Readings and Greetings: The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman

I would have enjoyed being a time traveler or better yet a world traveler, but I spent a career as a librarian/storyteller.  So my worldly travels rely on my imagination and the pages written between covers of  dynamic literature.

As a result, I spent some time suffering in the ancient heat of the Judean Desert on a mountain top known to the world as Masada.  In her book The Dovekeepers Alice Hoffman tells the story of how nine hundred Jews held out against the Roman Legions, but she made the story unique by telling it through the eyes of four women, who came to live at Masada and endured the brutality of life in those times.  She based the entire fictional story on one piece of documented fact taken from the historian Josephus.  In his account, he reported that two women and five children survived the massacre on the night when the Jews committed mass suicide rather than submit to the Roman Legion.

I can't say I enjoyed the story, but  I can say, "I couldn't stop reading once I began, and I will forever be haunted by their lives."  I must also confess that I cheated.  I needed to have the book finished by a certain date for book club, but simply couldn't meet the deadline.  Instead,  I read the Part One and finished every word in Part Four.  I understood the story, but felt truly cheated for not knowing how my heroines survived, so over the next two evenings after book club I finished the story.  Rightfully so, each strong woman in the story deserved her chapter and her life retold.  It's not a book peace and love:  it's a book of loneliness, of desire, of desperation, of love, of violence, of intolerance of people of different faith, of strength and resolve, and of a mother's desire to see her children live.  The Dovekeepers  is powerfully written through the shadows, hidden in our hearts.

If you read this book, please let me know your thoughts.  Which woman's story affected you the most?  What theme tore into your heart?  What compelled you to read their stories?

Struggling

A True Golden Okie.

Lately, my mind has been cluttered with worry, frustrations, and sadness brought on as we watch Jack's dear mother age rapidly before our very eyes.  She lovingly raised five healthy strong amazing children and has watched over her fifteen grandchildren, and now her eleven great-grandchildren.  Over the last forty years she has been the vibrant force behind her country band, The Golden Okies.  Now, at 89 she's bent and growing frailer as the days pass, but her smile and love of music still radiate from her heart.

Tossing and turning, I try to think of ways to change her health, her situation, to make it "all better."  When I'm driving, reading, or walking my mind screams, "Do something!"  We've tapped every resource we know, and still we are losing.  Instead of helping, I realize we are struggling with decisions they  have made, with the distance between families, and fighting time.

When I prayed for guidance, for a message, for a sign, for help I waited.  As the days passed I grew angry at my helplessness, and then I actually laughed a little, and told my husband, "I missed it.  I'm sure God gave me a sign, but I just didn't recognize it."  Nothing changed, I was still angry and frustrated.

Then two things happened.  Through prayer, mediation and reflection, I realized that Alleen needs what we all need, love, comfort and support.  Those are things I can do.   Her family in Norman is doing them daily, and we will visit and support her as often as we can.  What I can't do is make her follow my plan.  I am not in control here, and I have to learn to let that go.

Nothing can stop our love, and that is what matters.  Love.

Though my goal is to write about life on the lighter side, I realize that there are simply bumps and heartaches we all deal with, and it is how we deal with them that show our character and strength.  Alleen is a strength for her family and friends, and that makes me smile deep down inside to know someone so loving and full of life.

...God's will be done.....