A Sanctuary

"Owe !!"

Syros cried out. Born in Cyrene, but dragged through Palestine to finally come to the house of a Greek landowner. Syros was slapped in the face when asked, "what is your name?"

He continued to answer,

"I am Omari of Cyrene !!"

The Greek lords laughed at him.

"Show us your palace and your stallions Prince Omari."

They joked and tripped him.

"Your name is Syros, property of Gaius the Magnificent. Don't forget it."

Syros looked down at the ground. It was his first day at this new household and it was not going well. He was beaten, bruised and abused. Now he was in the cellar given the duty of digging a new wine shed. This would be a lot easier if he had not been chained hand and foot. As he went at the wall with the blunt shovel, he thought about Gaius the Idiot who bought him. With each swing of the shovel he imagined Gaius' head was the rock. He thought to himself:

"Oh, what a poorly dishoveled nose you have Gaius!"

He would never address Gaius as Master Gaius or Gaius the magnificent even mockingly for once Omari was a "high born" man of Cyrene taken from his own country by force. He was a highly educated young man trained in the fine arts as well as in martial arts. Now he was digging in a cave and he really didn't know why, but if he stopped he would hear the foreman cry out:

"Get back to work Syros!"

That's when another man joined him. This old man was mostly skin and bones but he smiled and said,

"Hello good man.^^"

He was wasn't much to look at with a crooked nose and curly dark hair. He had bruises and welts and looked even more pathetic than he imagined himself to be, but this man looked genuinely happy. He even started humming some song. He kept this up for hours.

The foreman didn't seem to mind as long as he could hear the shovels digging. The man kept his humming in beat with the rhythm of the digging. The deep humming and clinking of the shovel made an amazing almost glorious harmony. They were in the darkest cave but this man was full of light. He didn't say much but he got his work done.

In the evening Syros and the old man were taken to the open fields to sleep. They were not given anything to eat, not even a roof over their heads.

As soon as the foreman was out of sight the old man said:

"Thank the good Lord we are alive to see the bright shinning stars on a night like this."

Syros answered,

"Are you out of your mind old man? Gaius is not a good Lord and we are both exhausted and starving."

The old man answered,

"Oh for a high born man of Cyrene you are so small Omari. Can't you read the sky? Look over there toward the hills. Have you ever seen anything like that?"

He was right. No star had ever seemed so close or so alive. It was almost as the star were calling them as if they could hear voices singing from the star.

The foremen were fast asleep and it wasn't far to the top of the hill where the star was shinning. The old man said,

"I'm just gonna slowly walk over there."

As tired and hungry Syros was, he couldn't let the old man go on alone. He followed the old man to the ridge of the hill and what they saw below amazed them both. There was no other way to describe it but the light of angels singing.

When the old man sang there was a little bit of this song, but when these angels sang the song was complete and filled with sustenance as if the song rang out rest and restoration and food and drink and sleep with every verse they felt recharged as if they weren't prisoners.

They felt free and light as a bird.

They looked down at the chains on their hands and their feet. The chains never moved. They were still prisoners in this world but what they saw made them sure that they were prisoners of no one, no matter what names they were called.

The old man and Syros shared this little haven of sanctuary. They tried to keep it as a secret just among the two of them, but others noticed that there was a little twinkle of joy and peace in these two. As time went by the story came out and even the foreman wanted to hear more of what happened that night.

You see there was a lot more than the light and the angels. What they saw was hard to describe. It was as if God had come to visit them. In the darkest place at the darkest time they saw the light shine in his sanctuary. In a barn nearby gathered some more people like them, distraught and distressed.

They gathered around a baby born of light, hope and peace.

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