Post #3.10, Tuesday, December 24, 2019

Historical setting: 561 C.E. Gaul

“Where would you look to find God’s own baby Jesus?”

         Daniel answered, “I would ask Aunt Enola. She always goes to help where the new babies are.”

         His answer draws smiles all around the table. Eve hides her smile bowing her head because the veils are drawn behind her now.

         “So, Eve” I asked, “Where would you look to find baby Jesus?”

         She’s heard this story before. “I would go straight to the animal shed.”

         Daniel laughed and that ignited a spate of giggles from Celeste.  Eve played with it.  “I would say that baby would be wrapped up tight in baby rags and laid right there in the middle of the empty food trough for the beasts.”

         We were all laughing then at the children’s laughing.

         I affirmed it. “That’s what the shepherds saw when they found that baby – Mary the mother and the baby Jesus.”

         Ezra added, “And there was that other guy there, Joseph who just kind of came along to pay the Roman taxes.”

         The children didn’t enjoy that oddity as much. Colleta gave him an elbow and a scolding, “Who would think of taxes at time like this – except for Ezra?”

         “Ezra remembers the story well.” I affirmed. “The whole thing starts out where Joseph and Mary went off to Bethlehem to be enrolled for the tax census during the reign of Caesar Augustus, when Quirinius was the governor of Syria.”

         “See Colleta, I do know my Roman history of taxes; and furthermore that would mean Jesus weren’t born in the year they say Jesus were born, because Quirinius weren’t appointed governor until the year six. So that confuses everything doesn’t it Papa?”

         “It’s that gospel thing again. It just sounds right, but then you find out things. So Ezra, my son, you are correct. And Joseph was there also to be the ‘rod and the stem’ of Jesse be it metaphor or anatomy. But it was the political message du jour. In that telling of it Jesus is supposed to be a Pharisee in the lineage of kings.”

         “What does that matter?” Coletta asks.

(More tomorrow)

Post #3.9, Thursday, 12-19-2019

Historical setting: 561 C.E. Gaul

         We’re shuttered from the winter so not the slightest starlight seeps here. The silence in darkness owns this table of Eve. Sure the stew is steaming but in six separate bowls. Wafts of fragrant herbs rise in six individual mists, one for each separate person. The bread is still a warm body, unbroken. The baby is sleeping. The six who are us on these benches are much too silent for such a feast as this. Maybe a habit lingers here of the mundane. Is there nothing to be said among six people at a feast?

         I plunder the silence with the story.

         “So what do you think the angel told the shepherds to do?” I asked. “Just a hint, if it was an angel it was probably a message from God.”

         “I think I know.” Daniel was reluctant to say it. “The angel said God wants you to stop picking on each other.”

         Ezra and Eve know this story well. Ezra laughed aloud and Eve drew her veil over a smile I nearly glimpsed.

         “That could be what angels would say on most any other night, but this was a special night and the angel told the shepherds they had to go that very second and look for God’s new baby because it was a gift to the whole world. Then before the shepherds could even figure out how to do that the whole sky was full of singing angels. For a few minutes they just stood there listening until the angels faded back into the sky!”

          “I think I saw that myself one night some years ago. It were in the northern sky and I can’t forget the sight of it.” Ezra added his truth to the story. “It were all light and color, filling that entire part of the sky, bright pink sky with pillars of white light, dancing, nearly dancing. But what I now think I was seeing were the angel choirs from the back of them. They had no faces toward me and no one told me not to be afraid so I feared even though it were all so beautiful.”

         “So,” I asked, “How would they find that baby in all that glory and bright? Where would you go look to find God’s own baby?”

(Continues on Tuesday, December 24)

Post #3.8, Wednesday, 12-18-2019

Historical setting: 561 C.E. Gaul

Nightfall, and Eve is inside preparing and I’m out here tending the fire and stirring the pot. I hear them coming – Celeste and Daniel are racing up the hill, playful and chattering. Ezra and Colleta with the baby are taking their own good time for the slow trudge.

         “Daniel, Celeste come with me away from the garden so we can gather more sticks for the fire!”

         “Gra’papa, how will we see to find the sticks? It is so dark.”

         “It’s not too dark even with no moon. See, the stars make a whole trail of light. Look up.”

         Looking up we stop in the frosty night, just the three of us overcome with the ancient awe – the eternity of angel source is spread before our eyes.

         “Tell us the Jesus story of this, Gra’papa!”

         “The story I know of the winter sky was there before any Jesus story was ever told. When they wrapped the Jesus story in baby rags for the gospel telling of it the sky had already made a song of it for the stars to dance too. When the shepherds saw the sky, even when it is the same sky they knew so well they were still amazed. They stood up to watch – and that night an angel walked right down that glittering pathway of light you still see there and then what do you think the shepherds did?”

         Daniel was clinging to me with his shivers. “I think it was so dark and so strange that they just started screaming and running away!”

         “Probably that would be what would happen except that the angel with a very bold voice thundered the words from God, ‘Don’t be afraid!’ They just froze in place because they knew they couldn’t run away now that the angel saw them. ‘I bring you good news of a great joy for all the people!’ the angel said that.”

         “So they were all happy again,” Celeste suggests lightly as she discovers a stick for the fire.

         The spell is broken. We gather sticks and put off the story until later.

(The story continues tomorrow)

Post #3.7, Tuesday, 12-17-2019

Historical setting: 561 C.E. Gaul

The first winter snows are a blank slate for new projects and for following fresh rabbit tracks to find the tastiest roots and leaves most hidden.

         Ezra and I felled a solid tree and from that I honed boards for table and benches. It is raw and warping from so much newness but it will heal with use and a few more passes of the plane and some wax. It fits right into the middle of Eve’s little room with a bench for three on each side of the board.

         The caldron for remedies is on the bonfire in the garden now serving as a cooking pot for a feast when no one is begging at Eve’s door for medicines and mixes.

         On this night the gathering will be in Eve’s cottage and it won’t just be Ezra and Colleta and the children – Eve and I will be there too. It will be a grand celebration! I have great hopes and a prayer.

         Dear God, let joyful giggles bubble through the empty tonight. I love you too. Amen.

         Eve seems to be facing my plan with uncomfortable courage and anticipation.

         “You know Eve, you will have to draw your veils back to eat with us. So perhaps you will wish to sit on the same bench with Colleta and Ezra so that it will be the children and I who are across from you. I don’t mean to intrude when you are hosting us, but I just wanted to suggest that seating plan.”

         “I was going to sit on the hearthstone and eat after everyone is finished.”

         “That won’t due for this party, Dear Child. You are not the servant tonight — you are the host. And we are not the sick for you to feed; we are the well. We are the happy people. And tonight you will have to meet us in our joy.”

         “I suppose, Papa, this is how you plan that miracle of healing of the pagan with the dreaded skin disease. The veil of your intention is thin so I too easily can see what you are trying to do. We both know it can go very badly.”

         Dear God, stay close.

(Continues tomorrow)

Post #3.6, Thursday, 12-12-2019

Historical setting: 561 C.E. Gaul

She can’t eat when her face is covered in bee nets. Eve sits on the hearthstone near the coals smoldering under the kettle. There is a bed but no chair. The soup is hot and good. But she has only one bowl and one spoon in this house and that was offered to me while Eve just  watches through her veils.

         “Have you no bowl for yourself? The broth is quite nice, but it would be better shared.”

         “It’s fine Papa. I told Ezra I would give you supper.”

         “Eve, maybe the missing detail of the story where Jesus ate at our table was about everyone eating together. Maybe I should build you a board and bench and get you some bowls so that you can share in the meal and not just give another a bowl of broth and sit and watch.”

         “I’m so sorry Papa.  I wanted this to be a good supper for you. It was I who asked Ezra if I could serve you. It was my idea. I wanted you to come here. I’m sorry it’s bare and lonely. I can see you would be much happier with your grandchildren. I thought if you came for supper it wouldn’t seem lonely.”

         The net that is supposed to keep me from seeing scars is the same veil that keeps me from wiping her tears away.

         I know my thanksgiving for finding my son and daughter was that they turned their hurt to empathy for others who were hurting also. But now I know better of that grace. Here is Eve known to herself and others only by her hurt.  Where is her empathy for the feasting and her joy in joining into the song? How will anyone ever again hear her silly child giggles after each skip of the stone her brother tosses on the water? Does happiness not need to be celebrated with the shared empathy also?

         Dear God, Thank you for revealing this emptiness and help me into the miracle of seeing by your light. Help us to know Eve as you know her, beautiful, cheerful, enjoying the simple giggles of belonging again. Amen.

         “Papa, you stare with worry.”

         “I was thinking a prayer.”

         “Well, please don’t pray for me. Tomorrow you can sup with Ezra and Colleta and the children. It will be fine. I promise it will be better tomorrow.”

         “You notice my worry well. But my prayer was for something else. So tomorrow I will be busy with a project. And I will eat again here with you.”

(Come again on Tuesday, December 17)

Post #3.5, Wednesday, 12-11-2019

Historical setting: 561 C.E. Gaul

“Papa, are you telling me that it was your own father who was the Pharisee with the dreaded skin disease?”

         “Yes, it was my father who, just like you, had the scars from the pox. The priests of the temple would not declare him clean even though he was well and in good health so he had to leave his work at the Temple and set up a new trading center in Bethany where our family prospered for all the rest of the years of his life.”

         “So tell me of his healing?  What did Jesus actually do that brought him his healing?”

         “Eve, that is another part of the story you have miss-remembered.”

         “What do you mean?”

         “My father was never ‘healed’ of his scars. In the other gospel’s telling of it he still had the scars. No matter how many different ways writers twisted the stories of our family it was never said that Simon the Leper was healed.”

         “Did you see your father with the scars?”

         “I would suppose I never in my life saw his face without them. But when I remember him now I don’t even imagine the scars so much as his smile and his bright eyes. He had the kind of dancing eyebrows when he was deep in conversation just like your brother’s. I never thought of his scars, but for the stories told in other gospels where the look of his skin seemed the most important thing about him. They didn’t know him.”

         “There was no healing, Papa?  I was sure that story was of a healing miracle.”

         “There was a healing miracle to be said of that story, Eve. But it was the people who knew him who were healed. We could see him as he was — a beautiful Creation of God. Jesus and his friends ate with him. They weren’t afraid of him.”

         “That isn’t a help to me. I’d rather think there is still a Christian secret in that healing. It’s no matter I guess. So, please, come around to the door at my hearth when it is fully dark, Papa. I have some hot broth and a biscuit for you.”

         “Thank you Eve. I’ll be there soon. I fear I still won’t have an answer for healing but I do want to eat with you and broth sounds very good right now.”

         Dear God, Thank you. Amen.

(The story continues tomorrow)

Post #3.4, Tuesday, 12-10-2019

Historical setting: 561 C.E. Gaul

         “Eve you have asked me to tell you the details of the story of the ‘pagan’ with the ‘dreaded skin disease.’ It did happen in Bethany, so I know the telling of it better than did the other gospels where it was written in different ways. It was a story my family told in early Christian times and it was known so well by all of us.

         “The story is of a Pharisee said to have some version of leprosy, a term often used then to mean any kind of scars or disease of the skin. Jesus and his friends ate often at the table of this Pharisee, Simon. I can see why you would think he was a pagan as it was told. Gospel speaks of the Pharisees as enemies of Jesus so in our times maybe the Christian foe would be the pagans. But the Pharisees were sort of the opposite of pagans. They were Jews who kept careful obedience to every letter of the law as written in the Torah. They were also the usual ones doing the business in the market place.”

         “So, I was wrong about that, Papa, calling Pharisees pagans. Does it even matter? What I really want to know is about the healing.”

         “I only mention that error because my own father was a Pharisee and maybe that makes me a bit too picky about the details also.

         “So Eve, the way healing worked then for the Jews was that the priests of the temple determined when someone was healed and cleansed of disease. When someone had been contagious or ill and then they recovered they went to show themselves to the priest to be declared clean again. The priests were a different political group than my Pharisee father who worked in the open markets in the porticos of the temple. So when my father was afflicted with a disease that probably came to him from the trade caravans he dealt with in his work he recovered and was well again. But when he went to the priests to be declared clean they wouldn’t do that because my father had scars from the pox that never faded.”

(The story continues tomorrow)

Post #3.3, Thursday, 12-5-2019

Historical setting: 561 C.E. Gaul

         I’m asking Eve who is hiding her face from me, “Does that answer your question? Did you need to know that the stories I know best are written in the Gospel of John?”

         “That wasn’t really my question, Papa. I really don’t care about that; but it was the priest who seemed obsessed with naming true gospels. I just needed that clue to ask the proper question. But I still have the question.”

         “What is that?”

         “I want to know the details about the nature of the healing when Jesus healed the pagan with the dreaded skin disease. I know the message of the story was that Jesus loves even his enemies and eats meals with bad people. But I want to know the actual facts – the nature of the healing.”

         Dear God, I know she is begging to be healed of the scars. I know my answer is empty of that. Please be with us and heal all of us who know Eve to have eyes for seeing her beauty as you see her. Thank you for your gift of love. Amen.

         “My dear child Eve, I think I understand now the Christian secret. Even though you are called a pagan you already know the secret well because you love and care for others even in their most difficult need; that kind of care for the sick and least beautiful of us is what is asked of all of us who claim to be Christian. Scars disappear unnoticed to those who see persons as God sees them. You don’t need the veils any longer for Ezra and for the children. After the first look they know you as the person not as the scars. I can overlook the scars too if you let me see your face.”

         “That’s not really helpful Papa. It is too important to me to have a papa again and I won’t take that chance on you seeing my face and screaming and running at the very sight of me. Please just tell me that story of the pagan with the dreaded skin disease.”

(Story continues next Tuesday, December 10)

Post #3.2, Wednesday, 12-4-2019

Historical setting: 561 C.E. Gaul

         Here I am in the loft and my daughter is hiding her visage from me below harboring a curiosity or maybe a care for a Jesus story. I have stories to tell aplenty, but why would she want to hear it?

         “Papa, when we were little children you would tell us Jesus stories as though you were Jesus’ own friend and as though you were really there in the stories.”

         “And you don’t think that was true?”

         “Ezra told me your secret so I know it’s true. But of course the priest I visited at the St. Maurice Church with my question had no thought of that. I was already being called a pagan and he thought I had no Christian privilege to know the stories. He wanted to know ‘which gospel I was quoting.’  I don’t know what he meant. So I just left and the Christian secret is still safe there with him unless you would reveal it to me.”

         “There isn’t a Christian secret in the stories of Jesus, Eve. Probably the priest didn’t know how to answer you so he hid in a veil of pomp. Priests do that sometimes I’ve noticed.”

         “So the secret is the dearth of truth.”

         “That does sound pagan said that way. But maybe it is that the teachings of Jesus are simple to speak but hard to live. That is no secret. That’s a dare. What’s your question?”

         She takes after me and answers with a story.

         “Do you remember the story you told of the blind man who was healed?”

         “Yes.”

         “When I heard it taught by Christians it wasn’t as you told it because they made Jesus seem a magician who healed with magic and not with nature. But when you told it, the magic wasn’t in the healing but in the change to the people who were watching. Jesus did the healing with dust and spit just as I do to heal swollen eyes when a child is brought to me with stings or rash.”

         I am starting to understand. “So that is probably why the priest wondered which gospel. Jesus was from Nazareth and not from the place where our family lived; so some of the gospels are of things known to his followers from there. When he came to Jerusalem he and his friends often stayed at our family home in Bethany. So to answer the priest’s question you would say the stories I told were Bethany stories and that would be in the Gospel of John.”

(The stories continue tomorrow)

Post #3.1, Tuesday, 12-3-2019

Historical setting 561 C.E. Gaul

         It was a long journey from Poitiers here to the Liger Valley keeping watch through the night then traveling on most of this day. The donkey is resting in his stall below and I am able to find a fine rest in the straw of this loft. Now someone has come to the donkey shed side of this house.

         “Eve, is that you?”

         “Yes, Papa. Don’t come down. I’m not covered. I just wanted to talk with you.”

         “I hope it is alright if I make my bed in the loft here.  Your brother thought that would be okay with you.”

         “It’s fine Papa. I have a blanket to give you. The nights are cold now and you will want a blanket. Your dinner tonight will be at my hearth. I’m a better cook when I can share with someone. I need to talk with you Papa but please don’t come down.”

         “Dear Child it’s alright if I see you. I know you have scars from the pox. I have seen scars before. I won’t be put off by it.”

         “So you say, Papa. But we don’t know do we? I want to talk with you.  But I want you to know they call me a pagan now, Papa. I hope you will not hate me for that.”

         “Eve, you are my child. There is nothing others can say of you, or that you can think or say or become that could ever make me not love you.”

         “So you say, Papa. I will try not to strain your good intention. But I have a Jesus question and the priest says it is a Christian secret and it should not be revealed to a pagan.”

         “I can’t imagine what could be a Christian secret.”

         This is an uncomfortable conversation, me in the haymow and my daughter staying intentionally out of my sight as we try to work through nineteen missing years of relationship changing and hurting, hating and now speaking of differences of faith and of belonging as family once again. How can I be a loving parent to a shadow?

         “What is your Jesus question, Child?”

(Tomorrow she asks)