She held the coins in her hand all the way from home. Small coins in a closed hand. The day was warm and dry, and the way full of people. The weather must have brought them out. That would be it, she thought. Warmth and other people. Crowds draw crowds, as her father used to say. He’d said those words on her wedding day, when she had been so surprised by the all neighbours gathering in the street long before the wedding feast, clapping their hands and craning their necks. As if the whole world wanted to see her that day. All those happy faces. But today, she walked through the streets unnoticed. Old women do. The road was dusty and her hands smelled of copper.
There were crowds at the Treasury, too, but then there often were. She didn’t mind. It meant more donations, more oil for lamps, more prayers offered, too, and that could only be a good thing. A few travellers sat opposite the Treasury, watching the wealthy in their processions. She nodded to them and smiled, and a young man smiled back. He had an intelligent look, like a young rabbi. Her husband had once looked like that. Kind and clever, with a young man’s beard. There it was again, like a heat in her heart. She closed her eyes against the grief. It would pass in a moment. A breath or two and she could manage. God was good and close and helped her through. Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Strange how it was always the thought of his beard that got her started. Always. But God was always faithful and she held to that, tightly and close like the coins in her hand. Then it was her turn and she opened her fingers to give the coins away.
The traveller sat watching, and the sound of the falling coins made him open his own fingers, his hands empty. But he held onto a wider grief. Why was this mother left with so little to give while those who had so much stood long-robed and tight-fisted? Where was the justice, the compassion, the care? She had spent her whole life giving, living open-handed, trusting that God would provide. And God did provide – enough for her to continue, enough for her to share. The other donations were larger, but wouldn’t be missed by the givers. It was the old mother’s coins that made the box clatter, and the traveller held onto that sound, too. If only he might catch it in his hands, hold it up to share the sound, he would make it echo out across the city, and further, too, if he could manage.
The buildings here were impressive, and he could tell from their faces his friends were impressed. But all this would crumble. It would need to crumble. Old ways needed to fall away. When something new is to be born, everything needs to make space. He would teach them that, too, if they would listen. Perhaps the sound of the falling coins would help with that story, too. Because without open hands, nothing would change.
