Saturday, March 31, 2012

John 11:1-8

Martha

My Confirmation saint! Also, I have a lot to say about her.

MARTHA

I waited too long to send for Him. That's why my brother died. I waited too long to send for Jesus. I just kept thinking: I am a skilled nurse, but I can't stop the crowd from stoning Him if He returns. I was proud. I should at least have told Him. He deserved to decide Himself.

But then, I knew that Jesus would come running back. He had so many followers, so many whom He loved. But we were His friends. He was as welcome at our house for His company as He was for His teaching, for His wisdom, for His power and grace. At least to me. And Lazarus. Mary often tilted in the other direction, but even she was a friend as well as a follower.

It was a strange thing, to be friend to the Messiah sent from God. It was never a role I would have expected. To know that He would come to help you because He cared for you. Because He was your friend, and had sat at your table and admired your dates, as much as because you listened to His teachings.

If I had sent for Him sooner, He would have come in time. This is the thing I know, deep down in my bones, as I prepare my brother for burial. That this is my pride. And my foolish fear for the man who is also the Son of God. Because He is my friend, and I want to protect Him. Protect the man I know is protected by God. Protect the man I have seen do wonders. Protect the prophet who walked through a crowd of people who wanted to stone Him with no harm done. Protect the Messiah and Son of God from mere petty men.

I would not send for the Messiah because of my friendship for the man. I was a fool who did not understand. Who had too much fool pride and fear to believe. Mary would not have made such a mistake, but she was looking to me. Looking to me to say when the fever was truly dangerous.

I failed them all.

Friday, March 30, 2012

Pilate's Wife

Today's proper entry, I've had to invent a lot for this one, since we only get: "While Pilate was sitting in the judgment hall, his wife sent him a message, 'Have nothing to do with that innocent man, because in a dream last night, I suffered much on account of him.'" Matthew 27.19

PILATE'S WIFE

All my life I wanted some connection to something greater than myself. I was a spoiled rich girl, this I know. I was privileged. People always expected me not to know this, always thought I had no conception of the privilege into which I was born, even simply as a Roman citizen, much less of a highborn family. But my husband was a governor in a hostile province. And my father had been as well. I had seen the world, more than most Roman women, and I knew that there was real suffering.

But I did little, because I was waiting for a singular moment of clarity. I was waiting for a message, a sign, or just some understanding of what was beyond myself, what underlay our petty little lives. I was drifting, waiting, straining my ears and blocking out everything in the world around me.

My husband thought me spacey. He underestimated me at so many turns, in the beginning. It took time for him to grow to respect me, even as I turned to the sky and lost all sight and sound of things around me, fighting to find some kind of peace. Something...something more.

When it came, it was not what I expected. It was all tied up in one man. One man whose name I had heard ringing from the streets not so long ago. I remembered the day, less than a week before the dream, and my annoyance when the chanting and shouting of his name drew me from my reflections. Startled from my search for the wisdom of the silence. I greeted the name that would finally bring me what I sought with frustration.

The dream was a clear warning, so much clarity it frightened me. All my life I had sought it, and when it came it was terrifying. An absolute, a warning about what it would mean to kill this Jesus, who He was. I woke frightened and trembling at the clarity of it. I could not stop shaking. For a moment, the entire world had seemed more real, more immediate. It would not fade again into the comforting dull edges of the world in soft focus. Everything shoot out sharp and crystal clear - every item in my bedchamber radiant in the moonlight from the window. Every shadow still razor-sharp and more present than anything had ever felt before.

I had so much time to plan my message to my husband. A warning, a clear concise warning. And then, perhaps, it would go away. Perhaps everything would fade back into the comforting haze in which I had existed for so long. Maybe it would have, I sometimes think, if Pilate had listened.

I should have gone to him, but at the time I believed he would not see me. I should have thrown myself in front of Jesus or at least at His feet, but I was frightened that if I saw him the sharpness of the world would only increase. I should have many things. I saw that clearly now, oh so painfully clearly. All my life, there were so many things I should have done.

I suffered much from the clarity, but when the moment came I could never escape it again. I could never again escape the cry of the poor.

My Objection to The Ultrasound Laws

Hey, so bonus entry today.

With all of the transvaginal ultrasound protests happening right now (and one of which I am taking place in next Monday), I wanted to express my supreme disappointment with the tactic of pro-life politicians in this country.

I was actually excited, although wary, when I heard about the Virginia personhoood bill. It was a clear challenge to Roe v. Wade with the potential to be, like Brown v. the Board of Education, a test case with few distractions. You can't get involved in medical ethics, which is what killed the Oklahoma ultrasound bill. You don't directly refuse health care to the poor while still ensuring that the rich have their rights to abort. You just try to change the law and wait to get sued, so that it can shoot up to the Supreme Court level, which is stacked with pro-life Justices, giving us our best chance since Roe v. Wade to change the law of the land in this country.

This bill had the potential (as presented anyway, I have not read the bill in its entirety but relied on news coverage) to spark a national debate on the issue of when life begins - and nothing else. Yes, other issues would get dragged in, but the debate would focus on the medical, socioeconomic, psychological, and moral issues surrounding the question of when life begins. We would finally be forced to drag this issue out from under the hysterical rhetoric that has been the pro-life/pro-choice "conversation" since Roe. We could finally talk about what an abortion really means both to the woman and to our society at large.

The national discussion that the personhood bill looked as if it would provoke is one that our society desperately needs.

The transvaginal ultrasound bills, on the other hand, are a perfect example of what politicians are doing INSTEAD OF solving this growing problem in our society. In the same way that immigration issues do not receive the attention they deserve, politicians tend to stoke the fires of polarizing controversies rather than address them. After all, there are votes to be gained on both sides of the aisle by keeping the issue of abortion ever-more-hysterically in play.

To conservative, pro-life voters, politicians can say that transvaginal ultrasounds will cut down on the number of women who choose abortion (despite studies saying that the vast majority of women are not affected by viewing the ultrasounds) and thus decrease the number of victims. We can all pat ourselves on the back for saving a few lives without actually addressing the real problem.

To liberal, pro-choice voters, politicians can demonize the other side and whip women up into a fervor over fear of invasive treatment and additional medical costs. Politicians can say that the party ironically in favor of "small government" is seeking to control your moral and medical decisions and force an uncomfortable, occasionally traumatic medical procedure on you, getting you out to the polls.

Pro-choice people know what there is to be feared from this bill, but as a pro-life, liberal voter, what I see most wrong with this bill is the excuse it gives pro-life politicians to pat themselves on the back with their pro-life constituencies when they have, in fact, not done anything about changing the law of the land - or even provoking a more productive conversation on the issue.

I am, in fact, vehemently opposed to the transvaginal ultrasound bill because it is an embarrassing waste of everyone's time and worse - it is a fantastic waste of the crusading spirit of the pro-life movement. Instead of defending this reprehensible invasion of the doctor/patient relationship, the pro-life movement should be trying to bring the discussion of abortion to the forefront with bills like the personhood bill. We should be proposing a new way of viewing abortion and trying to change the conversation so that we can, as a nation, actually have a productive dialogue.

Because you cannot change the law of the land with only half of the people screaming on your side. All you can do is make a lot of noise for everyone.

Don't propose invasive medical procedures for women at the very moment, for many, when they feel more vulnerable than they have ever felt before. That will not endear them to you or your agenda. Instead, provoke a national debate on when life begins. Let's actually talk.

I honestly believe that we have less to fear from an open discussion. I honestly believe that the pro-life movement would WIN an open, responsible, mutually-respectful debate.

So I don't understand why we refuse to have one.

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Okay, before I do anything else, I just have to express my annoyance. Since I've run out of people I KNOW I want to include in this project, I did a Google search for "Women of the Bible." One woman on the list was listed as "menstruating woman." I recognized the story, at last, as the illness my religion teachers had always been cagey about, saying she had been weakened for the past ten years. We often don't get very clear diagnoses of Biblical illness, so I let it go. Apparently the illness was menstruating constantly, making her not only ill but ritually unclean for ten years.

Personally, I feel this would be an EXCELLENT thing to cover in middle school. You can normalize health periods, discuss the taboos that used to be and still are associated with menstruation, and immediately endear the poor woman of the story to every girl who's begun receiving regular visits from Aunt Flo. I'm just sayin'. I really feel we should be able to talk about menstruation as just a thing that happens more. It happens way too often to still be a taboo, is all.

Also: I've always felt it was really weird how she felt ashamed to touch him. I've seen it portrayed as her diving for his robe because she can't get His attention in Biblical animated stories which...was not endearing behavior from all-knowing Jesus, let me tell you. Her furtiveness makes worlds more sense this way, of course.

ANYway, perhaps I should just put it in the monologue, you say?

MENSTRUATING WOMAN

(I look forward to men reading the cast list of this play now)

At first doctors thought it was no problem. At first they came with great annoyance. I was relieved, but I should have been concerned, when some because interested and asked to see and examine me, asked me to try their methods. I missed what a bad sign it was - that doctors hoped to make a name from healing me. When they stopped coming, I did not miss the sign.

It had been so long since I had touched even members of my family. You cannot imagine what that was like - to live at home, sequestered and shut up from the world, and even among my own family too unclean to touch. Impure and unclean. When the doctors stopped coming, it felt like the walls were sealed shut. The world had no more use for me. The world would permit no more sight of me.

When I heard of Jesus, I had planned to send family to bring Him to me, but He came when I was not prepared, and I decided, at last, to take matters into my own hands. It had been so long since my family reached out as if to touch me. It used to be all hands outstretched but not quite meeting. Now they did not even thing to embrace me when I cried. So I would go myself. I tried to do what I could to keep from jostling others in the crowd. I scarcely wanted to provoke their anger but I felt propelled by my rage. Why could I not go to Him, even to be healed, myself? Why could I not go about my own business? If I was unclean, why could I not be permitted to clean myself? Why was I condemned to sit and wait and hope for someone else to save me?

I reached out and I caught his robe. I stopped, and I breathed. I knew it had been done. But then Jesus stopped, and He asked, "Who touched me?" I went cold. All those around Him were asking what He could possibly mean, thinking someone had knocked Him in the crowd, but I understood. Oh, how I understood, I who had been unclean so long. A holy prophet, and I had defiled Him in a public street. The selfishness came to me in a moment, followed quickly by horror. I was all but shaking when I told Him it had been me.

He looked at me, and He took my hand. It shocked me more than anything else in my life - and considering the number of miracle cures I had tried, that is saying something. "Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace."

I had thought He stopped me because I had made Him unclean, but now I looked into His eyes and I knew that He had stopped to assure me that He had made me clean. That I had never been too unclean to be healed, as it had seemed for so long. His power had healed me, but what He said was, "Your faith has made you well."

Believing that I could be saved, that I was not too unclean to be worthy of healing, had led me to Him. Had made me well.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Let's try yesterday's conversation again.

LAPA

And what will you do when you get there?

CATHERINE

I will do little. God will speak through me.

LAPA

God will speak to you. Catherine Benincasa will speak and the Pope will listen.

CATHERINE

He will listen to God's will -

LAPA

Say he will, Catherine. I'm not blind. He has before, I know. I know who my daughter is. I know she refers to the Pope as "Papa" and he listens to her admonishment. I know you think that I do not understand, but I know who you are in the Church. I know who you are to the powerful men of Rome, and to the Holy Father. But I know who you are, Catherine. You are the girl who nursed a leper with her own hands when no one else would touch her. You are the girl who nursed and prayed for the soul of that wretched Andrea woman even as she spread those terrible lies about you. You are the reason your brothers and sisters, even when they move out of this house, keep their possessions under lock and key lest you give them away to beggars in the street. And, Catherine, you are the young woman from Siena with great influence on the affairs of the Church. And what are you going to do with that influence? Convince one of the most powerful men in the world to move from one palace to another.

CATHERINE

The head of the Church belongs in Rome.

LAPA

Say he does. I know better than to argue with you about such things. I didn't always, but that lesson at least I have learned. I learned it as all of Siena and half of Italy has learned it. What I'm asking is not where the Pope belongs or whether you have the power to change it. I am asking why you are fighting this fight. Why not fight to restore works of charity amongst the rich and powerful? Why not build a new convent or order dedicated to true service? Why not convince the Holy Father to sell both palaces lock, stock, and barrel to feed the poor?

CATHERINE

The fish rots from the head. Avignon is a place of rot. There are many who can help the poor, raise hospitals. I have done the things you say, though far less than I should. But there are few who can do what I have been called to do. And I don't understand these things better than you, I simply do not question whither God wills to send me.

LAPA

Catherine, this debate, Rome and Avignon...are there not more serious things for the Church to address? Are there not bigger problems in the world?

CATHERINE

There are endless problems, mother. This is one that I believe will help to solve others.

LAPA

I hope you are right, Catherine. I truly do, you know. I know you aren't sure of...

CATHERINE

Have faith, mother. That is all we can do.

LAPA

I'm not so sure, with you.

--

Not MAJOR changes, but I think it's better.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

It's nice when I get a chance to remember that Staunton, though home to a Catholic Church on whose property I refused to set foot, is equidistant between two great priest - Father Rolo Castillo at my regular stomping ground St. John's and Father Jim Curran at JMU. I understand Dan and Amanda like going to St. John's, but I admit I'd really like to get over to the Catholic Student Center there more often. There's something about Mass at a college campus. The energy is always so joyful.

Also, I had a conversation with Father Jim that reminded me of the one I had with Erin over Christmas: why is the Church fighting the battles it's currently fighting rather than attending to the works of charity? I need to look up the stuff he gave me, but the idea of primacy of the poor seems perfectly in line with my opinion - which took awhile to catch up to Erin's. So, Erin, you were right about the new mass parts. I am converted to your side. Also, in the words of Father Jim, "Find me a priest who doesn't feel the same way!"

Which made me wonder about Catherine of Siena and Avignon. In fact, it could be a great conversation to slip into the play. Probably using Lapa again, something along the lines of:

LAPA

And what will you do when you get there?

CATHERINE

I will do little. God will speak through me, He will direct my path.

LAPA

You will speak, and the Pope will listen.

CATHERINE

He'll listen to God, not to me -

LAPA

Say he will. Other men have, Catherine, I'm not blind. I see that you matter in the Church. I know who my daughter is. I know you think that I do not understand, but I know who you are to them. I know who you are to the Church, even to the Holy Father. But I know who you are, Catherine. You are the girl who nursed a leper in the hospital with your own hands when no one else would touch her. You are the girl who nursed and prayed for that dreadful Andrea woman even as she spread malicious lies about you. You are the reason your brothers and sisters keep all of their possessions locked up lest you give them away to beggars in the street. Why are you going to Avignon, Catherine? Do you really think that is the battle worthy of your skill and influence?

CATHERINE

The head of the Church belongs in Rome.

LAPA

Say he does. You understand such things more than me, and by now I know better than to go toe to toe with you on doctrine. All of Siena and half of Italy knows better than to go toe to toe with you on doctrine. So why fight this fight? Why not draw their attention back to the works of charity? Why not build a convent dedicated to true discipleship rather than the dumping ground for lusty extraneous daughters that it is now? Why not marshal your soldiers to build a new hospital? Why travel to France and argue with His Holiness about what city he rules from?

CATHERINE

I have never neglected charity, but the fish rots from the head. Avignon is a place of rot. There are many who can tend to the poor. There are few who can do this.

LAPA

Why is it that those with the power to make things better always have better things to do?

CATHERINE

Because everyone has the power to make things better, and no one thinks so. The Pope is lost. He is our shepherd. With God's help, the little sheep is going to go find her lost shepherd. Or the whole flock is doomed.

LAPA

As you say, Catherine.

--

Again, needs work.

Monday, March 26, 2012

Act 18:18-26

Prisca or Priscilla

I wish I had something grander ready for my 200th blog post, but today all of my inspiration was (both unfortunately and thankfully) reserved for my MFA thesis.

And I'm running out of women of the Bible that I already have something to say about. Next two weeks should be interesting.

We don't know as many details about Prisca, but the story in Acts 18 is pretty cool.

PRISCA

It happened a lot in those days. There was so much confusion. People heard stories then went away with half-remembered tales of miracles and deaths and resurrections. I'm sure it sounded like fairy stories when it reached many ears. Perhaps even in its proper form it would sound like fairy stories to some.

Apollo was a different case than most. He was an old disciple of John the Baptist who hadn't gotten the message that the Son of Man for whom John cleared the way had already come - and gone. He took it better than he might have. He said only that he would have liked to have met this Jesus.

It was so easy, in those days, for fighting to break out. What was true, what was rumor, what was a true teaching, what was the meaning of a parable story. Aquila and I knew our job was to be the still, quiet voice keeping everyone from bedlam. Paul was the voice crying out in the marketplace, calling from rooftops, making trouble. That's what you need at the start, and when things have gone too far south.

But there's a place in between, where the building of the Church happens. That is where we worked. We took those who were well-meaning but misguided aside and told them the truth as we knew it. We spoke long and eloquently and privately, lest anyone feel threatened and challenged in their faith. There were enough things to besiege our faith in those days.

Apollos was another orator and debater, that was easy to see at once. He could scarcely listen, at first, for arguing, and, when he finally did, he sat perched, waiting for me to say something he could dispute, something he could use to unravel my argument. But I have been blessed to speak with the voice of the Spirit, and I think Him that Apollos never found the excuse he waited for - the excuse to dismiss me.

Such a man listened to me, and changed what he argued because of me. I often wondered at such things. I was not a crusader. I was not a prophet. I was not an apostle boldly proclaiming where the Word of God had not yet reached. I was the one who stepped quietly in when the Church was still new, to keep it from veering off track. I was the one who watched words so carefully and corrected so gently. I was the one who saw how important were the small moments after the great speech that first changed a heart. I guided the hands and the mind as they first began their work.

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Delilah

Delilah was the first set of short monologues that I wrote for this project, and I think that (however unfitting in the biography of Catherine of Siena) the interaction between them might be the most important and helpful for the story of Avignon. They talk about Catherine being able to see people's souls, but I wonder (and can't wait to get to that part of the book) how she did with bringing people like the lady in Avignon who spiritually stank so much Catherine nearly fainted back to God.

So I imagine talking to Delilah and her showing Catherine what it is that makes a nonbeliever see how beautiful is God, how great the love of God is.

DELILAH

I was just a girl when they burned Samson's first wife. She was a sweet, frightened thing, they said, who let herself be passed from man to man. Even my own people have said worse of me, but I don't know that my death would have enraged him as hers did, by the end. But then, no one loved like Samson.

I did not fully believe the stories they told until I found the bone in our house one day. I asked him and he said it was the donkey's bone. The donkey's jawbone with which he killed a thousand men for burning his first wife. It had been some time since I had last been scared of him. He was so fearless, the beautiful fool, whose first wife betrayed him because of a riddle that he didn't seem to understand wasn't a riddle. He watched for a moment as the jawbone that had killed a thousand men trembled in my hand, and then he came over and took it - so gently. This mighty man who came so gently to my hand. He pulled it away and folded me in his arms. I clutched the strands of his long, long hair between my fingers for strength, as I had so many times, and he murmured over and over into my own, "Oh, my love, my love."

CATHERINE

Your love?

DELILAH

I was his love, little Benincasa. A fearful man, he was to me.

CATHERINE

He was blessed by God.

DELILAH

His gift was destruction. His gift was war and death. Think if you can, for a moment, little Benincasa, what he looked like to a Philistine.

The war made my mother a widow. A raid made her sonless. Starvation made my niece an orphan. Patriotism made me forsaken. My people made me a whore for their purposes, but Samson and his God made me a wife. I stood with him before his God for my people, who made me their harlot, and he made me his love. Afterward I asked him why. He took my face in his hands, and he looked so sad and so serious, but all that he said was, "Oh, my love, my love."

CATHERINE

God loves you more than your own people did.

DELILAH

No one loved as he loved. AS he loved me or as he loved his God. I lay beside him in the night, this beautiful fool lying beside me with no fear. Naked, utterly exposed, and yet at peace - not one whit the terror I had summoned the courage to face when they first came to me. I watched his chest rise and fall, and I told myself that whatever the propaganda said, he was not the entire Israelite army. The chance that he killed them was still small. And I wished, as I looked at his beautiful face in the moonlight, wished that the chance was smaller. When he woke, all I could say was, "Oh, my love, my love."

CATHERINE

Then why? Why cut his hair?

DELILAH

Why did he tell me, little Benincasa? He had so many chances, so many proofs that I would tell my people. Why did he tell me?

CATHERINE

He trusted you.

DELILAH

Not even the first time. Not even then did he trust me.

The first time I asked and he told me how he could be defeated, I thought it was a test. I thought he wanted to know if he could truly have me and his God in one united love. O, my beautiful fool, I tied him in seven new bowstrings, and I thought I was dead when he sprang out of them as if they were spiderwebs.

If I had not cried out what I thought a useless warning, would he have burned me in turn? Would he have thought that I, like his first wife, yielded before threats of death? O, my beautiful fool, did you forget you were no marvel when you married her? That she thought they were more fearful than you? O, my beautiful fool, did you forget that I knew better?

But all he said, as I huddled in the corner in terror, was a resigned, disheartened, but kind, "Oh, my love, my love."

CATHERINE

He thought you were threatened?

DELILAH

I was threatened. But that's not why I did it.

CATHERINE

Then why? Why do people fear the things of this world?

DELILAH

The second time I asked and he told me how he could be defeated, I thought he believed my jealous. That all I wanted was one night as his only love - and that he could give me that, the illusion of that. O, my beautiful fool, did you think I wanted all your love showered on me alone? O, my beautiful fool, I was jealous of your love of your God, but not for that. O, my beautiful fool, I had never loved anyone or anything as you love your God.

When the new ropes snapped like threads, I was glad. If I had not cried in joy, would your donkey's jawbone have killed one thousand and one? But you only took me in your arms and held me, and whispered, as if in apology, "Oh, my love, my love."

CATHERINE

God loves you, as he loves Samson. That love could have been yours.

DELILAH

Samson was born a prophet. How young were you when you had your first vision? Some people take longer, Catherine.

The third time I asked and he told me how he could be defeated, I thought he wanted to prove that his God would never leave him. This God he loved so much, who asked so much and gave so much, I thought he wanted to show me that his God's love was solid, not some fragile talisman. And he was right. I hated his God that it was some magic spell after all. Something so silly a hairdo would take his God's love from him. This All-Powerful Bully with foolish precepts.

So when he pulled free of the loom and rose to save me, he turned to me as if to say that his God was still with him. But even he, even he who loved as no one loved, his God above all, did not dare put it to the test. It was almost sadness, the shadow of fear, and I took his face in my hands, and said, "Oh, my love, my love."

CATHERINE

That's not how He works.

DELILAH

I know that, little Benincasa. I come to tell you how I learned it. How someone who is not raised by Jacopo Benincasa learns about true love of God.

The time I asked and he told me truly how he could be defeated, I thought he wanted me to free him of this tyrannous, arbitrary God. They all made me the bad guy, why not my beautiful fool? I could bear being the bad guy to stop the bleeding of my family, my people. I could be the bad guy to set my beautiful fool free of his God who did not love him as much as Samson loved Him. I cut his hair as he slept, so gently, so he would not wake, so he would bear no blame for what freed him.

CATHERINE

You have no idea how precious a thing you took from him.

DELILAH

No, little Benincasa. How precious a thing he gave me.

What did he think, my beautiful fool? That I would not cut his hair as I had tied him in the varied, ridiculous ways? That now I would leave him his testament to his love for his God if I knew he loved me enough to tell the truth? That the men would not come again that night as they always had before? No, not even my beautiful fool. Not even he would believe that.

I stood still in the doorway to our bedroom, where he had dared to sleep without fear of this - of precisely this. He stumbled toward me, having evaded them for a moment, broken and bloody for the first time in his life. He was breathing heavily. "We need to hide - get out of here - " He was frightened. I think he had thought his God would not abandon him even so. I had never heard him breathe like that before. Still he seemed to believe that I was innocent of the ambush, if not the hair. All I could say was, "Oh, my love, my love."

And then they struck him, and he felt it for the first time - how the blows feel to those of us God leaves unprotected. I watched, unmoving, as they dragged him away. Samson, whom God asked to be a holy man and a terrorist because His people needed a terror to have hope. Samson who gave it all up, to show me.

I watched him chained to the pillars, guarded lest I throw myself between him and his death. I watched him pulling against the chains, his face serene as it had always been in prayer, but every muscle in his body struggling as he never had before. In pain, as he never was before, but fighting all the same. Fighting still, still in love with His God. The strain of a miracle written across his body, suddenly so exposed to my view.

The pain not just from the effort but from the day I and his God abandoned him at once. And only he believed that it wasn't true, for either of us. The pain that could not stop him from fighting or loving. The pain that was God's price, not the gift itself. His strength was still there. God never did abandon him. And all I could say as the walls came tumbling down was, "Oh, my love, my love."

CATHERINE

He told you...you think he told you so that he would show you that God would not abandon him? That the hair was nothing to the love he had for God?

DELILAH

No one loved as Samson did.

CATHERINE

You want me to cut my hair?

DELILAH

I want you to persevere, before their eyes, even if they take it.

--

Well, it might be something with more work, anyway.

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Catherine's Training for Avignon

So, I have been reading my Catherine of Siena biography again, and it gave me an idea for a conversation between Catherine and one of the women in Avignon. It might make a good transition into Joanna talking about silencing others versus encouraging others to speak. Or perhaps not. I'll work that out later.

Also, I've picked the name "Marie" for one of the women in the Court of Avignon totally at random. I'd like to replace this eventually with the name of an actual woman who was there, but we'll see how that goes.

MARIE

Miss - Miss Benincasa? Sister Catherine? [Catherine turns] [Pause] I...I wanted to say - I wanted to apologize, Lady. I - we poked you with our dress pins. [holding a long, sharp-looking one up]. It wasn't my idea but I let them. I even took a turn. We all came up behind you when you were praying and, well, we tried to startle you out of it. I'm so sorry, Lady. We thought you were a charlatan.

CATHERINE

You sought to separate me from my God. But I forgive you. I have forgiven those far more dear to me, and those who should know better, for startling me from my visions.

MARIE

Again, I am so sorry, Lady.

CATHERINE

My first vision was when I was a child. I saw the Lord on His throne, accompanied by St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. John the Evangelist. My brother Stefano saw only that I was falling behind in a footrace and returned for me. He shook me from my vision, and to this day, I wish I had never looked away. In the years to come, before my family accepted my vocation, many times they tried to prevent me from having the time to pray in solitude, without disturbances. I often wondered why, why He decreed that it would be so hard for me to stay with Him in these visions He chose to grant me.

MARIE

He was preparing you for us. He knew - oh, He did it so we wouldn't be able to - I'm so sorry, Lady!

[Marie starts to flee]

CATHERINE

Marie! Please don't -

[Marie exits]

I never thought of that. [Looking up at God] You're good, You know that?

Friday, March 23, 2012

So I'm wishing I hadn't finished Mary Magdalene yesterday. I think that I hit what I want from her story, but I'm running dry on ideas for today's entry. I knew I should have tried to get this done before The Hunger Games movie tonight, but I ended up opting for nap because of my early morning nightmare-wake-up-call.

Part of the problem is that I'm not sure how many more women of the Bible will fit into Catherine of Siena's story.

But now suddenly I have a thought on Miriam, so I'll worry about a place for it later.

MIRIAM

Those days were so crazy, and it was catching. So much blood. It would drive anyone crazy. Babies. The one thing certain to inflame any heart. They came for our babies. I wasn't much more than a baby myself, and my mother was careful. We kept our doors shut when others cried for help, our windows were drawn against the sight of red painting the streets, staining the doorframes of households.

Nothing stopped the smell. And the cries. Women wailing, and our baby answered by crying. Joining them or protesting them, but the baby my mother was going mad trying to hide would cry in the night, cry in the day, and soon the wails because to quiet. Everyone was going mad, but no longer raving mad. A settled, quiet, slow-killing madness. No more noise. No more hysterics to hide Moses's cries.

I thought my mother had gone mad. Making a basket when there was a baby to be hidden at home. I thought my mother had gone mad, lining it with pitch. I thought my mother had finally gone mad, bringing our baby to the river. I ran after her, but she had already placed him in the basket and set him into the current of the river by the time I reached her. I was screaming, she told me later. She had to put her hand in my mouth to quiet me, and I bit right through her hand, screaming.

I fought out after her into the water, but she held me. I pushed her over in the mud, and I sprang up, light on my feet. I followed along the bank, trying to see if I could find the baby. Moses must be so scared.

It was a long watch, a long follow, and the basket never came anywhere near the shore where I could wade out to get it. As I walked pieces of what my mother had spoken furiously in my ear as I screamed came back to me. Trust in God? Where was God, she said later I had screamed. Where was God when Pharoah came for our babies?

But then, the Pharoah's daughter was wading in the river, and she had a handmaiden fetch the basket, and I watched her and I realized: she has no idea the world has gone mad. Her world has not been full of blood and horror. If she knows of the edict, it will only mean that there are wetnurses readily available.

I approached her, and it was the hardest thing I have ever done. I don't think I could have done it if I weren't mad, mad as the world itself. But she said yes, and a few days later we had our baby back in the house openly, with the windows thrown open. And the world...it only seemed madder still, to be honest.

Trust in God, my mother had said. And she had. And He had saved our baby. Our Moses. Saved him forever.

That's how it always felt to me, the truly brave times that I spoke. Like that same unsettled madness. Like it was to be in that time - where you stopped quite caring as much that you might be beaten or whipped or even be killed. Death was random and everywhere. It all began to feel like a blur, less than real. Somehow, in such a moment, God reached down and showed me what to do. I wonder if He is always shouting instructions at us, and usually we are too distracted to hear.

That's how it always felt to me, when I spoke for God and His people. Like the rest of the world becoming something of a blur, not quite so real - as it had been that day, because we could not bear it otherwise. There was a quiet, like a numb disbelief and then a prayer answered anyway. And suddenly I knew what I had to do, saw it so clearly, and the greater miracle: I had the courage to do it.

The world went away, and it all became still, and grace appeared in the least likely form imaginable. That's how it always felt, when God intervened.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Mary Magdalene

John 20

I had a thought about how Mary Magdalene's speeches might fit into the structure of the play. If the speech yesterday is a kind of encouragement to Catherine, and invocation to be strong and assurance that it is good to be strong, then perhaps this is what happens when Catherine has a stumble, when she does not feel brave or strong.

MARY MAGDALENE

Oh, Catherine. So strong in the face of death, you say? So strong in the face of death, I said, I know. But really...it was because I knew, Catherine. Knew that there were far worse things than death. If you had seen me on the day I thought one of them had come for Him after all...

I fled on first finding the tomb empty, and when first Peter then John went inside, I found I could not. I could not. And when they left, I stayed, and I felt myself crumbling, crumbling into seven pieces all over again. Or more now. As if He had never taught me to stand. As if I was never called the Tower.

CATHERINE

He appeared to you, first of everyone.

MARY MAGDALENE

And I didn't know Him. I was so blinded by pain and doubt. I was convinced, at the last, that the world was cruel after all. After all He had done to show me the beauty, all He had done to show me how people could be. I was crumbling into seven pieces and more, and He called my name again.

"Mary!" Just that. "Mary!"

It wasn't a reprimand, although I had earned one. It was the first time I wondered what it was He had said when He banished the seven demons from me, and I knew that it was that. Just that. Just as He said it. He hadn't called them forth from me. He had called me to take control of myself once again. He had called me, reminded me I was stronger than them. That they could have a civil war amongst themselves or all stand united against me between my wrist and my elbow, but I could beat them all away. That I would still control the work of my hands.

"Teacher!" I cried, almost ashamed that I had learned every lesson but the most important. Every lesson but this.

He was kind, and strong, when He spoke again.

"Do not hold on to me, Mary, for I have not yet ascended to my Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'"

And as before, I remembered that He had not made me whole only for myself. He made me strong, He reminded me I owned my own skin and my own soul, so that I might use it. Reminded me that I controlled the work of my hands and voice that I might work and speak for others. Reminded me of things I never seemed to let myself really know, letting demons have power over me, letting them divide me into parts and tell me what I was made up of.

In His eyes, I was Mary. In a way I can't - everything that was me was in the name, when He said it. And I never forgot it again.

He called you, Catherine. I had to be called twice, and He would have done it a thousand times. But don't, if you can, don't forget. You know who you are, He called you. You know that you own your voice and your pen and the work of your hands. You know why He called you. Get the message right the first time you come running back from the tomb.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Mary Magdalene

Getting back on the train of monologues...I'm trying to make something of the fact that there are very different lists of who was there at the crucifixion in the gospels but that they always include: a) Mary Magdalene and b) another person named Mary identified alternatively as the "wife of Clopas," "the mother of James the Younger," and the Virgin Mary herself.

They agree on Mary Magdalene.

I wrote a bit about her at the crucifixion last time, but, well, let's see what I can do with this.

MARY MAGDALENE

I heard speeches later, I heard stories later, I read it in gospels later. I was there, with other women, while He died. The gospels said I was there. The stories, the speeches to crowds, described me, Mary Magdala, Mary the Tower. The Tower of Strength.

Because I did not crumble? Because I never stopped praying? Because I was there at all? I suppose that would be impressive to those who could not bear it. But I was breaking, shattering. I made no bones about telling them when I told the story myself.

But He did not break. So I would not fall apart. He saved me once, from seven demons that made war in my body. He gave me back possession of it. He taught me how to stand. How to take ownership of my body so no demon could ever take me again.

My limbs felt like jelly but they obeyed me. My knees creaked with the strain, but they held. My eyes flowed with tears, but I could always blink them clear enough to see Him. My breathing was rough and shallow, but my chest never heaved and I never lost control of my breath.

I never wanted to know - I never wanted to think - why He was preparing me to stand on my own. I never asked why He wanted me to know that I had all of my self back before I chose to follow Him. I never asked why He taught me so carefully. So carefully they mention me, the men who write the gospels. So carefully they know they cannot go without mentioning me at all.

It was for this. So I could stand. So that I would know. I wasn't trapped in the tower. I was the tower. The Tower of Strength, even when I felt like all the mortar was gone and soon the bricks would all come tumbling down. I was the Tower of Strength, and seeing me many would know the glory of God.

So I watched as He bore seven wounds, for seven demons and countless sins. I stood, strong and true. As He taught me. Because He knew that someday I would have to stand. He knew I was a Tower long before I did. He gave me back my body and my mind, He showed me how beautiful was my soul, how precious it was to God.

The least I could do was stand for Him.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Lapa

St. Catherine of Siena was born Catherine Benincasa, the twenty-third Benincasa child, at the same time as her twin sister Giovanna, who died as an infant. The twenty-fifth child of the Benincasas was also named Giovanna, and she also died. Lapa was Catherine's mother's name.

This will probably change a lot as I do more and better research, but here's a pass at a speech for Lapa. Perhaps after the bit I wrote yesterday?

LAPA

I can't help thinking of Giovanna. I can't help thinking of her as the girl that Catherine might have been. One twin lived, the other flew all the sooner into the arms of Christ. But I can't help thinking that He kept both my babies, my youngest, captive so early. So early they were snatched from me.

I can't help thinking of Giovanna, of what she would be like now. Would she be pretty and sweet and so innocent she cannot bear her husband's foul language like Bonaventura? Would she be as gentle as my husband, so soft I wonder how he would survive without me? All the rest of them were, the twenty-two before Catherine. So like their father. So gentle and passive and unworldly. I used to pray, with each pregnancy, for God to send me one child - just one child - who was more like me. More practical, more firm, strong and sure and ground in this world. Catherine was the closest I came. And I can't stand the things that make her most like me.

No, that's not true. I love her strength. I love her faith. I am proud of her.

But I find myself thinking about Giovanna, what her life would be like. If Giovanna had survived instead of Catherine, would she be living just down the street, more grandchildren on the way? Married carefully to a sensible but honorable man because she is so good like her father and so outside the world, like him. Would she depend on me, as the others do? To guide them in affairs and explain the people of this world to them?

I love that Catherine stands so strong. That she sees the world so clearly. That she understands people and knows the strings to pull to bring them to the light. I love that she of all my children shows the light I see inside her father to the world most clearly. I love that she is a beacon of her father's love of God and gentleness of spirit. I love watching her stand with my strength and practicality and think at last, Jacopo, between us we got the balance magnificently right.

But I can't help thinking what Giovanna would be doing now. How close she would be. Infinitely closer than Avignon. I can't help thinking of Giovanna. The girl I thought that Catherine would be.

Monday, March 19, 2012

Slight change in pace today, I've got a small interaction between Elizabeth and Catherine stuck in my head. It would be after Elizabeth's monologue in a vision, which in turn would be a response to a flashback of Catherine's where her parents are trying to make sense of her - or perhaps a scene right before she heads to Avignon? That makes for a nice way to bookend it, especially since I want to make Elizabeth's argument central to Catherine's final one.

If any of that makes sense, you should have a better idea of where this scene might go in a final draft of this play that I do.

[Elizabeth's Monologue]

CATHERINE

So what then? She wanted me to get drunk? I don't think you know my mother. And she's plenty of grandchildren.

ELIZABETH

God used to prepare His prophets for what they would face from birth. He chose you then, but He called you later. My point is that He also used to prepare the parents, tell them what lay in store, what they were getting in a holy offspring.

CATHERINE

And my parents were caught unawares?

ELIZABETH

They were faithful people. Your father gentle as a lamb, your mother tough but just and kind. You know this. You also know that they are not connected to God as you are, that they do not see their role in this world as you have been called to. They did not raise you to be an advisor to the Pope. They raised you to be a dutiful, prayerful, pure and holy fishwife.

CATHERINE

Do they wish that was what I was?

ELIZABETH

Sometimes. They weren't warned that you would be anything else. They weren't expecting it. They weren't ready.

CATHERINE

Why not?

ELIZABETH

Prophets aren't born anymore. Ultimately it's a good thing. Now they can and do come from anywhere. There are more of them about for it.

CATHERINE

Your relationship with your son...it was hard even so, wasn't it?

ELIZABETH

There it is.

CATHERINE

What?

ELIZABETH

The Benincasa compassion.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Happy Birthday Erin!

Luke 8:2

Mary Magdalene

I wasn't sure I was ready to stop her, but then I got her first line. Also, apparently we assume "Magdalene" means that she was from Magdala, but it could also by like Peter's name change - "Magdalene" means "tower or fortress" or even "elevated, great, magnificnet." She was also particularly dear to St. Catherine of Siena. So here goes nothin'.

MARY MAGDALENE

I was possessed by seven demons. That's even for a civil war between your wrist and elbow. The one thing I remember from the world outside the wars running through me, across my body, was that everyone was so surprised that I was still alive. I was never quite sure what they thought would kill me.

It was they who recognized Him, bizarrely enough. And had there been only one demon, I wonder if it would have succeeded in running away from Him. But then, I saw other demons try, later. And I saw those with what others called demons. Like Joanna, who had merely lost her voice. It took what felt like an age to believe it had happened - that they were gone. They had tormented me so long I began to think of myself in terms of them - as if the several demons were my component parts. And I had forgotten myself long ago.

He sat with me, helped me to reconstruct what I had been, who I was now. He made me wait, wait until He had finished preaching in this place, before He let me choose to follow Him. He said He wanted me to know that I made the decision after I recovered all of my pieces. After I was comfortable again as the only occupier of my own skin.

They were surprised, many times, at the weight I could bear. They called me Magdalene. I thought, at first, they were confused about where I was from. I thought my hometown might have identified me as a stranger, ashamed to think that I came from their own stock. But they said I was a tower of strength, and I always seemed to find myself shouting from one. That was true enough. The doubters were one thing - but those who refused to see what was right in front of them because of the form it took - because a man from Galilee said the truth, they would not believe it. Because He healed on the Sabbath they could not accept it as a work of God. I had no patience for those people.

It was a slow lesson, but He taught me to speak not less but with more wisdom. Some lessons He spoke, and some He simply lived. He could always find a way into even the most closed heart. So, slowly, I began to speak less loudly and more wisely. Accept when shouting was the wise choice.

A tower of strength, that was what I needed to be to stand by the cross. But I could never reach Him, however high I tried to soar. However light I felt, I was always pulled back to Earth long before I reached Him.

There were four places where nails pierced his flesh. A staff stabbed into his side. His back was raw with whips, and his head bore a crown of thorns. Seven separate, terrible wounds, perhaps even each one fatal in itself. I could not help thinking - seven demons, seven wounds. They said once that I was the first to understand what He had done - with that thought, seven wounds for seven demons.

The woman he rescued from the tower. But He also taught me to fight the battles when He was gone.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

So, I have been floundering around trying to figure out what the structure of the play all these monologues will contribute to will be, and I have an idea that I think could, finally, really work.

One of the very nice things about this Lenten work this year is that it seems like every week at Mass (I attended this evening because it's better for Dan and Amanda's schedules), God sends me a new inspiration. It's so wonderful to have my creative work and my devotional activity so linked!

The idea grew out of an observation: that when I think of a male prophet, what comes to mind is "a voice crying out in the wilderness." But, if there's anything that I think the women I've written about, especially the New Testament ones, have that separates them it's that women prophets are "a voice crying out in the center of town." In fact, I think I'll make that the running theme of Mary Magdalene's speeches when I get to them. I initially thought that all I had found were the theme for Mary Mag and a better possible title than any I had thought up yet - although A Voice Crying Out In The Center of Town is a bit long for a play title.

Somehow that thought brought me to the idea, what about A Voice Crying Out in Avignon? Or even A Voice Crying Out in the Palace of Avignon? Although, of course, that's even longer. The moment I thought of it, I seized on it. I adore St. Catherine of Siena, and what could be more empowering that what she did, marching into the decadent papal palace and convincing the pope to leave it all behind and return to his rightful place in Rome? And there were all kinds of things that happened, so the play would have a proper plot (my favorite is the story of the women who poked her with pins when she was in a trance to try and prove her a fraud).

And I can see how beautifully the ones I have (and know I want to do) would fit: Elizabeth would be accompanied by a reminiscence about her parents and them having to deal with her AND give her her chief argument when discussing it with the Pope (which is what I'm going to write up below), then Joanna comments on relying on the power of God and her Salome silencing stuff can comment upon the women of loose morals working against her in the court, Delilah can offer her perspective on how a person not of the faith views her fanatical devotion and how to win someone over with it, Ruth and Naomi can help give her arguments in favor of traditions and ceremonies being important but people at the soul of them and trusting in God's will.

Also, then I would get to write Catherine of Siena! My namesake!

I need to get a good biography on her. I wonder if there are any that focus on her time in Avignon? I imagine most hover around her writings.

Anyway, here's an exchange that popped into my head almost fully-formed today. [Note: the first line is a bit rough]

CATHERINE

You cannot preside over the faithful from a palace of decadence and sin.

POPE GREGORY XI

Tell me, Catherine, have you ever seen the Vatican?

CATHERINE

Many times.

POPE GREGORY XI

And yet you can tell me with a straight face that it is not a palace of decadence? Can you even tell me with a straight face that it is not a palace of sin?

CATHERINE

The Papal Palace of Rome is a grand place and a seat of power, which attracts those whose motives are far from pure. But it was built on the site of the martyrdom of St. Peter, the first head of the Church. It was built on his authority and his love of God and his fortitude of faith. Whatever it has become, whatever has been layered onto it, its foundation is firm to the ending of the world for that. But this palace was built on politics and pride, on earthly wealth and empty display. You can never hope to be a beacon of hope and holiness to the people from a place that is built on everything that the Church is meant to be -

POPE GREGORY XI

Above?

CATHERINE

Beyond. Those who give their life to the Church are meant to be beyond worldly cares, beyond the power of earthly squabbles for power and beyond the influence of the pleasures of the flesh. The head of the Church is meant to be beyond all but the most spiritual of joys.

POPE GREGORY XI

Beyond such petty concerns as where he lays his head?

CATHERINE

You cannot be so in such a place. A place built on the foundations of decadence and sin can never be anything but a temple worshipping it. Beware, Your Holiness, for our Lord warned long ago, that a man cannot be the servant of two masters. You cannot serve him while you worship in the temple of Satan.

Friday, March 16, 2012

John 4

The Woman of Samaria

I am actually tempted to leave the story where it ended up yesterday, but I'm going to at least attempt to write the rest. Besides, the last part is what links her to Joanna.

THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA

I wanted to shout. I nearly ran straight for the town - trying to find every woman, man, child and tell them what I had found. For so long I had felt like I moved in shadows, that I had been rendered dumb, that if I spoke it would sound only like the rustling of the wind. But none of it was true. Always, always, I had my voice.

It was a spring inside of me, never ending, ever flowing, pouring out into the world. And I had been trying to draw it from a well.

But there was one more thing I had to know.

"I know that the Messiah is coming. When he comes he will explain everything to us."

And he smiled gently again, almost amused that I still could not quite say it - so many years of not being able to say what I really meant.

"I, the one speaking to you, I am he."

Perhaps it looked as if the return of his companions frightened me away, but I knew that He knew better. I was off, I was off to overflow, the spring inside of my was shooting forth like a geyser, trapped too long beneath the earth. Shooting out of the well. It was all wrong. We had it all wrong. The love of God knew no bounds, no restrictions. His love was not earned by your adherence to a code nor was it a thing you could soil with any earthly act. It was a spring of living water, unending and everflowing. All you had to do was drink.

"Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?"

I phrased it as a question. I knew my audience, but I ran shouting, spilling over onto the desert sands.

Come see a man who told me everything I ever did and loved me anyway. Come see a holy man who did not look down on my fallen state. Come see a prophet who knew my every fault and treated me only as fellow child of God. Could this be the Messiah? Not a figure of fire and judgment and punishment and war. Not a purging of all that steps outside of narrow precepts. A man who extends love to all, knowing every fault. Could this be the Messiah? Could we possibly be that lucky? Could we possibly be that blessed? Could we possibly be that loved?

Thursday, March 15, 2012

The Ides of March

John 4:15-19

THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA

"I do not have a husband."

It was not a defiant challenge this time. There was no fire in my eyes nor spirit in my voice. There was only a kind of numb sorrow. Disappointment. The only man to really look at me in years had only done so because he didn't know that I was the black widow of Samaria. And even when he did, he didn't really see who I was. I fell for some two-bit magician's trick, and he would never even know how deeply he hurt me. Kind eyes that had seemed to see me and find me worthy. But only because he had no idea.

"You are right in saying, 'I do not have a husband.' For you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband."

I blinked. He knew?

"What you have said is true."

I have tried many times to find words for what I felt in that moment. I sucked in a ragged breath, and if he had not caught the rope, my jar would have been lost in the well. It was some time before I let the breath out. Some time in which I tried desperately to make it make sense - to comprehend that He, a holy man, a prophet of God, could know every sin I had made and still to look at me as He had - with love and respect and belief that I could - the I could be worthy of living water, the blessings of God.

I couldn't do it. "Sir, I can see that you are a prophet."

So why? Why do you come to me? Not to a worthy woman of the town, full of honor and piety and holiness. Reaching out for such as You day and night, whereas I stopped daring to reach out for anyone oh, so long ago.

Then I blinked. There came the thought: was everything we had thought about religion wrong? Were the rules and the bindings and the judgments, were they all false?

I started with a slightly less foundation-shaking question, only the central one of our collective existence, Samaritan and Jew, for centuries. "Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews claim the place to worship is in Jerusalem."

His answer was an answer to the question I asked, but also to the one I did not yet dare.

"Woman, believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and is now come when true worshippers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in the spirit and in truth."

I blinked. The world looked the same, but everything had changed.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Happy Pi Day!

John 4:11-19

The Woman of Samaria

Here we go.

THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA

No bucket. Just a two-bit wise man about make up some clever metaphor. Or about to do some oh-so-clever trick to outwit the Samarian bumpkin. I disliked being played around with under any circumstances - I had had enough of that in my life, and it was one of the few things I still appreciated about my current man, for lack of a better word. But the real thing that got me going was that it felt like a betrayal, because of the way he looked at me. That feeling, that finally-seen feeling, had been just another tool in a petty confidence man's belt.

"Sir, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this 'living water'? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and livestock."

Let him take the last as he would. If this Jewish man thought us all fools, thought me an ignorant woman who did not know even her own town's history, then he had sadly misjudged me. But it was still crueler that he had made me misjudge him.

I felt a bit like crying, but I let it fuel my anger. I almost glared back at him, so I saw this his eyes still met mine, dead serious. Accepting my anger, my scorn, and above all my presence. It felt wonderful, wonderful to stand before him, defiant. Demanding better treatment. Perhaps I could only do it because he was a stranger. I had been worn down fighting the town to give me the same respect.

"Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I will give them will never thirst."

I nearly started back. It was as if he had heard me. Had heard my thoughts. How thirsty I had been for everything but stale, stagnant, tepid water.

"Indeed, the water that I will give them will become a spring in them welling up to eternal life."

He didn't mean water. He had known my thoughts. I was certain of it, although I had no idea how it was possible. Had God forgiven me then? Had God sent this man here today to give me strength? To give me not only a drink of human kindness but to fill me with his love? Love, not the grasping, fading, dying kind I had known for so long. Not the love of community that I had been denied. Just love. Just because.

"Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water." So I would never have to face hate and rejection again.

He looked me steadily in the eye, his jaw set, and I felt as if I could not move an eyelash.

"Go, call your husband and come back."

I blinked. He was no prophet. Not even a very good trickster, not to notice the town whore she she stood before him. He had never looked into my soul.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

John 4:8-10

See a previous blog entry around this time last year here for my analysis of the next part of her story.

WOMAN OF SAMARIA

A few steps later, I remembered that Jews share nothing in common with Samaritans. That he would at best show a cold diffidence - that this would be more respectful, in its way, that a warm civility, a show of simple kindness. My heart was suddenly in my feet, and I silently cursed myself for allowing such a stupid, small thing to put me so thoroughly out of sorts.

I avoided eye contact, although I felt his gaze on me, as I went to the well and dropped my jar down. When he spoke, I near lost the rope in my surprise.

"Give me a drink."

It was not the demand of a rich noble used to be obeyed. It was not the plea of a man on hard times, although his clothes were travel-stained and his skin darkened by the sun. There was neither command nor entreaty in his voice. It was as if he was offering me a choice: to be the kind of person who would give him water from my jar or not to be. The kind of person too frightened of strangers.

I met his gaze, and I felt he could see right through me. He did not see a woman of Samaria, a natural enemy. He did not see a fallen woman nor even just a woman, whom he could dismiss out of hand. He looked at me, just as another person sharing a small patch of earth - and perhaps a drink of water - with him. Under his gaze, I felt naked - but no, that wasn't quite right. I felt finally present. I felt like I had been a shadow, a ghost, for years, and now at last my feet were solidly on the ground again.

I blinked. He was a Jew. I a Samaritan woman of questionable morals. With whom we share nothing in common, not even a patch of dirt upon a weary road. "How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?"

His eyes looked sad, but he smiled gently. "If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."

For a moment, I thought he had seen how thirsty I was for everything but the tepid water I hauled home every noontide. For the simple kindness I had wanted when I first saw him, but more: for his gaze now. For someone to look on me not with the speculative adoration of a potential lover nor the possessive leer of a man on the prowl nor the hateful spite at one who flouted the rules of society. Just as a person, worth speaking to, worth seeing. As if all the things that stood between us were nothing. How terribly thirsty I had been, for so long, to be treated as just a person, just another soul moving through the world, as real as those around her.

I blinked. He didn't even have a bucket.

[I actually LOST my first version of this, which pretty much broke my heart. I remembered most of it, but it's much shorter in this version (perhaps not an entirely bad thing). But anyway, sigh.]

Monday, March 12, 2012

John 4

The Woman of Samaria

I've written so much about her (and even a little from her perspective before), but I'm strangely very nervous about this (which is silly considering I can always rewrite). However, I'm fairly pleased with how the Widow of Zarephath turned out the past two days, so I'm just going to go with that.

WOMAN OF SAMARIA

I don't remember when I started going to the well at midday. I slept in one morning, and although the water was hot and unpleasant when I brought it home, the trip had been so much easier. So much easier than enduring the gaggle of women who all came before dawn so they could get their jars of water home while it was still cool. Before the sun rose and baked everything to a crisp.

I had hated the gaggle for so long, for so many reasons, I couldn't even tell you how many burdens it eased from my shoulders to avoid the pre-dawn gathering. When I was young and unmarried and they clucked and clucked speculating on who I would marry. Unsure how to place me in the rankings until then. I was pretty, so I might land a rich man and be entitled to exercise grudges, but I was poor, so there was no need to show any kind of peremptory deference. Then it was all giggles and snickers when I was engaged, pestering and speculation about when I would be pregnant almost before I was married, and unending sympathy, offhand and genuine, when my first husband died.

With the second wedding there was more gossip than bustle about me, but they were approving. A young woman should have the chance to be a mother. Less sympathetic when he died. My third marriage was a divorce, and that's when half the talk became whispers in ears and behind hands. By the fourth, whom I never actually married though I began to claim I did, I was like some attraction, some foreign seller of wonders barking in the streets of Jerusalem. I swear I saw money exchanged on the fifth. By then they were shunning me. The glares and lectures had died away into contempt and silence.

At first I was almost glad - they were seeing me, at last, not defining me on the man I was with. I admit I took a perverse pleasure in how I could silence them, cut through the crowd and take my water quickly because no one wanted me there. But such things lose their charm quickly. Soon all you see is what they intended: the rejection. There was no support when my fifth husband died. I think he was, after all the mess, the love of my life. I certainly needed the gaggle of women clucking and cooing more than I had with my first bittersweet marriage. No support from the women, at least. That was how I ended up in the arms of the man who kept me in his house "joking" that he did not dare make an honest woman of me, lest it unleash a plague of locusts.

So when I saw a figure silhouetted against the well, my heart grew weary and my steps grew heavy. It had been some time that I had had to endure a hostile stare to get a drink of water.

I was more confused than anything else when I drew close enough to see it was a man. Some woman must be sick, sent her son, which would explain why he had waited until noon. Then I saw he was a Jew and my heart rose. A stranger. And I thought, so fleetingly, let him not leer at me. Let him be kind because he does not know he is addressing the fallen woman, the black widow of Samaria. A small dose of human civility - from someone who would never see me naked - would do wonders for my heart, I remember thinking.

I am shocked to realize now what a small measure of grace I would have settle for. What an insignificant blessing I would have cradled like salvation itself - which is what He came to offer me instead.

Sunday, March 11, 2012

1 Kings 17

The Widow of Zarephath

I admit that I thought I would joyfully throw myself into the Woman of Samaria when the gospel with her story rolled around, but I want to do the second part of the Widow of Zarephath first, and that will hopefully give me time to figure out how I want to handle her story. I've written so much about her I'm not sure what I'd pick.

I had the thought today that there are 3 sections in the work I want to put together. I think I might envision them as separable entities then, once I assemble the three parts, see what I think of weaving them together. Part 1: The Outsiders ("In-Laws of Grace"?), anchors on the Ruth and Naomi story, also taking in Delilah and Jezebel and other women I'll think of in time - the one from the scraps from the table story perhaps? Salome to link with Elizabeth? Moses's wife. Hagar? Part 2: The Mothers, anchoring on I guess Elizabeth? With Widow of Zarephath and eventually Hannah. Maybe even Bathsheba and Solomon? Moses's mother - perhaps even anchoring on her. Hagar and Sarah could both go here as well - particularly Sarah if we weigh in on the Isaac question. Part 3: The Disciples, anchoring on I originally though Mary Magdalene but now think the Woman of Samaria, for how much I love her, and taking in Joanna, Mary and Martha, etc. Miriam from the Old Testament. There might be a fourth part, War Heroes for Deborah and Esther and Judith, but I'm holding off on those for the moment.

All that by way of saying, I'm thinking about how to anchor the story on the Woman of Samaria for tomorrow and for today encouraging any resonances with Elizabeth and the Widow of Zarephath.

So, part two of that story.

WIDOW OF ZAREPHATH

It was hard to convince my mind to relax, my soul to take its rest. For three years, there was precisely enough flour and oil for a loaf of bread, dinner for three, in the jars. Never more. Never enough to save up and feel secure. Never enough not to be totally dependent on this man of God under my roof.

That was how I thought of it. This man was of God, and God was looking after His own. Not me and my son, we were blessed to have this man in our house, to be bless-ed by associated. All those dark thoughts - all those worries of what would happen to us when Elijah chosen to leave, all of those desperate desires for the ability to store up a little food for when that day must come - seemed to be confirmed when my son fell ill.

The utter cruelty to see him spared from starvation only to lose him to sickness. To be denied the right to die with him, preferably before him. To be denied the right to share his fate. To share a final meal with him and know that when he was gone I would have to choke down ashes for the rest of my life.

I turned to Elijah, the holy man I had thought was extending me one final chance for grace, and whom then I had thought was showing me how to depend on God as he did. No, he had deprived me of my peace. My shoulders could not square for this. Not this. To lose him and still to live myself.

"What do you have against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son?"

The sins that start to come easier and easier, to fall faster and faster, as everyone begins to slowly starve to death. The charity refused, the crumbs stolen, the hope crushed under your heel. The advantage taken. The slow contraction of whom you consider it your responsibility to save. Was this God's way of saying that when Elijah came I was too far gone? Of laughing in the face of my squared shoulders, my dream of grace and peace before death? Did Elijah come to ensure I found no such consolation, deserving none?

But Elijah took my son in his arms, and I could not stop him walking away from me. Elijah took him to pray, pray to God for I did not know what. If only he would pray that I might bear my son's sin in his place.

It was a long night, the night of my despair. I made the loaf, the same amount every day. I meant only to eat my portion, but I must have eaten it absently all night, for in the morning itw as gone. Every crumb, as if it had never been. The meal of despair and suffering, the payment for my hubris in planning one of grace and peace.

But Elijah carried my son downstairs, and he placed him on the table before me. I looked up, hollow-eyed and beyond grief. At last he said, as if exasperated, "Look, your son is alive!" I looked down, and I saw the color in his cheeks. He stirred, and there was strength in his limbs.

I melted, shoulders first. Squared in resignation, hunched in despair, now they heaved in relief. In joy. And in laughter at my own stupid foolishness. It wasn't long before I went to the jar, to see if yet it had been replenished. If I could bake again. To settle myself. To feed my boy now that at least he could eat again. To feel the grace of God taking care of us between my fingers as I kneeded the dough.

"Now I know you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord from your mouth is true." It told him.

Elijah was very serious. "Then hear me. Those who seek grace will find it."

When I had baked the bread - so much sweeter than yesterday did it taste! - I returned almost manically to the pot, and I found it full. I baked for the entire town that day. I fed all of Zarephath. For three years. I was ashamed that I had not thought of it before. Elijah told me I should be ashamed. To see a miracle and yet not know God would watch over me.

I had kept it guarded as a kind of close secret, lest they beg for food I could not take from my son's mouth. Lest a more worthy of the town take Elijah in and leave us to starve. Now I shared my joy. My blessing. The abundance of grace and peace I had been shown, when I was willing to settle for so little.

And bread. I set my shoulders and began to bake.