It All Begain at Cracker Barrel - My Needs vs Their's

I enjoy Cracker Barrel's menu.  Especially the breakfast sampler that Bettyann and I share.  And how she enjoys shopping their gift shop. She's always looking for something to gift someone with. During one of those stops to nourish and shop, a little booklet on a rack caught my eye entitled: " Year 1943." It sparked an ongoing interest due to the fact that I was born that year.  Well, one thing has lead to another and while searching for a good read to gift Bettyann this Christmas. I ran across a story that occurred in 1943. One of her enjoyment reading tends is anthing having to do with history; mostly by woman authors.  This story is of two hundred and thirty women who were arrested as members of the French Resistance and sent to Birkenau. Only 49 survived, and this in itself is remarkable but these women were as diverse a group as could be imagined. They were Jews and Christians, aristocrats and working class, young and old. Yet they were united by their commitment to the French Resistance and to one another. The author, Caroline Moorhead, in her book, A Train In Winter reconstructs this true story of these women through the journals and memoirs of survivors. Noting the mutual dependence that made the difference between living and dying, Moorhead highlights how the solidarity of these women to one another and to their mutual survival sustained them through unspeakable horror and torture. 

My father was one of those American servicemen who served at the end of Wold War Two, Wood Choppers Division, under Eisenhower. Dad was involved in the liberation of one site of a concentration camp. His reciting to me of his first hand experience and collaborated by many accounts of Holocaust survivors, telling of how the hellish conditions of extreme deprivation and torture drove many to hoard whatever meager resources they could save for themselves. Dad recounted one particular incident numerous times of the man of about 70 pounds who's hands were gripping a tin cup, for days, that he would not put down. How he held it constantly. Even when lying down. The man insisted any food, even a candy bar be placed in the filthy, stenchful cup, pressing it to his fully opened mouth, all the while, with deep, darkened, suspectful eyes, darting about as if someone was going to intrude upon his sustenance. Dad would always conculde his story with a tear, by asking, "And how could he be blame or mocked?"

Survival became the only goal—no matter what the cost, even to others. Yet, in most of the cases with these French women in Birkenau, their solidarity toward each other trumped the selfishness that engulfed so many others. As Moorhead writes, "Knowing that the fate of each depended on the others...egotism seemed to vanish and that, stripped back to the bare edge of survival, each rose to behavior few would have believed themselves capable of." Moorhead recounts that when unrelieved thirst threatened to engulf one of their members in utter madness, the women pooled together their own meager rations to get her a whole bucket of water.

I suppose that it's because my world is so very small, but I don't see this magniture of selflessness very often. It seems that, most of the time, putting my own needs first is as natural as breathing, and just as unconscious. Yet when faced with adversity, I notice something within me coaxing out the best and the most beautiful, I could ever imagine.  Is this the Spirit stirring my soul?  Why does it happen, mostly, when I'm troubled?  I digress. Yet something I think worthy of looking into.

  

Then I read in the ancient biblical account of Ruth. Three women are left widows, and one, Naomi, has lost her sons as well. Bereft of their economic and financial support, the women instinctively stay together even as Naomi insists they return to their homeland of Moab, where the prospect of finding a husband would be more likely. But the women insist on staying. "No, we will surely return with you to your people."

Do I miss this significance of this solidarity? When I dig into the story I discover that by staying with Naomi, the women forfeited any sense of security. In the ancient Near East, husbands and sons secured a woman's total wellbeing. Without husband or male heir, women were left to fend for themselves, often forced into prostitution to earn a living. They would not only depend on one another, but would be cast upon the mercy of another land and another people as strangers. 

Naomi understands the risks. It seems to me that she actually mourns for them when she cries out, "Return, my daughters! Go, for I am too old to have a husband. If I said I have hope if I should even have a husband tonight and also bear sons, would you therefore wait until they were grown? Would you therefore refrain from marrying? No, my daughters; for it is harder for me than for you, for the hand of the Lord has gone forth against me." One daughter in law, Orpah, finally relents, and after weeping with Ruth and Naomi, returns to her homeland of Moab. But Ruth will not leave. "Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you; for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people and your God, my God." Ruth aligns herself with Naomi—her welfare is Ruth's welfare—no matter what the cost.

My study exposes that the ancient Hebrew law enforced the care of widows and orphans by the larger community as a sign of solidarity to the weakest and the most vulnerable members and to provide for the most desiccated and desperate among them—just as the women at Birkenau pooled their water rations for the sake of the one who needed it most. Ruth, as a Moabite, was bound by no such law and yet she sees her allegiance to Naomi, nevertheless. Their shared adversity, their shared identity as widows, bound them together and brought about something beautiful. 

My soul rejoices this morning to know that Ruth wouldn't ever see how this exceptional act of solidarity would save—not only Naomi—but the people of Israel. In this life, she didn't know that she became the great, great grandmother of King David. Indeed, One would come from David who would also demonstrate solidarity with humanity. So great was His act of unselfish sacrifice that He would "empty Himself, taking the form of a servant, and being made in the likeness of men." This One, as Philippians 2:5-8 tells me "humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross."

Father, God, thank You for this Advent season. A special season when I have a special opportunity of focusing on celebrating You the One of infinite solidarity. Thank You for exposing my memory of Dad's accounts of his experiences, and the women of the French Resistance which provides me with a contemporary example model of what Ruth demonstrated in ages past; an altruistic solidarity to one another in order to ensure survival. Father, guide me in not missing an opportunity, during the Advent season, in providing a solidarity with the less fortunate. Counting it all joy! Just as You chose, through Jesus, to cast the lot with humanity by becoming one of us, walking among us, even sharing the horror of human death with us. Counting it all joy! For You so loved the world that You gave Your only Son...solidarity in order to bring us eternal life.  Amen