat.  He would not give up his dignity and control (in his mind)… The shepherd needs to know that you cannot train a Great Pyrenees to do much except for food and praise.  They are very independent and focused on the needs of the herd.  The dog might run away if the shepherd uses leather straps to try to train him, as this would belie all the good in their relationship.  I have had enough foster dogs that were mistreated earlier in their lives – it does permanent damage.  They do not forget and never trust humans again.” 

Post #13.12, Wednesday, October 28, 2020

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

         “It’s no surprise then, when Jesus was born the same year as I, our families were already close and Jesus and I were together whenever his family was in Jerusalem. Even when Joseph wasn’t working nearby they still made that journey at least once a year because they too were devout Jews.”

         “So,” Nic adds, “You are telling me Jesus was always there from the beginning and forever, as far as you’re concerned?”

         “I guess so. If Jesus the human person is a true but earthly metaphor for that which the hair-splits of the Orthodox Trinitarians call the ‘Christ,’ then I would say, yes. He was with the world before I was born so I can’t say otherwise.

         Our peaceful ride across the ridges of the Pyrenees allowed me this meander far from the story I started to tell of seeing flocks of sheep moving in patterns like murmurs of birds in the skies or schools of fish in the sea.

         “So Nic, I was going to tell you about the time when Jesus and I went out and found the shepherds in hills outside of Bethlehem.”

         Just now, our ride is taking us very near a flock of sheep that are on the move up the hillside toward us on this ridge. The shepherd seems a distance off.

         Oh!  Right from the midst of the sheep a large white dog[Blogger’s note] rises up barking furiously at our horses!  The Rose rears up! Nic seems a skilled horseman as he stays in the saddle like a statue of a Roman Emperor rearing on a pedestal. Umber whinnies and shies away but at least all fours stay on the ground. The commotion gets the donkey’s sweet song of terror started, and the dog turns his ferocious clamor toward the donkey. All the noise and plunder send the sheep asunder back down the hillside.  I slide down with the reign in my left, and my right hand reaching out hoping to calm the dog, or get bitten, whatever would be the nature of this critter. Under all his bark and fluff the dog turns his incessant barks from stranger warning into a friendly fugue of loud voiced greetings for the donkey.

         With the sheep scattering, the dog barking pointlessly, the horses abating, the donkey confused, only the men are left to their shrieks and hollers.

         The shepherd is still a long way off hobbling toward us waving his rod over his head and shouting curses in a language neither of us knows, but surely it is curses.

(Continues tomorrow)

[Blogger’s note] This blogger’s dog-life with collies has never included Great Pyrenees a herd guarding breed so I sought help for dog training possibilities from a cousin and friend in Texas who works with SPIN Rescue.org. Look for her tips on training these magnificent dogs in the notes used with tomorrow’s blog.  

Post #13.11, Tuesday, October 27, 2020

Historical setting: Remembering the First Century, Jerusalem

         Nic is probably getting impatient with my explanation of First Century Temple politics. But in order to hear a whole story it’s important to start where the story starts. So my friendship with Jesus has to begin with my father and with his friendship with Joseph. Besides, all we have to do right now is ride across these mountains and yammer our stories away.

         “As I was saying, my father had an instinct for taking notice of the skills of a good teacher. He saw Joseph at work and recognized this man was gifted, not only in the craft of construction, but also with special skills for guiding his apprentices. Joseph brought empathy when working with others, not simply edicts of righteousness for the less-skilled workers assigned to help him. In fact it was Joseph who made Jesus into such an excellent …”

         “…teacher?” Nic asks.

         “…carpenter.” I answer.

         “In those days King Herod planned major renovations to the Temple in Jerusalem. Joseph came down from Nazareth hoping to work on the project, but like everything else the Sadducees touched, work on the Temple was assigned according to politics. The Sadducees claimed that because the Holy of Holy’s could only be approached by Priests and Levites no other artisans were allowed to work on the Temple.  Thus Joseph, a Pharisee, wasn’t ‘qualified’ to do the work – but — he could be a teacher of the necessary skill.

         “My father really enjoyed making jest of the inability of priests and Levites to build anything, much less the Temple. His chatter was one snide bit of political sarcasm after another. He would say things like – ‘look at these mountain peaks? According to the rod and plumb line of the Temple priests these peaks are declared level!’ Of course truth is elsewhere. Any guests or family gathered at our table would be expected to share their political agreement in a good guffaw. Maybe a Pharisee doesn’t meet the priestly requirements for reconstructing the Holy of Holy’s but a Pharisee can be a fine teacher.  So there was Joseph chosen to teach construction to the fumbling and useless Sadducees.

         “Though Joseph had an uncle not far from us in Bethlehem that elder lived in a tiny room, sparse even for one man. So while the work was being done Joseph was a welcome guest at our villa. That was how my father and Joseph became good friends.”

(Continued tomorrow)

Post #13.10, Thursday, October 22, 2020

Historical setting: Remembering the First Century, Jerusalem

         Nic is still listening to my ancient family story. And I am still telling it.

         “While my father, known as Simon, worked in the marketplace at the Temple porticos he contracted an illness, probably a pox, spreading among the foreign merchants in those days. He called that ‘God’s blessing,’ also, if you know what I mean.

         “He followed the Law and he went away from family to stay outside the walls of the city to await the end of the illness either by healing or by death. He didn’t die. He became strong and well but marked with pox.

         “As a wealthy Pharisee he always felt he was in a power struggle with the Sadducees who controlled the Temple. He railed against them all his years because he believed they only followed the politically expedient laws of Torah not the proper details of the Law. He believed the Sadducees divided their loyalty to God with obedience to the little Roman assigned ‘King of the Jews’ – Herod. 

         “So when he recovered from his illness he went to show himself to the priests at the Temple as the law requires for cleansing after healing. (The priests were of course, Sadducees.) But the Chief Priest labeled his scars ‘leprosy’ and my father was permanently evicted from the Temple.

         My father was shrewd. So he challenged the expectations of the sentence he was given.  Instead of endlessly begging outside the gates of the city as was the usual plight of lepers, he simply moved my mother and sister into a beautiful villa, an easy walk from Jerusalem, into the town of Bethany. He was in a good place to receive merchants and trades from all the four corners of the winds. So in a way he turned his difficult circumstance into a true blessing. He simply continued to follow the ancient Law of our people as though he were among the scattered as he felt he was. He practiced his faith and nurtured us, his children in wisdom and strength and love for God above all else.”

         Nic interrupts my reminiscence, “So, how did he become friends with Joseph and is that how you meet Jesus?”

         “Oh, yes, that’s what you were asking isn’t it. And I was just getting to that part.  My father was one who saw education of his children as a significant and holy responsibility. He valued good teachers in all subject matter.”

         Nic inserts his guess. “And Jesus was a teacher?”

         “No, no, Nic. This all happened before Jesus or I were even born.”

(Continued Tuesday, October 27)

Post #13.9, Wednesday, October 21, 2020

Historical setting: Remembering the First Century, Bethany

         I mentioned the Gospel of Luke used our family as characters in stories, but that author didn’t even know us.

          Nic says, “I did notice there was that part in Luke where your sisters squabbled and Jesus got in the middle of it. And of course one of your sisters, Mary, was a prostitute.”

         “What? That’s not true!  Not even Luke says that!”

         “Okay, Laz, don’t get riled, I was only kidding, sort of. It must have been a different Mary.” 

         “Please Nic, I really want to tell you about my father, because fathers matter to everyone’s life stories.”

         “Except that my father was dead before I was born.” Nic reminds me.

         “… And yet you bore his name and wore his armor, and marched in step with his fellow soldiers for all those years of your adult life.”

         “He marched, I rowed.”

         “Whatever. As I was saying, my father was a Pharisee. He was a Jew who followed the letter of the Law. He became wealthy making his lucrative trade with all sorts of visitors to Jerusalem. Some of these were devout pilgrims, others gentiles visiting Jerusalem because Jerusalem was a hub of business in that day. Every day he was in the porticos of the Temple selling and trading – making his deals. The gift for his success was his ability to respect and listen to all varieties of languages and ethnicities and to know people for who they were, not just for the social stereotypes.”

         Nic wonders, “I always thought Pharisees were aloof and just sort of stayed with their own ultra-righteous kinds.”

         “Some were like that I suppose. For my father though, his constant and mindful obedience to the Law allowed him an assurance of righteousness that couldn’t be shaken or flawed in dealings with pagans and all varieties of gentiles.  In a certain way, his narrow faith allowed him open-mindedness in dealing with so many peoples of foreign lands and so many languages of trade. It was his sharp mind and his ability to know people well that made him so successful. He called his flow of wealth ‘God’s blessing.’  But then, the blessing soured as will blessings measured by material wealth.”

         “What happened?”

(Continued Tomorrow)

Post #13.8, Tuesday, October 20, 2020*

Historical setting: Remembering the First Century

(*Looking for this post on Tuesday? Saving words digitally is clearly not as reliable as was once an ancient clay pot with papyrus scrolls stashed in a cave. Lazarus-Ink will be back on schedule this week.)

         Nic and I have set the conversation between us on my childhood  memories of Jesus.

         “Did he seem mysterious at the time you knew him?” he asked.

“Like, was he encased in a radiant aura, and was his voice distant, like thunder across the valleys?”

         “You’re kidding Nic.”

         “I’m just saying what I’ve heard.”

         “There was nothing weird about him. And at that time, there was nothing weird about me either. We were just like any other normal Jewish kids growing up in ancient Israel.  Can I tell you about our nighttime adventure when we sneaked off to party with the shepherds?”

         “How old were you then?”

         “We were maybe ten or eleven; an age of childhood that seemed to us complete, but apparently, the shepherds thought we were children and they sent us home.”

         “I really want to know about the very first time you met Jesus.” 

         “I don’t think we actually met. He was just always there as long as I can remember. We were both nearly the same age. Our fathers were good friends with one another already at the time we were born.”

         “Do you mean your father was friends with God or with Joseph?”

         “My father was a devout Pharisee so of course he was well-acquainted with God – the Law, the Word, the Creator of heaven and earth, but I was thinking of Jesus’s skin and bones father, Joseph. Of course Joseph was also a Pharisee. It seems now, looking back, it was an unlikely friendship. My family was wealthy and Joseph was more from the laborer’s class.”

         Nic assumes, “So it is as they say, he was poor?”

         “Not really poor, unless we were only seeing from my perch of privilege; I think his family was somewhere in the middle, able to live and also to give, at least while Joseph was living and when Jesus was learning the carpenter’s trade.”

         “So, how did your father and Joseph grow to be friends?”

         “Joseph, was working as an itinerate craftsman traveling often from his home in one of the villages in Galilee. You know, some of this is written in the gospels, so maybe I don’t need to repeat it. But I do want to tell you about my father because I feel our own family was maligned in misunderstanding by the writer of the Gospel of Luke and Acts.”

         “I didn’t even know any of the Gospels but John had anything at all of your family.”

(Continues tomorrow)

Post #13.7, Thursday, October 15, 2020

Historical setting: 563 C.E. Ascending into the Pyrenees

         Cloud shadows on the mountains seem to make the ever-still earth forms of rock rise and fall like the waves on a sea. We thought finding our way through this range would be the simple part going up to the mountain top then down into Gaul, but now we see it is necessary to think always of the risings and settings of sun to keep our direction toward the north. The ridges of this range undulate in angles and tilts of all directions.  We choose the ridges to follow because they are most level and we can also see off in all directions and keep our bearings with fewer ascents and descents to tire us with climbs.

         With all these pastures in every valley it is no wonder we see flocks of sheep – or are those simply flocks of boulders set into the mountains at a distance? We’ve ridden above several valleys of these rock statues, remembrances of sheep, and now we come upon what are surely living flocks. Yes, these are indeed sheep. They are moving across the hillsides in ever-morphing forms like murmurs of starlings in an evening sky. We stop on our horses to take a moment to wonder at these patterns.

         “When I was a kid in my teens my best friend and I would sneak off at dusk to watch these ever forming shapes of moving sheep, and once we followed them so far we discovered the distant shepherds making their night fire.”

         Nic asks, “So Laz, Did you have your forever life then, before Jesus?”

         “There was never a ‘before Jesus’ in my knowing. But before my healing from first death, I was an ordinary kid. ‘Nothing strange about me at all, except, I might mention that this best friend leading me into these dares of childhood was Jesus.”

         “Do you mean Jesus the human person or Jesus the ethereal substance of invisible presence – the Christ?”

         “You jest. You know who I mean Nic. You and I share that same heresy.”

         We come to a creek so we dismount and we lead the horses and the donkey to water and take a bit of a rest before we cross over the icy flow to climb to a higher ridge.

         “I meant to ask an honest question. Was Jesus already holy when you met him?”

         “Of course.  We are all the Holy Creation of God, are we not?”

         “You know what I mean. Did he seem, you know,  ‘different’?”

(Continued Tuesday, October 20)

Post #13.6, Wednesday, October 14, 2020

Historical setting: 563 C.E. Ascending into the Pyrenees

         The fog clears. No words. Awe is a word too small. Dear God, was it your intention that human eyes would be given privilege to see so wide? Have we taken a step too far and now we see all of earth from a holy place? How is it that you can find any one of our human kinds in such a vast lay and yet you even know us each by name?

         Nic offers words, “This flask is a fine infusion of olive oil and Rosemary. We should use it now to rub the beasts.  The horses and the donkey have come this whole climb with us so far.”

         Psalm 8 speaks here in every language, and in the silence too.

         The garden fragrance of the oil seems earthy and soft rubbed onto the warm skins of our animals. And here are the rocks and the ridge of a mountaintop. But, also here is a spread of grasses sloping down both sides of this level ridge like a cloth lain onto a rough-hewn table.  We set the beasts to graze and the donkey’s burden is laid out on the rocks to dry in the sunlight. It is a moment to nap on our fleeces setting our faces toward the silent promenade of cloud forms and fantasies in all their billows across the heavens.

         “Laz, do you suppose the sky is so much bigger when we are on a mountain top just to remind us that even the great mountain we just conquered is but a tiny wrinkle in the fullness of Creation?”

         “Yes, I suppose.”

         “I mean think about it.  The eyes of our animals are set on their noses, casting their gaze at the grasses as they eat.  But our eyes are set on our faces looking out from the earth.  Do you suppose the Creator wants to be sure these human kinds of us see the whole panorama – where we are going — where we have been, and mostly the vastness of it all and maybe even the smallness of us ourselves?”

         “Yes, I suppose.” Thank you God for giving us perspective and not requiring any reality from our self-imagined excessive size of us. Amen.

         Tomorrow we will ride this ridge until another path to the north is before us.  This is a day to rest.

(Continues tomorrow)