I have been here before.
I have been on this edge, this razor-sharp edge that offers no protection at all. It is merely a separation, a narrow space between one wilderness and the next. My feet are rooted, tangled in my fears, and my fingers turn white with strain, holding so tightly to this tether that keeps me bound to this place.
I have been here before, at this exact spot. Every time, I have stood, bent by the weight of my solitude and fear. Every time, I have listened to the howl of that mindless wind, felt the ache of static endlessness. Every time, I have stared, sightless-- or sight turned inward, searching for a path too dark and overgrown to be of use. Every time, I have stood immobile, and yet I spin madly, careening down a Mobius path to nowhere. Or, perhaps, everywhere.
I am exhausted. And I can't seem to let go.
Letting go feels so much like defeat, and I can't take one more defeat, one more loss, one more failure. I can't, I can't, I just fucking can't. I have been here. Exactly here. It is different every time, except for the howling of the wind and the ache of endlessness.
And yet. Goddamn it, and yet. Every time, every single time that I have been exactly here, clinging to wind and sound until I am broken and bloodied-- every time, I have let go.
Freefall.
And I have been caught, in the palm of God's hand. And I have seen God, in the kindness of strangers and the compassion of friends. And I have heard God there, and felt lifted and caught and freed. Such a simple thing, to let go. Such an monumentally difficult and tortuous thing. But there is grace in it, and redemption, and wonder and hope, when I find the faith, finally, to let go.
This year, I am again stuck. And afraid and not breathing well at all. This year, I am holding on for dear life and I am more exhausted and defeated in my efforts. This year, I stand at the edge of that endless Sea and I pray to have the faith, again, to let go, to enter the freefall that leads me to somewhere else, that is not that edge of howling madness.
This year, once again, I reflect, as I have for the past few, on Fear, and Faith, and that really big Sea:
(Originally posted for Passover, 2010/5770)
I'm in one of those places: stuck, prickly, at the very edge of letting go, trembling with the effort to not tip over the edge into the abyss of the unknown, desperate to take that final leap of faith and soar towards light and wholeness. I am astounded, as always, when I think how inextricably intertwined my fear and my faith have become. I have heard (more times than I care to remember) that Fear (always pronounced with a capital F) is an absence of Faith. No. I think not. I demand Not. I am too intelligent--- God is too intelligent-- to demand unthinking blind faith like that, to insist that faith is a guard against fear.
Fear keeps the lights on at night and smells of sweat and tension and anxiety-- sharp and unpleasant. If the fear is great enough, it can keep me rooted and curled in on myself, covers pulled tightly over my head, unmoving. Paralyzed. Stuck. Tentative. Invisible.
But my faith: sweet and sure and graceful. It wraps around me like light, like breath, like life. It sometimes moves mountains. More often than not, it is just enough. Enough, not to beat back the darkness or vanquish my demons, but enough to put one foot in front of the other, to walk, however falteringly, forward. To know that, no matter what, I am enough, I will be ok.
And so, faith and grace being what they are, I think of my fear, and my stuckness, and I am reminded that it is Pesach (Passover). And in the midst of all of this darkness, there is also redemption, and release.
I got to tell the story of Nachshon at assembly a while back during Sunday school. It is my favorite midrash, I think. (For those of you reading this who are now totally lost in the tangle of my narrative, a midrash is a rabbinic story, a device used to fill in some of the blanks and the holes in the Torah. Kinda folkloric, they are the stories behind the stories.) So, Nachshon-- he was a slave with all the other Israelites who found redemption at the hand of God. He was Let Go, with a capital L and a capital G, brought out with a Mighty Hand. He packed and didn't let the dough rise and ran, breathless and scared and grateful, away from the land of Pharaohs and pyramids and crocodiles and slavery--- ran into freedom.
And then he got to the sea. He and 600,000 other un-slaved people. Stopped cold by the Red Sea. It was huge, and liquid and deep. You couldn't see the other side. It was so big you couldn't see any sides. Just wet from here to... forever.
And behind him, when he (and 600,000 others) dared to peek: Pharaoh and his army of men and horses and chariots. And spears and swords and assorted sharp pointy things. We really can't forget the sharp pointy things. Even at a distance, the sharp pointy things loomed quite large in the eyes of Nachshon and his recently-freed landsmen. Caught between the original rock and a hard place. Well, ok: between water and pointy metal stuff. At this point, I don't think anyone involved cared much about getting the metaphor exactly right. What they cared about was getting out from that perilous middle. Fast.
So Moses, because it was his job, went to have a chat with God. And just like that, Moses got an answer--- a Divine Instant Message. All that the Children of Israel needed to do: walk forward, into the Sea, that big, wet, deep forever sea. God would provide a way. "Trust Me," God seemed to say. "I got you this far, didn't I? I wouldn't let you fall now!"
And Nachshon and the 600,000 stood at the shivery edge of that Sea, staring at that infinite horizon in front and the pointy, roiling chaos of death and slavery behind them. And they stood. Planted. And let's face it: not just planted, but rooted in their fear and mistrust and doubt. They may have felt reassured by the image of God as a pillar of smoke or fire--- impressive pyrotechnics to be sure--- but the soldiers and the Sea were so there, so present, so much more real.
And then, in the midst of that fear and doubt, something changed. Nachshon, lately freed, trapped between death by water and death by bleeding, Nachshon did the miraculous-- he put one foot in front of the other and walked into the sea. And the 600,000 held their collective breath, watching the scene unfold before them. Nachshon did what 600,000 could not: he decided to believe, to have faith. To leap. And tho the water covered first his ankles, then knees, then chest, then kept rising, until he was almost swallowed whole, he kept walking, kept believing. And just when it seemed that Nachshon was a fool for his faith, would surely drown in that infinite forever sea, another miracle:
The waters parted.
The Sea split and Nachshon, so recently in over his head, he walked on dry land. And the 600,000 breathed again, in one relieved whoosh of air, and they found their own faith and followed Nachshon into and across the dry Sea to the other side. And then the journey truly began...
I pray to have faith enough to walk into my own Sea--- of doubt and fear and darkness. I want to walk and feel the waters part, to be released from the tangled web of thought that holds me immobile and disconnected. I have learned, again and again, without fail: when I take that step, when I find the grace and the faith to put one foot in front of the other, to trust, as Nachshon did, I am carried forward, I am freed from my self-imposed bondage. I am enough, and I can walk again on dry land to freedom.
I think I am finally ready to let go, to leave the desert, to stumble at last along a narrow bridge to light and hope. There is fear; yes. But there is also faith and grace and redemption. Even for me, there is redemption.
Once we were slaves, now we are free.
Chag Pesach Sameach.
Happy Passover
2014/5774
No comments:
Post a Comment