Saturday's Storyteller: Immanuel
by Belinda Roddie
He will break bread with us, and he will refill tired bottles with life as sweet and plentiful as our prayers. We will offer him our finest bed, but he shall demur, and he will rest his head on the wooden floor instead. And when he sleeps, he will sing - his body will shake with the hymns of his dreams, his chest rising like a heat wave and igniting the tired bones beneath with music.
I will notice how weary he is then - how emaciated and haggard he looks, as if he is thirty but has aged to look like he is fifty. I will fight back the desire to cut his hair, to trim his beard, to pinch and pluck his eyebrows, even, as they descend close to his still fluttering lids. I will ponder filling a basin with hot water to soak his weathered brown body in - that misshapen flesh, baked by too many treks in the desert, scarred too much by the caressing hand of the devil.
And then I will see his open wounds. That famed stigmata on the palms of his hands - it will stand out to me as vividly as the red stained glass in the cathedral. The wound in his side with its mottled, half-healed tissue, the diagonal slashes across his forehead from his crown of thorns and brambles. And I will wish to touch them, as if that will mend them, but I will keep my distance. I will remember boundaries.
He has already told us many stories. Stories of his country that suffered for four hundred years under tyranny and oppressive rule. Stories of his people, hands folded in front of them, their fingers caved in after scratching at so many walls. Plaintive cries for a hero, a martyr, a crusader, a messiah. They wanted saviors, he told us, because they did not believe they had the spirit to change their own despair. And he did not blame them for that.
He spoke of Israel. He spoke of hope.
He will sleep soundly until morning. Then he will break bread with us again, leave us in the cold morning, tell us to return to our old devices. He will kiss my mother's head and shake my father's hand, hug my brother and lift my baby sister in the air like a little angel aiming to reach Heaven. And he will then turn to me, and I will shrink back, as if the air between us has turned to ice. He will not mind. Instead, he will simply bend toward my ear, his breath hot and rank against my frigid skin, and he will whisper:
"I was never the savior you sought. But I will always sit with you at the same table."
Outside, even with the sun out, another star will shine brighter. And the children will pray for their parents to return to them. And the Magi will make a concerted effort to cross the border again without being beaten, detained, or deported. And families will argue over cold meat, their politics as barbed as tiny nettles. And we shall sleep, but restlessly, tossing and turning, as the prospects of a mushroom cloud hangs over our head.
But I will remember him - rejoice in his presence. For even if he perhaps is just a man, he is a man who will break bread with me.
And I am grateful.
This week's prompt was inspired by the Christmas carol, "O Come, O Come Emmanuel," though I chose to use the original Hebrew spelling of the name. While I am no longer religious, I find the emotion and message of the piece to be poignant and affecting. I hope all of you can find solace and peace in the days ahead, with or without Immanuel. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and much love.
He will break bread with us, and he will refill tired bottles with life as sweet and plentiful as our prayers. We will offer him our finest bed, but he shall demur, and he will rest his head on the wooden floor instead. And when he sleeps, he will sing - his body will shake with the hymns of his dreams, his chest rising like a heat wave and igniting the tired bones beneath with music.
I will notice how weary he is then - how emaciated and haggard he looks, as if he is thirty but has aged to look like he is fifty. I will fight back the desire to cut his hair, to trim his beard, to pinch and pluck his eyebrows, even, as they descend close to his still fluttering lids. I will ponder filling a basin with hot water to soak his weathered brown body in - that misshapen flesh, baked by too many treks in the desert, scarred too much by the caressing hand of the devil.
And then I will see his open wounds. That famed stigmata on the palms of his hands - it will stand out to me as vividly as the red stained glass in the cathedral. The wound in his side with its mottled, half-healed tissue, the diagonal slashes across his forehead from his crown of thorns and brambles. And I will wish to touch them, as if that will mend them, but I will keep my distance. I will remember boundaries.
He has already told us many stories. Stories of his country that suffered for four hundred years under tyranny and oppressive rule. Stories of his people, hands folded in front of them, their fingers caved in after scratching at so many walls. Plaintive cries for a hero, a martyr, a crusader, a messiah. They wanted saviors, he told us, because they did not believe they had the spirit to change their own despair. And he did not blame them for that.
He spoke of Israel. He spoke of hope.
He will sleep soundly until morning. Then he will break bread with us again, leave us in the cold morning, tell us to return to our old devices. He will kiss my mother's head and shake my father's hand, hug my brother and lift my baby sister in the air like a little angel aiming to reach Heaven. And he will then turn to me, and I will shrink back, as if the air between us has turned to ice. He will not mind. Instead, he will simply bend toward my ear, his breath hot and rank against my frigid skin, and he will whisper:
"I was never the savior you sought. But I will always sit with you at the same table."
Outside, even with the sun out, another star will shine brighter. And the children will pray for their parents to return to them. And the Magi will make a concerted effort to cross the border again without being beaten, detained, or deported. And families will argue over cold meat, their politics as barbed as tiny nettles. And we shall sleep, but restlessly, tossing and turning, as the prospects of a mushroom cloud hangs over our head.
But I will remember him - rejoice in his presence. For even if he perhaps is just a man, he is a man who will break bread with me.
And I am grateful.
This week's prompt was inspired by the Christmas carol, "O Come, O Come Emmanuel," though I chose to use the original Hebrew spelling of the name. While I am no longer religious, I find the emotion and message of the piece to be poignant and affecting. I hope all of you can find solace and peace in the days ahead, with or without Immanuel. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and much love.
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