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“There were some sailors in a boat, which started to ship water. One sailor began to dig a hole under his seat to let the water out. The others stopped him at once. He was very surprised and rather angry. ‘What right have you got to stop me?’ he said. ‘I was digging a hole under my seat, not yours.’”
Jewish parable
In Lebanon extraordinary things are happening to ordinary people. At electonic intifada there are eyewitness accounts and diaries of how ordinary people live through extraordinary times and somehow preserving the ordinary becomes of the utmost importance.
Zena el-Khalil writes on the site about living under fire in Beirut. Part of her diary was in the Guardian on 19th July – My city on fire again. She writes of ordinary things which become extraordinary because of the circumstances she finds herself in:
“But we are also trying to be normal, because being normal is what got the Lebanese people through some 20 years of war. We are joking about how the airport is on fire because of all the alcohol in the duty free.”
“Latest update: nine missile raids into Dahiya in the last hour. There are now several parts of Beirut without electricity. The sky is glowing red. I am praying for the people in Dahiya … Another really really loud bomb. I guess that makes it 10 now.
I am angry now. The things that cross your mind … I just set up a new art installation last week, and now no one will get to see it. I was just about ready to launch an international residency programme here – not going to happen now. We were just planning to start a family. Who wants to get pregnant now?”
“Believe it or not, the sun is beginning to rise and I actually hear birds chirping.”
“Today I drove through downtown on my way to visit my parents. I was driving alone and was a bit nervous. My first time in a car alone since this whole thing started – but I had to see them.
I came across a red light and stopped. The streets were empty, and I caught myself wondering why I stopped and didn’t just go through. Then I remembered my latest policy to keep me sane: that even under attack, we should not lose our manners.
Then I looked into my rear-view mirror and saw other cars approaching. I closed my eyes and in a fit of prayer wished that they would stop too. That if they didn’t cross the light, it would somehow indicate that we are all thinking the same. You must have heard about Lebanese drivers: they never stop at red lights! Well, today they stopped.
I opened my eyes and burst into tears. All the cars had stopped. Everyone was behaving. The little things that make you happy.”
“The violence you have done to Lebanon will overwhelm you,
and your destruction of animals will terrify you.
For you have shed man’s blood;
you have destroyed lands and cities and everyone in them.”
Habakkuk 2
This morning’s sermon was on Luke 2:41-52 – Jesus as a boy found in the Temple at Jerusalem. Mary’s a significant character in the account, being maternally exasperated by the boy who walked. One Good Friday service we used this as a reflection where Mary thinks back to the son she lost at 12 and the son she will lose again. It was posted in Getting Lay-ed’s first incarnation, but was lost too, so it’s resurrected here.
Mary, among the crowd
I’d lost him.
I couldn’t find him. I couldn’t see him. People made space for me in the crowd so I could see better I suppose; so that I could be nearer to him. I’m not sure they did it through pity for a mother, through curiosity, or plain spite.
I could feel the fever of the crowd, the press of bodies, the pulse of blood rising. I could almost taste the scorch of their excitement and anger, of their half understood outrage and their fully believed power. I could feel their frenzy, the wild intoxication of being the many against the one. Their turn to be in charge. I could hear their mutterings, the cursing, swelling to a roar of passion, fury and hate. ‘Crucify him. Crucify him’. I saw him then.
There was another Passover I remember. Jerusalem was as full then as now. So full a child could wander away without being seen. So full a son could be lost in the crowd. He was about 12 then, a boy – my boy. I’d lost him then too. But he was never lost – it was us who were lost. He was about his Father’s work; like he is now. And now I’m lost again – a mother adrift in pain and grief for my first born son. Yeshua, Immanuel; the one who saves. The one who was always mine, but never mine alone.
Tell me now Lord, how do you measure a mother’s love?
How much does a heart weigh? Today mine is as heavy as a stone rolled across the hillside tombs.
How much can a heart bear? Today I am crushed by the weight of memory stored up, harvested, treasured over 33 years. Today I hear the voices of the past as loudly and as urgently as the clamour of this crowd shouting at Pilate for my Yeshua. I hear the whisper of Simeon cradling the baby. Looking at me, he speaks across the years:
‘This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your side too.’
And today, I feel the force of truth, of his words made real, lived out by me and through me as the child becomes a man. What thoughts are revealed so cruelly today? I am pierced with the sword of fear – fear for my son. I do not today feel blessed among woman. I do not today feel warmed by angels’ fire. My thoughts are not of blessing and light and signs. My thoughts are dark, blackened by clouds of pain and sacrifice and suffering. I am conscious of cursing, not of blessing.
Tell me now Lord, how do you measure this mother’s love?
I am pierced with the sword of memory. I think back, as mothers will do, to the days around his birth. He was eight days old when I offered him, my cherished first-born son, to be consecrated to YAHWEH, the Holy One of Israel. That day we offered a sacrifice for him, as the law demanded of us. Now today I stand and watch, horrified and awestruck as my son offers himself as a sacrifice for us, as his love demands.
I am pierced with the sword of separation and loss. I have lived some 50 years, over 30 years as a mother. I have talked with angels and have been visited by shepherds and by kings. I have seen impossible things done through the Lord.. And yet, I have rocked and nursed him, sung cradle songs of hope and soothing. I have watched my son take his first miraculous breath, and then watched as he breathed the miracle of life into others.
I have loved him with a mother’s love since before he was born – yet he has loved me forever. My love for him is fierce, yet fearful because I am only human. His love for me is unbreakable, unyielding and everlasting. His love is divine.
Teach me then my Lord, how do I measure the love of the Son?
It’s the 12th July.
Here’s one the Shankill Road prepared earlier:
