Pentecostal<\/a> churches the phrase \u201cturn or burn\u201d meant mouthing a panicked sinner\u2019s prayer or burning eternally in the Monster God\u2019s hellfire. Today as my heart breaks again for my friend, Jerry, that phrase unexpectedly returned to my mind. Less than a month ago Jerry lost his beloved brother suddenly in an accident. Today, just minutes ago, Jerry emailed me that his sister, the remaining half of his spiritual arsenal; his shield that had worked in conjunction with the sword that his brother had been, has received another diagnosis of cancer. And what can I say? \u201cMy God,\u201d is absolutely all I can think as the tears well up and trace the paths of their countless predecessors: tears of pain and joy, of loss and gratitude, tears of questions with no answer whatsoever, tears when there are no words left at all. I weep. I cry silently and then I notice a peculiar emptiness.<\/p>\nI don\u2019t know what to do except pray, even if it\u2019s only these simple, desperate words, \u201cMy God.\u201d I don\u2019t know what to say, so I say nothing and that\u2019s where the emptiness is \u2013 right there: right where a loud, accusatory, and raging \u201cWHY?!\u201d would have been before. I don\u2019t know what to do, but what I\u2019m not doing at least right now, in just this moment, is not asking why. This leaves this space vacant, empty; this space where previously tough resentment, hard obstacles, and heart-high walls have been hammered into fine, glistening, repellent fashion by a blacksmith of isolation whose every challenge and loss blew like bellows into the toxic fire of \u201cwhys\u201d and bitter \u201cOne day\u2026\u201d threats. Oh, the smoke from the noxious flames always sent signals of alarm and distressed calls for rescue, but without fail anyone, anyone, even God, who cared enough to get close enough to help, also got close enough to get burned. \u00a0But now, now a cool wind blows through the blacksmith\u2019s darkened shop and the anvil looks more like an altar. Without the the echo of the hammer and the crackle and spit of the fire I hear \u201cturn or burn,\u201d which, frankly, with it\u2019s brimstone baggage seems like damn cold comfort. But on the next breeze that stirs old ash, also comes a fresh understanding in this hallowed out space. If we can, through resistance and ritual, with white knuckles and bended knee, through sometimes saltine-dry prayers and sobbing surrender, if we can just empty the space, if we can just turn from any and all questions of \u201cwhy?\u201d even for a moment, lay down the bellows, douse the fire, take off the apron and sit, we sometimes notice, perhaps in the cooler corner opposite the old furnace, a tiny green sprouting intruder of trust. It\u2019s a strange and welcome sight, though more than a little perplexing as all I\u2019ve really known is\u00a0blacksmithing. I don\u2019t know nothing about gardening.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve grown skilled in burning offenses, glowing hot resentments, cauterized wounds, and throwing relationships like kindling. I know nothing of growing something new and tender green. The wonder of the tiny sprig of trust with it\u2019s reaching roots and the wonder of my own unknowing amid the smell of soot and ash lights this new understanding of \u201cturn or burn.\u201d \u00a0I can burn with questions of why. I can be consumed by the fires of needing reasons and in believing that in each denial and in every loss that my answers are gone or I can turn toward my complete unknowing, my complete lack of questions and also toward this love that has been likened to a great, Good Shepherd, this gentle, determined Gardner, who asks me, as He asked Mary, with the tomb behind her and the garden before her,<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy are you crying?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve taken my answers and even my questions,\u201d I reply.<\/p>\n
But then, in the stillness of the glory of this single seedling of trust, hardly a garden, He speaks my name.<\/p>\n
He speaks my name and, like Mary, the Knowing of His Spirit within me springs forth and answers,<\/p>\n
\u201cRabboni! Teacher!\u201d<\/p>\n
My Pentecostal training of \u201cturn or burn\u201d left my soul\u2019s only option for vocation as blacksmith but my not knowing is, with bleeding hands and soiled knees, preparing me to be, finally, a Gardner\u2019s apprentice, a Rabbi\u2019s ragamuffin disciple, a faltering, failed, trembling, and faithful child of God.<\/p>\n
But without answers and without even questions, how does that help Jerry? What does that leave me to offer my frightened and grieving friend? What it leaves is something better than answers that never helped even when they came. It leaves me brokenhearted, but faithful and willing to weep and wait in the garden outside empty tombs with the brokenhearted and weeping and waiting and to listen for the Gardner, ready to recognize the Teacher, to sit together in our unknowing until Daybreak dries our tears and we feel That Which We Felt Was Lost rise up within us and we know resurrection.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s all we have: brokenness, hope, and glory.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Preetamdas Kirtana has previously had works serialized in Dayton City Paper and at\u00a0Semantikon.com<\/a>. For updates you can friend and follow him here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(H\/T) \u00a0 When I was a child growing up in Pentecostal churches the phrase \u201cturn or burn\u201d meant mouthing a panicked sinner\u2019s prayer or burning eternally in the Monster God\u2019s hellfire. Today as my heart breaks again for my friend, Jerry, that phrase unexpectedly returned to my mind. Less than a month ago Jerry lost […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3437,"featured_media":11173,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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