Inciting Moment

"The empty tomb doesn't make sense without the cross. The cross doesn't make sense without the manger,and the manger doesn't make sense without the garden of Eden. It's all one story. And only when you finally untangle it, see its scope, and enter it for yourself do you realize that the story has finally entered and at last entangled you." Steven James, Story

tough times in torah leave questions swimming
punitive God with a jealous fist
like the flip side of my hippy Jesus' Abbah
looms in the crinkly pages
eyebrow crinkling moments
when little Isaac is tied to the altar
and three thousand die because of a golden calf
violence bubbling like tar under dusty Egyptian feet
soap opera scenes between Leah and Rebeccah
made me lean forward and drop my jaw in the living room
animal blood pouring like rain with innocence slaughtered
cubit laws for the temple and color choices
like some nightmare dictator on Trading Spaces
lists of offerings and laws and sons of sons of sons
but I'm choosing to trust in the questions
because I cheated and read the ending
the Titannic veil you designed was torn in half
the prison of law and sin and mind-numbing monotony crumbled
I asked to see all sides of You
to dive in the honey and all the stickiness of history with You
the meat, the core, the aftertaste, the grizzle, all
adding suspense as I approach the happy ending
that all this tragedy was pointing to
its darkness only magnifies the light of grace
the joy of conflict, the roller coaster of suspense,
and the victory that raises my hands every service
when I get to celebrate with other readers
the true Author of it all
what a ride

"Declare what is to be, present it—
let them take counsel together.
Who foretold this long ago,
who declared it from the distant past?
Was it not I, the LORD ?
And there is no God apart from me,
a righteous God and a Savior;
there is none but me." Isaiah 45:21