A Reflection and Poem for XIV Pentecost (Proper 19) All Saints’ Church, Southern Shores, NC September 14, 2014 Thomas E. Wilson, Rector
The
Old Man Walking Through the Water
The Old Man, whose name “Moses” meant “Pulling out
of the water”, felt like he was really living into his name as he was walking
through where the water used to be. The water was standing like a wall on
either side of him, almost 50 feet high. The ground underneath his feet was hard and
solid; he thought it would be soft and sandy, as when the tide goes out, but
this was like pavement.
He was alarmed and wondered what would happen if
Pharaoh’s army of chariots caught up to that long line of people following him who
were carrying all of their possessions on their backs and in makeshift carts as
they left Egypt. Pharaoh had lost face in the battle with the Old Man’s God,
and while he had given permission for the Hebrews to leave, he had to reassert
his authority and wring some sort of revenge on the former slaves. Pharaoh knew
that many of the former slaves did not really want to leave, for it is human
nature to want to stay in whatever condition you are rather than risk an
unknown future. Maybe, Pharaoh thought, if he could just kill the ringleaders
of the slave revolt, he could force the rest of the slaves back to bondage.
Moses also knew that most of the people walking the
path out of Egypt did not really want to go. Yes, they had been miserable in
Egypt, grunting and sweating under a weary life, but there is always a
difference between complaining and changing. They were afraid that, if they
changed, they would have to give up much of what defined them.
Moses looked up at the wall of water. He got his
name by being pulled out of the water and here he was again. He imagined remembering
what it was like being a baby picked up out of that watertight basket. Had he
been comfortable in that basket, with the feel of that familiar blanket which
held the comforting smell of his mother? Had he cried when the hands with the
smell unlike his mother brought him out into the fresh air?
He looked at the water wall again and imagined remembering
what it was like for the baby he had been to have gone through that first wall
of water as he had been born. Had he been comfortable in the womb and not
wanting to leave? Had he cried when his body had been so rudely interrupted
from what he had known for 9 months? Had he complained about the assault on his
body as he squeezed through the opening into a new kind of life? Had he been
startled by the noise and light and having to learn a new way of breathing and
getting nutrition? Had he complained
that he had not been asked to be born as the water gushed out and he was pulled
from that water? He had not asked to be born, but he was learning how to
treasure every moment after.
Moses looked again at the wall of water and saw the
monsters of the deep peering out through the clear water. He had been a man of
the desert so long that he had never been face to face with such curious
creatures like sharks and whales. He looked in the eyes of the whale and saw that
they looked back at him with curiosity. Moses instinctively put his hand into
the wall in order to touch this creature, and the whale pulled away. The whale
had been afraid of him. “Imagine that”, he thought, “here the whale is scores
bigger than me and yet the whale is the one afraid. Is it part of being a
created being that we share the curse of fear?”
The Old Man thought, “Maybe the reason the animals
recoil in fear has to with the fact that they sense the violence in the humans,
and they run away from what they do not understand. Animals understand the food
chain as part of existence, but they do not understand senseless violence.” The
Old Man knew that humans are part of the same creation of which the whale is a
part. All of the creatures of God share
curiosity, but is there something about humans where violence is always under
the surface.
The Old Man still had his hand in the wall of water,
and he realized he was touching the depth of the sea with his hand and the
depth of his being with his soul. He had killed a man years before, and when he
had run away from prosecution for that crime, he had used violence to defend
the daughters of the Priest of Midian from the shepherds at the well. The
Priest had been so thankful for the violence used in the protection of his
daughters that he gave one of his daughters, Zipporah, to Moses as a wife. She
later called him her “bridegroom of blood”. In the struggle for power against
Pharaoh, Moses had excused the violence of the death of the first born of the
Egyptians as a recompense for the centuries of violence done to the Hebrew
children. When will the violence ever end?
He thought, “The violence will only end when there
is a trust that all is being redeemed. Trust is hard as I look at these walls
of water; can I trust that the walls of water will not break and drown me? I
walk one step at a time, but these walls seem so threatening that my fear that
I will not be able to hold these walls up threatens to break through. I can put
my hand through the walls, and I know that I cannot hold them up. These walls
are being held up by my relationship with the one who is greater than myself.
It is the ground of my being that holds the wall, and it is my trust in Him or
Her that allows me to walk one step at a time by the walls which can engulf
me.”
Moses thought, “Maybe going through the water is
really important as a symbol of going through the birth trauma, of leaving a
whole way of thinking and of living behind and finding a new way of life on the
other side of the water after it breaks. Maybe when the walls of water break
and come tumbling down, drowning the past, then I might have a life without fear
in my heart. One step with trust is followed
by another step in trust, for the journey to the Promised Land is only reached
one step at a time, and the point is not the destination but the journey, which
I know will take all of my life.”
The Old Man chuckles, “I know that it is only a matter of time
before Pharaoh’s chariots and chariot drivers will catch up to us. But Pharaoh
trusts only in himself, and trusting only in oneself does not keep the walls of
water from flooding our lives. If that is the case, then the High Horse and its
rider will be tossed into the sea.”
The
Old Man Walking Through the Water
Pulling out of the
water
Standing like a wall on
either side
Carrying their heavy
burdens
Differing between
complaining and changing
Standing like a wall on
either side
Imagining remembering
what it was like
Differing
between complaining and changing
Having not been asked
to be born
Imagining remembering
what it was like
Creatures of God sharing
curiosity
Having not been asked
to be born
Horse and Rider tossed
into the sea
Creatures of God sharing
curiosity
Carrying their heavy
burdens
Horse and Rider tossed
into the sea
Pulling out of the
water
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