Straight rows of paper-clipped perfection. Tucking the stray page back in line, I turn and smile. House perfectly clean and now lesson plans done, I saunter down to the chapel in a flowing dress and gold earrings because I am celebrating. Finally, for the first time since June, I feel victorious. Everything is okay because everything is done and I am good.
The children are singing. I was off copying and stapling and glorying in self-made perfection and they were singing. I rename conviction foolish tradition and slip late into the pew's end.
"But you are poor, pitiable, naked, wretched, and blind."
I feel my beautiful dress and my gold earrings and I don't feel pitiable this morning. And I have been pitiable before and for all my toil don't I deserve one day to feel like I've got it all together? Must I always be crushed to the floor?
Quietly creep in the memories and I remember that my own goodness is always a fraud. I remember the fallout, remember the pain as the flesh I trusted implicitly failed. And I see, cold and without sorrow, that I am like Israel who Yahweh calls a whore, that I only worship the true God when my household deities let me down.
I know it is coming. Sin, exile, repentance, deliverance. Over and over I live the Judges story and I do not want exile again. But nothing in me repents just yet. I plead for soul hunger as I sit feeling self-satisfied. Either I must bruise to know the worthlessness of my frequented shrines or see something of the glory. I am weary of bruising. Show me Your glory.
Our campus minister stands in the water and following him is dark braids and skinny arms and bright-shining eyes. The long tee shirt envelops her third-grade tinniness like an angel white and I hold my spine to the pew, remembering.
It was a different church (ours lacked a baptismal) and everything was strange and new and I floated in Daddy's white tee shirt like the angel dress from the Christmas play. Crouching beside the pool he shared my third-grade testimony, my assurance that I was stupid and dumb and lazy and needed Jesus so very badly. And on the basis of that confession in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost I by water died and by water was born into a family that sang of following Jesus with no turning back.
And as I pray for a vision of His glory my Ethiopian sister affirms that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Death under the water dies and new life is born up into the joy of God's household. The minister, also her hall parent, wraps her shoulders in his big hands and we her family sing over her of following Jesus with no turning back. I see the glory.
The breakings still do come for me. I fail and flounder and get what I prayed for, a vision of myself as the lump of clay in need every moment of Holy Breath. Someday I will have a vision of God big enough to give Him glory when all goes well. For now I stay down near the floor with no glory to give
To return to your first love you must remember the height from which you've fallen. I remember the dripping third grader I saw and the one I was and I affirm the truth again. I believe He is the Christ--the Messiah, the One Who saves--because I agree I need a savior. And He's the Son of the Living God. The rescue won't be partial; the salvation cannot fail. Death stingless lies in a victory-deprived grave. And the same power that defied death to pull Jesus out of Hell will bring all who will out of our dying and into Him Who is the Life. For third graders everywhere, yes. For idolaters whose household gods have failed, certainly. For the self-assured, unaware they are poor and pitiable and naked and wretched and blind, even them. In His light we see light, and we have no where else to go.
We have decided to follow Jesus. No turning back, no turning back.
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