Paul
He’s laughing at me again. I guess he can only watch my fumbling in silence for so long. I am starting to be able to laugh along these days because proud and cross are old friends that I don’t often invite for the travelling. He laughs a lot, Paul. I’m always pleased to see him.
It’s not been an easy week. My head aches and my heart is weighty. There’s a song playing in the background that I’m listening to. A simple song about the 3God. It swells and drops like waves and Paul starts to move his hands like a conductor marking time. As the song ends I wait for him to say what he has to say. He’s going to anyway.
I like it, is his comment. True words. They bring comfort to the fearful soul. Stability in a confusing time. A deep breath and a warm embrace. Listen with me again:
You speak and make light
And you extinguish
All of the darkness
You speak and make light
You speak and make right
Chaos to order
The sky from water
You speak and make right
You did and you do
Make all things new
And it was
And it is
And it will be good
You breathe and make life
Out of the dry dust
Carefully form us
You breathe and make life
You wait in stillness
Lingering with us
Making it holy
You wait in stillness*
I inhale the stillness as we listen together. It fills my lungs and trickles to my extremities and it is good. He is good. As I open my eyes I catch Paul locked in a wistful stare. The silence is measured by the ticking clock on my kitchen wall as I wonder where he is and what’s on his mind.
He blinks and turns to me. Lifting his left hand up he begins to draw a line in the air. Here you are. He points a dot to the left end of his air-line. Here they are. He indicates the right end of the line. And here’s the song right in the middle. You sing to them: you speak and make light. He pauses, and with longing says: you sing and you keep on singing. And we wait for you to hear the antiphony: the song sung back.
He laughs again as the chugging brain cogs manifest on my face and grabs my hand. Come. I’ll show you.
The grass is rough under my bum, and the sun is just the right kind of warm. It must be late afternoon, but the smell. Wow. There’s no mistaking the salty smell of non-deodorised bodies. It’s like I’m on a hill somewhere, and simultaneously in any geek venue that sells miniatures. Paul is standing next to me observing the clusters of people sprawled out on the grass. It’s noisy and happy and chaotic. Elders are arguing, kids running, friends are catching up. Satisfied by what he has seen Paul sits next to me as some men and women move through the crowd quietening the children and stilling conversations. I hear the murmur of the people: the rabbi is here. And the silence that falls before he speaks: this then is how you should pray….our father.
My backside registers the change first as the rough warmth of the grass gives way to the smooth finish of a parquet floor. I run my hand over the texture of the interlocking wooden bricks. Remembering. There are many small bodies, but no background chatter, as the school assembly draws to a close. The headteacher instructs the folding of hands, bowing of heads and says: so then, let us pray: our father.
I open my eyes and look around for Paul. He’s standing against the PE bars at the edge of the hall where the staff rest their backs for a moment. As I catch sight of him he waves and beckons for me to follow. I see him move down a corridor, and leave through a door on the right. I find him in a small concrete courtyard with a bench and some brick planters containing dejected rose bushes and a few small perennials.
This brings back so many memories I say to him. Milk bottles with blue straws, checked cotton dresses and shortbread with pink custard. I take a seat on the bench in the afternoon sun as he perches on the wall. Do you miss it? He asks. Not at all, is my answer. I guess it was simpler. Maybe safer. I don’t know. But I wouldn’t want to stay.
No. He’s looking intently at me. There’s something he is waiting for me to see. I wait for the explanation, and instead he places his hands together, closes his eyes and bows his head. I laugh as he intones “as our father taught us, so we pray.” But find myself closing my eyes and lowering my head as muscle memory kicks in.
Then I hear him whisper:
Now would be a good time to open your eyes.
I look at him. He’s standing now, ready to pace it out. Paul cranking it up a gear always makes me smile. His next question stills me.
Do you ever wonder why you were only taught to bow your head before a throne you were also qualified to sit on?
He paces out his next point in a figure of eight while I process his question.
These words were also the prayer of the Lord, Cassie:
“I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one- as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me.”
He stops walking and takes in the 60’s pebble dashed enclosure.
Primary school. He says. It was quite a stretch you know, for all of us. For those on the hillside listening to the Rabbi, for those of us who were chased down by him on a different path. He took our knowing and all the stories we carried and … it was quite a stretch. In the tension we grew, and as it increased we became….. well, I am here with you today.
So when they asked him how to pray, he took their hands and dropped in a seed that was designed to grow.
I’m following, just. I’m not sure I can go much further surrounded by so much pebble-dash, but the pacing is accelerating so I breathe and wait. I’ve been the audience in front of a pacer many times. Coiled tighter than a spring, radiating nervous energy. My shoulders are tight until I notice his steps are light, and the energy he radiates is warm.
I breathe.
He taught them to pray “your kingdom come”, and it came. And when it came he gave it to them.(Luke 12:32) Theirs was the Kingdom. He taught them to pray that their sins would be forgiven, then gave them authority to forgive sins. (John 20:23) He said they should give God honour, that the kingdom, the power and the glory (John 17:22) belonged to him. And then he gave them his glory, the keys to the kingdom, and the power to do greater things.
You’re tired and you want to remind yourself of who they are, the 3. They see your weariness and long to remind you of who you are. Create! Cassie. It will chase away the unbelief. Do what they gave you to do. Listen as they echo back to you:
You speak and make light
And you extinguish
All of the darkness
You speak and make light
Because the Kingdom, the power and the glory are yours. Believe. Them, and yourself. And then maybe we can really leave this courtyard, and the milk bottles, and even the pink custard behind.
2021. It’s time.
*Jodie Alexander-fry, Leslie Jordan
Vineyard Worship
John 17 NLT