A HUDDLE FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS

They dragged Mary Magdalene through the streets and towards the temple like a rag doll in the hands of a two-year-old. If she had wanted secrecy she surely did not have it now because the crowd in the streets began to sense that something big was in the air. They followed the scribes and Pharisees all he way to the temple. They knew that someone had committed a capital offense and there was going to be an execution. The poor, helpless woman at the end of the rope was pulled into the temple kicking and screaming and knowing that she would never see the light of day again. Would these priests of God kill this woman in the temple of God? Many in the crowd including the scribes and Pharisees had picked up rocks along the way in expectation of executing this woman from Magdela. In her mind she knew that she was guilty but so were the priests who had been with her on several occasions. During this era women were property and men treated them just about any way they chose; which is the reason for the priests getting away with stoning her after having slept with her.

The woman from Magdela wore a brazen look on her face from the years of abuse from the men in her life and this last treachery was just one more in a long series of disappointments. Her bronzed skin had long years of trials and heartache written throughout. She was all too happy to leave this earth and her miserable fate with it. The brazen look soon turned into a defiant stare as if she was looking right through the men who had her on the other end of a rope. Her husband did not plead her case or plead for her life as he himself was afraid of the power of the Pharisees. They had the authority to throw you out of the synagogue and that would be devastating. It was the same as committing someone to the pits of hell. So, the lady from Magdela stood alone battered, bruised, and half naked from her dragging through the streets at the end of a rope. It was the end of a long life of failures and poor decisions on Mary of Magdela’s part. She stood before the crowd exposed but, strangely enough, at this moment, her back began to stiffen and her fears were being replaced with dignity. She knew that the men who had placed her against the wall for execution were just as guilty as she. So what was the need to leave this world in fear and shame? Her jaw was set and her chin came forward as for the first time she looked into the eyes of her accusers and what she saw in these eyes both enraged and emboldened her. She saw guilt. They were just as guilty as she but they had been more successful in covering it up. She was the one who just happened to be caught. She looked up again as they pulled her in front of this strange looking rabbi that she had never heard of or had been with. In her mind they were on trial for the sins that they had committed but just had not been revealed. The sons of Korah were hiding behind their religion again. Their system of righteousness was no better than the code that she had lived by. So, who gave them the right to judge her? If they had broken the law they were supposed to enforce then they were twice as guilty as she. When she looked around her she not only saw hypocrisy but blindness. How could a just and righteous God allow this to happen to her at the hands of men who were just as guilty, if not more so, than she was.

The year was 1963.  It was a long hot summer as I had returned home to find that nothing much had changed since I had left home.  There were the same old houses beside the same old trees that stood beside the same old dirt roads.  The White clan decided to move across town, or should I say further down the dirt path, so that we could give the old place back to its original owners who were the cockroaches and their descendants a thousand times over. They were happy and we were elated. They were taking over anyway and just about to run us out of town.  They were pretty fed up with our mattresses that hadn’t been changed in forty-five years and had suffered through 500 wet diapers from the newborns of the house.  But the really big thing that made us decide to move was when my brother crawled under the bed with a candle in his hand to see what was making the squeaking noise as it slithered across the floor; and that’s when the trouble started.  The house caught on fire.  My brother may have been somewhat brave but he was not the sharpest knife in the kitchen.  The nearest fire station was twenty-four miles away as the crow flies; and besides our only method of communication was to holler down the road to grandma’s house.  Telephones weren’t invented until 1985.  We were in a pickle!  The nearest water was a small pond where we used to try to catch crawdads; (for you city folks that is Latin for crayfish).  My cousin Polly Mae from the city used to come down and catch them with her bare hands; pop their tails off and eat them in the raw.  What a woman!  I didn’t have too many role models back then, but when I saw that, she went to the top of my list.  Her stock soared that day in Mulberry. It was from this creek that we scooped out enough water to put my brother’s fire out.  We were angry and wanted to lynch my brother, and the cockroaches were royally pissed that they would have to spend the night outside and whatever it  was that was crawling and slithering beneath the bed hissed and went away. Everybody gave my brother the once over along with the long rope in the back barn. Seeing that everyone was up in arms, we decided that it was time for us to move and that we did, into a new five thousand-year-old house with the shingles falling off that was pea green in color.  It may not have been the best in Mulberry but to us it was the Hilton, we were the upper middle class of the share croppers now.  It had another big cast iron stove in the center of it and another cooking stove of cast iron in the kitchen.  We had a well in the back of it but we still had not made the move to indoor plumbing; which still made the