If time were a book, 11:59 pm, December 31 would be a page break, the close of chapter 2020. Does the Almighty continue reading? Of course. This is a good read, teetering on the edge of apocalyptic disaster, with countless sub-plots, some ending well, some tragically, yet the collective hero struggles on. She may be down on her knees, but she is certainly not out.
Sometimes a literary pause is good. Too much momentum tires the reader, burns her out even, causes her to set the book aside, like I did with the last Harry Potter book. I couldn’t take it any more. The crescendo of doom was too much. And I never finished it.
We certainly don’t want that to happen.
So January 1, 2021, 12:00 am, at the onset of a new chapter, I paused.
I lay in my queen sized bed, alone, declaring my status by carving out a new contour in the middle of the mattress. Eyes opened. I took in the gray shaft of light cutting a sharp angle across the bathroom, took in the backlit curtains on my left from the new neighbor’s LED security lights. Again. Triggered by God knows what, my son’s girl friend? a possum? a leaf? the wind? I had long sense stopped being alarmed. Listened to scratching sounds above, a rat? creaking floor boards from the hallway, my son?
I was cradled in space and time. Blanketed by solitude.
And I pondered my mortality. Death draws ever closer both in space, with COVID raging outside my door, and time, I’m old.
I’m reading God: A Biography by Jack Miles. It’s about God of the Old Testament. I haven’t finished it, but so far God is a hot mess, prone to vindictive actions, cf. Adam and Eve, broken promises, cf. Abraham and Sarah, threats of annihilation, cf. Sodom and Gomorrah and ultimately author of a failed project with his favored tribe.
Hmmm.
I recently finished Surprised by Hope by N. T. Wright. It’s about the resurrection of Jesus and the promise of a new creation. Death is conquered. Jesus will return and all will rise from the dead in transformed bodies and live eternally.
Wow.
Though I profess to be Christian, I had conveniently forgotten about all that. I’m more into the peace and justice platform.
Yet I’m open to reconsidering all this, even wish for it; I’m open to a fresh start; a new understanding, a more radical faith. But I also understand that it’s not strictly an intellectual process. It’s not a transaction, like deciding what model car I want to buy, considering all the fancy new features and then saying, “I’ll take it.”
It’s a transformation, a willingness to die to an old way and raised to a new way.
I’m open to that.
Hello, 2021.