A Friend called Joseph
A Friend called Joseph (a tale of yore)
I really wasn’t looking for a friend like Joseph. It was one
of those serendipity things that made a difference and made a friend. Once begun there was no turning back, only a new
direction forward and around rocks that appeared. Like when our sons were born in the same
month. What a couple of weeks that was.
This time there were cigars added to the coffee and cribbage games. There was much backslapping and dreaming
while we walked and talked on the way to work.
We had become quite good friends indeed.
It was one of these rare types that the wives and the husbands are all
good friends. Really good friends, friends that overlooked the way he picked at
his beard and I picked my teeth. Our young
boys were part of the mix, and such a reason for joy.
Our meetings at the coffee shop were something to look
forward to. Lively debates about the
camel races, neighborhood toughs, wives, kids, politics, the number of troops
on the edge of town, and religion were all part of the mix. Occasionally there would be others that would
join us, but mostly we were an island.
Lost in strong opinions and good coffee we walked the breadth of our
friendship warmly.
I was sitting there alone one day waiting with two cups of
coffee, my turn to buy, and he didn’t come.
It had happened a couple of times in the past and I didn’t fret much and
besides I could have both cups of coffee.
It was on the second day that I went to their house and found it empty
of people, but scattered things laying around.
Caught by surprise I knew that they didn’t move to a new hut because he
would have had me help and bring my donkey.
I just stood there and wondered.
About the coffee, the discussions, the hugs, the borrowed tools, and the
way he tugged at his beard just before he was wrong on some political
topic. I was going to miss the help on
my roof, and the way his kid played with mine.
What would I tell him? I didn’t know? I just didn’t have any answers.
It was a couple of days later that I was at the coffee shop,
alone, and was listening to the stories of the troops that were grouping near
the city walls. No one knew why and there was much guessing, but they kept
coming. Buy the end of the next week I
was amazed at the numbers that had accumulated in the camps, and of course at
the exaggerated stories of what they were here for. Some said for protection against an invasion,
and others said they were the invasion!
All I knew was business was up at the shop.
When the first news of terror and the wailing of mothers got
to the shop we all looked at each other and then ran to our homes. We knew in an instant it was real. We knew it wasn’t a story gone wild. When I ran down my street there were grim
faced troops going from house to house.
They had been on my block for a while. It was covered with wailing
fathers and weeping mothers and blood.
The blood of sons. I had a son!
Had, why did I use the word had? As I ran to the door I knew before I got
there, my wife needed comfort, my son was dead. I leaned on the house and slid
to the earth. I was empty and had
nothing to lean on. I flailed on the ground.
Made mud from my tears. I was
spent and drained when I clearly saw the edge; there was more pain, a new pain. A fresh violation because the one friend I
could count on had left!
This, the
second pain. This was a new version, it was hope draining away. Stability subsiding
and strength ebbing, my confidence shaken.
This was the surprise, death was a shock, but nothing to lean on was
new. The days since Joseph left were
fine for the most part, although I missed him, I could survive. But this was different. This went deep to my core and the one I had
counted on wasn’t there. Where could I go with my anger and my impotence to
deal with the violation? I was rendered
to a state of despair and found the bottom at a level that I didn’t know
existed, or that I would go. I had seen
people distraught before but had not visited the place to this degree in my
life, and the smell cannot be undone. Now I knew their suffering. My 9 was their 9 on the pain scale. And of Joseph? Why was my son now dead, and
his was with him? This was unjust! I was empty, for the first time.
Completely. More this time because I
have had pain before, but I had always had someone I could carry that pain to
that was safe. Today I had no place to set it down. I was at the end of myself. I had found the wall.
It was there, at the wall, where I lay weeping when I heard
the voice that was safe. I heard the
voice of the inner man. I had known that
voice before, but never this sweet. Never this safe, this warm and this
complete. I had known this voice in my
youth and in my later years. In times of secret and times of quiet, but it had
been a while. Too long since I had
listened for it and too long since I had listened to it. But here it was. Like time had stopped and I was important to
the voice. The concern for my grief and loss was like a warm cloth washing my
pain, like you would wash my tears. The
loss was still there but the heat was missing.
The angry heat. The heat of the
pain, the heat of the tears on my face, but not the heat of impotence. It was different, now. The voice would correct things and I could
trust Him. Trust that the books would be balanced, and now I could wait with
patience and act in confidence.
I was thinking about that voice, years later, and the
penetrating way it moved through me; right to the pains’ source. Right to the core that needed extinguished,
and not the brush fires that were visible.
The brush fires burned, but the center is done. It was eerie, but that son of Joseph came to
my mind and then I understood. The eyes
of that boy could penetrate stone. Like
my stony heart, and find the spot that needed opened. Why him and why now? How did that gaze lend confidence that I
would be well again? Why did I believe
it? All I knew was that the day I see
Joseph again will be a reunion, not a hurt.
And we will weep at the loss of our sons. I knew that the comfort I give will be the
comfort I received. Not comfort from a
human perspective, but a God perspective, and it will be enough. I could now
find peace for the hour at hand. And peace to extend. Peace that was no stranger.
Joseph would lose his Son.
I would be a friend. I would
taste the salt of the tears of loss and confusion and hurt. I had gone before him, to this place, and
reconciled the question of Justice with the voice that said Justice is in His
time and in His hands and I would be made whole on that day, but today I will
walk with a limp. A limp that will evoke
questions. Questions that I can
answer. Answer with a smile of knowing
and a hug of assurance. Perhaps it is
that which you are needing now… that assurance.
That you will come to a place that Justice will be found. I know this place. I carry it with me, for such a time as
this. For you. It is time to set it down. It is time to weep. Joseph’s Son came back, Justice is here.
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