Compassion 03/21/10

I stood there
shivering
scared.

They were going to kill me.
Just me, not the man
who was with me.
But they had a plan.
They would use me
to trap him.
They brought me to him
told him what I'd done
and asked him if I should be stoned.

He did not answer right away.
He stood in thought and then
squatted down and began
to write in the dirt.
I could not read the words
but I could read the faces
of the elders who brought me.

They were scared. mad, embarrassed.
They were ashamed
as they read the words he scribbled.
He stood and told them,
"Let he who is without sin
cast the first stone."

Then he again squatted down
and began to write.
As one would start to look
for a stone to hurl at me
he would see the words and blanche.
Soon they began to drift away.
The elders first.
Quietly. Stealthily.

In minutes that dragged like years
the square emptied
leaving only him
and me.

I could not move.
I was too scared.
I looked down at the words
and
though I could not read
I understood them.

My sins were laid bare before me.
As bare as I had so recently been.
The words tore at me
harder than stones.
Flaying not my skin,
but my soul.

He looked up.
He looked around us,
unsurprised
that we were left alone.

"Woman," he said sternly,
"Does no one condemn you?"

"No. Lord," I replied.

A look of infinite compassion
came over his face.
"Neither do I."

I almost fainted as the weight
of all my sins
evaporated from me.

"Go forth and sin no more."

I left him and went home.
To my family.
To my husband.
And did my best
to sin no more.


©2010-Art Belliveau