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when walking the sun-dappled greenway, his not-quite-two year old heart can barely take it no more and he is drawn to another one of life’s most treasured and unique oddities: a stick.

he will collect all sorts of sticks during a two mile expedition. occasionally, he’ll stop to look at a flower or a caterpillar – but then something of triumphant value catches his eye and all attention is diverted to: a stick.

and my goodness! the amount of sticks this boy can cram in between his little hands and arms is astounding. just when you think he couldn’t possibly manage to hold them all while bending down to gather one more, he manipulates his pinky finger, focuses every ounce of energy and raises one more lonely stick from the cold earth from which it came. well, it’s not really all that dramatic, but it is pretty crazy.

so just yesterday this whole scenario, all of this dramatic stick-collecting and stick-raising activity, is happening like normal. and something for some reason, i blame it on the wind, causes my mind to make a correlation. this actually happens quite often if i am paying attention. and the correlation was between earth and heaven. basically, this is all a rambling way to say that i found a living object lesson unfolding in front of me.

and it was this: owen takes such great delight in collecting his sticks – perhaps he should, they represent, to him, a number of different mysterious things worth collecting! but truth be told: they are dead.

and in sort of a strange way, i watched him with this lens: walking around being drawn to and collecting little shards of death.

instantly i was struck with waves of questions:

is that an image of my life/my local church?

how often are we drawn to what we think is wildly full of life, but in the end, we look down to see our hands grasping: a stick?

how much of our life collection, so to speak, which is being held so close to our hearts is made up of old, dead fragments of lifeless ideas/traditions/beliefs?

are our lips near to GOD but our hearts far from GOD because we begin collecting and cherishing dead things? or do we begin to be drawn to the sticks of life when we become fluent with our mouth but foul with our heart? or is it a sad combination of both?

[selah]

but alas! before he becomes completely absorbed with his little lifeless wonders, i am able to convince him that we don’t need to take all the sticks home: certainly, there is an abundance of dead sticks to be found: what is wanted, my son, is life.

wait, was that what GOD said to me or what i said to owen or…? haha.

oh that we would put down our idols – and what many, many varied idols we have. oh that we would let go of the death we clutch between our hands.

what idols? you say. behold, the socio-politico-religio-relational idols. yes, even the ecclesiastical idols. the employment idols. the idols of security. of identity. of love or hate. of life or death. of want or need. every lie dressed up as truth. may they all be shaken and seen for what they are: death collecting death upon our hearts.

what are we holding on to? what are you holding on to?

(c) 2009 justin p heap

“…but really I’ve been learning how to die” – Jon foreman, Learning How To Die

to read the previous journal entry, please follow this link.

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i don’t know what’s truly more shocking: that the god elijah was trusting in to bring him to the people of that same god so that he may be a catalyst, instead told him to go hide in a ravine where “ravens will bring you meat” and “you will drink from the brook” – or that elijah actually did what was told him!

so this disturbed me. so much so that i have been letting it roll around in my mouth, switching sides like one might do with a throat lozenge; meditating and picturing elijah’s newfound life unfold.

observe. you will drink from the brook. one vibrant image came out of this, at least for me. elijah’s posture would be that of stooping, of getting low, of humbling himself to drink from the brook. now, there is nothing in the text telling us that elijah was being disciplined in any way – remember, this is elijah’s apparent introduction to the vocational career of prophet! it was just how it was.

it’s his beginning: and GOD is leading him by ways known to the humble. and so the question rises, as i begin my day, will it look like elijah’s posture of humility and surrender: bending a knee to the ground, lowering my face to the source of refreshment and life, my hands forming a bowl with palms upward turned: that i might receive from such a brook and the very promise of my god?

[selah]

then comes this peculiar little phrase: and i have directed the ravens to supply you with food. two things are really at work here.

1) ravens were in the uncoveted list of unclean animals. which is to say that, anything they touch would also be unclean. including the supply they would bring to this young prophet of GOD by the very direction of the same god.

and b) often times throughout the scriptures and ancient literature, you’ll find reference to animals in light of their very real, analogous human counterparts. which i believe to be the accurate case here. GOD would be directing “ravens”, unclean gentiles living near the kerith ravine to bring elijah food – which makes for an even more dramatic unfolding whereby we are reminded of the strange places to find the reign of GOD at work!

all leading to a second question: do i trust GOD at his word and enjoy the supply he provides? right. because for all intensive purposes, elijah could have argued with YHWH about the provision being unclean – after all, he said it would come from ravens – and he was a prophet, surely he could not be caught eating food that was unclean! right?

but this reminds me of a situation in which yeshua was asked about the supply, the very meat, of gentiles. he declares,

“are you so dull?” he asked. “don’t you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him ‘unclean’? for it doesn’t go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body.”

interesting then that yeshua was even thought to be elijah near the end of his public ministry…(luke 9.19). interesting then that yeshua is found eating with zaccheus, tax collectors, sinners, prostitutes and all of his colorful and broken friends; friends that were unclean: ravens, if you will.

yes. i believe GOD led elijah to a place that was cut through a valley by water and time, that he might be cut through the heart by Wind and time. elijah may have thought his agenda was clear, he may have thought it was about himself, he may have thought it was about speaking the right words or having the right vision or learning how to laugh at the situation he was brought to or learning how to cry real tears: but really, he would be learning how to die: how to die to pride: how to die to judgmentalism: how to die to his own agenda: how to die to himself.

and do you know how long he would be enrolled at this school of sorrow in the kerith ravine, drinking from a brook and depending upon GOD to bring the ravens? three-and-a-half-years-he-was-in-the-ravine! now, whether that was exactly 547.5 days or somewhere close to it, the point (from an authentic hebraic understanding) is that elijah was only HALF way through this process.

[selah]

we each have our own kerith ravine’s just like we each have our own calcutta’s and our own crosses. may we live and live well. and when we should falter, or completely wipeout; when we are damaged, or when we are the cause of such damage: may we live to remember that GOD can overcome a heart that is overcome (dc*b). he provides for all he has made.

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despite my unbelief, i believe that who i am is a son of the only living god & king, YHWH [blessed be his name]. a son of the resurrection. a son of the wind which bends all things.