A couple of days ago my niece said, "I love Grandad, up, up, up ..." My sister and mum expected her to say, "up in heaven," but instead she said, "up in the desert."
The prosaic reason for this is probably that my Mum and Dad had told her about visiting the desert during their recent holiday in Israel and had enthused about how interesting the desert there was.
More profoundly, as children's insights often are, my Dad (her grandad) is, through his illness, now in the desert metaphorically. Time spent in the desert has often been seen as liminal or transitional time and that is certainly where my Dad is currently. Caught between the life he has lived for 71 years and the life he will continue to live with Christ after death, what he is currently experiencing in his unconcious but still breathing state is no life at all by comparison.
When the Israelites travelled through the wilderness they, despite their meanderings and circlings, were en-route for the Promised Land. The same could be said of my Dad. Their meanderings and circlings were deemed necessary for learning lessons that would be needed when they entered the Promised Land. Quite what my Dad can or is learning from his wilderness experience I do not know.
It may be, of course, that there are lessons for our family to learn from this wilderness time; because that is also where we are as we wait for something to happen, speaking to, touching, and praying for him not knowing whether he can hear or register any or all of what we do, say or feel. Again, if there are lessons to be learned at the moment I do not know what the hell they are!
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Black Eyed Peas - Where is the love?
No comments:
Post a Comment