Post by hannibal on May 25, 2006 20:49:55 GMT -5
Joel was a man beloved.
Beloved to his wife, beloved to his son
beloved even to the men in his charge.
Joel was a carpenter, a master craftsman.
His crew numbered a dozen men.
and as even the master of the mansion
would speak to Joel directly
he was regarded well and with admiration.
Joel’s openness disarmed enmity.
Joel’s strength encouraged vigor.
Joel’s humor lightened burdens,
all this was Joel.
But this was Joel before the trouble came.
Before the accident,
which some said was bound to happen.
Before the illness,
which some said was, tragically, an answered prayer,
and before the loss,
which most everyone said
there was nothing he could have done about it.
Joel’s troubles began with his son.
In his son’s fourteenth summer, they were together
climbing the mountains beyond the river.
They left together and they returned together
but when they returned,
Joel was carrying his son in his arms.
Joel walked slowly and blindly.
His son was already dead and lost to him.
As Joel entered into the village,
the village entered into their mourning,
as they rallied around him and asked
“Joel, what happened?”
Joel could only manage to say,
“He fell.”
The anguished wail of Joel’s wife
was a knife blade slashing to the heart of every soul
within the sound of it.
Joel or his wife would never return
from the mourning of their loss.
The village did all they could
to return to them their life
among the community.
But the change of heart in the two of them
was so complete,
so irrevocable, so abrupt,
that in the times to come,
many villagers felt a growing fear of the mourning
that had taken the life
out of Joel and his wife.
The arrangements of the funeral were taken up
by their friends and neighbors.
The proscribed rites were observed.
The prayers were chanted.
The ceremonies were initiated.
All through the proceedings
Joel and his wife did not speak to each other.
They did not touch one another.
They did not look each other in the eye,
except for one look.
As their sons body was being laid within the stones.
Joel’s glance found the eyes of his wife
and what he saw there struck him in the chest
and cut the breath from his throat.
There he looked upon the woman of his love
and saw there a seething coldness behind her eyes;
her gaze bereft of life
save for one terrible thing,
accusal.
From then on, Joel was a man lost.
Even in his own life he was lost.
His eyes found nothing familiar,
nothing belonged in its place.
When the night came to the village,
even the darkness did not belong;
even the darkness was strange and awful.
In the ninth hour of the darkness
Joel rose and walked alone.
He left the village for the open fields.
He stood beneath the cold silent stars,
and he stood defiantly before the silence.
Joel thought of his son,
“I was blessed by his life
and I am cursed by his death.”
With hatred in his eyes,
Joel looked up to the sky of the night.
“Do you wait on me, Lord?
Would you have my thanks in prayer?”
Then he spoke to the silence,
and his words were spoken through clenched teeth
and his voice was a rasp,
and he spoke as if his throat was choked.
“Lord, I ask You to bear what I cannot;
I ask You to bear my witness,
for this is the day of my gladness.
Behold Lord,
I am a man
and I have been made to know gladness
and the Lord has made me so.
Look with favor upon my works,
for this day I have sent my son before me
into the earth,
-this is my gladness-
that my son goes before me
and where he has gone
my spirit goes with him.
Now I know my gladness.
Before You O Lord
and before all the sons of Abraham
and all the fathers of the sons,
as they are blessed
so am I
blessed
and in this gladness
is the mark of my blessing.
And in every son and in every father
that passes before my eyes
I shall see my blessing
going there before me.
And in silence
Shall You see me
rejoice.
O Lord,
his face is turned from me.
Even in my memory
his face is turned away from me.
I do not see him. I cannot remember his face.
Lord!Who will help me remember his face?
What would You have me do?
Shall I call to my son as You called to Adam?
“My son,
answer to me,
where are you,
where have you gone?”
And my answer is known to me.
In silence
my gladness is known.
For the Lord Most High
on this day I am glad.
It is in thankfulness that I now know
I am beneath You.
I am thankful
to know my stumbling shall not trouble
Your exalted presence.
I give thanks
that what is miserable in me
shall not stain Your glory.
I am glad for the Lord in this day,
the greatest of my days.
Behold my gladness,
it is greater than I.
I cannot lift it.
I cannot begin to move it.
And here I shall leave it.
Here is my offering Lord,
all that I have I leave to You.
My poor offering I cast
before Your riches.
Behold Lord
these words I speak.
These are words I shall not speak of again.
From this day on,
what I say, I will say from my lips only,
but what I speak from my heart
-Lord as my witness-
these words are my last.
And Joel turned his back on the night sky
and returned to the village.
From then on their life was a black cloud looming.
Joel’s wife rarely left their home,
then she rarely left her bed.
During this dark season
Joel’s business as well suffered losses.
Some of his crew left him
and while the best remained with him,
they were all anxiously burdened.
Joel’s wife was not the same woman after the accident.
It seemed as if someone else had taken her place
within her.
For those who knew her all of their lives
it was a terrible shock;
from the same eyes they knew so well
there was now, looking out,
someone different.
In the coming of winter
Joel’s wife took to her illness, a fever.
And her feeble grasp held firm and relentless
to a common affliction that at one time
would not even have kept her from chores,
but was now held squarely between her and all hope.
And her life passed adrift in those weeks,
among the passing of autumn’s chill.
And with her passing
Joel became a man made of stone.
His features were a carved mask.
His stance was the pose of a statue.
And to stand beside such a man made of stone,
a man who is cold and unmoved and yet far removed
from those others around him, it is a fearful thing.
And for those who knew him well,
it was especially terrible.
The day the accident happened
Joel was angry and some say, drunken.
His work had brought him beyond the gates of the village;
his contracts were poor and his crew were now mere vagrants.
His days were spent with a seething anger.
And in a wrath he climbed the scaffolding,
and in silence he let loose and he fell
and was struck on the stones which were laying beneath him.
From this fall Joel was maimed,
and his craft was no longer his.
With his right hand no use to him,
he lost his work and he began to wander with nothing.
Joel wandered for forty months.
In time, he came to forget his home
His home was now on the side of the road.
In time he came to forget his name,
his survival was now on the tithing of peasants.
In time, he returned to the village once more
but he did not recognize where he was.
At the gate of the village
a man who had once been Joel’s apprentice saw him
and he asked Joel to come and work for him.
The man now had his own crew
and he hired Joel more from pity than from need.
Joel took no notice of this, in his miserable hunger
he had long ago given up the effort of carrying pride.
The man cleared a shed beside his workshop
and he gave Joel a cot and a chair,
and with some modest improvements over time,
Joel lived in that place for the rest of his life.
Joel’s job was to go through the scrap wood.
He would take the pieces that were left over and discarded
and he would fashion them into something useful.
Even though his good hand was ruined,
in time, his skills and his knowledge befriended him once again.
His days were spent loosening what was tangled
and his days were spent binding together the scattered pieces.
Until finally, he held in his hand a wholly new and a good fixture
and it was put together from what had been cast off.
In the Autumn of the fourteenth year of his work
the son of Joel’s apprentice was now the crew’s foreman
and he came to Joel with a young boy cowering behind him.
“Joel, we have someone to work with you. I want you to take him under your...show him the ropes, you know, the basics.” They both looked at the boy who was looking down at the ground. The boy held one wrist tightly grasped in the other hand and was twisting it slowly. His wrist appeared chaffed and scarred.
The foreman whispered to Joel, “He’s an orphan. He came from the city of salt.” Joel was shocked. The foreman said, “Yeah, I know. It was a massacre. They said they found him buried underneath all the bodies. He doesn’t talk. We don’t even know his name.” Joel asked him, “What is that around his neck?” The foreman said, “Yeah, he’s wearing a medallion, but it’s just a plain piece of wood. There’s no markings on it.”
Joel fixed a place for the boy to sleep in the shed. And they worked together in the scrap yard. As the boy would not or could not talk, Joel chose to give him a name. “I can’t just call you ‘boy’ all the time, so until you tell me different, I’ll call you Jotham.”
Joel taught the boy how to use the tools at hand and he taught him how to work the wood. “See here Jotham, you have to know how the wood will split before it is struck.” And he held the beam before him, “Like this, watch me.”
In a night after many seasons had passed, Joel and Jotham were preparing for supper and Joel was upset and cross. During that day, Jotham had made a foolish mistake in their work and it was going to take most of the next morning to correct it. This was unfortunate as they were working toward a deadline and any day now their ship would come in and would need to be loaded with goods at once.
When Jotham realized his mistake, he was mortified. Joel looked at the problem and just sighed and shook his head, not saying a word. Joel knew he was being hard and cold to Jotham, but he was too tired to do anything about it.
Suddenly, the door was flung open and the young foreman crashed into the shed. He closed the door behind him and scrambled around the shed looking for something. He was drunk and his clothes were a mess. He cowered in the corner trying to hide himself.
The door slammed open again and the foreman’s father came though the door and shouted in a rage “Where is he!? You can’t hide from me! Come and take your beating!” He grabbed his son by the neck and threw him across the floor. Then he struck him repeatedly with his cane while he yelled, “ You... shall...not...bring...shame...to...this...house!” His son was whimpering and the father dragged him and pushed him through the door of the shed. He stopped at the door with his breath heaving in his chest, and he glared wildly at Joel and Jotham. Then he left and closed the door behind him.
Joel sat still and tried to calm his breathing while Jotham looked down at the ground and held one wrist tightly grasped in the other hand and was twisting it slowly.
Joel knew that the bosses’ son had been staying out with hoodlums and drinking at night. The times were poor for everyone in the village. Everything was scarce and everyone was anxious.
Joel stood and placed his remaining bread on Jotham’s plate. Jotham looked up at Joel worriedly, because the season was poor and the food was meager. Joel said, “It’s alright, I don’t feel well. My stomach is not my own tonight.” Joel left the room and stepped outside leaving Jotham alone.
Jotham sat for a few moments looking at the bread that Joel had left on the table. Then he took the bread and slowly finished eating his supper.
Later that evening, Joel returned and spoke to Jotham, “Jotham, there is an ill will between us. Your mistake today will cost us both and it comes with a price. I would ask of you a trespass offering to make an amends between us.” Jotham sat up straight and listened attentively.
“Bring me your chessboard.”
Jotham was shocked. He actually hesitated for a moment before retrieving the board. The chessboard was a gift from Joel. He had carved the pieces himself and Jotham marveled at the artistry in the finished work. It must have taken months to create the set. It seemed too great a sacrifice for merely a trespass offering. But Jotham obliged nonetheless and placed the board on the table between them.
Joel began to smartly unwrap the tokens from their cloth and set up the board for a play, arranging the black pieces as his own. As Jotham stared, Joel paused to look up at him and say, “Well? You can’t hide from me.” Grinning, he gestured to the board and said, “Come and take your beating.”
Uneasily, Jotham set up his men and began the match. He kept looking up nervously at the door. Playing chess was not something they did during the work of the week. Only on Sabbath, after prayers would Joel tell Jotham to take out the board and would teach him the play of the game. On all the other nights, their evenings were spent
from psalms or whittling pegs.
When Jotham kept looking over Joel’s shoulder at the door, Joel became annoyed and said, “Are you expecting someone? If your debt is to me, then I will choose how you repay me.” Joel points at the board, “Now pay attention.”
As they settled into their match, Joel watched Jotham survey the board. Joel was proud of Jotham and admired the intelligence he saw in those eyes.
As the game progressed, Jotham made a move and then sat back from the board. Joel looked at the board, confused, and then became angry.
Jotham had the advantage, but he was throwing the game. “Is that what you call a sacrifice? Why do you insult me? How much patience do you think I have?” Jotham’s expression of surprise was so exaggerated that it struck Joel as comical and he was disarmed at once.
He shook his head, grinning and said patiently, “Jotham, have I not taught you how to play? Do I need to teach you how not to play? Look, when you see a good move, the way I taught you to see a good move, but then you choose not to do it, trust me, you will get a beating! I have given you my time to teach you to play, and I expect you to repay me in full, not just a half measure.”
They continued their match to the end and then they went to bed and to sleep.
At another time, they were working beside each other, using up some rough boards of poorly grained wood and were finishing the construction of a set of feed troughs for animals. Joel leaned over and grabbed hold of a trough, and then stopped cold. With his hand on the wood he froze and stared into the trough and stared through the trough.
In his minds eye, he was looking into the eyes of his son as a baby. He is immersed in the memory, immediately transported and living within that moment forgotten from long ago. He is looking into the eyes of his son’s joyful smile, and he marvels at the sight; he sees with his own eyes right there in the flesh, the fullness of promise reaching out to the world.
Jotham is staring at Joel and is frightened that Joel seems to be looking at something that is not there. But he is mesmerized by the smile on Joel’s face. Jotham has never seen Joel smile like that before. After a moment, it passes, and they return to the drudgery of their exertions.
At another time, they are finishing rough posts and beams to be sold to the Romans, when Joel gets a large splinter in the palm of his hand. He stares at the strip of wood in his palm, as if he doesn’t understand what he is looking at. Then, only with great effort does he focus his attention and do what is needed and pulls the splinter from his hand.
During that night, Joel takes ill with a fever and he becomes wracked with disease. In his shuddering and sweating he becomes delirious and Jotham wraps him in blankets and sponges his face.
Even while Joel lay on his cot, he was made to stand upright and was led out beyond the gates of the village, where even still, his contracts are poor and his crew are merely vagrants. He is walking along the scaffolding when there is an accident and everyone is shouting and running. He is jostled along with the crowd and comes to the center of the mob. Among the crowd is the body of a man laying on the stones. Joel does not know who the man is, but he feels terrified as the man appears to be dead. Joel knows that some thing has gone wrong.
He began to yell at the others as they frantically carry away the body of the man. Over and over Joel is shouting, “No! This isn’t the way it was supposed to happen. This is where I fell! This is where I fell!” As the others leave him, he looks down at his hands and they are bloodied. But his hands are whole again. He stares at his hands and twists them slowly around. He has both his hands again and both his hands are whole and strong.
He turns around to look up at the scaffold, but it is no longer there. Instead, the daylight has become moonlight and it is silent all around him. The peaceful glow of a full moon suffuses the ground of a grand courtyard. The glow is the fullness of the light of a harvest moon.
Joel sees there is a man in the courtyard with his back turned to him and he knows that this is the master of the mansion. Beyond the master, there are all the others of the village. All of the others that Joel has ever known are all there now in the courtyard. And they all admire Joel and they whisper to each other, “the master will speak to Joel directly.”
Everyone waits on the master and Joel looks and sees that he is carefully inspecting something. And Joel becomes terrified to realize that the master is inspecting Joel’s own work. There in the courtyard are the troughs that Joel had made for the farmers and the post and beams that Joel had made for the soldiers and all the other stuff Joel had pieced together from junk and garbage.
Joel was frantic. He was panicked. He thought to himself; “the master plans to furnish the mansion, and all I have to show for it is this trash? No! He should see my best work. Where is my best work? When I was young and strong my work was excellent.”
As Joel stood there and watched the master inspect the work, he sensed a calming presence approach close behind him, and he knew that it was the master who stood behind him and in this presence he found peace and the encouragement that he needed to come forward when he was called.
Joel calmly waited and watched as the master looked at a tiny detail and gently laughed once and smiled. Joel looked at the nick on the wood and he remembered the time when Jotham had taken his directions and executed them very precisely and exactly the opposite way.
Joel’s smiled remembering this, but his smile faded with the realization that the master already knew his work. All of it. Then Joel could see that each and all of his works were lined up one after the next and they stretched away before him farther than his eyes could see. But the master already knew his work, all of it.
When the master rose and came close to Joel,
Joel could only look down at the ground beneath his feet.
And then he heard the voice speak,
“Joel, your work is good.”
And at these words
so spoken
Joel was filled with joy
and Joel was filled with sorrow.
He bowed his head while he smiled
and his tears fell to ground.
The master put his hand on Joel’s shoulder
and Joel was a young man again
and strong. And his eyes were clear
and his shoulders at peace.
He looked up and into the eyes of the master.
And he was ready for anything, and willing as well.
And he listened to the words as the master spoke them;
“Behold Joel, and you will see what your work has begun.”
With the master beside him,
they turned around to look back to where he had come from
and before him rose the vaulted ceilings of cathedrals
and beyond him stood the spires and the pinnacles,
and a myriad of hosts arose above the throngs of the faithful
and their prayers were echoed in the burnish of bronze
and their singing resounded the magnificent marble
and he fell head to heel through the unfurling tapestries
through the warp and the woof of the golden threads weave.
And reflected in canvas the pigments and brush strokes
of the inspired genius exalted in glory.
And the artists approached,
and they bowed before Joel
and they recognized him for the work he had done.
And these artists and geniuses, craftsmen and builders
these brilliant visionaries and these sculptors and painters
they all came to pay their respects before Joel.
And Joel was struck dumb
and was now humiliated.
That such artists as these
would come pay him respect.
Before ones great as these,
he could only hang his head
In the shame of himself
and his paltry appearance.
And he stared at the ground,
‘til his eyes came to rest
on the feet of the master
who stood there beside him,
and then Joel came to peace
and he breathed in serenely.
And he knew;
that these others were not there to see him.
These others were there at the call of the master.
These others were there
in their honor to Him.
And in this,
Joel lifted his eyes
and he looked to the others
and he faced them in full.
And their joy was respledent
and given free rein.
And they basked in the glow
of their works’ inspiration.
Then along a path darkened,
they walked on together.
The two of them only,
the master and Joel.
And the master stood still
and he squarely faced Joel;
“Your work has been hard, but your work is unfinished.
Your most difficult tasks are still yet to be done.
“You will need all your strength.
You will need all your faith.
You will need me beside you
though your eyes might not see.”
And the master placed his palm over Joel’s eyes...
...and the boss removed his palm from Joel’s forehead. And he said, “I think the worst is passed.”
Jotham sat beside Joel and was firmly grasping a wet towel and slowly twisting it. Then he gently patted Joel’s face with the towel. It was the third day of Joel’s fever and Jotham had hardly left his side in all that time. The boss put his hand on Jotham’s shoulder and said, “You should get some rest. He’ll be okay now.”
In the weeks that followed, it was apparent to everyone that Joel could no longer work. The illness had taken too much out of him. As he convalesced, Jotham went to work with the other men on the crew.
At a much later time, Joel came to be at peace in his infirmity and his peace was founded, in great part, in that Jotham was now a valued and trusted craftsman. So much so that the son had made him the foreman of the crew. This was quite remarkable because Jotham still did not speak, and yet, he could execute the duties entrusted to him.
Their business was such a thriving enterprise that their work was in demand from far away. And as autumn approached, the crew prepared to leave the village and journey to the great city and their new contracts.
At the end of their last supper together, the men were anxiously solemn in saying farewell to Joel. What was understood by everyone but went unsaid was that in all likelihood, Joel would not live to see another autumn.
In private, Joel spoke to Jotham for few minutes. “I am very proud of you, Jotham. You will do such a good job, I know it. And your boss will look out for you, don’t you worry about that. May God bless you and take care of you and I will see you in a year’s time.”
They embraced each other and each returned to their own rooms.
Later that night,
in the ninth hour of the darkness,
Joel rose and walked alone.
He left the village for the open fields.
And he found there, beneath the cold silent stars,
Jotham,
standing still and alone,
in the glow of the light
of the full harvest moon.
Joel approached and stood beside Jotham.
And together they stood
and together they faced
the silence of the night.
With fear in his eyes,
Jotham looked up to the sky of the night
as he untangled from his tunic
the cord which held the medallion,
just a plain piece of wood.
And grasping it firmly he twisted it slowly
and the wood split in two parts and came open.
And Jotham held it there for Joel
and waited for him to see it.
And Joel peered closely
and the light of the moon flashed its marked revelation.
And Joel’s tiredness lifted and he looked up at Jotham,
And he whispered in amazed and hushed tones,
“Gabriel!
Your name is Gabriel!”
Jotham hung his head before these words
and Joel placed his hand on his shoulder,
and he looked up and spoke to the sky of the night,
and his voice was a rasp
and he spoke as if his throat were choked,
“Lord, I ask You to bear what I cannot;
I ask You to bear my witness,
for this is the day of my gladness.
Behold Lord,
I am a man
and I have been made to know gladness
and the Lord has made me so.
Look with favor upon my work,
for this day I send my son before me
into the world
-this is my gladness-
that my son goes before me
and where he goes
my spirit goes
with him.
Now I know my gladness.”
Joel and Gabriel embraced one another,
and the light of the moon shone brightly on them
and the chill of the autumn passed gently away.
Beloved to his wife, beloved to his son
beloved even to the men in his charge.
Joel was a carpenter, a master craftsman.
His crew numbered a dozen men.
and as even the master of the mansion
would speak to Joel directly
he was regarded well and with admiration.
Joel’s openness disarmed enmity.
Joel’s strength encouraged vigor.
Joel’s humor lightened burdens,
all this was Joel.
But this was Joel before the trouble came.
Before the accident,
which some said was bound to happen.
Before the illness,
which some said was, tragically, an answered prayer,
and before the loss,
which most everyone said
there was nothing he could have done about it.
Joel’s troubles began with his son.
In his son’s fourteenth summer, they were together
climbing the mountains beyond the river.
They left together and they returned together
but when they returned,
Joel was carrying his son in his arms.
Joel walked slowly and blindly.
His son was already dead and lost to him.
As Joel entered into the village,
the village entered into their mourning,
as they rallied around him and asked
“Joel, what happened?”
Joel could only manage to say,
“He fell.”
The anguished wail of Joel’s wife
was a knife blade slashing to the heart of every soul
within the sound of it.
Joel or his wife would never return
from the mourning of their loss.
The village did all they could
to return to them their life
among the community.
But the change of heart in the two of them
was so complete,
so irrevocable, so abrupt,
that in the times to come,
many villagers felt a growing fear of the mourning
that had taken the life
out of Joel and his wife.
The arrangements of the funeral were taken up
by their friends and neighbors.
The proscribed rites were observed.
The prayers were chanted.
The ceremonies were initiated.
All through the proceedings
Joel and his wife did not speak to each other.
They did not touch one another.
They did not look each other in the eye,
except for one look.
As their sons body was being laid within the stones.
Joel’s glance found the eyes of his wife
and what he saw there struck him in the chest
and cut the breath from his throat.
There he looked upon the woman of his love
and saw there a seething coldness behind her eyes;
her gaze bereft of life
save for one terrible thing,
accusal.
From then on, Joel was a man lost.
Even in his own life he was lost.
His eyes found nothing familiar,
nothing belonged in its place.
When the night came to the village,
even the darkness did not belong;
even the darkness was strange and awful.
In the ninth hour of the darkness
Joel rose and walked alone.
He left the village for the open fields.
He stood beneath the cold silent stars,
and he stood defiantly before the silence.
Joel thought of his son,
“I was blessed by his life
and I am cursed by his death.”
With hatred in his eyes,
Joel looked up to the sky of the night.
“Do you wait on me, Lord?
Would you have my thanks in prayer?”
Then he spoke to the silence,
and his words were spoken through clenched teeth
and his voice was a rasp,
and he spoke as if his throat was choked.
“Lord, I ask You to bear what I cannot;
I ask You to bear my witness,
for this is the day of my gladness.
Behold Lord,
I am a man
and I have been made to know gladness
and the Lord has made me so.
Look with favor upon my works,
for this day I have sent my son before me
into the earth,
-this is my gladness-
that my son goes before me
and where he has gone
my spirit goes with him.
Now I know my gladness.
Before You O Lord
and before all the sons of Abraham
and all the fathers of the sons,
as they are blessed
so am I
blessed
and in this gladness
is the mark of my blessing.
And in every son and in every father
that passes before my eyes
I shall see my blessing
going there before me.
And in silence
Shall You see me
rejoice.
O Lord,
his face is turned from me.
Even in my memory
his face is turned away from me.
I do not see him. I cannot remember his face.
Lord!Who will help me remember his face?
What would You have me do?
Shall I call to my son as You called to Adam?
“My son,
answer to me,
where are you,
where have you gone?”
And my answer is known to me.
In silence
my gladness is known.
For the Lord Most High
on this day I am glad.
It is in thankfulness that I now know
I am beneath You.
I am thankful
to know my stumbling shall not trouble
Your exalted presence.
I give thanks
that what is miserable in me
shall not stain Your glory.
I am glad for the Lord in this day,
the greatest of my days.
Behold my gladness,
it is greater than I.
I cannot lift it.
I cannot begin to move it.
And here I shall leave it.
Here is my offering Lord,
all that I have I leave to You.
My poor offering I cast
before Your riches.
Behold Lord
these words I speak.
These are words I shall not speak of again.
From this day on,
what I say, I will say from my lips only,
but what I speak from my heart
-Lord as my witness-
these words are my last.
And Joel turned his back on the night sky
and returned to the village.
From then on their life was a black cloud looming.
Joel’s wife rarely left their home,
then she rarely left her bed.
During this dark season
Joel’s business as well suffered losses.
Some of his crew left him
and while the best remained with him,
they were all anxiously burdened.
Joel’s wife was not the same woman after the accident.
It seemed as if someone else had taken her place
within her.
For those who knew her all of their lives
it was a terrible shock;
from the same eyes they knew so well
there was now, looking out,
someone different.
In the coming of winter
Joel’s wife took to her illness, a fever.
And her feeble grasp held firm and relentless
to a common affliction that at one time
would not even have kept her from chores,
but was now held squarely between her and all hope.
And her life passed adrift in those weeks,
among the passing of autumn’s chill.
And with her passing
Joel became a man made of stone.
His features were a carved mask.
His stance was the pose of a statue.
And to stand beside such a man made of stone,
a man who is cold and unmoved and yet far removed
from those others around him, it is a fearful thing.
And for those who knew him well,
it was especially terrible.
The day the accident happened
Joel was angry and some say, drunken.
His work had brought him beyond the gates of the village;
his contracts were poor and his crew were now mere vagrants.
His days were spent with a seething anger.
And in a wrath he climbed the scaffolding,
and in silence he let loose and he fell
and was struck on the stones which were laying beneath him.
From this fall Joel was maimed,
and his craft was no longer his.
With his right hand no use to him,
he lost his work and he began to wander with nothing.
Joel wandered for forty months.
In time, he came to forget his home
His home was now on the side of the road.
In time he came to forget his name,
his survival was now on the tithing of peasants.
In time, he returned to the village once more
but he did not recognize where he was.
At the gate of the village
a man who had once been Joel’s apprentice saw him
and he asked Joel to come and work for him.
The man now had his own crew
and he hired Joel more from pity than from need.
Joel took no notice of this, in his miserable hunger
he had long ago given up the effort of carrying pride.
The man cleared a shed beside his workshop
and he gave Joel a cot and a chair,
and with some modest improvements over time,
Joel lived in that place for the rest of his life.
Joel’s job was to go through the scrap wood.
He would take the pieces that were left over and discarded
and he would fashion them into something useful.
Even though his good hand was ruined,
in time, his skills and his knowledge befriended him once again.
His days were spent loosening what was tangled
and his days were spent binding together the scattered pieces.
Until finally, he held in his hand a wholly new and a good fixture
and it was put together from what had been cast off.
In the Autumn of the fourteenth year of his work
the son of Joel’s apprentice was now the crew’s foreman
and he came to Joel with a young boy cowering behind him.
“Joel, we have someone to work with you. I want you to take him under your...show him the ropes, you know, the basics.” They both looked at the boy who was looking down at the ground. The boy held one wrist tightly grasped in the other hand and was twisting it slowly. His wrist appeared chaffed and scarred.
The foreman whispered to Joel, “He’s an orphan. He came from the city of salt.” Joel was shocked. The foreman said, “Yeah, I know. It was a massacre. They said they found him buried underneath all the bodies. He doesn’t talk. We don’t even know his name.” Joel asked him, “What is that around his neck?” The foreman said, “Yeah, he’s wearing a medallion, but it’s just a plain piece of wood. There’s no markings on it.”
Joel fixed a place for the boy to sleep in the shed. And they worked together in the scrap yard. As the boy would not or could not talk, Joel chose to give him a name. “I can’t just call you ‘boy’ all the time, so until you tell me different, I’ll call you Jotham.”
Joel taught the boy how to use the tools at hand and he taught him how to work the wood. “See here Jotham, you have to know how the wood will split before it is struck.” And he held the beam before him, “Like this, watch me.”
In a night after many seasons had passed, Joel and Jotham were preparing for supper and Joel was upset and cross. During that day, Jotham had made a foolish mistake in their work and it was going to take most of the next morning to correct it. This was unfortunate as they were working toward a deadline and any day now their ship would come in and would need to be loaded with goods at once.
When Jotham realized his mistake, he was mortified. Joel looked at the problem and just sighed and shook his head, not saying a word. Joel knew he was being hard and cold to Jotham, but he was too tired to do anything about it.
Suddenly, the door was flung open and the young foreman crashed into the shed. He closed the door behind him and scrambled around the shed looking for something. He was drunk and his clothes were a mess. He cowered in the corner trying to hide himself.
The door slammed open again and the foreman’s father came though the door and shouted in a rage “Where is he!? You can’t hide from me! Come and take your beating!” He grabbed his son by the neck and threw him across the floor. Then he struck him repeatedly with his cane while he yelled, “ You... shall...not...bring...shame...to...this...house!” His son was whimpering and the father dragged him and pushed him through the door of the shed. He stopped at the door with his breath heaving in his chest, and he glared wildly at Joel and Jotham. Then he left and closed the door behind him.
Joel sat still and tried to calm his breathing while Jotham looked down at the ground and held one wrist tightly grasped in the other hand and was twisting it slowly.
Joel knew that the bosses’ son had been staying out with hoodlums and drinking at night. The times were poor for everyone in the village. Everything was scarce and everyone was anxious.
Joel stood and placed his remaining bread on Jotham’s plate. Jotham looked up at Joel worriedly, because the season was poor and the food was meager. Joel said, “It’s alright, I don’t feel well. My stomach is not my own tonight.” Joel left the room and stepped outside leaving Jotham alone.
Jotham sat for a few moments looking at the bread that Joel had left on the table. Then he took the bread and slowly finished eating his supper.
Later that evening, Joel returned and spoke to Jotham, “Jotham, there is an ill will between us. Your mistake today will cost us both and it comes with a price. I would ask of you a trespass offering to make an amends between us.” Jotham sat up straight and listened attentively.
“Bring me your chessboard.”
Jotham was shocked. He actually hesitated for a moment before retrieving the board. The chessboard was a gift from Joel. He had carved the pieces himself and Jotham marveled at the artistry in the finished work. It must have taken months to create the set. It seemed too great a sacrifice for merely a trespass offering. But Jotham obliged nonetheless and placed the board on the table between them.
Joel began to smartly unwrap the tokens from their cloth and set up the board for a play, arranging the black pieces as his own. As Jotham stared, Joel paused to look up at him and say, “Well? You can’t hide from me.” Grinning, he gestured to the board and said, “Come and take your beating.”
Uneasily, Jotham set up his men and began the match. He kept looking up nervously at the door. Playing chess was not something they did during the work of the week. Only on Sabbath, after prayers would Joel tell Jotham to take out the board and would teach him the play of the game. On all the other nights, their evenings were spent
from psalms or whittling pegs.When Jotham kept looking over Joel’s shoulder at the door, Joel became annoyed and said, “Are you expecting someone? If your debt is to me, then I will choose how you repay me.” Joel points at the board, “Now pay attention.”
As they settled into their match, Joel watched Jotham survey the board. Joel was proud of Jotham and admired the intelligence he saw in those eyes.
As the game progressed, Jotham made a move and then sat back from the board. Joel looked at the board, confused, and then became angry.
Jotham had the advantage, but he was throwing the game. “Is that what you call a sacrifice? Why do you insult me? How much patience do you think I have?” Jotham’s expression of surprise was so exaggerated that it struck Joel as comical and he was disarmed at once.
He shook his head, grinning and said patiently, “Jotham, have I not taught you how to play? Do I need to teach you how not to play? Look, when you see a good move, the way I taught you to see a good move, but then you choose not to do it, trust me, you will get a beating! I have given you my time to teach you to play, and I expect you to repay me in full, not just a half measure.”
They continued their match to the end and then they went to bed and to sleep.
At another time, they were working beside each other, using up some rough boards of poorly grained wood and were finishing the construction of a set of feed troughs for animals. Joel leaned over and grabbed hold of a trough, and then stopped cold. With his hand on the wood he froze and stared into the trough and stared through the trough.
In his minds eye, he was looking into the eyes of his son as a baby. He is immersed in the memory, immediately transported and living within that moment forgotten from long ago. He is looking into the eyes of his son’s joyful smile, and he marvels at the sight; he sees with his own eyes right there in the flesh, the fullness of promise reaching out to the world.
Jotham is staring at Joel and is frightened that Joel seems to be looking at something that is not there. But he is mesmerized by the smile on Joel’s face. Jotham has never seen Joel smile like that before. After a moment, it passes, and they return to the drudgery of their exertions.
At another time, they are finishing rough posts and beams to be sold to the Romans, when Joel gets a large splinter in the palm of his hand. He stares at the strip of wood in his palm, as if he doesn’t understand what he is looking at. Then, only with great effort does he focus his attention and do what is needed and pulls the splinter from his hand.
During that night, Joel takes ill with a fever and he becomes wracked with disease. In his shuddering and sweating he becomes delirious and Jotham wraps him in blankets and sponges his face.
Even while Joel lay on his cot, he was made to stand upright and was led out beyond the gates of the village, where even still, his contracts are poor and his crew are merely vagrants. He is walking along the scaffolding when there is an accident and everyone is shouting and running. He is jostled along with the crowd and comes to the center of the mob. Among the crowd is the body of a man laying on the stones. Joel does not know who the man is, but he feels terrified as the man appears to be dead. Joel knows that some thing has gone wrong.
He began to yell at the others as they frantically carry away the body of the man. Over and over Joel is shouting, “No! This isn’t the way it was supposed to happen. This is where I fell! This is where I fell!” As the others leave him, he looks down at his hands and they are bloodied. But his hands are whole again. He stares at his hands and twists them slowly around. He has both his hands again and both his hands are whole and strong.
He turns around to look up at the scaffold, but it is no longer there. Instead, the daylight has become moonlight and it is silent all around him. The peaceful glow of a full moon suffuses the ground of a grand courtyard. The glow is the fullness of the light of a harvest moon.
Joel sees there is a man in the courtyard with his back turned to him and he knows that this is the master of the mansion. Beyond the master, there are all the others of the village. All of the others that Joel has ever known are all there now in the courtyard. And they all admire Joel and they whisper to each other, “the master will speak to Joel directly.”
Everyone waits on the master and Joel looks and sees that he is carefully inspecting something. And Joel becomes terrified to realize that the master is inspecting Joel’s own work. There in the courtyard are the troughs that Joel had made for the farmers and the post and beams that Joel had made for the soldiers and all the other stuff Joel had pieced together from junk and garbage.
Joel was frantic. He was panicked. He thought to himself; “the master plans to furnish the mansion, and all I have to show for it is this trash? No! He should see my best work. Where is my best work? When I was young and strong my work was excellent.”
As Joel stood there and watched the master inspect the work, he sensed a calming presence approach close behind him, and he knew that it was the master who stood behind him and in this presence he found peace and the encouragement that he needed to come forward when he was called.
Joel calmly waited and watched as the master looked at a tiny detail and gently laughed once and smiled. Joel looked at the nick on the wood and he remembered the time when Jotham had taken his directions and executed them very precisely and exactly the opposite way.
Joel’s smiled remembering this, but his smile faded with the realization that the master already knew his work. All of it. Then Joel could see that each and all of his works were lined up one after the next and they stretched away before him farther than his eyes could see. But the master already knew his work, all of it.
When the master rose and came close to Joel,
Joel could only look down at the ground beneath his feet.
And then he heard the voice speak,
“Joel, your work is good.”
And at these words
so spoken
Joel was filled with joy
and Joel was filled with sorrow.
He bowed his head while he smiled
and his tears fell to ground.
The master put his hand on Joel’s shoulder
and Joel was a young man again
and strong. And his eyes were clear
and his shoulders at peace.
He looked up and into the eyes of the master.
And he was ready for anything, and willing as well.
And he listened to the words as the master spoke them;
“Behold Joel, and you will see what your work has begun.”
With the master beside him,
they turned around to look back to where he had come from
and before him rose the vaulted ceilings of cathedrals
and beyond him stood the spires and the pinnacles,
and a myriad of hosts arose above the throngs of the faithful
and their prayers were echoed in the burnish of bronze
and their singing resounded the magnificent marble
and he fell head to heel through the unfurling tapestries
through the warp and the woof of the golden threads weave.
And reflected in canvas the pigments and brush strokes
of the inspired genius exalted in glory.
And the artists approached,
and they bowed before Joel
and they recognized him for the work he had done.
And these artists and geniuses, craftsmen and builders
these brilliant visionaries and these sculptors and painters
they all came to pay their respects before Joel.
And Joel was struck dumb
and was now humiliated.
That such artists as these
would come pay him respect.
Before ones great as these,
he could only hang his head
In the shame of himself
and his paltry appearance.
And he stared at the ground,
‘til his eyes came to rest
on the feet of the master
who stood there beside him,
and then Joel came to peace
and he breathed in serenely.
And he knew;
that these others were not there to see him.
These others were there at the call of the master.
These others were there
in their honor to Him.
And in this,
Joel lifted his eyes
and he looked to the others
and he faced them in full.
And their joy was respledent
and given free rein.
And they basked in the glow
of their works’ inspiration.
Then along a path darkened,
they walked on together.
The two of them only,
the master and Joel.
And the master stood still
and he squarely faced Joel;
“Your work has been hard, but your work is unfinished.
Your most difficult tasks are still yet to be done.
“You will need all your strength.
You will need all your faith.
You will need me beside you
though your eyes might not see.”
And the master placed his palm over Joel’s eyes...
...and the boss removed his palm from Joel’s forehead. And he said, “I think the worst is passed.”
Jotham sat beside Joel and was firmly grasping a wet towel and slowly twisting it. Then he gently patted Joel’s face with the towel. It was the third day of Joel’s fever and Jotham had hardly left his side in all that time. The boss put his hand on Jotham’s shoulder and said, “You should get some rest. He’ll be okay now.”
In the weeks that followed, it was apparent to everyone that Joel could no longer work. The illness had taken too much out of him. As he convalesced, Jotham went to work with the other men on the crew.
At a much later time, Joel came to be at peace in his infirmity and his peace was founded, in great part, in that Jotham was now a valued and trusted craftsman. So much so that the son had made him the foreman of the crew. This was quite remarkable because Jotham still did not speak, and yet, he could execute the duties entrusted to him.
Their business was such a thriving enterprise that their work was in demand from far away. And as autumn approached, the crew prepared to leave the village and journey to the great city and their new contracts.
At the end of their last supper together, the men were anxiously solemn in saying farewell to Joel. What was understood by everyone but went unsaid was that in all likelihood, Joel would not live to see another autumn.
In private, Joel spoke to Jotham for few minutes. “I am very proud of you, Jotham. You will do such a good job, I know it. And your boss will look out for you, don’t you worry about that. May God bless you and take care of you and I will see you in a year’s time.”
They embraced each other and each returned to their own rooms.
Later that night,
in the ninth hour of the darkness,
Joel rose and walked alone.
He left the village for the open fields.
And he found there, beneath the cold silent stars,
Jotham,
standing still and alone,
in the glow of the light
of the full harvest moon.
Joel approached and stood beside Jotham.
And together they stood
and together they faced
the silence of the night.
With fear in his eyes,
Jotham looked up to the sky of the night
as he untangled from his tunic
the cord which held the medallion,
just a plain piece of wood.
And grasping it firmly he twisted it slowly
and the wood split in two parts and came open.
And Jotham held it there for Joel
and waited for him to see it.
And Joel peered closely
and the light of the moon flashed its marked revelation.
And Joel’s tiredness lifted and he looked up at Jotham,
And he whispered in amazed and hushed tones,
“Gabriel!
Your name is Gabriel!”
Jotham hung his head before these words
and Joel placed his hand on his shoulder,
and he looked up and spoke to the sky of the night,
and his voice was a rasp
and he spoke as if his throat were choked,
“Lord, I ask You to bear what I cannot;
I ask You to bear my witness,
for this is the day of my gladness.
Behold Lord,
I am a man
and I have been made to know gladness
and the Lord has made me so.
Look with favor upon my work,
for this day I send my son before me
into the world
-this is my gladness-
that my son goes before me
and where he goes
my spirit goes
with him.
Now I know my gladness.”
Joel and Gabriel embraced one another,
and the light of the moon shone brightly on them
and the chill of the autumn passed gently away.
and 
all
time for me 
echoes, hope you all are doing well 
