Wednesday, June 28, 2023
Memorial of Saint Irenaeus, Bishop and Martyr
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Livestock and birds and me, all for the Lord
God took Abram outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars. Just so shall your descendants be.” Abram put his faith in the Lord, who credited it to him as an act of righteousness.
In my Urbana home the room I use as an office has a beautiful see-through shade on a large picture window facing west. It was windy on Sunday afternoon when I took a nap on the couch. When I woke up the tree outside my window was blowing in the wind. It was beautiful.
I thought of the permanent beauty of the earth, which does not succumb for long to our exploitations. Just look up at the sky. Count the stars. Well, there may not be many visible stars where most of us are living. But still. When you’re out there somewhere where there’s a dark sky, count the stars.
O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?
I guess Abram needed reassurance that took the form of an action he could do himself. At least God gave him something to do:
Bring me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old she-goat,
a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”
Abram brought him all these, split them in two,
and placed each half opposite the other;
but the birds he did not cut up.
Now this scene gets freaky, dicey, scary.
Birds of prey swooped down on the carcasses,
but Abram stayed with them.
As the sun was about to set, a trance fell upon Abram, and a deep, terrifying darkness enveloped him.
I can’t help but think of the Sonoran Desert, Don Juan and his pupil Carlos Castenada. Without the peyote, what will happen next?
When the sun had set and it was dark,
there appeared a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch,
which passed between those pieces.
No drugs allowed, except the smoking gun of the Holy Spirit. Abram the father of us all and  his own father Yahweh, showing up in the shadows of the campfire, and right there Abram learns a lot more about the limitless love of God.
It was on that occasion that the Lord made a covenant with Abram. To your descendants I give this land.
Thinking of this I’ve fallen into memories of fires at night outside, alone and with others, alongside the highway when I’m hitchhiking, beside a large Ozark lake at dawn, alone at the move of a Missouri cave, accompanied by guitar music sometimes, in the woods and in the desert, on the beach along the shore. Not too many memories, maybe, but enough. Enough to be grateful that God inhabits the coastlines and rivers and mountains and yes, even the city streets. He is everywhere, waiting to be found.
So now, again, I open my eyes.
(Genesis 15, Psalm 105, John 15, Matthew 7)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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