I finished a class last night. For some in the class it was the last class session of their seminary career. There was tears, even for those who have plenty of time at this place. Interestingly, when I visited the school two years ago with my friend Sean we sat in on a class that just so happened to be the same professor, the same class and the same week of the summer as the one I experienced last night. The content was the same and I was in nearly the same seat in the same classroom. Then at the end of the class, as is the professor’s custom, we all shared a verse from Torah that has us living and thinking different than before. I read:
for the cloud of the LORD was on the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night, before the eyes of all the house of Israel at each stage of their journey.
Those are the last words of the book of Exodus. The last half of the book describes God’s presence while the first part describes God’s activity. The story of the exodus seems to turn on God’s doing and being. God does some cool stuff but to back it up God is with people on the journey they are set on—in on their doing and being. Recently I have been catching up with friends from back home, one of which said before I left, that she didn’t want me to come out here while at the same time she’d be angry if I didn’t. Community entrusts you to the journey—believing that the LORD is a God on the way and so we will all be alright, through each stage.
It is odd looking back this morning thinking of two years ago. In some ways I have grown up and in other ways I’m more a kid than ever. Growing pains pull us in different direction sometimes, the trick might be, holding on to self while letting self go. But yesterday I ran to this park near our house nicknamed Narnia, it is beautiful. Often when I am trying to think something through I will sit somewhere, usually a coffee shop, and attempt to draw out ideas through the manipulation of setting and warm liquids. The distractions that present themselves in a place like this usually soak up my thoughts and nothing is quite sorted out. Sitting in one spot just doesn’t work for me. But when I run and wander through the neighborhood catching a view from atop a hill, its like I am sorted out and helped in ways that goes beyond me, beyond self.
It is on the way that we meet the unsettled God. Between comfort and chaos Presence seems quite content to stir us up, love us well and sort us. It is only in looking back that I seem to notice the subtle ways in which the divine has been snagging my attention—each stage with its own pattern and surprise. And so we are displaced, scattered and removed from the kind of grounding that we believe would offer an arrival. The interesting thing about the Torah is that the people remain on the edge of arrival. On the edge of the land, looking forward to where things should be better, we allow ourselves to exhale—in the staging of another water crossing—another kind of salvation and coming through.
