Mother's Eyes

by Woods, Karen

  Miriam had just returned to Yochanan’s home after delivering table linens to a woman whose daughter was to wed soon. Those linens would be part of the household goods the young woman would take into her marriage. Of all the work she did, table linens and bridal finery gave her the most pleasure in the making. While out making that delivery, she had also stopped at two homes of believers to give the families burial shrouds for elderly members of those families who were on their deathbeds. Her purse now had money in it from the table linens. Her work gave her the funds for almsgiving. The burial shrouds she made were part of her almsgiving, consisting of a gift of her time as well as the money for the raw flax which she had spun and woven into the shrouds. It was little enough to do for people.

  She hadn’t even had time to untie the strings on her purse, to remove it from her belt, when Yochanan came quickly into the house. It was clear to Miriam that he was severely distressed, even before he said a word to her.

  “We are leaving now. There is no time to waste. Grab your cloak, pull up the hood to hide your identity, and come with me, now,” he said.

  “What has happened?”

  “Yaacov bar Yosef, the Just, has been murdered.”

  Miriam felt the tears well up in her eyes and begin to fall. She prayed softly, her voice breaking, “May he find a place among the just, with the martyrs gone before him.”

  “Amein,” Yochanan answered. Then he said, “Come, Emma Miriam, we must leave Yerushalayim. Get your cloak. We have no time to pack. We have to leave quietly, quickly, with only the clothes on our backs, and without drawing attention to ourselves.”

  As she took her cloak from the hook, she asked, “Where are we going?”

  “For now, to Cyprus, to visit Eleazaros and his sisters. We will walk to Yoppa. We’ll take a ship from there to Cyprus. That distance from Yerushalayim should keep you safe.”

  She fastened a silver broach through the neck of her woolen cloak to hold it closed and pulled the hood up over her head. “Whenever you are ready,” she said.

  As she had fastened her cloak, he had thrown on his own hooded cloak. And then they were gone. In a real way, Miriam thought as they walked through the streets, Shlomit’s death two months before now had been a great mercy. Yochanan’s infirm mother never would have been able to make this journey, and Yochanan would not have left her behind. It would be good to see Miriam and Martha again, and to talk with Eleazaros. She hadn’t seen them in years.

  She and Yochanan walked in silence until they reached Emmaus at sunset. They stopped at the home of a believer there, a man named Sh’lomo and his wife, Devorah.

  Devorah immediately invited them to stay for dinner. She washed their feet and did everything to make them welcome in her home. They washed their hands and Sh’lomo gave the blessing over the bread and wine.

  It was a simple cold dinner; just flat bread, cheese, hardboiled eggs, smoked fish, olives, onions, greens, salt, dates, and Devorah’s own homebrewed ale. Miriam ate very little.

  “Are you well, Emma?” Devorah asked in concern. “If the food is not to your liking, I could fix you something else.”

  “The food is fine, Devorah. I am simply not hungry. My grief for Yaacov has robbed me of any appetite.”

  “That’s understandable. You are his father’s widow,” the other woman said, compassion in her voice.

  “He was barely seven years old when his father and I married. His mother died before he was two. I am the only mother he had any memory of. I should be sitting shiva for him, and yet, I am fleeing for safety’s sake.”

  “I left money with Silas to arrange for a tomb and spices, and told him to take one of the shrouds you had on the shelf for Yaacov’s burial,” Yochanan replied. “That’s the best we could do, under the circumstances.”

  Miriam sighed. “I should have stayed in Yerushalayim and seen to his burial.”

  Yochanan shook his head. “If you had, the chances are good that you would have been killed. No. Yehoshua asked me to care for you as I would care for my own Emma. I will not do less for you than I would have done for her under similar circumstances. I will defend and protect you as well as I can. As He hung on the cross, He surrendered your care into my hands. I will not fail him.”

  Miriam sipped from her cup. “You are a good man, Yochanan, my son.”

  “Thank you, Emma Miriam, your good opinion means much to me,” Yochanan said, his voice much softer than before.

  Sh’lomo sighed. “Well, if we are done, shall we sing our praises of Our Father, Our King?”

  Shortly after finishing the singing of the birkat ha-mazon, they said their bedtime blessings. Miriam gratefully accepted the use of a sleeping couch, a pillow for her head, and a blanket. She was asleep almost as soon as her head touched the cushion.

  The next day was a long walk beginning just after dawn and ending only when they reached the sea just before sunset. Devorah had sent with them some bread and cheese as well as some fruit, for their midday meal. They ate as they walked.

  They found shelter with a believer in Yoppa by the name of Levi and his wife Tamar.

  Tamar, and their three daughters, kept asking questions about Yehoshua. Was He an easy baby? When did He learn to walk? What were His first words? What were His favorite foods? When did He learn to read? And the questions went on and on. But Miriam didn’t mind. It was good to talk about Him.

  Tamar asked, “When do you think he became the Son of Avinu Malkeinu?”

  Miriam answered, “He was part of Elohim before the world was. If you read Moshe, in Bereshit,” the book of Genesis, “you will see Elohim speaking to Himself in the plural. Let us do this and do that. We know that the Holy Spirit was there with Avinu Malkeinu. It’s a matter of revelation that Yehoshua was there as well. He revealed this to us, that He was there in the beginning of the world. That Elohim is plural is obvious from the fact that the word is plural. That He is one, that He is three, and that both are true at the same time, is a matter of revealed truth. How it should be so is a great mystery the human mind is not equipt to fully understand. We just must simply accept that it is so because He told us it was true.”

  “But the human form cannot hold Elohim,” Tamar countered.

  “No. Yet, Elohim can take manhood into Himself. This is what my son did when He became man.”

  “It must have been difficult to raise such a boy,” Tamar replied.

  “No. It was a joy,” Miriam said. “But like all joys, it was over far too quickly.”

  “You miss Him,” Tamar observed.

  Miriam felt herself smile. “He is always with me, as He promised He would be with all of us until the end of the age. I feel His love and care. And, in the mercy of the Three in One, I hope to see Him again.”

  “Did you read the letter Yaacov, the Just, sent out?” Levi asked.

  “When did Yaacov send out a letter?” Miriam asked.

  “Some time ago,” Levi said. “I received a copy of it two years ago. It had been circulating some time before I received it. Would you like to see it?”

  “I would, indeed,” Miriam said.

  Levi rose from the table and went over to his shelves. From within a box, he brought out the letter. Then he brought it over to the table. “Would you like me to read it to you?”

  “If you wish,” Miriam said.

  Levi read the letter. When he was done, he put it away.

  Miriam smiled. “That was Yaacov. I can hear him in that, speaking as he was accustomed to do. May he find a place among the just.”

  “Amein,” Levi and Yochanan agreed. Tamar and her daughters agreed as well.

  Miriam asked, “May I have a copy of that letter? We will be travelling and may be able to have other copies made for people.”

  “I will copy it out for you tomorrow morning,” Levi promised.

  “I thank you for that.”

  “The hour grows late, and you are tired from your journey,” Tamar said.

  Levi nodded. He stood and began to
chant the after meal blessings, the birkat ha-mazon.

  After morning prayers in the local Beyt T’fila, Levi and Yochanan returned to Levi’s house. Yochanan then went out to book passage on a ship for them while Levi copied out Yaacov’s letter.

  “Are you sure you won’t take a change of clothes and a sleeping mat with you?” Tamar asked.

  “When my Son sent out the Seventy, he told them not to take anything with them, not purse, not spare sandals. They managed. We will manage,” Miriam said.

  “But you have your purse,” Tamar replied.

  “I was wearing it at the time Yochanan told me we must go,” she said. “He didn’t give me time to do anything except to throw on my cloak.”

  “That sounds like a man,” Tamar said.

  Miriam sighed. “It does indeed. I know Yochanan is trying to do the best he can to protect me. He has made the best decision he knows how to make. I won’t make things more difficult for him, if I can possibly do so.”

  Tamar smiled. “You are a brave woman, Miriam.”

  Levi rolled the letter, now that the ink was blotted and dry, and placed it in an oiled leather bag to keep it dry. He gave it to Miriam. She placed the wrapped letter in her drawstring purse.

  Miriam thanked Levi and Tamar for their kindness. Yochanan returned from the docks.

  “Shalom, my friends. Miriam and I have passage booked for Cyprus. We just have time to get back to the boat,” Yochanan said. And they took their leave of Levi and Tamar.

  “What did you use for money?” Miriam asked as they went to the docks.

  “The captain and the crew are believers. They were only too happy to help us. They’re going to Cyprus anyway, to deliver some cargo and pick up other cargo, so it’s no problem to carry a couple of passengers,” Yochanan said. “They were excited to have you with them.”

  Every passage she’d ever taken by boat had been a smooth one, until this trip. Then again, she’d never been so far out to sea that land wasn’t visible. The first few days were uneventful, then there came the red sky at morning on the fifth day of the voyage.

  That storm was terrible. It blew them way off course. After several days of one storm after another, with no stars visible at night to take a navigation fix from, the storms subsided. Finally, then they saw shore off in the distance.

  She went to the captain. “Any idea of where we are?”

  “That looks like Akte,” he told her.

  “Akte?” she asked. “How far are we from Cyprus?”

  “We’re some distance off course, Emma. We’ll put in at Kleonai, one of the ports here, make the repairs to the sails, lay in supplies to make up for what was lost in the storm, and then set sail for Cyprus. We will likely be in port a few days for repairs.”

  “I would like to put some land under my feet for a few hours when we reach port,” Miriam said. “Would that be possible?”

  “It is a pagan place, Emma. But if you wish to take a walk, I suppose that can be arranged, if you have a male escort.”

  “I’ll walk with her,” Yochanan agreed. “On the day the crew goes into port for supplies, I’ll walk with her. Then we’ll all come back and start working on repairing the sails.”

  “Of course, we will,” Miriam said. “I certainly can mend canvass, if you will let me assist you.”

  The captain nodded. “We’d be grateful for your help.”

  The sailors took her and Yochanan to the port early one morning.

  She walked away from the docs, not speaking to anyone, and up a path to the top of the cliff. Yochanan walked with her up the path to a vantage point.

  After a half hour or so, she said, “It is so incredibly beautiful here.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  Miriam prayed, “My Son, Yehoshua, let this place be my garden, a garden in which beautiful souls can be grown for heaven, souls as beautiful as the place in which they are grown.”

  A voice came from heaven, the voice of her son, saying, “Let this place be your inheritance and your garden, a paradise and a haven of salvation for those seeking to be saved.”

  Miriam turned to Yochanan to see that he heard that. He nodded.

  She said, “Let, then, this place be my lot, given to me by my Son, El Chaiyai,” the God of my life. “I will be the Patroness of the place and intercede with Elohim for it.”

  “We will let it be known this place is special to Elohim. It is a lonely place, seemingly accessible only from the sea,” Yochanan said.

  “I will remember this place, always.”

  It was a few days later that they arrived in Cyprus in the port city of Salamis.

  This was where Eleazaros and his sisters lived. Barnabas had sold much of his land here, and had given the money to the poor, but he still owned a house in the port city. To listen to Barnabas describe it, the house wasn’t much more than four walls and a roof. Eleazaros, Miriam, and Martha lived in that house. But as she and Yochanan walked down the street, Miriam wasn’t seeing anything but beautiful, well built, and quite large, stone homes.

  Ahead, she saw Martha and Miriam, the sisters of Eleazaros, entering a house. A few moments later, she reached the house and knocked at the door.

  A young maidservant answered the door. “I am Miriam of Natsarat. This is Yochanan bar Zebedee,” Miriam said in Greek. “I have come to see Martha and Miriam, as well as Eleazaros.”

  The maid nodded and welcomed them into the front entry. “Wait here, please. I shall tell my mistresses that you are here. The master, he is not at home.”

  Martha came running. “Emma! Come sit. Ephrosyne, fetch food and drink for our guests. They have come a long distance.” Then she took Miriam’s hands in hers. “You will stay with us, will you not?”

  “I was hoping you would ask,” Miriam replied.

  They stayed with Eleazaros, working there on Cyprus in teaching the faith with them, for several months, before going to Ephesus where Yochanan was to preach and teach. As they had in Yerushalayim, new converts came to talk with her about her son. As she had in Yerushalayim, she often received people while sitting at her loom, or while spinning. When it came time to go to Ephesus, leaving Miriam and Martha was difficult, knowing she would not see them again, at least not in her mortal years.

  Walking into Ephesus from the docks, Miriam was astonished at the obvious wealth and size of the city. She had been told there were two hundred and fifty thousand people living here. That would make the city the second largest city in the whole world, second only to Roma. The city itself sat in the valley between two hills, with a river coming down to the harbor.

  They’d had been given direction to the home of a local believer, a well to do Roman citizen named Marcellus, and his believing wife, Caecilia.

  The home of Marcellus was about a mile outside of town and consisted of the main house and several outbuildings, some of which appeared to be housing for servants. Fields of grapes lay on one side of the house. It was a pleasant looking place, clearly a working vineyard.

  They went to the door and knocked.

  When a manservant answered, Yochanan spoke Greek and introduced himself and Miriam and asked to see either the Master or Mistress of the house.

  The servant looked at them for a long moment. Then he smiled and spoke to her in Latin, “My name is Gaius. Are you really Sancta Maria, Mater Dei?” Holy Mary, the Mother of God.

  She was taken aback by that title, as it was the first time she’d heard it applied to herself. But she answered in Latin, “Sum”, I am.

  He showed them in and bid them wait in the atrium, an open public area at the front of the house. They sat on wooden benches along the walls of the house. There was an open pool of water beneath the open roof. Servants came in with water to wash their feet, and with wine, bread, fruit, and cheese as refreshments.

  Miriam took a bunch of ripe grapes from the platter. The juicy sweetness of the grapes was refreshing.

  A woman, who was clearly dressed to work in the fields, came hurriedly into th
e atrium. Miriam rose to her feet, taking her for the mistress of the house.

  “You are Maria, Mater Dei?” she asked.

  Miriam nodded. She answered in Latin, “I am.”

  Caecilia bowed lowly, then spoke. “Mater, I am Caecilia, wife to Marcellus, welcome to my home. I am sorry I was out supervising the harvest when you arrived and could not welcome you properly. That you should come so unexpectedly…” her voice trailed off.

  “We do regret disturbing your work,” Miriam replied. “We have come to Ephesus to help proclaim the kingdom of God in this place. I stand before you as a beggar, asking for your hospitality for a time until Yochanan and I can find a place of our own.”

  “Mater, my home is yours to use as you wish,” Caecilia said, clearly taken aback. “We are honored by your visit.”

  “You must continue your work. Harvest waits for no one. If you will show me what you wish done, I would help you,” Miriam said.

  That really took the mistress of the house aback. “I couldn’t ask that of you, Mater.”

  “There is a tradition among my people, going back to the time when Moshe lead our people from Egypt, ‘Those who will not work, shall not eat,’” Miriam said. “I am not afraid of hard work.”

  Caecilia smiled. “Then indeed, if you wish to help with the harvest, I will accept your aid. Perhaps you would wish to change clothes, first?”

  “We’ve been travelling light, with only the clothes on our backs,” Miriam said. “I shall come as I am.”

  Caecilia looked even more shocked, if such a thing was possible. “Very well.”

  Miriam and Yochanan worked hard alongside Caecilia and her servants until the sun went down. Then they returned to the house where dinner awaited them. After washing, they went into the peristylum, a second open courtyard, this one a lush green garden in the private part of the home, where the dining table and couches were arranged.

  “It is too warm to eat inside tonight in the tricilium,” the dining room, Caecilia explained.