Post #7.14, Thursday, April 30, 2020

Historical setting: A dark age in Gaul

Dear God, guide my feet, my heart, my remembering. Thank you for strength and healing. And thank you also for Dr. Neifus, though not understanding, at least he is respectful of my need for this solitude. Thank you for staying near.

         I ponder the glimpses of memory. In flashes I can see the damp logs flinging toward me wielded by desperate men and nearby the pale woman on the bed, never smiling, coveting my relic. Why had I a relic? I find no reason in the jumble of it all to understand why I would have a relic. I know who I am, and I’m not of pagan root that worships remnants of the dead and rotting saints. [Footnote] 

         This dell is young. This stand of willows grows up from a boggy floor of a once deep woods. The ancient forest was surely felled of its beech and ash and oaks to squelch the need for sturdy beams so that the building of city could stretch to new edges beyond the old Roman walls. Such were the earthly dreams of greatness that drove us then. But when was that? I’m trying to remember when city walls turned mossy and pitted. May it come back to me, may it come.

         A yellow flower blooms here by the riverbank. I remember her beautiful golden hair. I remember it perfectly well this moment. We laid together as husband and wife. Is she wondering where I am now? Did I leave her somewhere by the river’s edge? Where was it I was going when I last waited here at this riverside port in Nantes? I have a thought of Iberia.  Perhaps my home is in Iberia and I only returned here to Nantes of Gaul to follow the river Liger to the Civitas Toronorum in order to pray in solitude in the caves of the saints. Why did I leave Iberia? I feel an urgency to go to Hispania. I’m not sure where I belong but when I see it, I think I will remember it.

         Dear God, thank you for the tender veil of green willow leaves today. Help my dimmed memories come to me in portions I can manage. Amen.

(Come back Tuesday, May 5)

[Footnote]

AM Klevnas  Girton College, University of Cambridge submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy.  This academic paper explores an archeological mystery of Europe during the Merovingian Period in which graves of probable respected community members are disturbed within a short time of the burials. One hypothesis he explores is this: “Early Christians featured close physical interactions with the remains of the dead, practices which are almost unrecognizable in today’s Christianity.  Exhumation of remains and translation to a higher status burial place was a key rite in the creation of an early medieval saint.”

Post #7.13, Wednesday, April 29, 2020

Historical setting: A dark age in Gaul, probably 462 C.E.

         I beg the doctor. “Please let me go alone for my prayers.”

         “Lazarus, my boy, you know the dangers of walking alone into the woods.”

         “So you think Nantes has its woods filled with robbers wielding dead tree stalks for clubs, waiting to attack and rob me of this assigned conscription infirmary tunic? Or maybe they are waiting to rob me of these bandages you have provided? What use would I be to robbers now?”

         “So you have a memory of the weapon used against you?”

         Yes, he is right. I did have a glimpse of remembering. They had rotted limbs fallen from trees older than that stand of greenwood in which the robbers hid. The fat woman was on a bed and she wanted my relic. 

         “Doctor, really, I’m safe. I have no treasure or relic.”

         “So you do remember the attack. Tell me what of it you recall now.”

         I can’t tell him about the fat woman and the relic. Surely he would think my brain is fluff then. “I just remember they were swinging heavy, rotted logs. The two men attacking me were hardly fit with strength enough to wield such woods. Surely they weren’t professional robbers. In fact they seemed silly and weak, needy they were of both weapons and strength. It was odd they would go up against my strength when I hadn’t even any riches. Yet they did. I’m sure I had nothing to rob.”

         “If you go alone into the wood, how can I trust you will take care not to climb onto rocks or try to move more quickly than you are able? Perhaps I should keep watch from a distance so you can have your private prayers but with assured safety.”

         “You are an excellent doctor. My healing is remarkable. But you have to admit, I’m quite well enough to take myself for a walk in a gentle wood.”

         “Very well then. I see I can’t stop you.  I will meet you right here before the sun sets.”

         “Thank you Doctor.”

(continues tomorrow)

Post #7.12, Tuesday, April 28,2020

Historical setting: A dark age in Gaul, some say 562 C.E.

“I remember the Roman galley which I can see right now from this place where I sit on the harbor wall. And it is still hanging from the ropes for repairs.  I would guess my healing is coming better than the repairs of rot to the ancient ship’s hull.”

         Dr. Neifus answers, “That would be a good guess. Brother Lazarus, I always figure our Creator God works amazing wonders with things like healing; so we need not worry, even our memories can sometimes heal. Our minds, when cleared of devils and demons, can work for the good of us speaking in dreams and remembrances in the exact and appropriate doses of truth to match our endurance for such truths.  In my days as a battlefield surgeon I saw many soldiers suffering from terrors of battle, sometimes in hidden ways. I’ve noticed that some recollections are better kept hidden in bandages. But in time you may find your memory is closer to reality where others of us live.”

         “So it is your prognosis that I’m not living in reality?”

         “I hear you talking about times in generations long past as though it were your own life. What would you call that?”

         “Doctor, I don’t mean to be unappreciative of your fine care but I need to take some time to untangle my thoughts. Surely my monk’s trim says that I’m one to spend my hours in quiet prayer. Perhaps my memory would find creative renewal in nature. I just wish to spend some time alone now.”

         “Very well, if you don’t want me to watch so closely I will turn my face away and watch the river.”

          “Doctor, I’m asking that I may walk on alone and follow that path that lays next to the river and leads into that dell. I’ll return before nightfall. We can meet right here. I can assure you I will be in a better state of mind.”

         Time alone for prayer is a strangely valuable commodity. I remember well, Jesus begging my little sister to give him some time alone. Even the disciples were sent off in their boat while he wandered the hills. Then when he returned to them he was in a strange and holy state of calm. He seemed to them a ghost, walking above the turmoil of the frothing sea-waters. Why is quietude so hard to find? It seems so abundant in places with no people.

         (Continues tomorrow)

Post #7.11, Thursday, April 23, 2020

Historical setting: 562 C.E. Gaul, but Lazarus is remembering Clovis in 495

“Why do I remember bits of times that make an argument with the kind doctor?  I want to refute these politics that Dr. Neifus doesn’t even think belong in this generation. I defend.

         “That King, Clovis, has no respect for the faith.”

         “Brother Lazarus how can you think the first baptised Christian King of the Franks didn’t respect the Church? He is a saint you know.”

         I should keep these thoughts to myself. I can hardly imagine Clovis a saint. Clovis is always blundering into sacramental things in a most unholy way. Some of us see his antics as heresy; others excuse power plays as signs of greatness. We have to wonder if it is by pagan superstition or by holy miracle that he declared himself Christian in the first place. He claims to have made his raucous style of negotiation directly with Christ.

         — [His prayer] If You grant me victory over these enemies, and if I experience the power people dedicated to Your name claim… then I shall believe in You… — [Footnote 1]

          He assumes God is like any other crowned head and is soon going to pay him écuage to keep the peace; which of course Clovis doesn’t keep. He only sells his promise then breaks it and executes his victim. He hasn’t the slightest thought of Jesus’s pacifism. He plays God like a chess piece.  Dear God, surely you must already know this, and yet…

         Now the doctor is questioning my knowledge of the King’s commitment. “How can you say the first Christian King of the Franks didn’t respect the Church?”

         I’m sure I saw this myself when I was working at the inks. The king’s guards came into the monastery where we were working. I can only try to explain to the doctor what I saw.

         “The King’s guards brought Clovis’s captives into the monastery.  Chararic and Chararic’s son were said to be disloyal to the king. Clovis demanded they both be shaven and shorn with the monk’s tonsure. Then the king demanded Chararic be ordained as a priest and his son as a deacon. Doctor, how holy could be those Christian orders? Clovis only wanted to humiliate Chararic before their executions. It was nothing like a king respectful of Christianity. Really Doctor, I do remember some things.”[Footnote 2]

         “Lazarus, my boy, you need to give yourself time to heal. Let not the ancient times bother you now.”

(Come back Tuesday, April 28)

Footnote 1   Gregory of Tours: The Merovignians edited and translated by Murray, Alexander Callander, series edited by Paul E. Dutton, “Readings in medieval Civilization and Cultures: X, Petersborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2006. p. 10.

Footnote 2 Ibid. p. 20.

Post #7.10, Wednesday, April 22, 2020

Historical setting: 562 C.E. Gaul, remembering 497 C.E.

I argue what I remember with the doctor. “I do remember Nantes when it was an important Roman shipyard and a thriving port.”        

         “It’s the Emperor’s dream that even here in Gaul the Empire will again be Roman.  The wish is called the ‘Justinian recovery.’ Perhaps you heard this from an old great-grandmother who would tell you tales of the magnificent Roman cities of times past.”

         “Doctor, I’m sure what I saw was Nantes. Seeing it now, I can clearly recall.”

           “Old stories abound. Before Clovis won the wars for the Franks, all along the Saxony Shore every Roman port had a thriving civitas with roads and bridges.  My grandparents talked often of the old Roman times when they were young. You have, no doubt, heard stories.”

          I know the reason for this rot and disrepair. It is Clovis himself. Clovis, the King of the Franks plunders everything for his own selfish gain. But I try to stay far away from the politics and wars in the writing room of the monestary. How can I explain?

         “You know Doctor, Clovis uses every sort of treachery and one-by-one subdues each king even of other Frankish tribes. Some pay him tribute. Regardless, in the end, they’re all assassinated or executed.”

         The doctor argues. “Clovis the King was of another time?  [Footnote]  Brother Lazarus, I’m telling you, these tales of the first king bringing the Franks together as one winning people are just stories.  If they happened ever, it was long before you or I were born.”

         He says I’m confused yet he tells me nothing of a time that is now if it isn’t then. And I so wish to weave together enough of remembering that I may find my way back to the familiar places and people.  The new bandages around my head now allow me to see clearly, and they leave enough space that I can touch my head and find that, indeed, my hair is tonsured as a monk’s. The doctor notices my hand exploring my tonsure.

         “Don’t touch the wound.” He must be watching me every minute just so he can worry over the wraps that he, himself wove from the nest of gauze.

         “I wasn’t touching the wound. I was just touching to notice that my hair and beard are indeed tonsured, and only slightly growing back. The bare part is fuzzy now.  So I am trying to think of a monastery to set my memory right.”

(continues tomorrow)

[footnote]  Gregory of Tours, Bishop of Tours, bshp. 571-595 wrote the “History of the Franks” c 594 CE. [(under a different title) Translated by Ernest Brehaut in reprint for First Rate Publishers.] The Christian conversion of Clovis was significant to the Christian history of Europe. Gregory’s history is clearly flavored with his own superstitions and biases. Most interesting to this blogger is that Gregory included the deceit and power-plays Clovis used while also presenting this first king as a worthy Christian saint.

Post #7.9, Tuesday, April 21, 2020

Historical setting: A dark age in Gaul

The doctor doubts my memory. But there are some things I know. “I know I am Lazarus, friend of Jesus, and I think I might work as a scribe and I remember that I’m often the one to take the gospels to the Christian fringe.”

         Through the dim shadows of gauze I see he gestures the “cross” on himself; but as I see so often, it is only a so-called “cross” of shoulders, head and gut – nothing of the Jesus pain or the laborer’s usefulness like the pierced hands and feet.

         He says, “So perhaps in a symbolic way you are saying that Jesus is your friend.” He is trying to offer me a comfortable escape from my admitted heresy of making Jesus sound human.

         This chat is no longer about who I am, but about what has become of Christianity in these times of excessive Trinity with its creeds and persecutions; it’s about heresy. I suggest we take a walk outside in case there is a better clarity among the things of earth.

         The split of my head is mending nicely and the seasonal re-leafing of greens seems to bring healing to all of the earth. A warm breeze wafts from the south and nuzzles the mist resting on nothing over the river like a levitating magic carpet ready to fly off into another ancient myth. With no wars or pirates to bruise the troops of Roman Navy the medic of the ranks has no one but me to mend, so he follows closely on my springtime stroll along the riverbank.

         “So, Dr. Neifus, I feel I have a recollection of Nantes from another time.  Once I sat here on this short wall waiting for a merchant’s ship to take me to my mission in Iberia.”

         “Give yourself time, Lazarus, my boy. Ports tend to look alike, one to the next. The merchant ships mostly use the port at St. Nazaire, so I doubt you are remembering Nantes.”

         Really, as I see now, it is quite the same only the shipyard seems more poorly maintained worn and out-of-use. And even the city wall shows the wear of time. I wonder when it was once, and when it is now.  But if I ask the doctor he will surely think my mind is fluffed. I do know who I am but apparently he has no imagination for that.

         (continues tomorrow)

Post #7.8, Thursday, April 16, 2020

Historical setting: A dark age in Gaul

         At this waking there is no river or soaking hull and I can see dimly through a loose weave of gauze. The ceiling is beam and stucco and the house is very small. Someone is here with me, and as I move he takes notice and comes near.

         “You must lie very still. And no more rowing, young fellow, until your wound is healed.”

         He must believe he is aged and I am not.

         “I am Dr. Neifus surgeon with the navy serving the Saxony Shore fleet, what there is of it anymore. I expect you will be here in my infirmary all the while your ship is in the ropes for repairs at the shipyard.”

         “I am Lazarus, friend of Jesus, but I don’t know how I came to be at the oars of a Roman Galley. Surely I’m not a soldier.”

         “You are tonsured as a monk. Perhaps your orders are holy?”

         “Possibly. And I heard mention that my robes and jewels were stolen, so perhaps I am a wealthy churchman.”

         “Possibly, but doubtful. You bear the muscle and sunscald of a farmer or a laborer.”

         “Of course. Jesus is also a builder. I too am probably a laborer. I have no memory of it, but it makes sense. My father was wealthy but my sisters and I choose to live in empathy for the poor. As a monk I must have been clothed in poverty. I’m just sure I wasn’t robbed of jewels or robes. Probably my robber was someone more needy even than this poor monk.”

         “So you also are supposing yourself a monk.”

         “I do have some thoughts and maybe they are memory. I’m sure that I am Lazarus, friend of Jesus.”

         “You probably don’t mean to say Jesus was a human friend of the physical substance of humanity.”

         “Doctor, I know you know human substance well. And Jesus was indeed my own flesh and blood friend, killed by the Romans on the executioner’s cross.”

         “Surely your mind is clouded. Perhaps Lazarus is the name of the saint you have chosen to emulate as you follow the great works of the Holy Son of the Three in One. You need to take your time in remembering.”

(Come back Tuesday, April 21)

Post #7.7, Wednesday, April 15, 2020

Historical setting: A dark age in Gaul

         At this waking I’m lying in the soaking hull, but now I can see a pale of light through strips of bandages.  That brings a promise of healing and an assurance of again having sight.

         “The hull is taking on water faster than men can pump the bilge, so you will have to move to the empty bench astern or you will be the first to drown. I will help you, Man.”

         He seems to be talking to me. I’m more surprised than anyone that I can be pulled up to standing and dropped again, seated on a rower’s bench.

         “Don’t mind the oar here. We won’t ask you to row today.”

         That assurance to me seems to draw a roar of laughter or maybe it’s just taunts from the others. Perhaps, in the eyes of the men at the oars I look so broken it would only be in jest that I could ever be useful to them.

         Seated on this bench I find resting my sore head on the ship’s hard rib-bone is nearly debilitating. And the dirge of the coxswain drum and the draw of the oars skews a sour dissidence with the pounding in my head. So I sit here upright and I choose to let the pounding head find the newer, better tempo. Possibly no one will notice if I should try dipping the oar that is here across my knees. Possibly I can help row. But in an instant the rage of river snatches the handle from my grip and it flies past, and snaps through the lock as another man has grabbed it fast and recaptured it, bringing it back in place before it would be torn away and lost in the river.  So much for my subtle attempt to help; all I can do now is apologize.

         “I’m sorry I tried the oar. I was hoping I could be useful.”

         I feel another next to me like a warm lion after a weasel kill shoulder-to-shoulder with me.

         “You want to row Lazarus, Man? Put your hands this way on the oar while it is flat inside.” He places my hands as though he were shaping the straw of a lifeless scarecrow in a field to make it appear alive and fool the crows. He seems surprised I actually have a grip on it. “Now, Man, when you are ready we can dip the oar, and immediately the instant it touches the froth, together we will draw it back with our full strength.” His hands are doing the work. My hands are pretending. It is indeed humiliating and…

(Continued Tomorrow)

Post #7.6, Tuesday, April 14, 2020

Historical setting: A dark age in Gaul

         At this waking I hear the sounds of the oars and the groaning in effort against wind driven current. I can feel the pulse of the river rills moving under my shoulders, as I lay here on the boards of hull, spine to spine with ship. Fresh bandages cover my eyes so at least there is cause for the incessant darkness.

         A cold dampness is rising inside this ship’s hull as if it were the tide breaching onto dry beach. Two rowers are summoned from the stern-most bench to man the bilges and those left at the oars are heaving and drawing at peak tempo with the plan to reach Nantes before the leaking hull drowns us all.

         I hear the officer and his assistant deciding what to do with me as I am in such a useless state. “Sir, I’ve heard that at the next bend in the river, where the shelf of rock juts out near a vineyard is the place where the gardens of remedies grow. We could just leave him there in the care of the pagan hag.”

         “But he may be a loyal Christian, and besides we need to move quickly to the shipyard or we will all be floundering in the river.”

         “And of course, Sir, he may also be fair at the oars when he has healed a bit.”

         “Good man. You share my thoughts. If we could add a loyal rower to our numbers as we rejoin our fleet the centurion will surely be impressed. In these times, adding one, even a bandaged one, would seem a hopeful sign of renewal. I say we decide what to do with him later. By the time the ship is repaired we will surely know of his possibility.”

         I have no recollection at all of ever having been in a warrior’s galley. My pounding head offers no glimpses of any goodness from this. I know Jesus is my friend and he will never find me here if I’m all armored and aligned in Roman battalions. But I do remember who I am. I know who I am; thank you God, for this clarity.        

         “You are awake now, Friend?”

         One is speaking to me. I answer, “I can hear you.”

         “We believe you were robbed and beaten. Do you remember what happened?”

         “I don’t remember, but I do know who I am.”

         “And who are you?”

         “I am Lazarus, friend of Jesus.”

         “Let’s give him more time. He may have lost his mind but surely he’s a Christian.”

(Continues tomorrow)        

Good Friday, Post #7.5.1, Friday, 4-10-2020

Historical setting: A dark age in Gaul

         The relentless love of God for all Creation riles the prayerless who fear the power of forgiveness.  The Romans feared. The persecutors of the Jews feared. …  Fear guises as power and commits executions.

            Jesus, I’m remembering you in this darkness. I hear the Roman guard coming close. The high Imperial officer asks who you are. How can I tell him? I am silent as they mock your kingship with thorns. I should get on my feet now and speak for you. What can I say? Pilate would be confused if I mention that your kingdom is not of this earth. Could I offer the truth that wealth and power and treasure are pointless? I should tell Pilate that his mighty rule is nothing. The Kingdom Jesus speaks of is not about a prize. Winning the power wars, leading loyal masses in a perfect lockstep parade, wreaking vengeance, paying homage – it doesn’t even matter to Jesus. Lifting up the poor, forgiving the cruelties, caring for sick and the imprisoned and the lonely, welcoming the stranger – Jesus doesn’t even play on a different game board. He has no game just human kindness.

         I remember now. Jesus was at the feast when we passed the cup to each of us and talked of the vineyard, drinking life from the single solid root, blooming, setting fruit. It’s not the season now for fruit. The sounds of heavy feet and Roman armor are all around. The anguish, I hear the gasps and the struggle.

         I remember dear friend! And still I fail you.  The darkness is a blindness and not a truth.  How can I come to you now?

         “This cross of Jesus — these nails, I’m failing him!”

         “Yes, he is a true Christian. He clings to the cross!

         “I told you he is a loyal Roman.”

         They don’t know!

(Come back after Easter – Tuesday, April 14)