God likes his Children wrapped in a little bit of Skin
Hosea 9:7 …The prophet is a fool, the man of the spirit is mad,
because of your great iniquity and great hatred.
In Scripture, it is not the language of law that truly communicates God, it is not the philosophers strenuous exercise in dialectics that truly communicates God - it is the prophet’s poetry, the wiseman’s story, the language of the song, the lament of the broken, the world presented in all its color by a Spirit-filled visionary reflecting madness back at the violent.
The cycles of history roll in with eruptions of horrific violence and disruptions of our nobler pursuit of learning how to live as human beings. History’s violence is indicative of our creaturely instinctual self ever warring with our insightful self who seeks wisdom and moves toward that which is spiritual, that which is God.
As civilizations attempt to redefine their role in the world as nation-states, as a people, insight, and instinct appear on the stage of history in this perennial battle, the conflict is like leviathan from the deep rising in the flames from his mouth to search out the noble savage, and so we experience an invisible war, openly displayed in the real world of God’s children all wrapped in a little bit of skin.
This discordant gathering of flesh all pursuing reality and the only one, the only way, the only truth, the only enduring reality is truly attainable, but always laying beyond their reach. Unless, they reach for the fruit in the middle of the garden that it would seem has been blocked by a fiery sword, the weapons of war, fire and steel screaming out that the way is shut off.
Aw, to renounce the fire and the steel, the sword that kills, the burning destruction, herein is the madness that overcomes wisdom. Released upon humanity as locusts to consume the living, the madness succeeds. The creatures with the capacity to be spirit, to be like God, have mistaken God for fire and steel. Now, who can end the rise of Leviathan, of the serpent, the devil, the dragon, the monster that thinks itself immortal.
Wisdom speaks from flesh, from spirit wrapped in skin. Wisdom lives in the land of the creature where instinct and insight dwell together in the rapture of harmonious existence with God. Wisdom listens to the rhythm of life that God has given to his children all wrapped in a little bit of skin. Wisdom’s path is both feet planted firmly in terra firma but the heart and mind alive beyond the horizon of the setting sun. Hope burns eternal and is a sign of God in those wrapped in a little bit of skin.
Sin, Death, Sex, Shame and Violence all enter the world at the same moment. Sex - beauty and gift, behold death does not frighten her call. Shame can be hidden, and violence is its shield. Yet, Sin revealed is Death made immediate, and hiding from God is humanity’s history, hiding in the violence that entered the world when God’s children wrapped in a little bit of skin did not reach for the hand of the Father.
We refuse the challenge to meet the leviathan in our soul. Our self reflects upon our self and seeks to blame the other; it is the realm where forgiveness cannot live, where mercy is not known. Fear of being exposed for the creatures we are, all wrapped in a little bit of skin. Creatures in process on our way to somewhere but the destination is always the same for mortality is the city of men, where death is sure and there is no cure. For the world cannot work without forgiveness, cannot breathe without mercy, cannot birth Spirit without faith.
Glorious creatures wrapped in a little bit of skin, in the land of inevitable sin, where innocence lost is when the journey begins. Redemption is the nature of reality and only possible in the land of shame. Clothed like an animal in skin our creatureliness dreams of immortality in name only, unless our insight learns to be God’s children wrapped in a little bit of skin.
It is death from which we long to be released, but death is the release, it is human to die – if only we could see the light then fear of this night would pass, this life where learning to be human is meant for the present and ushers in the world to come.
And what of violence, my old friend, easy is his call to answer, easy his will to inflict, easy are his self-destructive ways to fall into - like a cauldron of madness. Let us dress him up in uniform with his rank and ribbons proudly displayed, provide him with his helmet and shield, his sword of death, let the fire burn until all is consumed.
Yet, exposed in nakedness – my uniform - my shame for all to see, wrapped in skin, I must recognize my nemesis, my-self. I must dream the dream of the visionary who sees another world breaking in to the present if only I can overcome myself. This will to be spirit, to soar above is for fairy tales, only here, below in the land of those – like me – wrapped in skin, will I become, will I find my way to the tree of life. I must follow the one who has gone before, he too was wrapped in a little bit of skin.
