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Shunning Sara

            Sara Hoffman woke up to her mother calling the family down to breakfast.

            “Sophie and Sander, come down to breakfast. The animals won’t wait forever. Your father has been up for hours already.”

            It was always the same wakeup call every morning. But this morning there was a difference. Her name was conspicuously absent from the names being called. It came to her each morning for the past week with renewed sadness. She was being shunned. Her family belonged to a small independent religious sect, called The Children of God that treated sins and transgressions against the inter-faith community and their beliefs with a form of punishment called shunning.

            She accepted the practice without question because it was a part of her life and who they were. It was however, the first time she had suffered the punishment. It was becoming much harder than she had ever imagined it would be. Sara was the middle child of Ruben and Edith Hoffman. She had an older brother, Sander, who was eighteen last month. Her younger sister, Sophie, was twelve and Sara would be sixteen next month. Sophie and Sara shared a room. Sophie rolled out of bed groaning. She looked over to Sara and looked sad. No one was allowed to talk to or acknowledge her in any way. They fed her and sheltered her but no communication or affection was allowed. Sophie was bending the rules a little by even looking in her direction. Sara smiled at her younger sister with understanding. During the past week, she tried talking to Sophie a few times but Sophie just broke down and cried. She didn’t want to make it any harder than it already was.

            Her father, Ruben Hoffman was a ramrod of strictness. He was the head of the household in everyway. He tolerated no foolishness or straying from the rules in any way shape or form. He was gruff and stern, even smiling seemed to make him uncomfortable. He was a leader in the church, passed down from his father. She supposed he still loved her but it was hard to tell even before she did what she had done. The thing of it was, she didn’t know what she had done to cause the shunning edict to be handed down to her. She thought about it every chance she had. She wondered if her sin had been so terrible that it had caused forgetfulness. Could a transgression be that horrible that her mind would not let her remember? And since her family could not talk to her, there was no one she could even ask. The act of shunning extended to everyone in her community who was a member of her church.  The Children of God Church had about one hundred members who belonged and were active participants. It was a lovely, church family. Everyone knew everyone and they were all close and considerate and caring of each other. As hard as she wanted to remember what had happened, she just couldn’t bring it into focus. She knew it had to have been awful though. If only she could remember then she could apologize to everyone at the next church meeting on Sunday. She would beg their forgiveness. It had been known to happen that on special occasions; the leaders of the church would be lenient to first time offenders and let them off the hook early. She couldn’t even remember what her sentence was. It could be a week or a month depending on the offence.