I am not a storyteller per se, but yesterday a story did pour forth out of me while I was writing a blog for Plucked Strings about the Gospel of Luke story of Mary's pregnancy and Jesus' birth. It is an attempt at a "parallel story," one that keeps to the basic message of the original but is set in a different context. I rather liked how it turned out, so I am taking the liberty of sending it to you, hoping you will like it, too. I do not care to establish ownership rights to it, so consider it public domain if you care to do anything with it. FYI, in Hebrew, Mary means "bitter," Joseph means "to expand or multiply," and Elizabeth means "House of God: Beth-el". So you'll understand why I chose the names I did. The pot is a symbol in the story for the uterus. The story was motivated especially by Luke's saying that after the shepherds left, she "pondered" all that she had seen and heard and "treasured" what she had been given. I love that view of Mary as deeply reflective and spiritual. The context of how I used the story is at http://plucked-strings.blog-city.com/
Before I paste it here, let me know how the connection with Toronto works out for you. I have been hearing how Canada is beginning to see American style gang violence in recent years that was far less obvious until recently. I think it would be exciting to see your work carried there.
Here goes the story:
There was a village that once had been a place of abundance, with days of sun chasing days of rains, filled with orchards and gardens, flocks of well-fed sheep and goats, and contented people. But that had been many years ago, before Drought came and sucked out the clouds of rain and blew dust onto the fields, scorching the gardens and orchards and decimating the flocks. And so the people had come to know Hunger, and they spent their entire days looking for a few remaining shriveled fruits and vegetables and a rare serving of lamb whenever one of the failing flock died. TImes were so bad that Sheep Boy had only three animals to tend at night.
In this village lived a quiet and reflective woman named Bitter Root and her good and kind partner Toward Bounty, who was a carver of sticks. Between them they had little more than an empty pot, with nothing other than some stale spices and shriveled nuts with which to fill it. Bitter Root wondered how she and Toward Bounty could survive, and together with all the other people of the village, she prayed to the Creator each day for a return of that time when days of sun chased days of rain and the bellies of all in the village were filled with nourishing foods.
One day, a messenger visited her, surprising her, and startled her even more with the claim that the Creator had found favor with her prayers. The messenger said she would bring forth soup to feed not only herself and Toward Bounty but all the people of the village. She, Bitter Root, had been chosen Keeper of the Pot. As quickly as the messenger came, he vanished. Bitter Root looked at her pot. It was only an ordinary pot; how could this be? But she believed. Oh, she believed, but she wasn't ready yet to share her news with Toward Bounty. Bitter Root knew that her good cousin Hut-of-God was one quick to perceive and to accept such miracles, so Bitter Root raced to her hut to share the good news.
After that, Bitter Root returned home to watch her pot. She invited Toward Bounty to stand beside her together as they watched it fill with crunchy carrots and plump beans and choice morsels of goat and lamb, not known in the village for so many years. And as the pot filled, she told Toward Bounty about the messenger and what he had told her. Soon even the pot itself began to grow until one day; Toward Bounty saw that their small hut soon could not contain it. So they hid the pot under blankets and carried it on a stretcher across the village to the supply hut that had a larger cooking pit. At night, they carefully removed the pot from the cooking pit and hid it again beneath the blankets until they could return to mind it again in the morning. Finally, the evening came when the pot stopped growing and filled the supply hut with its aroma of abundance. Bitter Root and Toward Bounty knew that they stood before a feast that would feed the people for a lifetime. To keep it warm and clean, Bitter Root made a lid out of some cloths. She had scarcely covered it, when all of a sudden there came a knock at the door in the middle of the night. In came Sheep Boy, eyeing the pot covered with a lid of cloth.
Peering into the great pot of soup, Sheep Boy excitedly relayed to Bitter Root and Toward Bounty a most amazing story of a messenger that had come to him on the hills outside the village that very evening, as he lay beside the remaining three starving sheep. He told how the messenger had described the soup that would save the village from Hunger and of the cloth lid being its telltale sign. Together, Bitter Root, Toward Bounty and Sheep Boy held vigil beside the full pot through the night. When morning arrived, Sheep Boy raced from hut to hut in the village, telling the people the story of the messenger and of the filled pot with the cloth lid, praising the Creator for this gift of life, and announcing the feast that was to come.
Toward Bounty returned home to his carving. But Bitter Root, wanting to absorb all that she had heard and seen, remained beside the pot, pondering Sheep Boy’s words and this gift of the Creator, treasuring the Creator's trust in her as Keeper of the Pot.
Holly Stevens
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