Memento Mori

After Mass today (courtesy of the mall monks) I drove on post to go to the gym. Everyone on post seems to have the day off today, including myself (I have no idea why, but I'm not complaining) so the gym was empty. Just me and the guy cleaning the weight room.

I haven't lifted in a while, due to training out in the mountains. Climbing is a different kind of workout, but I was still able to hit a 462Lb deadlift for one rep. My goal is to hit 500lbs again someday (without hurting myself this time) and be able to lift it for reps. I also did some hand stand pushups and some overhead squats, and then decided to call that good.

While I was changing in the locker room I heard someone moving around on the other side of the row of lockers. By the time I had finished changing I knew that 1) he was old, and 2) he had COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. My bet is emphysema because of that peculiar, regular, breathy cough.)

On my way out of the locker room I looked over to see my fellow going-to-the-gym-on-his-day-off comrade. I was right, he was old. Very old, probably in his seventies. His arms were wasted and wrinkled, I could hear every breath that came out of his mouth, and yet he was still strapping on a lifting belt.

It got me thinking.

I am 27 years old. I can run six miles in under an hour with a 45lb pack on my back, at 6,000 ft. elevation and be ready to fight when I get there. I can deadlift twice my body weight for reps. I can climb rocks, I can swim, I can fight. I have spent years training myself to this physical level, partially because it is my job, but mostly because I just enjoy being healthy and strong and able to do all those things. And no matter how hard I work, if I survive long enough I will look like that old man.

It is not a new thought, to me. I have long since been fully aware of my own mortality, and have put a great deal of thought into why I spend so much time training a body that is destined for old age (if I'm lucky) decay, disease, and the grave. I put more effort in than most guys, less than some, but in the end how much effort or what level of fitness you strive for is unimportant. What really matters is why. The reason is everything. Do you want to pick up chicks? That will work for a while, but not forever. Everything sags eventually, biceps included. Do you want to be known as the world's greatest (insert sport of choice here.) Fine. Maybe you can reach that level, maybe you cannot. What is certain is that you cannot maintain that level forever, and someday, maybe during your lifetime, maybe after it, someone will come along and break whatever record you set. My goal is to be able to serve and protect people, but even that will not last forever, on a strictly physical level. Someday I will be injured, or wounded, or killed, or I will just plain get old, and I won't be able to move, shoot and communicate like I can now. I won't even want to.

I admire that old man in the locker room with all my heart. I don't know what his reasons were, and he may well have been a horrible person, or the best man alive. All I know is that I saw discipline there. Never mind his physical weakness, his aches and pains, the disease that will inevitably kill him unless something else kills him first. Despite all of that he still straps on his weight belt and pushes himself.

When I get to that level I hope to be doing the same thing. I will no longer be able to crush the bad guys, or climb up mountains. My days of serving and protecting will inevitably end, unless...

Unless, in all of my physical training there is some spiritual sacrifice, some shaping of my soul. Even when I am lying in a hospital bed, my body wasted and broken, God willing my soul, shaped and forged through years of training, will be strong and whole. I will no longer be able to place my body between the innocent and those who would do them harm, but by God's grace I can still place my soul there. And in the very end, when I can do nothing, and have nothing left to give, may I accept even that weakness as an opportunity for God's strength.

Every young man should have the chance to see a very old man facing death. It helps keep us from wasting our time.

70 X 7

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” Matthew 18:21-22

The namer was called unto the seventh day,

“Shabbat, my son.” But chose at length the sixth,

He and his wife.

And lived their life,

Between Monday morning and Saturday night

Grudging Sunday’s rest, clinging body and soul

To the thorns and sweat and pains of childbirth.

Nothing will induce me, so it seems

To rest.

At best

I slip back down,

From the sixth to the fifth;

And from carousing like a beast

I slide by slow degrees into the sloth

Of vegging out on youtube half the day.

Hardly worth

The blood and pain of birth

If I spend myself in becoming, step by step,

First a beast

(For there, at least,

Is strength to do!)

And then a vegetable in an armchair

And then a stone.

And when I’ve done,

My life’s ambition met,

As close to formless void as I can get.

Thank God for thorns.

For alarm clocks and early morns,
And all the harrying, hateful spurs of necessity

That drive me from the void. Some energy
At minimum I must spend to eat
To drive, to earn respect of all my peers.
And then, who knows? My ears
Attuned to frequencies beyond my normal ken
Hear the seventh faintly ringing through
The cacophony of egos, appetites and fears.

But Now I find myself back

Where I started this poem. My lack
Of rest.
Distaste
For any slackness in my rodent race.
I nervously sit through Sunday and my face
Betrays impatience for Monday.
“No rest for the wicked,” is not a punishment
But a simple statement of fact. When what is meant
Is understood, one might as well put forth
“No food for the hungry.” But of course!
That is why they are hungry.


And every seven days another chance
To put down spade and crackberry and learn to dance
So that on Monday, (On taking up once more
These workday dance partners) we might even up the score
And teach new steps to those who made us step
Like geese, in time to the rhythm of our clocks
Marching under orders from our sterile gods.
When drill sergeants learn to dance, they lend a measure
To what would otherwise be merely raucous pleasure.


And every seven years the land lies fallow
Untilled, unsown,
Left on its own
To see if it might
Yield in its own right.
The rest of the years are to learn from this year of rest
That all work is but a joining in, another way to divest
Myself of my self. Work is but another way to receive,
It has that in common with stillness. But I deceive
Myself when I think my work is mine, or grain
Or fruit or flocks or words in print. Once again
Working is just another form of begging
And sitting in prayer as much a form of legging
As commuting to work.


The Rock was taught a thing or two that day
How many times must Sunday come around?
Before I no longer need to work at rest?
But we are never lodger, always guest
And Monday is meant to vanish once for all.
Shabbat alone remains.
Live in the other six days all you want.
Stay there, if you wish, triple them up.
The beast, the vegetable, the rock, the void
Alike are destined for one thing: to be destroyed.
Only the human who has the strength to be
At peace in Him Who Is, can become like He.

How many times must I become at peace?

All of them.
Rest is stronger than work and so it costs
Everything. Not one thing less. All must be lost
In order to be found. But so it yields:
Peace times fullness of peace;
Rest times fullness of rest;
Joy times fullness of joy;
Life times fullness of life.
This is Heaven.
70 X 7.

See also Genesis 2:3, Leviticus 25.

Reply

Two weeks ago I wrote a blog about male/female relationships in our modern culture. I posted it here and on Ignitumtoday.com, and it generated more than a little controversy on IT. One of the most widespread criticisms was on my view of vocations, so I would like to quote the clearest and most cogent question I received about it, and answer it here.

I am a bit confused when you say “A true GCM will not belong entirely to his wife, he will have another life outside, this will be his life’s work.” If you mean that a man or woman should have as his or her primary vocation, loving God above all things (even his or her spouse) with his or her whole heart, mind, body, and soul…then okay I wholeheartedly agree. But how I understand your statement is that you think in the case of a man he will have other priorities that come before his role as a husband and father that will have a greater claim on his attention, and which he will not share with his little wife at home…this is where I do not agree. ..... If a man or woman is living the vocation of spouse & parent, then I think that vocation would be the primary focus, and would require the greatest claim on their time, and attention. This would of course necessitate them being a true man or woman in their own right. Which would be living fully as God created them to be, however in living as husband and wife, they would look to share everything they could to compliment the other, not seek to keep separate from their family qualities and gifts they are given.


Sorry it took so long to reply, I had to give it some thought and I have been busy. First of all you have to understand that that remark is colored by my experience in the military. I have seen too many women marry military men because they were attracted to their courage and dedication. Then within a few years they came to hate the military for the amount of time and energy it demanded from their men. Or worse, they came to hate their husbands for those very same qualities that they originally were attracted to. This goes back to Genesis when God said to the woman, "Your desire will be for your husband, but he will rule over you." When women fall in love they do so with a completeness that is beautiful but frightening. There is (it seems to me) always a temptation for her to want her man to belong to her as totally as she belongs to him, but that cannot always be. Some men work at their jobs for only one purpose, to support their wife and family. Other men, in my view the happiest and most fulfilled men, work at their jobs because they love them, or because they feel called to that particular mission. That mission will necessarily take time that a woman might want him to spend with her. In the case of some dangerous mission, like military, police, firefighters, deep sea fishers, miners, lumberjacks, farmers, etc. there is the added pressure of the knowledge that this job (this passion if it is a passion) could take her man away from her forever.

In such cases there is always a temptation to want the man to take the easy way out, let go of that mission, and just get a job as a plumber or a mailman, something that will get him home, unshot, at regular hours. A woman who enters into a relationship with a man on a mission, especially a dangerous one, is fooling herself if she does not take that into account.

However you should not take from that statement the notion that this mission is more important than his wife and children. It  is not. If a man gets married that becomes his number one responsibility, period. My point was that it will not be his only responsibility, and ultimately the choice of how to balance the various responsibilities in his life is his (just like the woman's choice of priorities, ultimately, is hers and no other's.)

Somehow or other she will have to deal with the fact that he has other priorities, which are not more important than her, but are not unimportant either. When I say she must "deal with it" I don't want you to think that I mean she must just get used to it and learn to go on living when her man isn't around. I mean that literally she must deal with it. It is a factor that she must take into account and find a way of working with. Some women I have met do this by cutting their men down in public, doscouraging them from their jobs, breaking down their self-esteem, all in an effort to bring them to heel where they will be safe. Wiser women simply accept that this is something their man needs and let him do what he needs to do, knowing that when he is done he will come back to her, because he needs her even more deeply. However there is another way still. It is rare, dangerous and very, very difficult, but it is beautiful and noble. She might embrace his mission, make it her own, and make his sacrifice her sacrifice (which includes many sacrifices he will never be able to make.) However, since I have already written about that, I will not make this reply any longer. You can read about my view of that way here.

Meals

 The first thing I did upon arriving at the hotel room for the evening (after showering) was to prep for tomorrow. Make sure my pack is ready, the ropes are bagged, and food and water are restocked. My lunchbox contains a small summer sausage, half a block of cheese, a pound of baby carrots, some raw red peppers, two apples and two granola bars. Two 1 liter nalgene bottles of tap water and a 3 liter camelbak complete the nutritional requirements of yours truly for a full day of hiking, climbing and miscellaneous such frivolities.

For supper this evening I am eating a half a loaf of bread with cheese and banana peppers on it, and a block of ham weighing about a pound. I am hungry as all get out, and they are absolutely delicious. They also have the advantage of requiring next to no preparation at all. I microwaved the bread and bought the ham ready to eat. I just cut a chunk off with my pocket knife and there we are. I don't even have a plate in the hotel room so I set the ham on top of the bread to keep it off the table. For drink I have a one liter nalgene bottle of tap water (Boulder is such a trendy little town, I'm pretty sure the water is organic.) I can eat and type, listen to music, chat, read, do anything I want. There is no one in the world to consult in the matter except myself.

But it occurred to me as I was going through the minimal preparations for eating, that this is rather a barbaric way to live, no matter how much Handel I listen to while I eat. Forget utensils, forget dishes, tablecloths, place settings, even a dining room. I am eating at the hotel room computer desk. Are any of those things necessary? No. Certainly not. I can enjoy them with the best when they are available, but right now I am in hunter-gatherer mode.

But I feel like there is something missing in the hunter-gatherer approach. I wouldn't even really call that a meal. Most of the time I eat when I get the chance, and don't eat when I don't get the chance. No regular meal times. That is understandable in the field, but it bleeds over into the rest of my life. On a weekend there is no particular reason why I shouldn't eat breakfast, lunch and dinner, instead of just grabbing whatever is convenient. There is no reason why I shouldn't cook something good, instead of eating raw fruits and vegetables and pre-cooked meats. (Which are a better choice for food-on-the-go than some other things, but still...)

What I find when I think about it is that I have reduced eating to a matter of caloric intake. I need energy to fuel the machine so I take in energy. I have to function at a fairly high level physically so I make sure that at least most of the food I take in is not garbage. It keeps me alive and healthy, but in walking from the refrigerator to the computer desk I got the feeling that something was missing. I remember when I was kid fuming and muttering under breath at being made to set the table, talking back to my Mom about which side the knife and the fork should go on, asking why we had to use the good glasses which were so much more bother. Wouldn't plastic do just as well? Why not just use paper plates?

It's ironic. My mother learned (whether she liked it or not) that you just can't have nice things with a house full of kids. Plates and cups will get broken, silver will get lost, and most of the time there just isn't time to do things the fancy way. Nowadays, although she can maintain the nice, matching dinnerware that was an inevitable casualty in our younger days, she is as likely to go casual as I am. But I have learned something as well. It was undoubtedly a woman who invented dinnerware and tablecloths, placemats and napkins, and all the other accoutrements of fine dining, and there is a value in these things that is not readily apparent to me, but real nonetheless.

Taken altogether these "extras" have a message. They take eating and raise it from the realm of refueling, and make it into something special. To put it another way, they recognize and make visible the specialness that is inherent in the act of eating. These things turn a biological necessity into a ritual, which can become a means of bringing about relationship. They raise it from the level of animal need, to the level of human community. This is undoubtedly the biggest reason why I neglect all of them most of the time. They just don't make sense when you are eating alone. This is the same reason why I never make pizza for myself. It just doesn't make sense. If I want pizza for myself I'll order it. But for my friends and family? I'll spend an entire day preparing a meal that will be eaten and gone in a few hours, because they are worth it. The meal becomes a means to something greater.

Eating alone is only half of what it should be. It is a lame, crippled thing. Eating should be shared. It should be special. It is worth time and effort to make it so.

So if you have the ability, eat with your family. Prepare food for them, or cook it together with them. Add in some music or a good movie. Take whatever time it takes and consider it time well spent.

If you don't have that opportunity and you must eat alone, realize that you are never alone. Eat with God. Take the time to thank Him for the food He has given you, and share the meal with Him. He longs to share it with you.

Wheat Farmers and Weed Exterminators

A few weeks ago I went to an evening Mass at the Catholic Center in the Citadel Mall in Colorado Springs. The Catholic center is a small chapel and Catholic resource center run by a small group of Franciscans, affectionately referred to as “Mall Monks.” (Mall Monks for the win! You can check them out here.)

The gospel at this Mass was Matthew13:24-30 the parable of the wheat and the weeds. The monk who was preaching the homily said, with a twinkle in his eye, “Are you more of a wheat farmer or a weed exterminator?”

You know how every once in a while you hear a single sentence or a phrase that hits you like a lightning bolt out of a clear blue sky? This simple question was like that. In less than the time it took to realize what I had heard I experienced a complete refocusing of my outlook (which was a little bleak at that particular moment.) It might seem strange that I could experience the effect of an idea without really processing it, but I find it happens to me quite often. My mind leaps to a conclusion, and only later am I able to trace it backwards and find out where it came from and how it makes sense.

In every heart there is a hopelessly confused profusion of growing things. Some of these growing things are fruitful and beautiful. There are fruit trees, vegetables, flowers, wheat, shade trees, all manner of life. There are also weeds, brambles, nettles, toadstools, fungi and all types of poisonous, useless, or just plain nuisance plants. They exist in such close proximity to each other that their leaves, branches and even roots intertwine. It is beyond the skill of any human gardener to sort them out. According to the parable, it is beyond even the skill of angels!

I have long had a tendency to look at that wild tangle, or the surface level of tangle which is all I can really see, and see only the weeds. My inclination is to get out my hoe and pruning hooks and start hacking away at everything I can get my hands on, but even in regular gardening that isn’t how you do it, except in the most desperate cases. But that is not how God manages things.

You see, here is the thing about weeds. The devil didn’t invent weeds, he just sowed them in the wrong place. That’s what makes a weed a weed, not the fact of its existence but where and when it grows. No one considers ordinary grass a weed, until you see it growing up between your young corn stalks. The grapevine that is slowly strangling the life out of the purple Lilac by the corner of the barn is only a weed because it is wild and untrained. Properly nourished and in its rightful place it produces fruit and wine to cheer the hearts of gods and men. The Scotch thistle that is horrendously out of place among my beans is achingly beautiful waving in the wind in the pasture on a cloudy day. Even the toadstools and fungi are necessary and good and even beautiful in their proper place. The devil cannot create a single living thing, with all his cunning and power all he can do is take something that was already in existence, alive and growing by the grace of God, and encourage it to grow where it is not wanted.

God, rather than ripping that poor plant out of the ground, allows it to grow. He’ll even start pruning it, which causes no end of frustration to the plant in question, in an effort to make it fruitful. The bruised reed He will never crush. He encourages the growth of all that is beautiful, fruitful and life-giving, or even potentially so, until the very end.

Grow the wheat. Wheat is a plant, just as hardy and just as alive as any weed. The quack grass that sucks the nutrients out of the soil and starves the wheat doesn’t have to be the strongest thing alive. No matter how often you chop it down with the hoe, it will grow back because the root is still there and still alive. But wheat has roots as well. Let the wheat grow. Fertilize the wheat, bank it up with dirt, protect it from the neighbor’s marauding cows and water it. It will grow. It will become strong and it will do your work for you. It will suck the soil dry and leave nothing left over for the quack grass. Prune the fruit trees and build a beehive. Train the string beans to climb their strings and trim the wandering watermelon vine.

Don’t obsess over the weeds. Just bear much fruit. No doubt at harvesting time there will be any amount of dried stalks and old tangled vines and rubbish to toss into the fire, but that is not what God is interested in. He is interested in the sheaves, the bushels, the pecks, the jars and crates and sacks of good things that are our return to Him for all the good things He has given us.

For He came that we might have life, and have it to the full!

Why I don't Argue on the Internet

The internet is a funny place. In some ways it resembles real life. People interract, they communicate, share ideas, thoughts, emotions. People develop real relationships on the internet, although necessarily they are not the same kind of relationships that they develop in face-to-face social interractions. You cannot literally have coffee with someone on the internet, but you can talk with someone else who is also having coffee (or tea, if, like me, you do not regularly drink coffe.) There are limits to the level of interraction you can have on the internet. Hugs don't really translate well, among other things. This does not necessarily mean that the relationships that develop on the internet are fake, only that they are different.

In other ways the internet is a totally different kind of world, the sort that simply couldn't exist without the barrier of distance and anonymity that the internet provides. It is a world without filters, where all sorts of filth and vulgarity can be produced and consumed. It is a world without consequences, where you can say whatever you like to whomever you like. A comment that I would justifiably punch you in the face for in the real world can be made with perfect safety on the internet. My fist will never travel down the signals of wi-fi and fly at you out of your computer screen.

Alas.* :-(

In a way the internet is a fantasy land. It is the imagination of millions upon millions of people made visible and audible. If the imagination of the person creating that particular site or post or comment is a beautiful imagination, the internet allows him to express it in ways that would not otherwise be possible. A prime example would be the incredibly talented artists who post their music on youtube, sharing it with the world for free. Writers who cannot afford to publish or who don't have the time or personality to deal with the cutthroat world of the publishing industry can still share their writings with a world-wide audience. On the other hand, if the imagination is sick and twisted, or even just plain self-centered, what comes out of it will reflect that.

Well, here we are with this fantasy land, the absolute freedom to put whatever media our minds can invent on it, to be seen by anyone in the world. Small wonder if, once in a while, you run up against someone who disagrees with you. The disagreement can run the gamut from "You know, you make a bunch of good points, but I couldn't help noting..." to "U R sch a ----ing morron i bet u never went to school i bet u never had a job why dont u get a ----ing clue!"

On the internet, as in life, it's all in how you respond. The difference between the internet and real life is that on the internet, I rarely respond at all, and I never argue.

I rarely argue in real life, but sometimes I will make an exception. On the internet, however, I've learned to bite my tongue (or my fingers).

Part of that is simply time. I just don't have the time to get sucked into a long term argument, especially at the pace most arguments maintain on the internet. My responses might take a week to come, and most people would lose interest in that time.

But more than that, it just doesn't do any good. I have argued many arguments over the years. Since I joined the army I have spent countless hours debating with my fellow soldiers in the barracks, in the trucks, in the field, in garrison. I also spent far too many hours debating with atheists, protestants and other Catholics on the internet. As far as I can tell, which, admittedly, is not very far, not one single person has ever grown wiser because of those arguments.

Seriously, when have you ever had an argument on the internet in which someone said, "I have to admit, you've stumped me. I concede that you are right. I will no longer (dis-believe in God, argue about 2nd amendment rights, wear a bikini, etc.)" That doesn't even happen in real life.

In other ages people knew how to argue reasonably and dispassionately. As C. S. Lewis said, they knew when a thing was proven and were prepared to change their behavior because of it. We don't know how to do that. In our society argument has the exact opposite effect. Instead of making people better acquainted with the other person's views, it makes them more certain of their own ironclad rectitude. In all the arguing I have done I have never once truly listened. I only listen when I do not argue. I listen when I shut up.

I have learned that people are not convinced by facts. Seeing is not believing, not to us. Believing is seeing. People are convinced by action, by consistency, and most of all by relationship. Argument hardens our positions, relationship opens them. If I try hard enough I can find something to disagree about with any person alive, but is that really going to bring anyone, least of all myself, closer to the truth?

Only in real life or in academia does argument have a legitimate use. In academia it is useful because the arguers may not be emotionally invested in the argument. In real life it may is only useful if there is a context of trust, a relationship that gives you a reason to listen and really try to hear what the other person is saying. In the end, the only reason to argue with someone is because you love them. If I don't love you in some way, I simply won't argue with you, because you will have no reason to listen.

But of course, the arguers will argue (and I argue it myself). Of course we have to love them. That's called charity. It doesn't mean you get all sappy about them, but you have to do the right thing and share the truth with them. That's what love really is.

Ah, but you see, there is a hidden danger there. The fact that charity does require us to do good for someone is no guarantee that just because I am telling the truth I am necessarily doing so out of love. There are a million reasons why I could share the truth with someone that have nothing to do with love. I have seen the truth used as a hammer to beat people over the head. That certainly is not love.

More to my point, even if I truly do love someone, real charity is hard fare. The supernatural virtue of charity, the hard, fierce, burning love that ruthlessly acheives the good for the beloved at any cost, is beyond me. I am not ready for that and neither, I suspect, are most humans. There is a reason that God dilutes His love. Instead of hitting us in the thundering cataract of total self gift, He allows it to come to us by degrees, in softer ways. Sunsets, pizza, beer, hugs, handshakes, music, babies laughing, being in love, all of these are ways for Him to tone His love down to our level. Even if I truly do love someone and want to see them get to Heaven, hitting them in the face with that may not necessarily be the way to go about it. Perhaps what they need is not a lecture on why it is wrong to receive Communion in the hand. Perhaps what they really need is a cup of tea. Or to watch a movie. Or just to be listened to.

We don't convince people by speaking to them. We convince them by listening to them.




*Since someone will undoubtedly think this means that I routinely punch people in the face for disagreeing with me, let me assure you this is not so. Not that I have anything against punching people in the face in principle, but there is a time and a place for it, you know.

Little Mother, Part II

This is Part 2 of a short story I wrote. You can read the first part here.

They slept in the cave of meeting at first until the young men of the tribe chased them out. She found a small cave further down the cliff, a little distance from the village, and set up her house there. Mother-of-the-idiot grew thin and Knows-nothing grew thin. She made her own garden and worked it with her own hands. At first her son would dig up the seeds as she planted them and ruin all her work, but over time she taught him to help instead of hinder. She suffered hunger and thirst, and for a time no one in the village would speak to her.

One morning she found the leg of a deer at the mouth of her cave. She could not imagine who had left it, but she was so hungry she didn’t wonder. She roasted it and she and her son ate it.

Winter came and they were cold and hungry. She foraged for roots, learned to trap squirrels and rabbits, and gnawed on bark when the stomach pains became too much. Knows-nothing became harder to manage as he became hungry, so even when she could find food she had to give most of it to him. But every so often throughout that winter she would find the leg of a deer lying at the mouth of the cave in the morning. Whoever left it was a clever hunter and woodsman because he left no tracks, no sign, and never woke her up though her sleep was always light and fitful because of the cold. She sometimes dreamed that Shoots-three-birds-with-one-arrow was still trying to provide for her in this way.

Spring came and she finally returned to the village for the first time since the winter had started. Most of the tribe were surprised to see her and Knows-nothing alive. She learned that much had changed in the winter. Looks-at-flowers had died, and Shoots-three-birds-with-one-arrow had married a new wife. All the girls her age were either married or promised to be married. The elder’s son was also married. He had been given the man name Shoots-three-legged-deer.

Time passed. Mother-of-the-idiot worked hard and harvested well. She learned to spin thread and weave cloth and began to trade blankets and clothes for food. The next winter she did not starve or freeze. And still, every few weeks, she found the leg of a deer at the mouth of her cave.

Many years passed. In time, Knows-nothing died. Mother-of-the-idiot found him one morning, lying in his bed with a smile on his beautiful face, squinting with pleasure like a child staring at the sun. His mother buried him alone and stared at the emptiness around her. She was too old now to be married. She had never been beautiful, but now she was so burned and worn and twisted by the years of hard work that she was downright ugly. She was also the village crazy woman, now. No one bothered her, but they all thought her an idiotic eccentric. She had a few fertile years left, but no man would want her. She would never have children of her own, so she began making clothes for the other children. She spoke with the midwife and learned which women were with child and made blankets for them and for their new infants. The midwife was now so old she could hardly walk from her hut to the caves so she took Mother-of-the-idiot as her apprentice. And now, every few weeks, the leg of the deer would turn up at the door of the midwife’s drafty bark hut.

In time Mother-of-the-idiot lost her name. She became known simply as The Midwife. She came when she was wanted, and left as soon as she was no longer needed. She grew old and gray and bent and frail. Her father died, his wives died, some of her siblings died. She had not been allowed to meet her nephews or nieces, but they allowed her to deliver their children. But still, every so often, the leg of a deer would be left on her doorstep.

Then one morning she died.

“Little daughter,” a Voice called to her.

She murmured, and left her eyes closed in the delicious warmth that surrounded her.

“Little daughter,” the Voice repeated. She could hear the Voice in her soul, almost as she could hear her mother’s voice when she was little, not simply with her ears but feeling the words vibrating through her mother’s chest into her little girl’s heart.

“Little daughter, arise. Wake up.” The Voice caressed her with terrifying strength and heartbreaking gentleness. She opened her eyes.

Instantly she wished she could shut them again, but was unable to. She had seen Him. He was too beautiful, too terrifying, too holy. He was completely strange to her, but at the same time there was something familiar about him. She felt as if He was killing her just by being who He was, but she no longer wanted to live.

“Welcome, my beloved daughter. Welcome. Welcome. I have been waiting for you for so long.”

Mother-of-the-idiot could not find a word to say in reply. The Voice continued. “You cared for me for so long and so well. I have been waiting all this time for you to be ready so that I could thank you for everything you did for me.”

Finally she cleared her throat and found her voice. “But Sir,” she said, humbly. “You must be mistaken. I do not know you. I have never served you. I am only a poor, wasted, dried out old woman. I have seen you and now I can die happy. But I swear I never saw you before now.”

“No?” the Voice answered with a gentle laugh. “Little Mother, don’t you recognize your own son?” And as she looked into the glory that was Him she saw another person. It was her son, Knows-nothing, smiling at her with his beautiful wise eyes. Knows-nothing was embracing Him, holding onto Him so tightly that she could not tell where one ended and the other began.

“Little Mother,” the Voice said, “My Mother, thank-you.”