Like the others.

Silly Israel! 

After God had chosen his people and given to them a land flowing in milk and honey, they still longed for more. It wasn’t enough to have a home of their own, nor to live in communion with God. No, they wanted something else. Looking at other nations, they wanted to be like them. Their neighbors had bigger armies, more wealth, and kings to lead them. 

“We want to be like them,” they cried to Samuel, a priest.

“But that’s not who you were created to be,” he replied. “You were created to be different, a nation under God.”

“They’re not,” they demanded. “We want to be like them.”

So, with great reluctance, God allowed them the freedom to become who they wanted to be. A king was crowned, a mighty army established, and, for a time, the economy seemed to explode.

“See,” they boasted. “It’s proof that this is God’s will!”

The Priests listened and walked away with great sorrow. They could see what the others could not. They knew God sought a different kind of nation, one that lived in communion, or friendship, with Him, and lived in a way consistent with that relationship. It would change the way they teated one another, the world itself, and people from other nations.

The new nation soon saw itself as the center of things, and placed God off to the side. Everything was measured as to whether it benefitted, or hurt, the nation, and their new nationalism gave them enormous pride. They refused to listen to those who spoke out against the new nation, the ones who pointed out the inconsistencies between they were living and the faith they professed. “You’re nothing but false prophets,” they exclaimed at the nay sayers.

As the people hoped, the nation became a nation like all the others. Some saw this and shouted cries of delight. Others wept.

Silly Israel

All Saints Day

I don’t know how all this works. I really don’t. People think ministers have some secret knowledge, or direct access to answers about the mysteries of life, God, and how the two interact. Some may, but not me. When I think of my faith, I don’t think of a rock discovered, a sure and certain place on which to stand. Rather, my faith is more like a dream I’m desperate to catch.

The dream that swirls just beyond my grasp is that there’s a God who created this world and loves each and every one of us like a parent. Despite all the ways we mess up, God still loves us and always will. No exceptions. No qualifiers. It’s a dream that extends beyond this mortal life and includes the ages, or eternity, on the other side of the grave. I have no idea what that life on the other side will be like, and I am suspicious of anyone who tells me they do, and yet I reach for the dream because my heart needs it to be true. When close my eyes and think of all the people I’ve lost, I pray the dream is true. 

As a child I thought of heaven as a place, a place we enter and everyone we’ve lost is waiting at the gates to greet us as the long-lost children we’ve been. Because of the household I grew up in, I thought of heaven as a big party where everyone is laughing and loving each other while singing songs around a piano. I guess we all use our idea of happiness and make heaven like that. Regardless of how naive my vision may be, I trust the words of the great hymn, “we feebly struggle, they in glory shine.”

So, on this All Saints Day, I reach up once again and try to catch the dream. I close my eyes and pray that, in some way, the dream is true. I listen for the piano and all the happy voices signing, believing, one day, I will be singing with them.

Echoes

I can remember when I first entered a cathedral and let out a yelp in hopes of hearing the sound come back to me the way they do in big spaces. It seems I’ve always had a thing for echoes. Lying in bed at camp during storms I eagerly waited for the echoing response of each clap of thunder. I still find magic is echoes and delight whenever a choir finishes a piece of music with a triumphant note and then waits for it to return from the rafters of the church. Echoes seem to have a life of their own. Whether in a big space like a cathedral, or against a mountain cliff, or off a lake, echoes return and sound like whatever gave them birth, but not exactly. They come from a source but have a voice of their own. 

As I listened to a particularly animated echo recently, I thought of the relationship between the source and the echo. There’s a connection, or dance, between the two, and it made me reflect on all the echoes I hear. A person speaks, and I hear not only what they said but hear it anew moments or hours later. I remember things my parents said to me as a child and hear them anew as they return as an echo within. 

One of the great stories in the Bible is the description of the creation of the world. Once I got past the struggle of whether the creation stories (there are two) are literally true, I was able to appreciate the truth within the imagery provided. God speaks to creation and out of the word comes life, like an echo. I think, if we are quiet and attentive enough, we can hear that echo bouncing off creation, still. It bounces off the trees as we walk along a path, bounces of mountain cliffs, and mingles with the ocean’s waves. It also bounces off the people we love, and also those we find difficult to love. We can hear it when a child whispers, and someone weeps.

The question is not whether the echo is there, but whether we have ears to hear. When we do, the world suddenly becomes one big, wonderful cathedral.