The Fragrance of Memorial

The Fragrance of Memorial

From Frances Beauchamps

In the same way I could not ignore the beating of my own heart, or the breath flowing in and out of my lungs, I could not ignore the leading, the stirring, the flutter

of the dove-like voice singing its command, its urgency, its kind and gentle push, saying,

“Go. Go, and have no fear, but do and you will be blessed and at peace.”

So I took the treasured jar tucked away for so long, it’s true purpose hidden from me all this time, and wrapped it in a shawl, and made my way to the house where the men were gathered; my legs quivering all the while upon the road.

The paths rocky but worn from travelers and horses and carts and mothers with their babes,

and men in their garb, and soldiers with their staves.

How would I dare to do this if not for our Lord and His Father beckoning me?!

Per chance I be made invisible until I cross the threshold and come to drop before His face!

Oh, that the ones with their malice and hidden crime draped in piety would not prevent me from coming before this Most Precious Gift to all!

But with every step I take, I feel a strength, and I feel an energy taken hold of me as never before!

Oh, this I must do!

This I long to do…

How flooded my being is with thanks for the One Who has swallowed my pain,

and banished my despair of life.

Yet, I heard what He said of His time, of His enemy, of His mission,

and of the Kingdom of His Father.

And though I know not the ways of this Rabbi so extraordinarily alive,
I know He is sent and will also take His leave for something much grander than what I can see with my tear-filled eyes.

I draw close and see the door and the way shall be opened for me, and there it is!

I enter in smelling the meats and the aromas of feasting.

I hear the talk and the chatter; the drinking, the laughter…

And there, there He is at the table full, surrounded by all, and He sees me before anyone else does.

And His gaze is warm and inviting…and waiting.

Without hesitation, and with a boldness I’ve never before experienced – even in my most wicked of days – I burst forth with the jar already in my hands and I break the seal with a sound that seems to radiate throughout the whole house, stopping all other action.

I surge forward and while I hear the hush of the men and the questioning of what I am doing there, I see, ever so slightly, the bow of His head toward me, and I pour the oil.

Oh the fragrance that shocks the house!

The treasured oil pouring upon His head and through His hair so thickly, so shining, like light, like sun rays; and it seems like gallons, but it’s not. And it slides down the sides of His face and over His forehead, and down through His beard and His chest…

and He gazes at me.

With the tears already flowing down my own face, I bow myself before Him, and my tears are like cascading streams with my hair hanging like woven strips of cloth.

I simply act on what was so sweetly before me.

With watering tears making splotches in the dust on His feet and sandals,

I wipe with my hair as to wash Him; with the dove voice singing, and a choir of thanksgiving echoing all through my mind and heart.

Surely they all hear this symphony!

Surely they know what this is for!

But suddenly the men raise their voices.

Some in laughter.

Others in anger.

“Oh what waste!” they say.

“Why has she done this?!” they holler.

“Get her out of here!” they clamor.

And I feel their murderous eyes on me while I try to back away.

But He looks up and He commands them, my Rabbi does.

He commands them, “Leave her be! What she has done, she has done for Me!”

He scolds them. He corrects them, the men of our city; the men with their political stance and their religious pride.

They did not honor His Presence.

They received of His miracles and of His provision, but they honored Him with their lips only and that most sparingly.

Yet He received my gift, the only thing I could do, as was shown to me to do,

that could tell Him how much I care… how much I trust… how much I believe in Him, in His Truth and Way and Life…

Even as it’s marching toward death and burial and beyond.

The air is filled with the fragrance of passage and bodies and tombs.

The men in their affronted glares, clamor in confusion under their breath, but my Lord, He declares my gesture of thanks as a memorial of life for me in His Kingdom yet to come!

And I sense my tears will take another turn very shortly, but I go in peace.

For the fragrance is all about me now as well, as if I bathed in it in preparation for a King!

And so it is done.

It is finished.

May 27, 2018