Weeping with…

Events in the Middle East are dire. Terror seems to be the norm for people who are caught in the middle of an ancient power struggles. Life, any hope of life, seems to flicker way in the harrowing cavalcade of brutal hostilities. Sometimes, in the rarest of moments, light does burst forth and life takes hold once again. I heard a story of man from this region which brings this truth out in brilliant color.

This man, his name fails me, was one day out in the field tending to his herd. This was a profession that his entire family had worked in for generations and he hoped one day to pass on to his son, an infant, who occupied more time in the bosom of his mother than along the side of his father.

He recalled that the day started out bright and crystal clear upon the low hills that bordered the township he lived in. Occupied with retrieving a lost animal caught in the dense undergrowth in a dale, he wasn’t sure how long it was until he began to smell the acrid smoke of a fire flowing past him. As he looked over his shoulder towards the direction of the billowing smoke his eyes were horrified to see that his entire township was engulfed in flames.

Possessed by panic he frantically ran down the slope toward the village. Tongues of flame darted agitatedly across the sky as peals of shrieks and screams of horror – men, women and children – rose in intensity as he approached. Off to his side he could see soldiers, what appeared to be thousands of them march off, banners and armament held on high.

With wild abandon he rushed past the flames of his neighbors’ burning homes, swatting away the blazing debris that showered down upon and around him. His heart raced as he rounded the corner of his home to witness the shock of seeing his beautiful young wife, clutching the lifeless body of their son at her bosom, both impaled upon the iron gate leading toward their garden. His wailing, could not overcome the din of the fires burning and crashing down all around him. With super-human strength he wrestled the gate from its hinges and lowered the lifeless bodies which comprised his entire world to the ground.

Sobbing uncontrollably, he picked up his son’s frail form and pressed him to his chest, the lingering smell of a morning bath flooding his senses as tears washed over the child’s scalp. Falling to the ground he nestled the two of them next to the lifeless contours of his wife and began to softly moan for solace in the pain which strangled him.

Time became inconsequential. He recalls faint voices off in the distance calling to others to hurry and help… He could only mouth the word over parched lips, sound failed him. Someone approached them and tried to stifle a ghastly cry of horror. Barely able to move, he turned his head towards the figure obscured by the haze of the smoldering debris about him. An elderly man reached a withered hand toward his shoulder and gently pulled himself towards the family lying before him. Lightly the older man took hold of the child against the faint protests of the father and laid him on the other side of the woman. Slowly reaching behind him his back he pulled a flask of water and carefully slipped its crooked neck between the parched lips of the man. Sputtering and coughing the man drink ravenously. Something needed to quench the searing pain of…death.

As the story goes, apparently, a military detachment came through the country side terrorizing the inhabitants. Their superior force was no match for any of the towns they entered. Some people were tortured before their families, others were taken away, but only one village suffered the ultimate fate: annihilation. Regrettably, this sole survivor was spared, a kind of beacon of despair. The neighboring village came and found him among the ruins and tried their best to console his heart. They buried the bodies they were able to gather out of the charred remains in a location up on a bluff overlooking the village ruins. The sole survivor, our man, never left the resting site of his family. Day and night he could be heard wailing and sobbing in despair over their graves. Days turned to weeks and weeks to months as he, overcome with distraught, pounded the earth with bruised and bloody fists demanding the bodies of those he had lost. Trying to cut out the pain which racked his mind, he frequently slashed at his body with the jagged rocks.

Occasionally, a member or a committee of members from the surrounding communities would come to him and attempt to silence his wailing or offer food or companionship which he violently refused, chasing them off so that he could grieve alone. Some enterprising farmers found that they could leave their herds at night around the cemetery and predators would stay away because of the wailing which carried on all night long. Over time the survivor began to envision the cattle as images of the military men who had killed his friends and family. Frequently he would charge at them to chase them from the village of the dead that he had become the watchman of.

Children would often secretly venture into the countryside to taunt the survivor who wailed at them in despair from the pain of seeing his own child in their faces. Always the children would run home laughing at the screams they produced and the imaginative tells they would accuse the survivor of committing to their friends in the public places. In due course the farmers and the towns people of the surrounding communities just accepted that the survivor would remain in his turmoil sequestered in the cemetery and quietly let him live a petty existence.

Then one day, a stranger came traveling into the valley below the bluff where the cemetery lay. The watchman, vigilant to his task of protecting the inhabitants rushed down to the stranger to determine what his intention was. As the survivor approached the stranger he could sense that there was something different about him. “What is your business in this God forsaken land? Have you come to harass me too?”
“No,” the stranger softly replied surveying the bluff where the survivor had come from. “What places you at such a strategic point in this area? Are you spying on me, or do you plan on warning the garrison up there?” the stranger said pointing at the bluff while wearily watching the survivor.

Laughter burst from the mouth of the survivor. Loud, sudden, raucous laughter. It caught the survivor off guard primarily because it came from him. Out of nowhere it came pouring out of his inner most being sweeping over him in wave after wave of hilarity. The stranger was at first cautious with this strange behavior thinking that the man was simply trying to frighten him in some capacity. However, the duration of this laughter, the intensity and volume began to influence the stranger and he too began to laugh.

The survivor, seeing this happen, only laughed harder, gasping for breath, bent over from the pain he was releasing from deep within his soul. Then came the burst of pent up emotions attached to thoughts rehearsed over long agonizing hours, manifesting in giant tears of sorrow. Then out of nowhere came the touch, the arm strong enough to comfort, the hand soft enough to caress the cheek, the shoulder pliable to the sobs which lost their voice within, and then the drops of warm rain-like tears on the neck as they both wept.

As they both stood there clinging to the life they now intimately shared a few of the farmers returned to gather their herds for the day. Unaccustomed to the laughter which the herds had witnessed, the multitude ran in several directions out of fright. The farmers dispatched one of their group to go tell the towns people what was happening while the rest chased after their stock in trade.

The survivor began to confess the story of his plight to the stranger between sobs and gusts of laughter. The stranger listened attentively to all the details and frequently extended a compassionate slap on the back or embrace of camaraderie. When the villagers had arrived, the survivor had expelled all his pent-up emotions and confessed his self-inflicted guilt for having left his wife and son alone that day. His shame as a husband, father, provider, and protector was finally acknowledged before a stranger, one who cared enough to listen without criticizing, weep when faced with weeping, and displayed true empathy in a matter difficult to relate with at first glance.

“Thank you,” the survivor gratefully responded as he tried to compose himself seeing the towns people approach from afar. “I would like to journey with you through this region. I think that you could help me to better understand these things.”
“No, I think that it would be best if you went through this land and finally tell those who have heard stories about you, what truly happened. Tell them that there was a place of peace and joy before it became a God-forsaken land. Tell them that God heard your cries and felt your pain and has now brought you out of the darkness of your soul to the light of life, a life that knows God hears your pleas and restores despite the ashes of your past. Go now and do this,” the stranger urgently prodded the survivor as the towns people quickly came upon him.

“Who are you? What have you done here?’ they cried out to the stranger as they looked with bewilderment upon the survivor who somehow appeared different, changed.
“I am…” is all the stranger could respond. “Away with you. Leave. You have no part here. Go from us now,” came from the agitated multitude. Looking into their suspecting, frightful eyes the stranger simply nodded in agreement, gave the survivor a hug and turned to follow the narrow path he had arrived on. As the towns people questioned each other about the things they had seen, the survivor raised his shoulders, turned and walk away from them without saying a word. His steps were cautious at first but grew in determination the further he distanced himself from the voices of the past. The life of his story had returned and he needed to extend it further than to a life-less career as a watcher.

Trauma possesses far too many these days. The voices of loved ones passing in agony, or betrayers hissing taunts of unworthiness while destruction swirls about us. The fiend of death will create public organisms fueled by accusation who thrive on dividing the thoughts of a life well lived from the life that should have been. Often it is a matter of the context of the story that makes the narrative come to life as it never has before. Dwelling on unsettled past events makes them too contemporary to conquer as they should have been before. Change the context and the story follows.

Thanks to Mark and to the stranger, Jesus, for a context and a story of survival in the face of death.