Altar

Altar

Samuel Bird

His foot slipped too far forward in his sandal as he climbed the brush-covered hill, catching a sharp rock, and throwing his upper body down against the ground. He caught himself and tried not to breathe as the sharp cool pain quickly turned into a throbbing heat. He looked down to see his toe was not bleeding, but clearly would feel bruised in the morning. He looked away, to the top of the hill, as he straightened his long cloak and picked up his staff again. What lesson was there in this? Was God trying to tell him something? Perhaps it was a reminder of who was in charge. Maybe it was a lesson about misery. He sought to pull from this experience anything he could, to learn God’s ways in His dealings with Him. He wondered if he had made a mistake. The naive hubris of youth nearly became apparent to him as he considered the mission that pulled his young beardless face from the only village he ever knew: He sought to walk with God. He did not know what that meant, only that he wanted it. Perhaps that was the first thing for him to do. What did it mean to walk with God? Well, it didn’t mean that God walked with you in the sense that we walk with another, as God is without flesh or bone. So then, to him it must have been something more about some endeavor that one embarked on with God. What did it mean to embark? In this, as far as he could reason, to engage alongside as it was relative to God. What about this endeavor? What was he trying to accomplish that was worth not only the misery of a dashed foot, but the forgoing of his family having his supporting labor? He said down in a more honest moment of defeat. What did he want out of this? He did not know, but certainly it must be acceptable to search for what you know not for. However, how then could you identify it once he had come across it? Even if he could think of a reason, what if he then passed a better one countless times and never saw it. “God, what answers can I expect from questions I know not what to give?” In this moment he reasoned, though not aware of this thought process, that questions are a predicate statement, of which you are asking the parting you inquire to fill in. If we ask “who” is God, we ask to identify the subject of the sentence. If we ask “why” God sets on this journey, we identify the object. If we ask “what” does he want me to do, we identify the predicate. The question he had for God was not where one portion of a statement was missing and was being asked to be filled in, but where he offered no assumption. He had no sure given word and only had the placeholders of who’s doing what for what reason. Could he shrug his shoulders to heaven with some universalist generalization? Even if he assumed God sought to deliver that which is asked of Him, he still had to ask what it sufficiently meant to ask God. Could he say he wanted to know what to pray for and to pray for that? “God, I am lost.” He said in quite confusion. He felt weary, as if it were the end of the day, but the sun seemed to take its time to the side of him that suggested much more of a day to come. “Lord, I want holiness.” Finally, a thought gifted to him by God’s grace and not of his original composition. He had one part of his general question he could offer up to God. Holiness. However, what was holiness? He could think of ritual repetition and selfless service, but these were more events that contained the idea than the idea in itself. Wherein was the fullness of the idea? He tilted his head back to look up at the sky. “God.” He said in answering rather than addressing. God was the manifestation of holiness to the extent that to the degree he approximated holiness, it was then only to the degree he was close to God. He then considered God’s presence. He thought of that last and final communion of which he could feel His company. That was what he sought. However, perhaps this was a poor goal. It then would require him to hasten to see God, of which killing was seen to him to be a sin. What did he figure out in all this thinking? No more information. This was just another exploration of his divine yearnings. He continued his way up the hill before hearing a quiet and soft smashing and clinking sound. He dropped down in autonomic concern for it being a predator or thief. Once crouched and wide eyed, however, he felt a sense of stillness, of which he hoped he did not err in attributing to God. With faith he made his way up the hill, and with faithlessness he did so quietly and crouched. Once cresting over the small hill, he hid behind some more of the desert brush as he looked down. Scanning the small valley below, he saw an old man carrying stones. In his hand was one stone that he carried low to his body, by the end of his long beard. He moved slowly and methodically, which was demonstrative of his reverence. Despite the man’s age, he could see that he was strong, and the carrying of only one stone must have been from a desire to be present. He looked to where he was walking. A few paces from where the man was now was a pile of stones, three feet wide, six feet long, and slightly under a foot tall. The man then placed the stone with the tenderness a child placed in his crib. Once again, he heard the gentle and quiet smash of the stone to its new neighbor. “God, I thank you for bringing me this holy man building his altar.” He then stepped out from the brush and began his way down the hill. “Hello, hello...” He slipped slightly as his sandals once again were in his way. “Hello, fellow servant of the Lord.” He said after continuing on. “I am come to walk with the Lord. May I help you?” By the time he finished the last sentence, he was now a few feet from the old man. The old man didn’t say a word. He simply had this emotional and bewildering look in his eye. Within was wisdom, within was grief. He simply nodded then walked past the young man on his way to pick up a stone past him. He assumed the old man had taken some vow of silence or perhaps was deeply involved in this ritual. Either way, the young man reasoned that he would have to keep his many questions to himself. He spotted his own stone, and walked up to it and grabbed it. In the fashion of working on his family’s farm, he turned quickly before seeing the old man walk thoughtfully and intentionally. The young man slowed his gate and followed after the old man. The old man came to the pile of rocks, paused, and then gently clicked his rock into a place it seemed to be made for. The young man stepped forward and went to stack his rock, but before he could, the old man reached out his pausing palm. After a grunt of negation, he pointed to a small crevice. After a small moment of thought, the young man placed his stone there, before looking to the old man who nodded a serious but condoning approval. While the young man looked on him with wide-eyed curiosity, the old man nodded gently and began his slow walk out into the valley, just far enough to get another rock. He marveled at the majestic attention the old man gave to the walking, grasping, and placing of the stone. It was as if he never broke prayer. Who was this man, a priest, a prophet? What did he have to teach the young man? It seemed so far he learned to do the small parts of a ritual with deliberation... and that he was getting behind! He ran behind the old man quietly before slowing down once he got closer, to hide his lazy thinking. The old man slowly reached down and grabbed his stone, before turning around and walking on. The young man grabbed a stone off from the side, uncovering the dirt that covered the rest of it, and began his walk back. The old man placed his stone, and then the young man went to. He found a spot that seemed to be perfect, before the man reached out his hand again, and this time pointed at the stone. The young man noticed that the others were sun bleached and clean, while his was dirty. The old man shook his head. The young man smiled awkwardly, and threw the stone to the side. They both went back out, but this time when he went to place his stone and was stopped, he noticed that the stone was much larger. This time, he did not throw it, but set it close by as a spot to sit. They went back, grabbed their rock, and this time the young man looked into the old man’s eyes, which shook in his denying head, and pointed to a different spot. He was glad that at least now the rock was acceptable. He began to think of what altar God deserved, and that such a perfect altar would deny some of his offerings. They each walked back and grabbed their stones, before coming back. This time, as he placed the stone in its place, the old man nodded with a wise affirmation. He felt vindicated. He felt like he was learning. Some stones belong in certain places, why not man? One carrying of the rock turned into another, and another, and another, until the young man found himself collapsing into a naturally meditative state. He began to be aware, first of the stone, then of the ill-fitted sandals, then his body, then himself. He began to close his eyes as he walked to and fro, memorizing the path and letting himself be carried. Each time he got to the pile of stones, his eyes better and better foresaw where his offered stone should go. The stone clicked into place with increasing fitting. In the repetition, his psyche found rhythm for narrative. He felt a wholeness, a realness, a... Holiness. Was God here with him in carrying his stone? They began to walk further, and further out into the valley to find the perfect rocks. His body ached for the task to come to an end, but his soul revelled in the exponentially distancing completion. Finally, in front of him, the old man slowed and stopped. He looked down at the new pile of stones. He then lowered his head and stepped to the side. He then slowly jerked his head to one side, gesturing for the young man to place the second to last stone. He found his place, and fit it in perfectly, before moving off to the side. The old man then centered himself in front again. Before looking down with a loving and yet pained face. And gently moving his hand down. As his stone came closer, his hands began to shake. Right before the stone was placed, it stopped there, and hung in the air, as if the old man wasn’t ready for what it meant for it to be placed. Finally, he gently placed the last stone into place as the now sunsetting rays danced across his face. He held his hands over the spot and bowed. He then collapsed to his knees. He still said nothing. The young man felt his role kept him from saying anything, so he remained silent as well. Time flowed at some unfamiliar rate to the young man. Finally, the old man lifted up his head, though now covering his face. He then, with bowed head, glided backwards and sat himself on the large stone the young man had left. The old man bent over with his face hidden. The young man felt lost and confused, looking around, he only saw a donkey tied to some of that desert brush. He walked toward it to see where the man had left the sheep, but saw none. He noted he had not heard their bleating. Perhaps they had run off, or someone was to bring them. He went back to the old man, wondering if he dared break the silence to potentially warn him of his missing sheep. He stood next to the old man, waiting for courage to rattle his vocal chords enough for sound to come out. “The... The lamb is not here.” The old man looked up from his folded shape, and the old man’s teary and whimpering face looked up at him. “Lamb?” The old man began to cry before speaking with a shaky voice. “Lamb? She is laid here. My one flesh, laid to rest as my body is left to wander. God took what I could never offer to Him. Let God deliver a lamb, let God be the lamb, for today he has made all that was to me, His.” The young man looked to the altar, and realized it wasn’t so. He fell to his knees as the nauseation and grief struck him. He stared at the pile of stone with new, more pained, more misery, more suffering, and yet more sacrificial, more penitent, and more holy eyes. “She?” The young man asked. “Yes, and what a wonderful one. Men ask for gold, for power, for glory. At the young age of nineteen, I got all I wanted from this world. Life was then only a means of laboring for her. She was all, and everything, and forever. That is, until she was not. If I am to live, there will come a moment where I must go away from this place, and she is to stay. And she will never again go where I go.” The old man responded. He stood up and shakily walked and staggered toward the stone tomb. He then fell to his knees before his face was buried in the stone. “Why?” He shrieked with a cracking voice in a way that tore through the young man’s soul. “Why?” The old man screamed, now with more anger. “Why?” He moaned one last time, now quieter. The old man walked not to his previously considered altar, but to the side of the man. The old man went silent as his quivering lip said all the words he couldn’t. The young man thought back to every precious word of God he had heard. He thought of all these arguments for why God does what. He considered all the wise counsel he could offer and how true it would be. He then left all that behind him. In that moment, that young man became a man. Not because his elders helped him do so as he had supposed, but because his elder needed him. His mouth stayed closed as his arms stayed open. He let his body fall forward on the older man as he grasped him in his arms. He felt the quiver of his lips and the heat of his tears against his cloak sleeves. The old man seemed to sink as the child does in his mothers arms. He held him as the sun slipped behind the desert brush covered hills and left them in silent darkness. “It is too much that she is gone.” The old man said before the now full man lent back and looked him in the eye. “Then who can do more than the possible, than He who she rests with.” “But she is away from me.” “And cared for by God.” “I can’t live without her.” “You sacrificed for her all your days, in your last of them you spend yours here while she is there. God...” The man cut himself off as he was beginning to teach. “No more teaching.” He said before stepping back into a kneel and clasping the old man’s hands in his. “God, we know nothing, are nothing, and can do nothing.” I pray in my nothingness to you in your everything for this man. I... pray to God for him.” The young man then stood up. The old man then bowed his head and began to pray. He prayed for forgiveness. He prayed for humility. He prayed for healing. The old men didn’t have any purported and consoling answers, but he had he who is the great Mystery. It was not what the young man taught, it was not the anger the old man felt, it was the suffering with God. “Who cares about what, and who, and why?” He thought. “What is holy, is who you walk with and why you do it”. The young man then stepped away and began his walk to the opposite side of the valley he came from. No wisdom for him, just choosing to suffer with God. He didn’t learn any new ideas, but he did something godly. One last thought came to his mind. “It was an altar.”