In the Field of Grace (15 page)

“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?

R
uth 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 the 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.