Stories from the Heart

Just a Man
Pamela J. Tinnin

So…you want to hear the story of how it all began… Come closer, child… cataracts have nearly taken my sight, and your face is in the shadows. I still have my memory though, thanks be to God.

I am daughter of Jonas the fisherman and Sabina, the laundress. Even as a small child I could not understand how two honest, decent people suffered such bad fortune—no sons in all their years of marriage and me, a child of their old age. For a long time, it seemed their bad fortune was my inheritance. My father died in my tenth winter, and my mother followed him soon after. With no family, I became a child of the streets, one of those faceless beggars people pretend they do not see.

Things were hard for me in the years after my parents’ death. Some people were kind—I knew which ladies would slip me a piece of bread, and which shopkeepers would let me pick through the last of the dates and figs.

But as I grew older, some of the men began to look at me differently. Then came the day when Hamah, who ran the brothel called The Secret Garden, approached me with an offer. If I went with him, I would never have to work again. I could spend my days in silk, eating sweetmeats, and with my own servant to fan away the heat of the long afternoons. But I was fourteen and no child—I knew what he meant, and so I stayed in the back alleys, and avoided his ugly gaze.

The weather grew colder, and the coins fewer. Hunger was no stranger, but I would starve before I would sell myself to such a one. Word came that Caesar had proclaimed that all those under Roman rule must travel to the place of their ancestors to sign the tax rolls. The Romans were not ones to miss an opportunity for gold. I did not trouble myself with the news—my name would not be missed from the rolls.

Bethlehem filled with people come to register—they crowded the streets, and the inns had long ago run out of rooms. It was like festival time—peddlers shouting that they had the best prices, acrobats tumbling about—some said they were pickpockets. They moved so fast, it was possible… In the middle of the square there was a stage where two men dressed in satin robes and wearing great masks made of polished bronze told the old stories—Jonah and the Whale, David and Goliath, Moses parting the waters. A wealthy woman, her face behind a dark veil, tossed coins to the storytellers. I was quick to grab the few that dropped in the dust.

Once Caesar’s proclamation was heard and the city began to fill with strangers, life became a little easier. I had made friends with an old cripple, and at night he let me sleep in his hut. But one night, a night when the shutters and roofs were white with frost, I went to the hut, and Hiram was gone. Two rough looking strangers were seated on his mat, gambling with bones, passing a skin of wine between them. I knew better than to ask questions, and when they invited me to stay, I knew well enough to run.

I wandered the streets, clutching my cloak to me. The sky above was filled with stars—but there was one so bright, so big—its light seemed to stream down from the heavens, touching the ground near the city. I couldn’t seem to look away from it, and found myself stumbling down a strange street, following the light.

Against the hill, there was a crude shelter, a place for animals. The strangest thing —that is where the star’s beams rested, bathing the hillside in pale light. When I was almost there, I heard a noise—at first, I thought it was a lamb or young goat. It came again. When I stepped inside, I saw from where it came—there in the corner was a young girl near my age, and in her arms, a baby, no more than a few minutes in this world, wet and squirming and wailing with that thin new cry. There was a man, too—older than the girl by some years, he knelt nearby, a look of such relief and love on his face. When they did not seem to mind, I sat down in the straw, grateful for its warmth.

Some men came in, shepherds from their rough dress, blowing on their hands to ward off the cold. The shepherds knelt down there in the hay, bringing with them the smell of wood smoke and wool and manure. The young girl began to sing to the child, a song like none I had ever heard, one that she knew by heart, for the words came easily to her. She sang about how this child, this scrap of a baby, would one day set the world on fire—how he would throw down the rulers from their thrones, send the rich away hungry, and raise up the poor from their lowly places. I remember how I looked around in fear—dangerous words, then and now. As the girl sang, I thought I heard music like a thousand bells, and the light in the stable grew even brighter. It felt so warm and safe there, like I would never be cold again.

I fell asleep listening to that song. In my dreams that night the world was a very different place, a place where all were fed, where each one had a place of his own, where no one ever felt he was alone. I remember how in that dream, I had found the peace it seemed like I had been looking for all my life.

But when I awoke, the world had not changed. Like every morning, the sun was spreading light across the eastern sky. The shepherds were gone; the baby’s father was preparing the morning meal, while his wife and tiny child slept on. He invited me to share their food, but I could tell they had little enough for themselves. Besides, if I did not go to the streets early, how many chances for a spare coin would pass me by?

The years passed by and the curse of bad fortune finally left me. I met a sandalmaker, a widower with three sons. He took me to wife and we moved to Jerusalem where there was more call for his trade. We were never rich, but he made a decent living, and the boys with the dark curls and mischief in their eyes became like my own sons. They are good boys, learned their father’s trade. As the years passed, they have cared well for me.

I almost forgot about that other life, almost forgot the night in the stable. How quickly thirty years goes by. Then I began to hear of this one they called Jesus, some said he was a rebel, some said the messiah, others that he was nothing more than one more pretender. Word came that he had been born in a stable in Bethlehem. When I heard that, I went to see for myself. There were thousands there that day. I kept trying to stand taller, to look over the heads of the crowd, but I was an old woman, and people only shoved me out of the way.

I kept looking for a warrior, a prince in shining armor, a helmet with a tall red plume, a sword of sharpest metal. A man began to speak, so quietly, at first no one was listening—certainly no warrior and nothing to make me think of that baby so long ago. The crowd hushed. At first the words made no sense, but they, too, sounded dangerous to my ears. “Those who would be first, shall be last,” he said. “Love your neighbor as yourself,” he said. “When you do it for the least of these,” he said, “You do it for me.”

But all that he talked of came to nothing. He was just a man—and in the end he died like one, crucified for the whole world to see, his blood staining the earth, his last breath a gasp of anguish. I was there, hiding in the crowd. Though my sons had said I was asking for trouble, I could not stay away—I stayed until the end, until there was nothing left to see.

When I turned to go, there were some women in the shadows. They had fallen to their knees in the mud. One of them turned and I saw her face, the tears on her worn cheeks, a lock of hair caught by the wind. There was something so familiar—her gentle mouth, eyes as sad as any I’d seen. Then I knew her…the young girl who sang to her firstborn in a tiny stable just outside Bethlehem.

Walking away down the rocky path, as the sky turned dark and lightning split the clouds, I began to see the truth of it, to see that I had been wrong. The world has seen too many kings and warriors, too many wars and death that change nothing. Perhaps what was needed was a baby, a tiny baby, born to bring love and light and life into the world. Perhaps what was needed was a man who knew all that it is to be human, a man who could teach what it is to live as God would have us live.

So many years have passed, but I remember it all—the stable and shepherds, the mother’s song and a star that lit up the sky, …three crosses and a crown of thorns. I remember how my sons at first ridiculed what I told them, but how our lives changed once we joined the believers—how we welcome all who come to us; how we care for the poorest. And, oh, the joy of our singing, the comfort of sisters and brothers, the wonder of knowing that no matter what comes, we will never be alone.

Just a man, you say? No… the son of God. The very son of God.

Written by Pamela J. Tinnin
Copyright 2001 All rights reserved.