I am a Pilgrim

"I am a pilgrim, but my pilgrimage has been wandering and unmarked.
Often what has looked like a straight line to me has been a circle or a doubling back.
Often I have not known where I was going until I was already there.

I have had my share of desires and goals, but my life has come to me or I have gone to it mainly by way of mistakes and surprises.
Often I have received better than I deserved.
Often my fairest hopes have rested on bad mistakes. 

I am an ignorant pilgrim, crossing a dark valley.
And yet for a long time looking back, I have been unable to shake off the feeling that I have been led--make of that what you will."

Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry

This book has changed my life. If I can make this a true statement for my life, I'll be content.

Hope Lives On

Every day on my way to school (whether I’m driving myself or taking the shuttle), I pass by the abandoned textile mills along Highway 29. Not too long ago, these buildings represented industry and productivity; prosperity for the community. They've been closed down for years, though, and are long since abandoned. Whatever they were, they still take up a huge stretch of the road. Empty buildings, once full of employees, life, and busyness, are now barely more than wasted space.

Since moving to the area, I’ve heard a lot about the mills and how, when they closed down, people essentially lost hope. The town is depressed, economically and emotionally (pardon me if I’m projecting [but then again, what is this blog beyond my personal projections?]). And there the mills sit: looming, haunting reminders of a time when things were different. Driving by them must be torture for some people, the ones who thought that it could never end, the ones who put all their hopes and dreams into the success of the mills.

They’re being torn down, you know. Someone told me that each of those buildings had about a million dollars’ worth of recyclable material in it. A million dollars sounds like a lot of money but in comparison to all the people who lost jobs and investments, a million dollars is a drop in the bucket. Soon the empty buildings will be gone forever—like the jobs and the hope are gone forever—and the only thing left will be an empty field. The reminder of lost hope will be gone, and maybe that’s for the best. When you’ve lost all possibility for what you hoped for, then is it better to just let the memories fade away? Is lost hope better than no hope at all?

I’m sure you’re all familiar with the Greek myth of Pandora’s Box. An overly nosy girl is told, “Please don’t open this box; you’ll regret it” and what does she do? She opens the box. Out fly Death, War, Sickness, Fear, Poverty, Pain, and any number of terrible things that should’ve remained shut up forever. As Pandora sits crying on the floor (regretting it), one last thing comes flying out of the box—Hope. As a child, I was told that hope is the best thing in the box, the one thing that makes the others tolerable. But what if that’s wrong? What if Hope was locked in the box not as a sort of consolation prize for death and sickness and pain, but because it is so dangerous? What if Hope is the most dangerous thing in the box, locked away to protect us from a very unique sort of pain?

These are the thoughts circling through my mind as of late and if you’re thinking, “Wow, that’s depressing,” you’d be right. It’s only half the story, though. The people living in the greater Valley area are renewing their hope because of new industry and because of the university’s move. We are playing a part in renewing their hope and that is such a powerful image of God. It’s scary; we don’t know what will happen. Will this transition be successful? Will we hammer out a place in this town and with these people (it reminds me of two newly married people trying to blend individual families into one) or will our presence be a cause for dismay? There’s a lot of potential here—for them and for us—but there’s also a lot of risk. Hope IS dangerous, don’t forgot, and it was put in the box for a reason. However, and this is important, every tragedy has potential for a new triumph.

The mills are being torn down, but the university is building. And hope lives on.

The Covenant

             My father’s god was always asking him to do strange things in strange ways. Mother’s favorite story was how they’d been the first family to move from my grandfather Teran’s home in Ur in five generations. “I thought he was crazy,” she’d smile, “hearing voices like that…but then your father’s god told me I’d have a baby…I laughed and he got angry. What? No, not your father, dear. The messenger. Nine months later…” she smiled and held her hands out as if to say, “The rest is obvious—here you are!” All her stories end with me. I’m not blind—I can see how old they are. My friends’ parents are all much younger and of course I’d heard whispers about my brother Ishmael and his mother Hagar. I was wanted—plain and simple.

            They’re not all like that you know. Babies, I mean. Some aren’t wanted—too many mouths to feed already or too few months since the wedding. My father is wealthy enough—and mother is perceptive enough—to take care of most of that under the table. An extra servant at supper when no one else was needed, leftover food dropped by a tent because, “We’d hate for it to go to waste.” Some babies aren’t wanted, but I have never been one of them. In a camp as large as ours, we have births every few months. When the babies are born, she holds them and whispers to them and you can tell: she always wanted more.

             I had a lot of freedom growing up. Father and Mother both had lots to do to make sure the camp ran smoothly, and although I helped Father with the animals and listened as he talked to his servants when he asked me to (“Someday, Isaac, this will be your responsibility.”) my most vivid memories of childhood are carefree. After the Fight, things changed.

“What?! No! Abraham, you must be out of your mind! How can you even consider such a terrible thing!?” Mother was angry. Mother and Father didn’t argue frequently and when they did, they made sure to do it quietly, where no one else could hear them. This time, Mother was standing in plain sight, in front of their tent, eyes blazing.

“Sarah, He told me to.” Father sounded tired, resigned. A little pleading.

“NO. He’s my only son. We won’t get another chance, Abraham, we’re lucky we have Isaac!” Her voice went up another octave and they were beginning to gather a crowd.

“Sarah. He told me.”

“Why?! Why, Abraham? Why would He give us something only to take it away? You must have misheard him. He wouldn’t—couldn’t—ask you to do something like that. That’s disgusting! It’s...wrong, Abraham, simply wrong.”

“Sarah, darling. He asked me to.”

“No! I won’t let you. Anything else He can have. He took my home—I left my clothes, my furniture, everything!—behind because I trusted you when you said He had asked you to leave. But this?! It’s too much! He cannot have Isaac! He’s my only son, Abraham. He’s all I have.” 

At this point, Mother was sobbing, and I was scared, although I didn’t understand why they were arguing about me. Father’s god had never talked to me in the same way He talked to Father, but I tried to do what Father told me to keep Him happy. I couldn’t think of anything I’d done to make Him angry. Father tried to put his arm around her, and lead her into the tent, away from staring eyes but she got angry, and began pushing my father away from her.

“Sarah,” he tried again. “Isaac already belongs to him.” Mother stopped fighting. She just stood there, dumbfounded, as if he’d hit her.

“What?”

“Isaac already belongs to him.”

We left early the next morning. Father and I went with two of our men into the desert. When I asked him where we were going, he kept quiet, as if he were afraid of the answer. We had wood for a burnt offering on the back of the donkey. I’d participated in offering sacrifices to Father’s god before and although we’d never offered a donkey before, I saw no reason why we couldn’t. It was a long trip—two days into the wilderness. The mountain range got closer and eventually, on the third morning, Father told the men he and I would be traveling on alone. I carried the wood. Father carried the knife and a smoldering coal for the sacrifice. I thought it was peculiar—we weren’t taking the donkey with us on the next leg of our journey? I asked Father what we’d use for the sacrifice. He looked at me—I’ll never forget his face—and said, “The Lord, will provide the lamb, my son. Did I ever tell you about the first time the Lord our God spoke to me?”

“Tell me again.” If the story of my birth was Mother’s favorite, this was Father’s.

“I thought I was dreaming. ‘Abram,’ God said (they called me Abram then). ‘Abram, you will have a son, an heir. Your property will remain with your family. Abram, look up—count the stars if you can. Your descendants will number more than all the stars in the sky.’ When I told your mother, she thought I was crazy. We’d tried for many years to have a child and all the midwives thought she was barren. And I was old, too, you know. We made a covenant that night—El Shaddai, God Almighty, and I. He named me Abraham—the father of many children. As many children as there are stars in the sky! I laughed when He told me. But who wouldn’t! What a preposterous thing, to think that at so old we would have a son. You—you are the fulfillment of that promise. You’re everything we could ever have hoped for.” We reached the top of the mountain. Father looked around and began gathering rocks for the altar. This was a familiar chore and I started to help.

“No, Isaac, you sit and listen. I trust God. I don’t understand him. Your mother—she thinks I understand why God says what He says to me. But I don’t! It never made sense for me to leave Haran. We were comfortable there. I was respected. But God said to me, ‘Go’ and I left. When he showed me the stars and told me I would be a father to many, I didn’t understand that either. And the sign of the covenant! You should have heard the other men argue about that command. But I trusted that God knew where we were going and here we are. No matter how crazy the order seemed, He’s never let me down. He’s never abandoned me. It’s always made sense in the end. You are the child of the covenant, the first to be included in the promise God made to your mother and me. You’re just as much part of this as I am.” Abraham—my father—stood up, looking old; older than he’d ever seemed before. I looked around. The altar was finished, the wood ready. There was no lamb in sight. “Do you understand, Isaac?”

“What?” I said, turning towards him.

“Isaac, do you understand what I’m telling you?” There were tears in his eyes. I’d never seen my father cry before. I did understand, although I wished I didn’t. What choice did I have, really? As he bound me to the altar, Abraham kept talking, telling me of his trust in El Shaddai. “You are my child, given to me by the Lord in fulfillment of the covenant,” he repeated, raising the knife over my head. I closed my eyes in terror, irrationally glad I was tied too tightly to try to escape. “You’re just as much a part of this as I am.”

“Abraham!” My eyes flew open and I searched for the person speaking. I had never heard that voice before. But, oh, I have heard it since.

He sobbed. “Yes, Lord!”

“It is enough. Untie your son.”

We made a sacrifice to my God on the mountaintop that day, and returned home to Sarah, who cried, and held me so tightly I bruised.