his steel wings,
hard blades, sharp and black.
he plunged straight to earth.
screaming silently downward,
he turned on his axis,
then turned again.
each rotation tight, crisp,
impossible.
his bullet dive,
dark, sleek, and foreboding.
he burned and tore the air.
then,
catastrophic collision inevitable,
white feathers fluttered as
he broke to the horizon,
and floated over the hill,
supper secure.
It was a warm January Monday afternoon. The hills were decked out in their close-fitting new suit of green velvet. The grass was still short and snug against the contours of the land. Outcroppings of rock and oak and sage accentuated the smooth rolling hills here and there, marking the curves and hollows and slopes with their suddenness. A red tailed hawk drifted lazily in wide circles high over head.
He was walking the three mile running trail behind the software lab where he worked. The lunch-time joggers had done and showered and gone. Now the place was all alone with him. There would be no interruptions or intrusions to violate the solitude of his walk. He had come out to wrestle with God.
Wrestling with God. Why was it so difficult to know, or hear, or comprehend, or ignore, or simply dismiss this great being who seemed to be so present and so distant; so close and so remote? There had been simpler times when talking to God, hearing God, knowing God, had been much easier. Times when he had known far more clearly how the world was put together and how he belonged in it. Times when he had known enough to be confident and a bit brash. Times when he had known what it was to be right. But those times had passed. None of it held together nicely any more, and now he only knew that being alive was good, and that this God who was such a mystery to him was somehow still his friend. He was no longer interested in orthodoxy. The God of Everything had given him a walking trail among the hills with privacy and quiet and time. It was enough.
So he walked. And he talked to his God, and talked with his own heart, and listened and laughed and cried and sang to them both. As he made his way along the path through the hills, a quiet little person awoke within him; a person he had always known, a person he had always been, but never acknowledged; a person more feminine than he envisioned himself to be, but who was no threat to his masculinity. In fact, it seemed as he walked openly with this little one, that his maleness was somehow strengthened and nurtured; that he grew stronger and clearer with each step. And remarkably, the little one knew God far more clearly and intimately than his rational, controlling maleness could. He found that he could converse with her freely and know his presence in the world in a new way. His understanding began to take on a clarity not of logic, but of being present.
Suddenly the hawk tucked his wings into a tight fold and plummeted straight to earth. Just as suddenly, and with crisp precision, he rotated a quarter turn to the left, then a quarter turn left again. Still, his silent, screaming dive was unabated as he tore through the air like a bullet. How could he break free before crashing into the rock-strewn velvet of the hillside below? Then, miraculously,
as quickly as he had fallen from the sky, he was floating in a smooth slow glide over the edge of the hill. His dive had ended as abruptly and effortlessly as it had begun. Somehow, this remarkable event, so quick, so precise, so graceful and astonishing, spoke to him with the voice of God. He could not articulate the message clearly, but the little one within him knew its blessing and joy and present power. It was done. Now he could return to the silver towers and his office within, a gentle new power hiding inside him.
No comments:
Post a Comment