Our Town – December 16, 2021

The Soupster makes (or invents?) a friend.

The Soupster makes (or invents?) a friend.

The Soupster thought he recognized the eyes of the mysterious woman he kept running into at different places, first at the secondhand store, then in various social/political Zoom groups.

It was at Our Town’s secondhand store where they first bonded, over a used large print copy of Elie Wiesel’s Holocaust book Night-Dawn-Day.

This time, he’d made up his mind to ask her name.

“Oh, you might not believe this,” she said, “but my name is Tirzah. I can spell if for you if you like. It’s from the Old Testament.”

“It does sound familiar,” admitted the Soupster.

“Tirzah was a town near Samaria,” said the tall woman, “you know, like in the story of The Good Samaritan? It goes back to the Bronze Age, was mentioned in the Book of Joshua, and, perhaps most famously, in The Song of Solomon.”

“That’s the – er, juicy one, right?” ventured the Soupster.

“Yes! The lover in the Song of Songs compares his beloved’s beauty to that of Tirzah. On second thought, maybe my folks were a little bit crazy to saddle me with that moniker.”

“You sure seem to know a lot about that part of the world,” said the Soupster.

“Oh, that you’ll maybe have to blame on my parents, too. Not sure if it was the load of the name or what, but 50 years into my life I decided to go to divinity school.”

“What a bizarre coincidence,” the Soupster marveled. “I just read an article about women who want to be priests and what moved them in that direction. Fascinating, really. They all had different reasons, no two were the same.”

“Well, you and I should sit down together someday – like over a cup of tea, in a safely distanced fashion,” said Tirzah. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we found we had a lot to talk about.”

“Yes!” said the Soupster. “I have been dying to talk to someone about this new book – Orwell’s Roses. Rebecca Solnit, who wrote it, was evidently trying to work out why such a serious dude seemed to get so much pleasure from planting roses. Orwell – serious – I mean, I still have nightmares about parts of 1984. He seemed to devote so much public energy to exposing social ills and political injustices. Kind of a dark guy. But then, there were the roses.”

Orwell’s Roses, hmmnnn? Not so surprising, Soupster. There’s these disparate parts to all of us,” she mused. “Not conflicting really, though they may appear so on the surface.” She paused for a moment. “Sometimes people criticize one another – foolishly, I think – for spending time and energy on things that just give us pleasure. You know, like Mary Magdalene spending the so-called ‘expensive oil’ on Jesus’ feet? Sometimes, I think, it may do us incalculable good to use the ‘expensive oil’ to get ourselves the roses we love as well as the bread we need.”

“Maybe you’re right,” said the Soupster. “In the end, don’t we all need both bread and roses!”

SHARE POST

Want to Submit a Listing to the Soup?

Send us a message and we'll post it online and in the next printed Soup.

Sign up for our Mailing List!

Please enter a valid email address.
Please enter an email address.
Something went wrong. Please check your entries and try again.