“Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.”
- Job 1:21
Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
- James 4:14
Categories: Selah!
and now, for…
confession #1:
a priest on a bicycle is quite a sight!
confession #2:
in Rome, at the Trinita dei Monti, a Baroque church,
i recorded the gregorian chant of a holy choir
with a secret little stick of a machinery.
until today, the voices haunt and awe me.
like a fear of the Lord.
like a joy in the Lord.
a trembling and a settling down.
O sing unto the Lord a new song: sing unto the Lord, all the earth.
- Psalm 96:1
Categories: Flights of fancy · Selah!
Ouch! This must be one of the most humbling moments, but it’s also the effect of disobedience, a lack of focus and zilch restraint. I kinda bargained with God. With a deadline, an answer, a stubbornness to hang on. “It’s not right,” He said. “Just won’t you listen?!” And in my finite human self, I still wanted to barge in, still wanted to cave in to earthly desires. But what do I know, really? Faith isn’t about doing it my way, it’s about letting go and believing. I would laugh at this little silliness in a month, a short bedtime story for the grandchildren perhaps, heh. But for now, He says, “Be still, be still, and know that I am God.”
How He moves in mysterious ways. I’ve stepped on a toe too many with the wrong steps so I’ll quit leading the dance for now — He does it better anyway. So, You, which song next? :) This time, I say, here I am. Here I am, Lord, for the second time. It is done.
Categories: Selah!
(Laurent de La Hyre)
But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”
“Here I am,” he replied.
- Genesis 22:11
There is much to do but all I think about these days is wearing Abraham’s shoes.
He lived for a long time, so they’re pretty worn-out shoes I suppose. A bit too large, he must have been a big man, all 175 years of him. My toes are always stretching out to fill the gaps within them and sometimes in trying, I fall over. A kind of balancing act best left to acrobats who dance mid-air, who land deftly on swinging poles — they don’t acknowledge gravity, might have even been greater than it.
But Abraham’s shoes feel like gravity and I am the least, an acrobat. Here it is again, my own failed circus and I am performer and audience all at once. A performer with not enough practice, never enough practice, always tripping over. A lone audience who watches and laughs at the clumsiness, why bother trying? The audience who laughs and asks, who’s watching?
He, he who is my Isaac. Isaac means he will laugh.
These shoes are gravity and I’d rather kick them off if not for the fact that I have these mountains to climb. So my feet feel like heavy lead now but anything less would have hurt them. There are pictures I make in the soil — each step an alphabet and a few steps make a word and a hundred steps will make a sentence and a thousand more will make prose. I know I’ve tripped at all the punctuations.
I put on Abraham’s pair of shoes because it once proclaimed itself nothing but dust and ashes. These shoes brought him to Mount Moriah though, so they must be something quite amazing. “Here I am,” Abraham had said, when God first called him to the mountain. The last time I bent over to tighten the laces, dust and ashes were falling through.
But it is also because of Isaac. He, he who is my Isaac. These shoes brought Abraham to Mount Moriah, and there, he got off a donkey and went around collecting wood, cutting them up so that he could — there was no way any Isaac would have laughed at this point in time — so that he could burn his Isaac up as an offering. Abraham treaded on Mount Moriah, and now I have Mount Moriah before me.
Too many times, I’ve been here. It’s not somewhere I want to be because of what Abraham had to do the last time he got up here. But you know how it is, that when one is growing in stamina he runs on long, flat plains and when one is growing in strength he jogs the mountains. It is the latter I am now made to do and they don’t call it a steep learning curve for nothing.
All the trees and every fern that exist here, I could know by heart. But everytime I’m made to climb it again, the trees and the fern rearrange themselves as if to mock my cognitive maps. Although the route stays the same, the elements constantly reposition themselves, always more intelligent than my own memory. I’ve failed to learn from history — to know each tree realigns and still I have come unprepared. Most of the time though, I am holding on stubbornly to the fact that I would rather be lost, rather be stupid (and then spend double the time recovering from a self-imposed absurdity).
So here, here is where I lay my Isaac. Isaac means he will laugh and I always wished he would. There is nothing like happiness you would want on someone you love, someone you pack your whole faith into. I am picking twigs and branches and things like that now, things that set themselves on fire with a little help from each other. And all the time I’m thinking if I could just roll down this damn mountain because I don’t want to be doing arson on a person I love. I would die, but Isaac would live. Then I remember — because I am wearing Abraham’s heavy shoes — that both father and son lived in the end, and for two people to live is always better than one. I just have to be good and continue picking up twigs and branches, if that is what’s needed right now.
You see, everyone talks about the fire but what then of the twigs and the branches? Let us set up a fire, we would say. And a little less of the time, let us put the branches together. But without the intermingling of still wood there would be no moving heat or light. So I loved it when Isaac told his father, “The fire and wood are here.”
The fire and wood.
Because fire is always ripe for sacrifice, and so it is that we say, let us set up a fire. It is the moment for things to happen, the moment of result. And yet before this, Abraham must have been crying so hard inside just gathering wood. He must be crying so hard inside just preparing the altar of twigs and branches, must be crying so hard as he readies himself to lose his son. He never thought it was an act of killing, for Isaac was going to God and Isaac was God’s command, but losing Isaac was a difficult idea in itself.
If his tears could be counted, they would be the number of twigs and branches all laid out onto the ground, a bedrock warm enough for ignition. There it was, a moment where Abraham would give his all, and yet and still before that, there were these hours and minutes leading up to it. These hours and minutes accumulating into twigs and branches that would burn themselves into flames of sacrifice — the heat of intense maturation for Abraham, a light of sparked salvation for Isaac.
“Here I am,” Abraham had said now that the fire and wood were set, and more so because his own heart was set. The first time he’d said it, was a will of submission. The second time he said this, was an act of obedience. He’d followed it through.
No wonder these shoes are so heavy. They were not made for flying. Fire is never built from air but from the earth. As a being from dust and ashes.
Once, I had said, “Here I am.” Then I let my toes slip into the shoes of a great man, into a pair of shoes I can never quite fill. We have our own twigs and branches, our own Isaacs, a Mount Moriah we both share and then to each a fire we would burn.
But Abraham had said, “Here I am,” a second time.
Twice.
Here I am.
Here I am.
And now I’m still walking awkwardly in his worn shoes. It’s never easy walking in the shoes of a dead man who still talks. And still, my toes are grasping the gaps within. Still, I’m picking up twigs and branches, are they enough for the fire? Are they good enough for the fire? Still a bit more wood to fulfill before I can finally say, “Here I am.” Again.
But when I do, when I do say “here I am” the second time, then he who is my Isaac, he will laugh.
Categories: Pen as sword · Selah!
