Tribal Stories: Held Together (Guest Post)

She sat in the field, watching the sunset. It had been a hard journey. She had been home for nearly two fortnights, but she still didn’t feel completely restored from her days in the prairie lands. Looking back, the time seemed to have been short, compared to the time she had spent in other villages, but the difficulty of living on the prairie had made the days seem long and endless. She was sustained with the word that would come from the tribespeople and by the forces that held them together. It had been often in these two fortnights that she had sat in these fields, watching the maize and the wheat, giving thanks for these forces and for the tribespeople who made those forces feel almost tangible at times. Tonight, she thought of the wanderer of her people. The wanderer, who had become her sister.

Word had come from the southern desert lands where the wanderer labored and spoke the peace of their people. She knew of the troubles that had been swelling there in the desert heat. Her wanderer-sister was weary. It was difficult at times to simply trust the forces that held them all, to also hold so much together in that southern desert land. She reached for the rock that their sage had given them, the sage who had long gone on to live fully in the Kingdom: “He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” We are the people of peace, and Love is our story, she reminded herself. Those forces do not break, no matter how strong the troubles, no matter how great the war. He was holding her wanderer-sister together too.

She thought again of the long gone sage. It was this same sage who had commissioned the older tribespeople to their work, telling them, “You are to be about building villages on the edge of the kingdom. This is your task.” We are trying, she said aloud. Her hands still ached from the tent ropes she had wielded in the prairie lands, trying to build a small village there. She turned them over and over, noting how the rope burns were now fading. She had labored hard, but the tents she had set up were always whisked away by the violent winds and heavy rains that always seemed to come from out of nowhere. The work had been difficult to say the least, and she had become so used to the feel of rope in her hands. The ropes were useful in the work, to be sure, but her hands were not meant to pull rope; they were meant to hold stones. The wanderer had reminded her of that. She had learned that she had to let go of the rough, dry rope in order to feel the smoothness of the stones, for they wouldn’t both fit in her palms. When she would let herself remember this truth, the coolness of the stones would soothe the places where the work had done damage. She reached for the other two stones, and squeezed all three together in her rope-worn hands,

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind."
"Love your neighbor as yourself."
“He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

She would not be in the homeland for long. This, she knew for certain. There were villages to build on the edge of the kingdom in other lands. What was not certain was what was waiting ahead on the journey. Yet, this was true for all of the tribespeople. They were making a new way in the lands to which they had been scattered. This was their work, their task; this is what they must be about. The forces that pushed them forward also held them together and to one another, and for this confidence, in the face of so much uncertainty, she gave thanks.

The sun was setting, and the sky was still pink from the warmth it had left behind. She lifted her face to the stars that dotted the sun scorched sky and breathed blessings and thanks for her mothers, and grandmothers, and for the sages, and her dear tribespeople. She prayed for protection and strength of heart for her wanderersister. Especially, this night, she gave thanks for the One who is before all things in the journey and is holding all things together in even the most uncertain of times.