| Sparrows and Smudges of Clay |
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Few mystics speak so clearly to both the mind and heart than the medieval theologian Meister Eckhart. From storyteller Barbara Helen Berger comes an inspiring imagining of Meister Eckhart's meeting a young child who may be Jesus. There is a legend about Meister Eckhart meeting a naked child. It appears in Raymond B. Blakney’s translation of Meister Eckhart’s sermons and other works. The book doesn’t say where the legend came from—did it spring from a vision, a dream, an episode told by a follower? Most likely, no one knows. A teller of stories may take some playful license now and then. That is what I have done in retelling the legend here, by weaving in a thread from another source—the apocryphal Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Why mix the two strands together? In the open space of imagination, I found they wanted to join forces and speak as one. And doing so has offered plenty to reflect on.The Naked Child Walking by a stream one day, pondering his sermons, Meister Eckhart came upon a naked boy. The child squatted on the muddy bank, patting and rolling and shaping lumps of clay. “Where did you come from?” the Meister asked. |
