Guardian
It's been a while since I formally became a guardian in a spiritual as well as a legal sense. In previous meditations, I pondered the role of a godfather, the role of a defender, the role of a person standing in the breach to hold a wall against the foe.
The words of the prophet Isaiah, as they have in the past, come back to remind me of my name and what its burden really is. IN Isaiah 32, the prophet says:
Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment.
And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.
And the eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken.
The heart also of the rash shall understand knowledge, and the tongue of the stammerers shall be ready to speak plainly.
The vile person shall be no more called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful.
He is describing the utopia that is the kingdom of heaven. He tells us that unrighteous princes will no longer rule, and every man shall be a shelter from the storm, a source of supply and support, the shadow of the image of God. In my own small way, I see my duty as a great one. If a man is to be a shelter, what kind of shelter am I? Some time ago, I purposed in my heart that I would be like a purgatory and sanatorium between the ills of the world and the hills of heaven.
What I mean by 'purgatory' carries the sense of being a helper alongside (parakletos) in the art of catharsis. What I mean by 'sanatorium' carries the sense of being an anchoring-point for people to become well who were not well before.
My father named me with a guardian's name and the name of a warrior and the name of a particular kind of devotion; it is my hope that I will live up to that foreshadowed destiny.
The words of the prophet Isaiah, as they have in the past, come back to remind me of my name and what its burden really is. IN Isaiah 32, the prophet says:
Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment.
And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.
And the eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken.
The heart also of the rash shall understand knowledge, and the tongue of the stammerers shall be ready to speak plainly.
The vile person shall be no more called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful.
He is describing the utopia that is the kingdom of heaven. He tells us that unrighteous princes will no longer rule, and every man shall be a shelter from the storm, a source of supply and support, the shadow of the image of God. In my own small way, I see my duty as a great one. If a man is to be a shelter, what kind of shelter am I? Some time ago, I purposed in my heart that I would be like a purgatory and sanatorium between the ills of the world and the hills of heaven.
What I mean by 'purgatory' carries the sense of being a helper alongside (parakletos) in the art of catharsis. What I mean by 'sanatorium' carries the sense of being an anchoring-point for people to become well who were not well before.
My father named me with a guardian's name and the name of a warrior and the name of a particular kind of devotion; it is my hope that I will live up to that foreshadowed destiny.
etched with acid at 1:26:00 am
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