Julie Wilkinson

Author: Julie Wilkinson

  • Elastic Threads of Love

     

    In our house, we talk about how love grows between our hearts like invisible threads of elastic. Wherever we are, these threads always connect us to one another. And there is always enough thread to unravel, however far apart we are. And because the threads are elastic, (and we’re not just talking your regular elastic here, we’re talking magic, super-strength, invincible elastic) our love, though it stretches, can never bend or break. Sometimes it might pull and that can cause us pain. But the threads always endure, they never snap.

    For our girls, explaining love in this way helps in all sorts of circumstances. When they are worried about being apart from us, the elastic stretches to keep us connected. When they miss those they have loved and lost, though it hurts because their old threads of love are pulling, there is comfort in knowing they are still there. When we tug each other’s threads out of anger, fear or frustration, they are strong enough not to be pulled out and, though we may cause one another pain, we can stop pulling and the threads will snap quickly back into place.

    And the threads of love that connect us aren’t confined to our little family of four. Our hearts are also linked to those who love us, our extended family and friends, the village of people who surround us and support us and bring colour and joy to our lives.

    This week, I finally got round to putting some bunting up in our youngest daughter’s bedroom. And it is beautiful. Seeing it there makes us smile.

    Last year, at her adoption celebration, our friends and family decorated small card hearts for her. Some wrote messages on them. Some went sequin crazy. Some drew pictures or just signed their name. But whatever they did, each heart represents someone who cared enough to be there. Someone who loves our family and wanted to celebrate with us.
    Now, every time she goes into her bedroom, she is reminded of all the threads of invisible elastic that connect her heart to those of others. She sees how many people love her. And hidden among the hearts are words or drawings of encouragement and love that will always be there for her, in good times and bad.
    To all those whose hearts are connected to ours, thank you.
    “For love, though it stretches, never breaks or bends.”

     

  • I will remember them…

    My Grandad used to try and catch us between his feet when we walked past him. Filled with just the right amount of fear and trepidation, I’d summon up all my childish courage and try to reach the other side of the room without him catching me. I never managed it.

    I will remember them...

    He had brown weathered skin from years working outside as a builder, a tattoo that said ‘Mary’ even though my Nan’s name was Annie, and he always wore slippers. When my mum was young, he used to do the washing up when it was her turn so that she didn’t have to. Legend has it he once dangled a dead mouse through the window to frighten one of my Aunties while she was having a wash. And the love he had for my Nan drew from her the most tenderness I ever saw her express.

    He also hated Remembrance Day.

    Born in 1918, he was 21 when World War Two broke out. I know far less than I’d like to about his time during the war. I do know that he met my Nan while on active service. His step-sister, Evelyn, was her best friend and she persuaded my Nan to write to him while he was in the army abroad. When he came home after his demob, they started going out.

    Three weeks later, he told her they’d be getting married on 14 November 1944. He never proposed, just went ahead and got a special license. Gobsmacked, my Nan went along with it (which was more than a little out-of-character!) but she never regretted it during the fifty years they spent together. He taught her to dance; she said he was a very good dancer.

    I also know that he drove a tank. Family legend tells how, while learning to drive it in Wales, he crashed his tank straight through a pub wall. He must have been desperate for a pint.

    His army training eventually took him to North Africa, Italy and Israel. He was a gunner. While abroad, he befriended a dog which followed him around everywhere he went. When he had to leave, knowing he couldn’t take it with him but unable to abandon it, he felt he had no choice but to shoot it. That must have broken his heart; he loved animals.

    I never heard him speak in any detail about what he’d seen or done during his time in the army, but I know it shaped his view of war and I know that the hell he saw mankind throw at one another made it difficult for him to believe in any kind of loving God.

    Recently, I have discovered that his own experiences weren’t the first time he had seen the effects of war. His father, my great grandfather, Richard Heggie served in the Royal Lancashire Regiment and the Labour Corps during World War One. He went to France on 4 September 1915, aged 28, leaving his wife, Rose, at home about to give birth to their first child. By the end of the war, he had gained three medals and lost the use of his legs through shell shock. Confined to a wheelchair, his relationship with Rose grew increasingly strained, eventually reaching the point of collapse, and life was hard. He received a weekly pension of £3 2s 6d, the equivalent of approximately £115.56 today. Born in 1918, my Grandad never knew his father before war had broken him and robbed him of his potential; the aftermath of war, the physical and emotional scars, were what my Grandad grew up with.

    And having discovered all of this, I understand why I never saw my Grandad wear a poppy. I understand why he resented the necessity of charity to look after fallen servicemen, why he felt so strongly that when a country sends its young men off to war and they come home wounded and broken, that their country should have the decency to look after them.

    And I understand why he came to hate the pomp and the ceremony and the glory and the heroism attached to Remembrance Day. Because he said that when he saw his friends die around him, when he saw what humanity inflicted on one another, there was no glory and there was no victory and there was no heroism in that. There was no heroism in those violent deaths, no willing giving up of lives; they were men, ordinary men, each of them desperately wanting nothing more than to emerge from their hellish experience as unscathed as possible and return home to their wives, children, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, friends.

    My Grandad was and is my closest link to the horrors of war. His experiences are part of who I am. And I don’t understand why, following World War One, and World War Two, and the peace treaties, and the establishment of the United Nations, and the talk of “Never again” and “The war to end all wars” – I don’t understand why we still do it to each other.

    But I do understand why my Grandad didn’t buy and wear a red poppy, or join in with formal acts of remembrance on Armistice Day and lay wreaths at the war memorial. Because for him, all of that didn’t fit with the memories he had to remember. But he did remember. Even though he didn’t wear a poppy. How could he not?

    I am not against the red poppy – my daughters have both supported the poppy campaign at school and I see the value in much of the work carried out by the Royal British Legion.

    But on Remembrance Day, I will choose to wear a white poppy for peace because for me, that fits. It fits with my Grandad, with his memories of the horrors he saw, and with my Great Grandad. Their stories will be passed on to my children and I hope that they will both
    grow up to be advocates for peace.

    And although my poppy will be white, not red, in my own, quiet, unceremonial way, I will remember them. My Grandad. His friends. His father. And all those – soldiers and civilians – who have been ravaged by our inability to stop killing one another. And I will pray for peace.

  • Dear Mr Gove…

    Dear Mr Gove,

    I see that you are marketing your ‘longer school days, shorter holidays’ idea as ‘family-friendly’, but I’m not sure you’ve really thought that through…

    As a working mother, I structure my working hours around my daughter’s schooling and holiday times – and I’m glad to do it. My daughter is not an inconvenience whose care gets in the way of those longer working hours I’d like to be doing – I love her and I love spending time with her.

    Dear Mr Gove...Speaking of my daughter, let me tell you about her. She’s six. She’s funny, creative, imaginative, soaking up the world and the experiences it offers her like a sponge. She’s also the most stubborn person I know, fiercely independent and surprisingly vulnerable.

    She loves school but, being six, she gets tired before the end of the school day. Over the term, her tiredness accumulates and by the time the holidays come, it has begun to make life hard for her. Holidays are a welcome break from the work/school routine – for me as well as for her.

     

    Sometimes in the holidays, we stay in our pyjamas till lunchtime and tell each other stories, or build chocolate factories for princesses out of cardboard boxes. We visit museums and stately homes, go swimming, meet all kinds of interesting people, and have the time to consider more fully why we can sometimes see the moon during the day or why the children on the adverts on TV don’t have enough food to eat. (I should have mentioned earlier that she loves swimming. She has a weekly swimming lesson at 3.30pm – I wonder where we would fit that in if she has to stay at school till 4.30pm?)

    I am able to structure my working life around my daughter’s schooling and give her these experiences because I work for an incredibly family-friendly, understanding and supportive organisation with wonderful people. I work on flexi-time – my hours are my own to plan so I can fit them round the school day. Sometimes I have to work in the evening or at weekends, but I can take the time back during school holidays. I can work from home whenever I need to. I work for an organisation which values people as people, not as commodities.

    Might it not be more ‘family-friendly’ to look at measures encouraging other businesses and employers to be more understanding of the needs of working parents? And, for those times when parents can’t be off work while their children are off school, might it not be more ‘family-friendly’ to invest in the charitable and third sector who can give children experiences beyond the school gates? Or to bring the cost of childcare down?

    I may be wrong, but I have an inkling that this ‘longer school days, shorter holidays’ idea might be more ‘business-friendly’ than ‘family-friendly’…

    I have never looked at my daughter and thought, “I wish she would work harder. Why can’t she be more like those children in Hong Kong and Singapore and East Asia? Why doesn’t she have to work more, learn more, why can’t we put more pressure on her to achieve and succeed?”

    Instead, I admire her curiosity, her exploring questioning mind, her interest in everything, her recent development of the ability to count in tens, and her imaginative ability to see elephants, mushrooms, and people dancing in the clouds.

    Please don’t spoil her. Please don’t take any more of her childhood away from her. Because we love her, just as she is.

    Yours sincerely,

    A Working Mother

  • Found…

    ac17e-dscf3159Almost three years ago, we adopted our daughter and we love her to bits. Our family life is messy, imperfect, full of laughter, sometimes difficult, and beautiful. This week is National Adoption Week (5-11 November 2012) and this is the story I wrote for our little girl earlier this year to celebrate finding each other…

    There was once a little girl who found herself all alone in the world.

    I say all alone…

    There was the thing that she carried with her everywhere she went. It was a strange thing, she didn’t really know what it was, but she knew it was beautiful and she knew it belonged with her. Sometimes, when she looked at it, she felt like she could see everything that had ever happened to her. And sometimes, deep beneath, she caught a glimpse of something shimmering as it darted about, moving too fast to ever truly be seen.

    God watched the little girl everywhere she went. It was he who had put the shimmering light in the heart of the thing and, though she didn’t know it, he was always with her.

    The little girl often felt that there was something she ought to do with the thing, but try as she might, she could not work out what it was.

    And so she made her way through the world, carrying the thing with her wherever she went, seeking and searching for someone who could help her find the answer.

    Sometimes, on her travels, she met people who walked with her for a while and tried to help her in her quest. Some carried the thing for her but that never felt quite right. Some hid it from her where she couldn’t see it – but that felt even less right. Some sat and gazed at it with her, but that didn’t help either.

    Some of them walked beside her for miles, protecting the thing from the wind and the rain, sheltering it from the cold and the dark, and as they walked with her, she saw the shimmering light a little more often and sometimes it moved a little more slowly, as though it didn’t mind being seen. But still she didn’t know what the thing was for.

    Then one day, as she walked, she saw two people she’d never seen before, a man and a lady. As she looked closer, she saw that each of them carried a thing like hers, but there was something different about them. For although their things were separate and distinct, they were also joined together, they belonged to each other, they carried them together. She was curious and looked at them closely as she passed by. Their things were more beautiful together than hers was, on its own, but still something seemed to be missing from them.

    A few days later, she saw them again, then again, and again. She began to look for them as she walked, until one day she realised that they had seen her too. She stopped and looked and they stopped too. The thing in her hands hummed and buzzed a little. Then she turned and went on her way.

    As she walked, the thing continued to hum and to buzz, lightly and quietly at first, then stronger and louder. She stopped. Turned.

    And there they were. The man and the lady, just a few steps behind.

    Together, they lifted the things in their hands towards the little girl, and smiled. She looked at them, and stepped towards them.

    She lifted the thing that she had carried for so long towards theirs – and it was a perfect fit. At once, her hands felt lighter. She looked deep into the heart of the thing and there was the shimmering light, glowing steadily.

    Then God gave the light a little nudge and it moved next to the lights of the man and the lady.

    And the girl felt happy. And the man felt happy. And the lady felt happy. And God felt happy.

    Their three things together made a beautiful, imperfect whole.

    They smiled at each other, took one another’s hands, and began to dance through the world, and their lights danced too, sometimes dancing in perfect step with one another, sometimes dancing their own dance – but always knowing that they belonged together and that their lights would always guide them home.

     

    © 2012 Julie Wilkinson

  • Floating around…

    I led a discussion about Noah last night. I hadn’t planned to. My vicar was supposed to be doing it. Then he phoned an hour before people were due to arrive at my house. He wasn’t well – could we manage without him? Of course! He needed to rest. Not a problem. More than happy to lead it. And I was.

    Only, when I sat down to think about it, I didn’t think I had much to say about Noah. And I wasn’t sure how to help others find something to say about it either. It’s a story everyone knows. Could there really be anything new to say about it? So I read it. And all I could come up with was –
    “There’s not much of a journey in here – they just sort of float around a lot, don’t they?”
    Genius.
    But somehow, through the conversation and the different perspectives that each person brought, by the end of the evening, I had found a new way of seeing the story.
    It’s always been a tricky one, Noah. Here’s a story of God obliterating all life from the earth, apart from Noah, his family, the animals and birds on the boat, and the sea creatures. Every other living thing is destroyed. Why? Because it’s not good enough. The wickedness of creation is so extreme that God is sorry he ever made it. But a God with regrets means a God who got it wrong… And how does that work?
    It’s so easy to read this story with the traditional Sunday School spin – gloss over the harshly judgemental God who destroys everything, concentrate on Noah who is saved because he is good. If only we could all be good like Noah…
    We didn’t find an interpretation of the story that made us feel at peace with God’s actions. But we did find a way of understanding it as a story containing a glimmer of hope, echoes of the God and his relationship with the world that become so much clearer in Jesus.
    Because even here, in the midst of such wrath and judgement, God doesn’t destroy creation entirely. He doesn’t wipe it out. He offers the chance for redemption, a fresh start.
    This is a story that comes relatively soon after that of the fall, after the moment when God’s relationship with mankind is altered and broken. But not broken beyond hope. Noah isn’t ‘good’ because he piously observes laws or never gets anything wrong – he’s good because “he walked with God.” Somehow, despite the shattered relationship between God and humanity, Noah has discovered the same relationship with God that Adam and Eve enjoyed in the Garden of Eden.
    And when God chooses to save Noah and his family, maybe it isn’t as a reward for being better than everyone else. Maybe he saves Noah because he wants to work with him, he has a job for him to do. Noah must save the birds, the animals, and the crawling things from the flood, he must take food, containing seeds and fruit. Noah must take on the task that God originally gave to Adam and Eve. He must take care of creation, and its potential, during this darkest of times, so that when it is over, creation can be redeemed and start again.
    There’s a moment as the flood waters are going down when Noah, having sent the dove out to find dry land, sees it return, reaches out his hand, takes the bird and brings it back safely into the boat. It is because he walks closely with God that Noah walks closely with the creation that still, in its most broken and ugly form, bears the image of the creator who made it. Noah’s relationship with God means that he can hear God’s voice, follow it, and play his part in redeeming creation, in building God’s kingdom. It’s a pattern of relationship that follows through the rest of the Bible, through Abraham, and Joseph, and Moses, and Joshua – right through to Jesus himself.
    We talked too about whether the story of Noah is a factual account of events that really happened or some kind of allegory, a story to help us understand the relationship between God and the world at this time – and did it really matter which it might be?
    Stories are powerful not because they are true or because they are made up. It is because they invite us somewhere outside ourselves. What we can experience is limited by time, and space, who we are, where we are and when we are. But through stories our experience is broadened beyond our own world. When we enter into a story – whether on film, in a book, in the theatre, or through the spoken word – we enter into another world and experience those events through our imaginations, almost as if we were there.
    If we are made in the image of our creator, a creator unbound by time and space, then our ability to experience things through our imagination has come from Him. And if we elevate factual experience, things that have physically happened, above the experience of our imaginations, perhaps we do that because of our own limitations. Perhaps from God’s perspective, the power and experience of the imagined is as strong as that of the physically experienced?
    I think we probably ended last night with more questions than answers. But a God who questions, who disturbs, who challenges me, is a God I’m happy to follow.
    And I do like Noah a little bit more now…

  • Small but significant…

    Nine years ago, I left university. With an English degree under my belt and an unknownc future stretching ahead of me, I embarked on a Gap Year working for my church. My work co-ordinator was a hairy gentleman by the name of John.

    It wouldn’t be over-stating things to say that that year changed my life. I found a husband (David, not John, although they do share a commitment to beards). I became a storyteller. And I discovered what it was that I needed to be doing.

    As part of my work, John arranged for me to go into a local primary school for one afternoon a week, supporting the teacher with their year two class. It was a typical class of children; from the timid girl who played with her hair whenever she spoke, to the giggling gaggle of girlies who were inseparable, from the boy who always had a smile on his face and a piece of Lego in his hand, to the lively pocket of lads who never quite managed to do what they were supposed to be doing. It was a place that was full of life.

    After several weeks, the teacher discovered that I was a fledgling storyteller and asked me to tell a story to the children at the end of the afternoon. This quickly became part of the weekly routine. I loved it – and so did the kids.

    But it was one boy in particular that I’ll never forget. He was one of the naughty boys, the ones who couldn’t settle to their work, who were always in trouble after playtime, who had a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But he had a glint in his eye and a cheeky little smile and I know that he had a good heart.

    One week, he sidled up to me during ‘Golden Time’, the magic half hour at the end of the day when the children were allowed to choose what they wanted to do. This was one of those rare occasions when he had managed to not get into so much trouble that he had his golden time taken away.

    “Miss,” he said, leaning towards me.

    “Yes?”

    “What story are you telling today?”

    “Well…” I said. “I can’t tell you the story, cos it would spoil it…”

    His face fell a little.

    “But… I could give you a hint or two, just to give you a taste for it…”

    He looked up at me.

    “There’s a frog in it,” I said. “And a princess. And a talking tree.”

    He pondered this information briefly, then announced, “I’m going to draw the tree!”

    And off he went. When he returned a few minutes later, he brought with him a sheet of paper with a pen drawing of a tree in the middle of it, orange and green with a face carved into the trunk. And it was beautiful. He had a real talent.

    “Would you like to stand and hold your picture up when we get to the bit with the tree?” I asked.

    He nodded.

    So that’s what we did. When I got to the bit with the tree and he stood up, there was  a moment when his teacher wasn’t sure, when she assumed that he was doing something he shouldn’t, because that’s what he always did. But the moment passed, and he stood there, proudly holding his picture, for the rest of the story.

    It was a small moment, just a brief passing of time in one hour of one day of his whole life. But that moment made a difference. Because in that moment he knew what it was to be proud of himself, to feel like he’d achieved something. It was a good moment that he could share with his mum as they left school together.

    And from that moment, I knew that this was what I wanted to do.

    I love the charity I work for. It shines light and spreads hope wherever it goes. Those moments of light and hope may be small ones, but I believe that they really do make a difference.

    The schools we visit are wonderful places, full of life, where God’s image can be seen reflected in so many different people. But they are also places that need to see God’s light shining. In every school, there are adults and children who carry burdens, who need to know that God is there and God is real. They need us to keep our light shining.

    I still have the tree picture…

     
     

  • Water into Wine

    I told the story of Jesus’ first miracle three times on Saturday. I was asked to choose two Jesus stories as part of a story walk through Bradford City Centre for the Biblefresh Festival, organised by the local Methodists. Water into Wine was my immediate first choice.

    Why? Because I love it. Almost every time I read it or hear it told, it brings something fresh with it, sometimes asking a new question, or bringing a previously unnoticed detail to life, other times letting a familiar aspect of the story shine, like meeting an old acquaintance for the first time in ages.

    There is nothing better than telling stories that you love. As a storyteller, my job is simply to stand in the story and invite others to join me there. And that’s easy with a story like this one, so rich and vivid in detail.

    There is lots about it that I love. But this weekend, perhaps for the first time, I realised the thing I love best – here, right at the beginning of his public ministry, Jesus is revealed as fully divine yet also remains fully human.

    It starts two days after Jesus has called his first followers. He, his friends, and his mum are at a wedding in Cana, in Galilee. The wedding feast lasts seven days after the ceremony but sometime into the celebrations, disaster strikes – they run out of wine!

    Somehow, Mary finds out and goes straight to tell Jesus. His response? “Why are you telling me? It’s not my time yet.”

    In typical mum-style, Mary ignores him completely and bids the nearby servants to do whatever he tells them. And so begins the miracle – at Jesus’ command, the servants fill six large stone jars with water, fill a cup from one of them and take it to the Master of the Feast. When he drinks it, it has become the best wine he has ever tasted.

    And there, at the wedding in Cana, Jesus shows his glory – and his followers believe in him. What a moment that must have been for them, ordinary men who had left everything they knew to follow him – a vindication of sorts, a sign of things to come.

    In revealing his glory, Jesus not only shows his ability to do great miracles, he also reflects the abundant generosity of God. Each water jar carries 100 litres of liquid – and Jesus tells the servants to fill them right to the top. 600 litres of the best wine ever tasted in celebration of a couple’s marriage – what better way to show his divine identity for the first time?

    Yet the miracle is also intensely human. It was while listening to my friend tell the story a few months ago that I first fully realised how much hard physical work would have been involved in the servants filling the water jars. The never-ending cycle of trips to the well, filling the buckets, carrying them back, pouring their contents into the jars, until 600 litres had gone by.

    And there is such human yet Godly beauty in how it is these hard-working lowly servants who, along with Jesus’ followers, are given the opportunity to see his glory and to understand. The Master of the Feast doesn’t know where this fine wine has come from, and calls the bridegroom out to thank him. But the servants know. Right at the start of his ministry, Jesus turns the world order on its head.

    But it is at the beginning of the story that Jesus’ humanity is most wonderfully revealed. For there is the moment when the miracle almost doesn’t happen, when Jesus says, “My time has not yet come.” And the start of his ministry, his first miracle, hangs on his mother’s response – she is the catalyst that makes things happen.

    There is something typically, comfortingly motherly about how Mary ignores everything Jesus says, over-ruling him, challenging him to do something he would have otherwise left undone. At the heart of this miracle is a very human relationship between a mother and a son.

    I’ve often wondered exactly what is behind this parent-child exchange. Is Jesus right – was this not his time to act, should the miracle never have taken place? Or was Mary more in touch with God’s timing than Jesus himself? Did Jesus’ first miracle need to be catalysed by someone else, someone who had faith in him before he had proven himself? If so, who better than Mary, his mother, who had been there for his miraculous conception and birth?

    Or is it just possible, I ask myself from my very human perspective, that Jesus, being fully divine, knew what must happen, where his public ministry would ultimately take him? And is it possible that, with this fully divine knowledge and a fully human heart, a part of him might have hesitated to set that chain of events in motion? Might he have needed a mother’s love, a mother’s encouragement, to take that first step?

    The best stories, the ones I love most, are the ones that leave you with so many questions…

     
     

  • He is alive!

    It was still dark when she left her home. She made her way through the silent streets to the garden where his tomb lay. She felt troubled but the silence comforted her. She carried spices to anoint his body.

    She reached the garden and walked down the pathways until she came to the place where the tomb lay. Her steps slowed as she drew nearer, then stopped. As she peered through the gloom, the entrance to the tomb looked darker than it should have done. Something wasn’t right.

    Where was the stone?

    She turned and ran, back the way she had come. The silence weighed down on her. She knew where to find two of his closest friends. She woke them and told them what she had seen.

    “They’ve taken him, his body has gone from the tomb. We don’t know where they’ve put him!”

    His friends hurried to the garden. She followed in their wake. She watched them enter the tomb. Alone in the semi-darkness, her eyes darted about, she was poised, ready to run.

    The two men came out of the tomb, approached her and shook their heads. One of them squeezed her hand as he passed. Then they left her.

    She stood and wept. Moments passed. She moved slowly towards the tomb, bent down and peered inside. She needed to see for herself. She took a deep breath and raised her eyes to the place where his body should have been.

    Her eyes widened. Two angels sat where he should have lain. They were dressed in white and they spoke to her.

    “Woman, why are you crying?”

    She replied.

    “They have taken my Lord. I don’t know where they have put him.”

    As she spoke the words aloud, she turned from the tomb. Her eyes flicked around the garden, seeking. Her hands grasped at her robe. She saw a man, standing where she had stood just moments before. He looked like a gardener.

    “Woman, why are you crying? Who are you looking for?”

    She replied.

    “Did you take him? Was it you, sir? Please, tell me where he is and I will get him.”

    The gardener spoke again.

    “Mary.”

    She paused. She looked at him, full and long. And she knew. She turned to him and spoke.

    “Teacher.”

    He held up a hand and her eyes followed it.

    “Don’t hold me,” he said. “I have not yet gone up to the Father. Go to my brothers and tell them this: I am going back to my Father and your Father. I am going back to my God and your God.”

    And then he smiled at her. She smiled back, nervously, with her eyes fixed on his.

    Then she turned and left the garden. She walked back through the streets. She didn’t notice the silence because her head was full of questions. She went to where she knew she would find his friends and she told them.

    “I have seen the Lord – he is alive!”

    John 20: 1-18

  • It is finished…

    The man followed them when they left his house, walking in the shadows through the streets of Jerusalem. He watched as they entered the garden. Then he crept in after them.

    He heard their lowered voices as they talked. He saw the shadows shift and settle as they moved through the garden. The silence was immense. He slept.

    He woke to the sound of more voices. The Teacher was speaking.  A crowd of people entered the garden. One of them approached the Teacher and kissed him.

    He heard the sound of a sword being drawn, a cry of pain. His eyes strained. A torch flared and he found himself looking at those hands again. They were pressed to the head of a servant. He thought he saw blood. The hands moved away.

    He watched as men seized the Teacher and began to lead him away. He heard the rustle of leaves and quick footsteps all around him. A torch flared in his face, a hand grabbed at his clothes. He twisted out of them and ran.

    *

    She sat at the window of her spare, sparse home. The oil lamp had long been extinguished. She saw the people hurry past, heard their whispers. She rose, left her house and followed them.

    She came to the courtyard of the High Priest’s house where a fire burned. Guards sat around it, warming their hands. She listened as they talked. Her eyes widened. She turned them to the windows of the building behind her.

    She found a shadowy corner and settled herself to wait. She drew her cloak around her, looked to the fire. A man stood there with the guards. She knew his face. He had been there that day, outside the temple.

    She watched a servant girl approach him, study his face, speak. He shook his head firmly. She watched him turn and walk away. She heard a cockerel crow.

    He moved to the gate, where a crowd of people huddled. She watched as the servant girl walked up to them, spoke, nodded her head in his direction. She saw the man frown, shake his head again more violently. He strode away, came to a stop by her corner.

    She waited, her eyes fixed on him. Some people who stood nearby spoke to him.

    “Aren’t you one of those that followed Jesus? You’re from Galilee, aren’t you?”

    She looked at him as he frowned and shouted,

    “I tell you, I don’t know this man you’re talking about!”

    A cockerel crowed. She watched his face fall. He looked wildly about him. She stepped out of the shadows and their eyes met. As his tears began to fall, she remembered the eyes of the Teacher.

    *

    The man untied his donkey, climbed on and set out on the journey to Jerusalem. He followed the crowds until they stopped moving. They swarmed in huge numbers, swelling the courtyard.

    Stretching up, he saw the governor standing, addressing the people. He watched as two men were led out by the guards. He knew one of them – the man who had borrowed his donkey stood with his hands bound together.

    As the governor spoke, the crowds began to cheer. He saw men moving through the crowd, speaking into the ears of the people as they went. His eyes flicked between the two prisoners who stood on the platform.

    He watched as the prisoner he didn’t know had his bonds released and walked away. He watched as the guards raised their whips to the prisoner who remained. He heard the crowd roar as the man who had borrowed his donkey was beaten before their eyes. He closed his eyes. The cheers echoed in his ears.

    *

    She followed the procession from the palace to the hill. She saw him through the bruises and the blood, watched him struggle with every step. In her hands, she carried the alabaster jar.

    She found a way through the crowd so that she could stand as close to him as was allowed when they stopped. She knew he didn’t know she was there – she was too far away. She bit her lips and kept her eyes open as they hammered in the nails. She didn’t want him to be alone.

    She stayed as the sun rose higher and felt the heat on her back. She saw the soldiers throw lots for his possessions. She was there when the sign was hung above his head: KING OF THE JEWS. She stood and faced the passers by who mocked and insulted him.

    Three hours later, she was there when the sky grew black and the darkness settled. For another three hours, she stayed in the shadows. She heard him cry out.

    “My God, my God – why have you forsaken me?”

    She saw him drink from the sponge dipped in vinegar. She was looking at his face when he cried out a moment later.

    As he died, the jar slipped from her hands.

    *

    He offered to stay in the temple. He went there that morning as he did every day. He smoothed down his robes, made sure all was in order, everything as it should be.

    He did not think of the man who was dying on the hill.

    When the sky darkened, he went to the holy of holies to pray. He stayed there for three hours, on his knees.

    As he prayed, he heard a ripping sound behind him. He stood and turned, his eyes widened and his mouth fell open. The curtain had torn in two.

    *

    It was finished.

     

    Mark 14:32 – 15:41

  • Those Hands

    He lifted the water jar onto his shoulders and set off through the streets. He knew people were looking at him, could feel their eyes on him as he walked. He didn’t fit, he was an anomaly. Men didn’t carry water jars – that was women’s work.

    He passed the city gate as two men entered through it. He saw their eyes widen when they saw him, saw them nudge each other. As he continued his journey, he saw them out of the corner of his eye as they followed in his wake.

    He tensed his shoulders, quickened his pace, lifted the jar a little higher. As he rounded a corner, he glimpsed them still weaving through the crowds, their eyes set on him.

    He made the last few strides to his door, opened it and went in. Putting the water jar down, he went to check on his wife and was glad to see that she was sleeping. He turned back towards the door and found himself looking at the same two men who had followed him through the streets.

    He regarded them, warily. Then they spoke.

    “The Teacher asks where the guest room is for him to eat the Passover meal with his followers?”

    The Teacher. He remembered the man outside the temple gates. He had stopped to listen. He looked at them again.

    “I have a room upstairs,” he said. “You can eat your meal there.”

    Later that evening, the Teacher arrived with a group of his friends. The man heard the clink of cups, the glug of wine being poured, as he tended to his wife. When she was settled, he seated himself at the bottom of the stairs. He wanted to hear more of what this man had to say.

    The talk of the group drifted down, increasing in volume and then breaking into laughter. He was lulled by the rhythms of their speech, the rise and fall of their conversation. Gradually, the sound stilled until he heard the Teacher’s voice. He sat up straighter.

    “Friends, I am glad we are here – I wanted very much to share this meal with you before the time comes when I must suffer. This is the last Passover meal I will eat until it receives its true meaning in the kingdom of God.”

    The man turned his head as the Teacher continued talking.

    “I tell you the truth, one of you will turn against me – even now, one of you, my friends, who sit and eat with me. I am going to die – and one of the people who sits and dips his bread into the bowl with me will betray me and hand me over to my enemies.”

    The man began to stand and creep up the stairs as a murmur of indignant voices drifted down them. When he had climbed halfway up, he stopped. He could see the Teacher’s hands and half of his face in the shadows where he reclined at the table.

    The hands reached out, picked up a piece of bread and broke it, sharing the pieces with those around the table. The Teacher continued speaking.

    “Take this; it is my body.”

    Then the hands lifted a cup of wine and passed it round. The man watched the cup as it was raised and lowered, dancing from one mouth to the next. He pressed his lips together. The room was quiet.

    “This is my blood. It makes a new agreement between God and his people and is poured out for many. I tell you the truth – I will not drink of the vine again until I drink in the new kingdom of God.”

    Silence fell. The man’s gaze was fixed on the hands of the Teacher. A voice started singing, then another joined it, and another, until the room was filled with music.

    The man crept back down the stairs, went to his wife’s side and tucked the blanket tighter around her. He sat down beside her bed, raised his eyes to the ceiling and closed them. He could still see those hands.

    Mark 14: 12-26