Lucille's Harvest
Captured Thoughts From Then and Now
by
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Two months after I had left my father, he died. I believe he died happy thinking I was secure. In the ninth month the blow came. I had moved quickly to the advanced classes due to my father's training. Perhaps I also had less distractions than the other boys. Now seven of us were chosen for the King's palace. I thought this was great news, and I could not understand the sober looks of the other boys. As we had been moved to another room by ourselves, I asked one of them with whom I had shared my scrip tools, why he was so downcast over such a promotion? "Ah, Sa," he moaned, "You have had your mind and your ears so glued to the scrip, you know nothing!" I looked at him in puzzlement. "They are going to make us eunuchs! Do I have to spell it out for you? With one sweep of the knife, we will be no better than women for the rest of our life." I grew dizzy and fell to the floor. "Sorry, Sa," my friend said as he threw the bowl full of wash water over me. Now I lined up with the other boys with my head in my hands. We moaned in unison; they for the pain of losing their masculine parts--I for the losing of my life for it surely would be discovered now that I was a girl. The boys were taken one by one starting with the oldest. I'll spare the gory details, but we helped each other the best we could by cool cloths, changing bandages, etc. Pretty soon I was the only one left standing, and my turn was next! I was praying hard for them and their great suffering but at least they had their lives if they lived through the fevers. The next day, they came for me.
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About the Book
This book is a gathering of thoughts and impressions that occurred to the author throughout her life. These themes of love and forgiveness, of sorrow and tragedy, and of moving beyond the "cry of mourning," are expressed in both story form and in poetry. And by these means, we take the journey ourselves.
The stories range from resourcefulness of a slave girl, Sarah, in the tale of "The Two Queens" to Dawn, an inhabitant of the planet Ur, in the science fiction "The Journey." In a play, Amos thunders disaster if Israel does not change its ways, and a poem, "Laid Waste in a Single Night," mourns the birth of our nuclear era. But we are not left long in these darker spots. Lighter haiku of love are sprinkled throughout, while poems of "Resurrection," and the bittersweet love letters of Hosea engage us.
The reader resonates as the book strives to make sense of these happenings. And how working through these experiences, we gain strength and thus our lives become more meaningful.
As the traveler says at the end of "The Journey," "...life is not the same once one has shared the mystery of love."
About the Author
Lucille Hintze is a graduate of Stanford University and San Francisco Theological. As a Sister of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family, she has lived and worked in both the inner city and in the country. So this compassionate woman puts her experiences into a collection of stories and poems to share with you, her readers.