Some of what we love
we stumble upon –
a purse of gold thrown on the road,
a poem, a friend, a great song.
And more
discloses itself to us –
a well among green hazels,
a nut thicket –
when we are worn out searching
for something quite different.
And more
comes to us, carried
as carefully
as a bright cup of water,
as new bread.
‘Introduction’
Moya Cannons
Do I make room for rediscovery amongst the piles of my belongings? How often do I sift through those bowls of ‘treasures’ I keep around my house: bits of wood or rusting metal, old coins or dried ‘chinese lanterns’ of cape gooseberry, feathers found on the ground? How often do I really look and pray – ‘read’ – the icon which the poet and Methodist Minister Joanna Tulloch generously wrote (painted) for me? How often do I take the stones out of the jar and place them back under running water to see their colours, or tumble them in my hands to feel the weight of this wonderful earth? How often do I give the pictures on my wall a second glance? How often do I revisit at the photos stashed away on my hard drive?
And I am compelled to ask, how often do I stop and question who I think the God-Who-Comes really is? How often do I expose myself to different traditions of prayer and worship which might teach me how to rediscover the I AM?
The African American pastor, Shadrach Meshach Lockridge, once preached an hour-long sermon about the wonder of Jesus, which concluded with a spontaneous eulogy, using some of the ancient language the Bible uses for the coming Messiah:
My King is the King.
He’s the key to knowledge.
He’s the wellspring to wisdom.
He’s the doorway of deliverance.
He’s the pathway of peace.
He’s the roadway of righteousness.
He’s the highway of holiness.
He’s the gateway of glory.
Do you know Him?
This incantation has been made into a short animation, ’That’s My King’, using Lockridge’s impassioned voice as a soundtrack. It is impossible to miss the power of that final question. I can squirm under its spotlight, and I can ponder over the wealth of unexpected, perhaps even archaic, images. I can utterly reject its use of the male pronoun and its seeming emergence from patriarchal structures.
But, but, the challenge is simple: is this God who is Knowledge, who is Wisdom, who is Deliverance, who is Peace, who is Righteousness, who is Holiness, who is Glory, the God I know? And if not, what might I need – today, in this now and this here – to (re)discover – for the first or the hundredth time – who this God is?
Why not hire a professional? would be the logical question, but then I’d miss the quizzical look I got from the hardware store clerk when I made theatrical gestures with my hands to mimic a mailbox post being installed, and the drive-through lane of the lumberyard where I opened the window to drifts of cedar and pine, and the surprisingly intimate feeling of a drill in my hands at the golden hour of late afternoon, and how the lawn where I worked became a cheering section of dandelions, and the way I started talking to the screws, as if I were their guidance counselor. I’m not done yet, of course. This is the price of chipping away at a language I will never be fluent in. But I’m not in it for the expertise. I want, instead, the improvisation of the unskilled, my fingertips on the craggy edge of discovery, my body turned toward an act of making, however imperfect.
‘The Construction Project’
Maya Stein
stark choices for subtle whisperings. (iPhone image)
image into ikon 