Everything Is Symbolic

Seismic shifts

When your world falls apart. When fixed points on which you’d hung the life-affirming things that come to mind upon waking—or that are so ingrained as to be substrate and as such not thought about anymore, for that matter, break down. When these things change, as they sometimes will, where do you go? If the world fractured and fell apart, where would we go? Assuming we were “still here.” And now, wrenching all this back from both extreme abstraction and also utmost allusion (and horrible sentence fragmentation), think about those things. Your life. Your health. Your marriage. I can speak to the first two firsthand. The third, second. My parents are divorced, if that makes sense. The big stuff, you understand.

“Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled.” (Hebrews 12:15)

How small is a virus? But how important? How small is that thought of hatred you let slip by unnoticed when dealing with a passerby? The one who was following too closely this morning on the way to work? You might be astute enough to realize they (the thought their action gave rise to) begun the cascade that ruined your morning and therefore your day. But it wasn’t them. That was Jesus behind you. Or an angel. I’m serious. That it was neither but was indeed a careless individual most likely tormented by their share of vexing circumstances (Perhaps they’re going through a divorce?) is what makes the Gospel a necessity. I don’t know how to overcome those tiny, infinitesimal things known as thoughts (smaller than a virus), the ones that give rise to war and poverty and earthquakes—on my own.

“Thou shalt arise, and have mercy upon Zion: for the time to favour her, yea, the set time is come. For thy servants take pleasure in her stones, and favour the dust thereof.” (Psalm 102:13-14, emphasis mine)

This is where God comes in. The Holy Spirit is—not small enough, more like prevalent—present at those gateways. Quiet and subtle enough to quell those things that end in the aforementioned. And when the psalmist up top (Psalm 60) prays in the aftermath, sometimes all God has to work with is a billion little pieces that fit together only He knows how. I remember getting a puzzle as a kid. It was square, okay. But the image thereon was a collage of bald eagles within a circle. Like, a large head and several spread around in varying flight poses. I don’t think I ever finished it. Along with the puzzle, my mom bought me a can of aerosol fixative to cement it after its completion. Again, I never used that either. But I did dream. I dreamed shortly thereafter that the can was actually a jar of paste with a brush applicator attached to the underside of the lid. And when I opened it to pour it out on my (completed) puzzle, the goop was actually just dust. The granules of which would have been infinitesimal (but bigger than a virus or a thought).

God will put you back together.