Every now and then, usually when we least expect it, we stumble into a defining moment … and things are never the same again. We are never the same again. Life is never the same again.
It’s one of those moments you can always name … in the year that you graduated, in the year planes were piloted into the world trade centre, in the year your mother or father died, in the year your child was killed, in the year you were diagnosed with cancer, in the year you lost your job, in the year your marriage failed, in the year that Covid came, in the year that someone turned a gun on someone you love, in the year that a suicide changed everything … in the year that the fires came … in the year that we lost our home … it’s the kind of time one of the ancestors in our storied traditions starts his story by “in the year that King Uzziah died” … in the year your life changed forever what did you do?
One young man in the ancient world went into a temple in search of something for which he had no name. It was not only his king who died. Maybe it was the first time death had gotten personal. It came not to a stranger but to someone he knew. It was a time of national insecurity and a time of personal crisis. The naiveté of early adulthood is shattered. In this vulnerable moment, Isaiah takes himself to the temple. All kinds of moments in our lives take us in search of something we can trust in a world where change comes to everything and everyone.
There are all kinds of things that bring people through the doors of a temple, a church, a synagogue, a mosque, an ashram … habit, the birth of a child, ceremonies like baptism or marriage, the death of someone you love, loneliness, depression, to be with friends, to hear music, to maybe if you are like a friend of mine you are just trying out a new pair of running shoes and they just happen to take you on a walk right into church on a Sunday morning … a place she hadn’t been in years. For a Jew in the 7th BCE, in the crisis of his moment, taking himself to the temple, was a reasonable thing to do. And that’s where all hell broke loose.
To our 21st century ears, deaf to the symbols of another time and culture, this is a rather ridiculous story full of winged things, smoke and voices. But somewhere in the midst of it all, Isaiah finds himself in the presence of mystery … like so many before him and so many of us after him … In the midst of the mess confronting his life and his nation, in the midst of his tired tradition, Isaiah has stumbled into a defining moment.
It was once upon a time much like our time …a time when the kings are dying … when institutions and customs, traditions and assumptions, economic and political systems are dying … our authoritative structures are disintegrating. Traditions are taking flight just like the fabled winged creatures of Isaiah’s mystical moment … we are beginning to see the so called holy sites and structures we’ve built to define and confine mystery, the rites and sacraments we’ve prescribed, the holy days we’ve designated are filling with smoke …. Just like Isaiah’s temple was filled with smoke.
Ours is a smoky time, too … smoke that has separated us certainty. Again and again, our world is shaken … by the fires that burn out of control … by acts of nature like tsunami, hurricanes and earthquakes; by acts of hate and acts of fear; by acts of terror and by acts of sheer imperfection; by acts of courage and acts of love, by acts of hope and possibility. Like Isaiah, we cry out that we feel lost; we feel insecure; we feel unsure. The foundations are shaken and the house is filled with smoke. ”These are smoky times … times shrouded in danger and ambiguity.
And where there is smoke, there is often a mirror. That was Isaiah’s experience. In the midst of all that holy haze, he catches a sidelong glance at himself in the mirror and is overcome with a sense of urgency. What is he doing with his life? Has anything he has done with his life really matter? If this were to be his last breath, would it matter that he had been born? He is too young for a mid life crisis! But he is not satisfied with what he sees in the mirror. Not only does he feel the waste and self absorption of his own life but he senses the shortcomings of his society, its values and aspirations. And he laments and repents … he takes a good long hard look at what isn’t right with his world … and begins to ask how he can make a difference …
We get the sense that he is seized by the mystery of life and the miracle of his being … when the smoke clears, we find ourselves in the charred landscape where renewal begins … where the stubborn green pushes through scorched earth … where fireweed rises with the courage of its colors …
When the smoke clears, we can see that altars are everywhere … that we will never define or confine mystery … but catch glimpses of sacredness everywhere, in everyone and everything.
The Indigenous people of this land … and indeed the Indigenous peoples of many parts of the world … have long known the sacramental nature of smoke … have handed down over generations various ceremonial practices involving smoke … whether it is pipe ceremonies or smudging … smoke is offered for healing, for cleansing, for guidance …for clearing negative or unhealthy energy … in some Indigenous ceremonies in Australia, particular plant medicines are offered to the fire releasing their healing properties as smoke … part of a practice to prepare to enter a particular place, a landscape where you come as a stranger.
In these smoky times, there is an opportunity for us … an opportunity to open ourselves to ambiguity and mystery … to bravely see ourselves and our world as it really is … to lament … to burn our lips on the truth of it all much like Isaiah did … and then to move beyond our woe is me … woe is life … woe is the world … to let the smoke have its way with us … to say yes to the wonder not just to the woe … to say yes to feeling our smallness in the bigness of it all without giving up our small part in it all … to find where we needed and do what we can … to see that we each bring something that is needed.
In these smoky times, may our throats get scratching with truth, our eyes burn with compassion and may wonder have its way in us … re-firing our passion for life and our need for one another.
-Nancy Steeves
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