Monday, March 5, 2012

Ruth 2

I am trying to figure out how this part of the story becomes a monologue. I keep thinking it has to be told in the third person - so Naomi describing what happened to Ruth, but it just feels off.

Because the story of how God showed Mara that she was still His beloved, His sweet Naomi, is by how He started taking care of Ruth. How when they were starving, Ruth in her fierce determination, swallowed pride and went all-but-begging, risking what pretty much everyone keeps reminding her is assault or even, perhaps, sexual assault at the hands of the hired workers. And when she does, God protects her. God takes her under His wing and has Boaz see and take pity on her - and he tells her that he honors her for what she has done for Naomi. When Naomi turns her face from God's love and refuses to believe but that He has turned His face from her and given her bitter now instead of sweet, He uses Ruth to reach her. And to bring Ruth into the fold.

It's a beautiful story, but who does it belong to? Yesterday, I had Naomi describe how fiercely Ruth loves, so perhaps I could go from there, but, well, let me just give it a shot:

NAOMI

She loved fiercely, and she never grew to tired to show her love with her actions. We were hungry when we returned home, for my family supports had long since aged and moved on in turn. I was Mara, as I had asked them to think of me, not beloved Naomi to demand of them sweet charity. So Ruth went to the fields, surely not as fearless as she seemed. Surely not as strong as the face she showed me.

And she returned with plenty in her arms. From a man I had thought would turn his face away from us. She went out, and her love - of me! - netted returns beyond my imagination. I half expected her to return beaten, or perhaps even broken. She returned with blessings, with gifts from a family member - who showed charity as he thought it only possible to show two as proud as we must have seemed. Call me Mara indeed.

She smiled so, when I exclaimed. She must have known it was extraordinary, but her joy of it was seeing the tears that sprang to my eyes. The tears of relief but also shame - shame to think that I had so insisted that I was alone - that I had been abandoned. Shame at the gentleness of the rebuke that was the plenty in her arms. The love of God, and family, that I had forgotten. The love I should have seen and known for what it was that day on the road with Ruth. The love I had overlooked as something extraordinary about her alone, rather than an arm of the love of God.

How it must have pained her to have me call myself Mara, when she was so sweet by my side. So strong and sure and loving a daughter-in-law. So determined and devoted and kind. So sweet.