Sister Wisdom and the Youth Gone Wired.
It’s 6pm. I’m sitting outside a takeaway eating dolly mixture under my mask and watching the world. The streets are quiet. The shops are shut. The boys are still out. In their cars they move like snails under 4×4 shells with blacked out windows. I smile to myself as windows roll down, masks are removed, and cheeks are kissed. Walking down the street a group of younger teens huddle laughing and arguing with a phone. They’re watching the cars from the corner of their eyes hoping to be seen and go unnoticed all at once. I’m thinking about all they are facing, these young ones: exams are messed up; university is messed up; apprenticeships are cancelled. It feels like we’re asking them to pretend they don’t notice we are fumbling to maintain a world that wasn’t working. So brothers kiss and patrol the streets and smoke their dreams to sleep watched by those still forming. They’re wired. They can rest, work, play, create, love and hurt. But what’s it all for?
My phone vibrates with an update: your takeaway will be ready in 25 mins. Lock-down means business is booming here. I adjust my back against the wall and enjoy the evening sun in my face. I don’t mind waiting. I sit and wonder with the Father around these thoughts: the boys, the cars, the future. The Spirit invites me to step into Wisdom and see where she is. I watch as a story unfolds in my mind.
Sister Wisdom sighs and rests her back against the door frame of another house, another town. She tells me a story that seems familiar.
Days and days are playing out on repeat. Different faces, different families, same fears. There is a weariness she knows well. She has seen these scenes too many times, and her heart burns with the longings of her 3God.
She catches herself humming the line of a song from long ago “my heart is with the princes”. That’s why she’s here. Watching. Waiting. Humming. I’m wondering where she is, and who the people are.
She feels the groaning of the soil under her feet. The vibration of land that knows what it is to be kissed by the presence, honoured by the people, and flourish. Land remembers. It knows what is coming.
But first. First the princes have to find their crowns. Only no one had remembered to warn them that this day might come. No one thought to mark out the old ways for them. No one honoured the passage from boy to man, or whispered to them the secrets of how to move with honour through their days. Those with money and family had been looked after. They’d been fed, educated and indulged. The elders told themselves this was good enough, whilst mocking the young men for their soft hands. Old men had forgotten they were guardians. They’d parted company with the ways of Wisdom some decades ago and grown to despise her sweet counsel.
The young men were wired. They grew up in the tension between anxiety and complacency. They heard the mutterings of the old prophets. Those mocked by the elders and called conspiricists.
And when no one was looking they leaned in to listen.
No one noticed. Except for Sister Wisdom. When they leaned she leaned. These young men might have soft hands, but they had curious hearts. The apathy surrounding them as they grew had quickened in them both a hunger and a dissatisfaction with what was on offer. This had wired them to listen beyond the broadcasts they were fed. Her heart was with these princes as they mooched through the streets searching for purpose. She knew them.
That was then. Sister Wisdom said to me. And it is now. Do you see? Some 2600 years separate your stories and theirs, and still I watch the princes. I weep for them, and I’m amazed by them. In spite of all you fed them – and because of all you fed them.
You would be wise to watch them.
Ah, we are in Jerusalem. Babylon is poised to plunder the nation. I see. And we are here. Today. Waiting for takeaway and wondering what the Autumn holds. When the families in Jerusalem realised the truth the land already knew there was a murmuring across the wealthy homes. Mamas wept, grandmas muttered and boys pretended to be ready for a fight. They just weren’t sure yet what they were fighting for.
From her position in the doorway Sister Wisdom drew some lines for me: In Daniel’s day the fight was picked for the wealthy boys: exile. When the invaders came with a forced recruitment program the princes were first on the list to go. They pretended to be strong. They thought their wealth and status would protect them. They’d be told it would so many times. But they couldn’t possibly imagine the world across the desert, so far away from home. Days of journeying turned into weeks for these boys. I stroked so many heads when they quietly wept at night. I watched in wonder as exile honed their memories of the prophet-words and they proved loyal to the memories. They remembered their God. Often at great cost. Exile became the guardian their elders had failed to be. It became the teacher of the old roads, and the bestower of crowns. I was their companion all the way.
Come with me, Sister Wisdom said. There’s a day I want you to see. Daniel was only 15 when they came for him in his home.
We’re standing in the entrance of a courtyard house near a large window. I see a father white lipped and trembling with fear and rage. A mother silently wailing, held up by her mama who knew better how to swallow grief until the midnight hours. His sisters in the corner of the room wide-eyed as foreigners took their brother away forever. Daniel holding himself still. He had often slipped away from the bustle of home to listen to the old man on the edge of town. He listened deeply, and he asked questions of his teachers. He spoke with friends in the streets who believed something terrible was coming. They told themselves they were ready. When the soldiers came he knew he wasn’t ready. But he had committed to memory the words of the old man:
“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and bring you back from captivity” Jeremiah 29:13
He played them on repeat as he said his goodbyes.
I’m suddenly aware of the cold concrete under my jeans, and how long I’ve been sitting. The sensation brings me back to my city. To the princes as they cruise the streets, exchanging dreams for herbs and sleeping through their glory days. Sister Wisdom is with me. She’s pushing me to think, to create, to choose. Does it have to be exile? I ask, afraid of her answer. She answers, as she often does, with a question:
When you were young – a prince in the city – what did the guardians tell you the old roads were? The ancient paths that the prophet spoke of?
We sat for a while as I lost myself in thought. I remembered churches, and meetings for the youth. I remembered stories and cautionary tales. I remembered that “love” often looked like fear in hiding. The old roads were traditions that clung like polyester clothing to the skin: it was what we were told to wear, but it was never comfortable. It stuck, and you couldn’t breath easily. From this distance the ancient paths seemed more sentiment than substance. They never won my heart.
So, she says. Breaking into my remembering. If the road names on the map of ancient paths aren’t nuclear family, or Sunday sabbath, or 10% to God before tax. What are they?
I don’t know. And the I-don’t-know grows bigger like a wormhole and if she wasn’t here I’d be so afraid right now. Afraid of coming unhooked from my moorings. Afraid that she’d find my compass had been broken for a long time. That I’d relied on it regardless. But there’s something about her. She looks into my eyes with true curiosity. She’s still. Certain. Free.
She reaches out and cradles my head in her hands. I can breathe again. I see the map, and written on every path are the letters: SHEMA. The word echoes back to the early days of the relationship humans were invited into with the 3God, and can be found in the gospels from the mouth of the Son:
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” Mark 12 29-31
Do you see? She whispers. The ancient paths are the ones that walk out the unity of the 3God, and the love they demonstrate.
Cassie please hear me: The 3God is unified: of one mind and opinion. He is love, and that doesn’t change. His creation is good – you are good. He’s never changed His mind about that. So love them. It’s safe to do. And be loved by them. It’s both safe and a little wild. And learn to love: the land, the sea, the people. These are the ancient paths. So plain but so complex when you’re juggling ethics and choices. He trusts you. They are the paths to riches and poverty. The paths to life and through the grave at times. They’re dangerously simple. There will be many crossroads and choices you’ll be free to make. You’re welcome to forge new paths. If you find you can’t write SHEMA on them, you might have to turn back and create again. He thinks very highly of you, His children. He likes to watch you create, and dream, and choose, and love. It’s not a game.
He knows you’ll forget. Old paths grow over if they’re not used frequently. Find them. Walk them again. Remind others where they are. The boys in cars are watching you too, you know. Remember the crazy old guardians who have always been mocked by the elders, but heeded by the young? Be one. Be free. Remember.
My phone vibrates again – the food is ready, and Sister Wisdom has places to be. Before she leaves she says: in answer to your question, the 3God doesn’t need an exile to rewire you. Do you?