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It's Not My Fault...

28/2/13 Tonight I was speaking at the Church Resources event at the Ramada Hotel in Belfast, largely on the monologues that I write based on Bible stories... I said that most of my material is to be found on this site, and then discovered that the first one that I used as an example, wasn't... well it is now, because this is it... 
2/3/2020 Today, just over 7 years later, I returned to this blog post because of a series of #LentArt posts on social media reminded me about it. The image attached to this post is the image I shared as part of that exercise, Keith Vaughn's 1946 "Cain and Abel" which is part of the Tate Collection. Vaughn was a conscientious objector in the Second World War and this probably "colours" this poignant image. What I like about it is that unlike many other classical renderings of this story which either picture it mid-assault or with Cain fleeing the scene of the crime, here Cain is pictured holding the body of his brother, with distress disfiguring his face. Perhaps it is this physical manifestation of his guilt that is the "mark of Cain".)

Its not my fault! 
He had it all. I mean I was the eldest, but Mum and Dad paid no attention to me. What he wanted though, he got. He was a spoiled brat. I never got a moment's peace from the day and hour he was born. If I wasn't being asked to do things to help Mum with him, he was traipsing around after me. Although I suppose he didn't have anyone else to play with. 
But as we grew up he had it easy. I was the one expected to do the farming. It was me who blistered my hands and broke my back ploughing the fields and reaping the corn. Him... well he decided to become a shepherd. Spent all his days traipsing across the countryside, lying out on the hillside under the shade of trees when the sun got too hot, while down in the valley there was me, digging a drainage ditch. He always had it easy! He was Dad's favourite, Mum's favourite, and God's favourite! Always was... good luck just rolled his way all the time! It wasn't fair.
Then harvest there took the biscuit... We both decided to offer a special sacrifice to God. It was my idea first, but of course he had to be in on the act... I brought some sheaves of corn and some of the fruit from the orchard, and laid them on the altar. Then along comes Mr. Perfect with a lamb... one of the firstborn he said... What a waste! And yet God accepted his offering and not mine. Then God gave me a lecture about not scowling at my brother. What did he expect!? I could cheerfully have killed the wee upstart there and then. 
But I didn't. I decided to put it behind me and go straight back to work, so I was for going out to the fields... I even invited him to go with me. 
But as we were walking through the field he started talking about the offerings again, asking why mine wasn't accepted, was it the offerings themselves, or my attitude or something else... And that was it. I'd taken as much as I could stomach, and I turned round and I told him exactly how I felt about him and Mum and Dad and God and his offerings... And I was so angry I hit him, with the spade. And I hit him again and again and again...
And then the questions started. Cain, where's Abel? Have you seen your brother? Do you know where Abel is? What is this? Am I his keeper?

Selah
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