Living Stone

It all seemed to happen so quickly really - the birth, then all that building and rebuilding, and since then ever-growing lines of pious visitors. Just a few hundred years - a mere blink in my lifetime.

It was in one of my caves that it happened, very quietly at first, then there was great excitement, reminding me of the ‘rumble years’ when all the rocks danced and twisted and changed shape, and the sea went away and left us. I was younger then, barely emerged from my sedimentary formation programme.

It was in one of my caves that it happened - caves where people had lived for centuries, until they built houses on the front and used the cave to stable their cattle. Some visitors are very confused by the cave. They come looking for an inn with a stable outside. "They laid him in a manger because there was no room for him at the inn". Not all of them realise that the same writing can also mean "…because there was no space in the room" - the room in front of the cave. Who would choose to be born in a room full of people? Much better in the quiet and privacy of the stable cave - deep inside where my strength can protect and my bulk surround them.

Before then I never thought much about my own existence, or its significance. Not many rocks do, except Aunt Basalt, so proud of her igneous pedigree, and the Granites who are always flaunting their strength and age. Also, they say I was ‘deposited’, made up from piles of dead fish bones, and other debris, squashed for millions of years to become solid. Yuck! Not a parentage to dwell on with any pride.

Now it is different. That birth changed it all. After he was born I came to appreciate a new meaning to my existence. Formed - in whatever way - all those millions of years ago, I know I was willed and loved into being - just like the people. I am loved. Someone cares. By becoming a person and living among them he gave meaning and value to peoples’ lives. They are formed with love and known and loved for who they are. I feel I share something of that.

I know that he was born within me, in the cave which is just like a womb. I know too that wombs are only a temporary residence. Whatever is born, and the love surrounding it, have to go out and impact on a wider world. The paradox is that there is no void left behind. Whatever is left is enhanced and enriched rather than emptied. I see it every day. People come into the womb to pray, to reflect, to make connection. Then they go, taking the meaning with them. It has no value if they leave it on the threshold. I am left holding more, not less, so that every grain and crevice becomes daily more precious and more real.

After the birth came the visits - local shepherds, foreign dignitaries, the occasional angel. Then all went quiet for a bit. From time to time strangers would stop and ask, "Is this the place?" Then the Romans, especially that Hadrian, took exception to the modest recognition and reverence given in my cave, and on the hill above they planted a grove of trees in honour of their god, Adonis. While excluding the Christians for a few years they permanently identified the spot for later generations. Anyway it had no effect on me - Hadrian didn’t understand about wombs.

When the Romans left visitors became more frequent, and some stayed on, digging more caves and forming communities around them. You’d think I would object to all that cutting and scraping and taking bits away, but I’m a people-friendly rock, softer than those haughty granites and not as brittle as basalt. Anyway, more caves, more wombs. I become interested in, and come to care for, those who lived in them - even that bad-tempered Jerome, who spent years from 386 translating the Bible and making the ceilings black with his oily candle-smoke. (I admit to occasionally dropping grit to extinguish his lights - in a purely playful manner of course!).

A few years before Jerome, on 13 May 339 to be exact, the Emperor Constantine had erected an octagonal basilica over the cave, with a hole in the centre for people to look down. This church got bashed about a bit in the Samaritan revolt in the 6th century and was rebuilt on a much grander scale by Justinian as a church ‘of such size and beauty than none even in the Holy City should surpass it’. It is the same church that exists today, with its dark narthex, iconostasis and completely empty nave, as is the Orthodox tradition. In spite of being fought over by Muslims and Crusaders, pillaged by Mamlukes and Ottomans, and re-roofed several times, it still stands. Some of the original floor mosaics can still be seen. The main door, which was once huge and magnificent, is now tiny with a lintel so low that people have to bend their heads to enter. This is not to make people ‘bow in humility’ as some maintain, but a device to stop looters carts getting in to carry away the marble. Some of that marble ended up in the Dome on the Rock in Jerusalem - I often wonder if it is ‘my’ marble, taken from me when I was preoccupied or dozing.

My best joke is that few visitors ever see me - or even recognise when they are in a cave. False walls and hangings, altars and pillars, marble and silver, incense and hanging lamps give the impression of a built chapel - even if it is down stairs below the altar. You have to go next door or through interconnecting tunnels to Jerome’s study to get an impression of what a cave is really like.

Now it is endless visitors, more probably than to any other place on earth, each bringing, leaving and taking away something personal and something eternal. And singing! (Who else knows Silent Night, word perfect, in 97 languages?)

And me? Life is more sedate now and there is plenty of time to listen. I’m good at listening. I hear prayers and silence, laughter and tears, faith and doubt, hope and despair, joy and pain, vanity and humility. I hear stories of another rock - outside the old wall of Jerusalem. They tell of a cross…

There is occasional work to do - a slight stretch now and then to ease the minor discomforts of middle age, or when some of the neighbours become restless and shift their positions to get more comfortable. In spite of our efforts to minimise movement (most rocks are basically lazy and move no more than they have to) it has to be done occasionally. Sadly this causes major problems for people when their fragile buildings fall down or if they happen to be near a sensitive place at the wrong time.

Yes, life is somehow quieter now, and I am not so busy, with time to listen - and ponder - and wonder at the meaning of that birth within me.

Jim McLean

Return to the Articles contents page