We are asked to formulate a creed for ourselves. Here's a beginning:
First, I must get beyond the stuff of my life, The armchairs and tables and heavy things like stone walls and marble buildings. I think of Einstein's equation: the whirling electrons. It helps a little.. I used to have trouble making communion meaningful. I try to think of Jesus as telling us at the Last Supper that there is spirit in matter. His Spirit can be in the bread and wine. All matter can be holy. The stones can sing. This past Sunday I couldn't raise up my own spirits enough to make this effort as I waited for the wafer and the wine to be passed. The pews behind me and the heavy altar in front were too solid. I tried shutting my eyes and became aware of the organist improvising on the next hymn. Music could rise. I could rise. After coffee hour I walked after around the parking lot and past the memorial garden where my son's ashes rest. Rest, my son. Your life was hard.
David is so human. He has a beautiful soul. He loves and he suffers because he loves. Particularly in the case of Absalom. How hard to be a king to a people and a father to a son. He sins because he loves. He suffers remorse and acknowledges his guilt.
David was a king, and yet still a warrior. He spent his life hiding in wildernesses and in tents with his soldiers. He thought of building a “House” for Yaweh, but was forbidden to do it. Thus he retained the virtues of the wilderness people. There was no city to build yet. They picked up their tents and moved on, relying on Yaweh, their only provider and shelter..
The fact that it falls to Solomon to build to build a house for Yaweh and for himself is corrupting. He must rely on the Phoenicians for his building materials, He must use slaves for laborers The fact of his marrying Pharaoh's daughter and opening trade routes is a world away from the desert wanderers and the warriors. The divided Kingdoms must await the prophets to cleanse them.
Esther has found my blog, and put a lovely comment about rivers, mountains, and deserts as places that “summon thought.” Her church's blog is about an Advent path. We laugh about how long it took her to find it. Sometimes I can't even find it myself. Today I couldn't find hers. I would like to follow her path while she follows my river. A river is like a path, in that it goes past fields and towns, going somewhere. I have a recurring dream in which I am floating down that other river in my life, the Charles River, past Watertown and Cambridge, into Boston harbor where I swim among the great merchant ships.
David spent years in the wilderness, fleeing from Saul. Perhaps that is why he remained closer to Moses and the Patriarchs than his successors. City life is dangerous to virtue, as we still think today when our daughters leave rural places to seek the great cities.
Royal courts are also corrupting, telling kings what they want to hear. That is also true today, even it they are cabinets or military councils dealing with presidents and generals.
That leaves the lonely voices of prophets: Nathan telling truth to David, and Elijah telling truth to Ahab. We still have many lonely voices. I think of Scott Ritter in 2003 trying to tell cable news casters there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Walking down to the river yesterday, I can see that all the magnolia, which usually bloom in May are already carpeting the grass with their petals now in late March, and I think of the lonely voice of Al Gore.
Even azalea is blooming. I always think of the bold pink of azalea as a joyful shout to the heavens welcoming spring. Now that thought is tempered with a troubled question: why are they out in March?
The prophets, like David are closer to the wilderness, because like him they are always fleeing. In the case of Elijah, he is fleeing Jezebel. He predicts years of famine and flees to the side of a brook where he is fed by ravens. Then a widow feeds him. Always Jahweh sends him back into danger. Thinking to end the people's worship of baals, he sets up a kind of olympic competition between their prophets and himself, in which an ox is sacrificed by each side and laid over a pile of firewood. The baal prophets shout and dance around their sacrifice while Elijah mocks, but no fire is lit. Only Yahweh is able to respond and ignite a fire under Elijah's sacrifice.
This changes nothing, and Elijah flees this time to Mt Sinai to be closer to the desert patriarchs.
Micaiah is interesting. He is known for giving negative prophecies. Like Baalam he can only tell the truth. He tells Ahab he will be killed if he goes to war against the Syrians. Ahab chooses to believe the court prophets who tell him he will succeed and sends Micaiah away for his obtuseness. He is killed in the battle and his blood licked by dogs as Elijah has forseen.
Obtuse and unkempt seem to be characteristics of Yaweh's prophets. Elijah is described as wearing skins belted around his body, like John the Baptist.
I continue to think about my creed. It begins, as I said before with an acceptance that “stones can sing.” I accept magic, mystery. This is built into the universe. But all magicians are not “good” This is important. When I was younger I longed for an altered state. This could be achieved by substances like alcohol. There is another way. It was presented to me very clearly as a path leading to death. There is another path. For me it begins with Abraham, Joseph, and Moses. A moral God, a God of Justice, and uprightness.
I disbelieve the Christmas story, but, I believe the miracles and I believe the resurrection. I want to believe prayer is potent. I believe Yahweh sent Jesus as he sent Elijah to set us right again. . ,
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