In the Field of Grace

by Tessa Afshar

  “The trouble is, she … cannot draw near to God now.”

  Boaz considered her words. “That’s to be expected, I suppose. She reminds me of Jacob. Have you heard of him?”

  “One of the ancestors of your people? Is he the one who cheated his brother of his firstborn blessing?”

  “That’s Jacob. When he ran from home in fear of his brother’s vengeance, he passed through a forsaken wilderness, all alone, not knowing his future, not knowing if he could ever return home. That night as he lay down to sleep, it must have seemed to him that he had nothing, not even a cushion for his head. He had to use a stone on the ground. Can you imagine how solitary and afraid he felt?”

  Without a word, Ruth nodded. The merest hint of irony touched the slant of her lips, and he remembered that she had herself, not long ago, set out on a similar journey. “Of course you can imagine,” he said, feeling sheepish. “Well, that night, Jacob had a dream—a God-touched vision that brought him hope.

  “He dreamt of a ladder. Its base touched the earth and the top of it reached into the heavens. The angels of the Lord ascended and descended on the rungs, coming to earth to do His bidding among us, and returning from the world of men after completing their missions in our midst. In this forsaken wilderness, the angels of the Lord descended to do the work of Him who had sent them. The Lord Himself stood at the top of the ladder.”

  “Jacob saw Him?”

  “In his dream. Yes. And heard from Him too. When he awoke, he said, ‘Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.’ Jacob glimpsed one of the great truths of our faith that day.”

  “What truth, my lord?”

  “We travel through many wildernesses in life, be they real like Jacob’s Bethel, or wildernesses of the soul. Broken dreams, loss, grief. Sometimes there is nothing to comfort us but the hard stones of a lonely path. In those places, God seems so far away and distant. The way He does to Naomi right now. Yet, there is a ladder that touches down into the soil of our loneliest wilderness. The angels of the Lord ascend and descend upon it, and He is Himself watchful to give us aid.

  “Like Jacob, Naomi has lost her family. She is in a wilderness beyond comprehension. But she is not alone in it. Jacob’s ladder reaches into that forsaken place and the Lord is with her.”

  The young woman at his side came to an arrested stop. Abandoning her usual modest manner, she looked him straight in the eye. The golden irises reflected a stunned wonder. Boaz’s chest tightened. She understood. She understood the glory of a God who would reach into the ravaged places of life, like Naomi’s shadowlands of death. She understood Boaz and his loyalty to such a God. He could sense the pull the Lord had on her, the mighty pull of a God who was a steadfast helper and a rock of security. Boaz found himself fascinated by that quality of clinging faith that seemed to seep out of her every action.

  “I never thought the Lord could be so close. Close enough to be present in the midst of our troubles.” There was a catch in her voice.

  Boaz twirled a hand in the air. “Jacob’s ladder could be touching the soil of this very road. Where you are walking, angels might be ascending and descending. The problem is that like Jacob, most of us spend our days not knowing. The Lord is never far. It is our blindness that makes Him seem so. The veil between heaven and earth is parchment thin.”

  She said nothing and he liked that silence. It was a silence filled with intelligent thought, with compassionate understanding.

  At the gate of the city, she asked, “Does Naomi know the lesson of Jacob’s ladder?”

  “She is sure to know the story. But not the lesson, I think. Not yet.”

  “Thank you, my lord,” she said as he handed her the barley. “You have given me a great gift.”

  He knew she didn’t mean the barley. “It was a lesson I had to learn myself once, when I walked through a barren land like Naomi. And like you.”

  “Did you ever come out to the other side of that wilderness?”

  He frowned and wondered what answer to give. In truth, he did not know. “In some ways I have. And in some ways, I will always carry a little of it with me, no matter what green pastures I might travel in.”

  She lowered her lids. To his amazement, he noted that she hid tears. Instinct told him that her tears were for him, not Naomi or herself. It shocked him that she would be so moved on his behalf. He knew she was grateful to him for his protection and benevolence. But gratitude had not produced these tears.

  He cleared his throat. Part of him wished to take her home there and then. Forget sense. Forget the past. Forget her grieving heart. Forget Moab. He fisted his hands, feeling nauseous at the strength of this wanting. Had he dropped his brain in a ditch somewhere?

  He cleared his throat again, sounding like a sick rooster. “You best head home now, Ruth. It’s growing late and Naomi will worry.”

  Was it his imagination or did her shoulders droop as she thanked him with polite formality?

  Chapter

  Eleven

  The LORD upholds all who are falling and raises up all who are bowed down.

  PSALM 145:14

  Ruth fell into a familiar routine, walking with Naomi partway to the well before sunrise, then meeting Hannah and Dinah for the trek to the field outside Jerusalem. Her days passed in a haze, melting one into another. The hard physical labor of constant bending, straightening, carrying, walking, bending, straightening, carrying, walking had a soothing effect on her spirit. At nights she dreamt less. Mahlon stopped haunting her sleep.

  One evening, just after concluding her gleaning for the day, the strap on her sandal broke, and she stayed a few extra moments to fix the damage, waving her companions to start ahead of her. It took longer to fix the leather than she expected, so she could not catch up with her friends and had to walk home alone. Around the sharp bend in the road, she came upon Boaz. Ruth gave him a respectful nod, intending to walk on, when he motioned her to wait as he dismounted. The black horse plodded with a sedate pace next to him as he joined her.

  “Alone tonight?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “I’ll walk with you the rest of the way. I need to check on an orchard, which is close to Naomi’s house.”

  “You grow fruit, as well?”

  “Figs. Have a weakness for them when they are fresh. So does my horse.”

  “Shakhor?”

  Boaz grinned. “I have to muzzle him when I go there. Gives himself colic if I don’t watch his every move.”

  Ruth shook her head, too embarrassed to admit his horse probably ate better than she did. As they approached the orchard, they noticed a group of children playing. Boaz did not seem put out by their intrusion on his land. He smiled as he watched them. A boy, no older than nine, standing on the sidelines, approached the others. Ruth noticed the crutch under his left arm. He limped badly, and a thick bandage covered his foot. The bandage could not hide the fact that the foot was malformed, more a stump than a proper appendage.

  “Let me play,” he said.

  The biggest child in the group, a sturdy boy a head taller than the rest of the children, shoved him hard so that he lost control of the crutch and fell. “We don’t need cripples. Leave us alone.”

  Boaz’s smile faded. Without hesitation he strode into the midst of the children. “Shalom, children.” His voice remained pleasant. If he was angry, it did not show.

  The children gathered around him. “Shalom, master!”

  “You’re playing, I see. And Eli?”

  The bigger boy who obviously acted as leader stepped forward. “He can’t play. He can’t keep up.”

  “I’ll fix that, Yair.” Boaz lifted the boy named Eli high over his shoulders and settled him there. The child had beautiful green eyes, which lit up with delight as he dangled over Boaz’s tall form. “I’ll be Eli’s feet. He’ll be the guide. He’ll tell me where to run, and I will be his obedient servant.”

  “That’s not right, master Boaz!” Yair made his opinion clear without th
e slightest hint of bashfulness. “You’ll win. You’re much bigger than the rest of us.”

  “And you are much bigger than the rest of them. I didn’t see anyone holding that against you. Why do you hold it against me? You choose to use your strength for your glory, Yair. I choose to use mine to help Eli. You see? We are equal. We are both allowed to choose freely.”

  Of course the outcome of the game was a foregone conclusion. The children who allied themselves with Boaz and Eli did well. The rest lost. But everyone laughed, except perhaps Yair, who grew redder and more recalcitrant with every passing moment.

  In the end, he confronted Boaz, his nostrils flaring with annoyance. “I would have won if not for you, master. Why did you help him? He’s just a cripple.”

  Boaz swung Eli down in a slow, careful arc. Ruth could tell that beneath his calm mask, he held back a rising tide of displeasure. He straightened and walked toward one of the fig trees. “Let me show you something, and perhaps then you will understand.” He pointed to the pale bark. “What is the weakest part of the tree? Is it the roots?”

  “No,” the children shouted.

  “Is it the trunk?” He wrapped his arms around the trunk and pretended to try to pull the tree up from the ground. The children dissolved in merriment.

  “No!”

  “Is it the branches?” He tried to snap off a hefty branch where it met the trunk.

  “That’s strong too,” one child yelled. “You can’t break that with your hands.”

  “What about here?” He pointed to a delicate twig farther down the length of a branch. From it hung a fat cluster of green figs. With two careful fingers he snapped off the fragile stem, and the whole cluster of fruit landed in the palm of his hand. “Isn’t that stem the weakest? And yet that’s what holds the fruit. If you crush it when the blossoms are forming, there won’t be any fruit. Do you understand?”

  A short girl with two thick braids hanging down her back stepped forward. “You mean Eli is like that stem? He may be the weakest of us, but he bears sweet fruit?”

  “Exactly.” Boaz grinned at the girl and gave her a handful of the ripest figs as reward.

  “What kind of fruit could someone like Eli provide? He can’t dig. He can’t reap. He can’t do carpentry or build houses,” Yair said. “He may be weak. But there is no fruit hanging from his branch that I see.”

  “That’s where you are wrong. Here, Eli. Come sit down and show your friends what you can do.” He motioned to a squat stone with a level top. Eli limped over and sat down. He gave Boaz a doubtful look.

  Boaz gave him an encouraging nod. “Show them what you showed me last week. Go on.”

  Eli took a deep breath. He drew out a wooden flute that had been tucked inside his belt, hidden from view. After playing a few sweet notes, he started to tell a story.

  “Many years ago, a young shepherd lived in the farthest hills of Judea. He was poor, but he was a good shepherd to his sheep. They never went hungry or thirsty. He knew the land and always found green pastures for them, even if it meant walking a long way.”

  Ruth was enraptured. In a few words, Eli had been transformed from an ordinary child with a lame foot into a skilled storyteller. The boy clearly had extraordinary talent beyond his years. Ruth bent forward, holding still, waiting for the next words to fall from Eli’s lips.

  “One night, a stranger approached him,” the boy went on. “He was thin and his clothes were ragged. His lips were cracked, his eyes bloodshot, his feet bare and dirty.”

  The children sat around Eli, spellbound by the tale he was concocting. He was an astoundingly attractive child, with large sea-green eyes and dark blond hair. That beauty came alive as he told his story, his facial expressions reflecting each word. A little girl coughed and several voices hushed her.

  Eli went on. “The shepherd knew that the man must be hungry and thirsty. They were a long way from any town or well. He opened his pouch and saw that he had just enough cheese and bread for one meal. This he gave to the ragged man, knowing he would go hungry himself, perhaps for days.

  “He fetched his skin of water and washed the man’s hands and feet, and let him drink as much as he needed. After the man was full, the shepherd pulled out his flute and played this tune for his poor guest, hoping the song would comfort him.”

  Eli put his own flute to his lips. The melody that he coaxed out of the simple instrument was new to Ruth. A haunting unforgettable melody, which dipped and soared with such expertise, it pulled the heart with it.

  No one even breathed when he finished.

  “That was for you, the shepherd told the stranger. My gift to help you in your weariness. I hope it brought you joy.

  “The stranger stood up and allowed his frayed cloak to fall to the ground. The moon was high in the sky and a strange thing happened. His worn-out clothes started to shimmer in the starlight. His face began to glow. The young shepherd realized that this was no ordinary man. He was in the presence of an angel of the Lord. He fell to the ground, his nose buried in the dirt as he shivered with fear.

  “But the angel bade him to stand. ‘You were kind to me when you thought I was poor and abandoned. You gave me your only food and washed my bruised feet. In your kindness, you played such music for me that even God’s messengers would weep to hear. Now I will be kind to you.’

  “He took the shepherd by the hand and showed him a hiding place at the base of a twisted olive tree, where the tops of the roots were visible. There you will find a pearl of great price. It will provide for you for the rest of your life, he told the young shepherd.

  “So the shepherd bade a tearful farewell to his sheep and sold them, every last one, to a sleepy merchant in Bethlehem. With the money he earned, he purchased the land where the pearl was hidden. When he dug out that jewel, he saw that it was as big as a sparrow’s egg, fit for a king’s crown. He sold the pearl and earned so much money that he was able to build a large house on his new land. He had a well dug right next to the house so his servants never had to walk far to fetch water. Then he returned to the merchant in Bethlehem and bought all his sheep back, and released them into pasture for the rest of their lives.

  “Whenever travelers passed by that house, the shepherd made certain to feed them a feast and take care of their needs, for he had learned that a man might entertain angels unaware. This happened countless years ago, and that house has long since turned to dust. But people say that even today, on a star-filled night, if you listen carefully, you will hear the faint strains of the shepherd’s tune playing.”

  Again Eli lifted his flute and played the lilting melody he had played earlier.

  When he finished, for a few moments no one stirred. Even the birds seemed utterly still. Then the children rose up and rushed toward Eli, begging him for another story, another tune.

  “Are you hungry, Eli? You can have my cinnamon bread,” the girl with the braids offered.

  Ruth observed the transformation with silent wonder. Boaz, with one clever stroke, had changed the boy’s life. Without a single quarrel, without harsh words, he had managed to teach the children to value Eli. To think of him as a gift rather than a cripple. She was struck by Boaz’s brilliance in handling the human heart. Ruth had never seen another man so gifted at influencing the way others thought.

  “I’ve not seen anything like that before,” she said when they were on the road again.

  “Yes. He is a dazzling child.”

  “That is true enough. But that’s not what I meant. What you did, that astounded me even more.”

  “What I did?” He seemed so baffled that she laughed.

  “You turned that boy’s life around. With mere words.”

  “Oh well, they are only children, Ruth.”

  Ruth realized that he had no true concept of his effect on people. He did not comprehend that he influenced others by words and his mere presence in a way that other men could not. She shook her head. He wasn’t a mere landowner. Boaz was what the Israelites called a
gibbor hayil, an influential man of might and courage, an extraordinary man who shone above others. A man, who in spite of his many responsibilities, took the time to improve the life of a broken child, and to walk a young widow to her door in order to keep her safe.

  He stared into the horizon. “I probably won’t see you for some time. Harvest season places many demands on me. If you have need of anything, you and Naomi, please send for me. For the sake of Elimelech, my kin, I will do what I can.”

  Several days later a new girl added to their company. She had dark skin and dark eyes and dark hair and she rarely smiled. Ruth found out her name was Mahalath.

  “She works at the master’s house, usually. But when he is away from home for long stretches of time, she comes to the field to help,” Hannah said. Mahalath herself spoke little.

  At first, Ruth assumed she was shy. But when Dinah bumped into Mahalath accidentally, the dark eyes flew open with a startled expression of terror, and the girl raised her arms over her face and head as if bracing for a blow.

  “Calm down. No one is trying to kill you, Mahalath,” Dinah said sourly. The poor girl bit her lip and slowed down, so that she could walk alone behind the others.

  “Should we try to comfort her?” Ruth asked Hannah.

  Hannah grimaced, her dimples peeping out. “Best leave her be. She once suffered at the hands of a cruel man, and it makes her wary of people. If not for lord Boaz’s intervention, she might not be here today.”

  “I am sorry for her misfortune.”

  Ruth did her best throughout that day to show Mahalath kindness and win her trust. She fetched her water, interrupted her own gleaning to give the girl a hand when she struggled with the larger bundles, and even offered her a piece of fig cake, which Naomi had prepared from the dried figs given to her by a neighbor. Mahalath refused, but at the end of the day, when they were leaving the field, she bestowed a shy smile upon Ruth. Ruth felt as elated as Deborah after the victory against Sisera.