The Staff of God
By Jo Anzalone 1993 (The
last thoughts of Moses)
(...a tissue paper painting I did back in the mid-70's)
One deep breath...
not many left.
I feel them counting down.
Weakness rises slowly up my legs.
Strength
is down there in the valley
where the new breed
marches toward the Promised Land.
A sigh escapes my lips.
Not in regret
but more remembrance.
Long years of....of...
connection
with the massed encampment far below.
How familiar,
not only to my eyes,
but familiar, now, to all the deeps inside
my soul.
Black tent upon black tent,
a wide black border,
a frame,
a
setting
for the startling courtyard white.
Patterns...
shadows in the sand.
Together
ah! what a time of work and joy
and giving
as together we built the shadow in the
sand;
And I was happy with that gathering and doing.
My heart was at its fullest in those days.
Community and purpose
filled the very air
and murmuring was forgotten in the wonder
of it all.
A happy time.
Our white and red and blue and purple shadow
in the sand.
But
they never really...understood;
they never really...saw beyond.
The shadow became for them the substance...
all there
is...
all they think they need.
The shadow's pattern,
the REALITY,
was shown alone to
me...
a glory overwhelming and supreme.
The sight, the Presence of the real soaked
into my very pores...
and yet I still...
I still...
did not uphold the holiness of God.
I beheld the pattern-
and they-
they have its shadow in the sand.
Yet,
blessed art thou, O Israel,
for this Great Reality you do not
even grasp
is become your Shield and Helper,
and
your Glorious Sword.
Go onward, Israel, over Jordan...
Let My people go.
Let...
MY
people...
go.
Yes, Lord,...I hear You
and I
understand.
It is my turn,
my turn
to let Your
people...
go.
Go
without me
over Jordan.
It, strangely,
is not hard
or sad.
I have my river now to cross,
its
water-sound rising in my ears.
A river more real than Jordan-
and beyond-
the Courts of
God.
My knees.....ah!
Standing is too much...
hands slip slowly down the staff,
settling my bones gently in the
sand.
Ah, yes!
Again I understand, my Lord...
I, also, am a shadow of my real self,
a shadow in the sand.
I feel a sudden...
closing in...
around myself.
The world is fading, is
almost gone.
All I can see remaining...is...
my
staff,
across my lap
in both my hands.
My staff...
my last, my one possession-
yet a thing not truly mine...at all.
Old friend, my heart and mind brim full with
more than 80 years
of your presence in my hands.
The world fades...
and of all earthly
things
only you
have come to Nebo for this end.
In a thousand scenes you flash across my inner
eye.
Were you ever
mine?
Perhaps
in the beginning, yes,
perhaps---then---you were
just a staff.
We had a bad beginning, you and I.
If I turn you...
so...
yes, there it is...
dark and faded with the years.
Egyptian blood.
Oh, God,
I was so strong,
so full of
my own self...
so
proud.
And I would deliver Israel all alone.
So I swung you in an arc,
a
muscle-powered, self-sufficient arc...
and buried the Egyptian in the sand.
After...
you went with me to Sinai's depths,
that great passage in my life from all that
Egypt had been to me...
...in me...
staggering blindly on toward
the unknown.
So clearly
I remember
a time my strength had gone, and you, as
now,
lay across my weak-kneed
lap.
My eyes gazed back wearily along my path...
and there your presence was-
a row of sandy holes beside my every
step.
I smiled with cracking lips, for seeing that
I felt
somehow
less alone.
Then...Zipporah...
and when I met her,
you were in my hands.
I was so tired,
almost asleep,
when
seven sisters were driven from the well.
But sudden strength flowed in my arms-
again you arced through desert air...
the shepherds ran
and she
was there.
Where? Ah, yes, there,
I carved Gershom and Eliezer into
your wood...
Sons of Moses, son of Amram...
all the way to Levi,
son
of Jacob,
son of Isaac,
son of Abraham.
So, bearing in your wood, the names of all my
fathers,
You and I passed 40 years among the sheep.
There is a...thinness...here
where my
hand is used to grasping,
and darkness from the years of sweaty
hands.
Nicks and scrapes...
gouges from the
rocks-
I k
now each one-
each with a story of its own.
And, still, you were but
a staff.
Then a day...
a day foreknown and appointed...
a day when bushes burned and
ground was holy...
that day came upon me wherein God asked,
"What is that in your hand?"
And I, through chattering teeth, replied,
"A staff."
It was true...you were...then...
"a" staff.
But that was the end.
You met our
future as a snake.
God said to take you by the tail.
By the TAIL, can you imagine!!
By the
tail...
where all the hand and arm are open to the
turning, seeking fangs!
Never have I reached for you with such
faintness in my heart!
But a fear of...greater things...than
snakes
drove my trembling hand to obey.
Then you became a staff again,
the tide of fear receding in my
breast.
But you were changed...
as I was
changed...
and you had been put into my hands anew.
The carven names, the scrapes, the sweat, the
blood---
all were there
yet you were
new to me
as God
said,
"Take THIS staff into your hands wherewith you
shall do signs."
Back to Egypt
my sandy footsteps now accompanied by
family-laden donkey hooves--
and, once again,
your row of
holes.
Only...
all was different...
for in my reluctant yes to
the Call...
you...
you had become "the staff of God."
One man,
one staff,
was God's
intention...but...
I divided the Call...
two men
one
mission...
So Aaron came to meet us,
and, as God had said, we performed
staff-signs before the people...
One staff,
the staff of God,
sometimes...most times...
in my hands
but some in Aaron's.
Only one
staff OF GOD.
I remember your echoing thud as we
crossed Pharaoh's marble floor...
so different from the almost silent sigh
of sand
of your making holes in Sinai.
Then Aaron threw you with a clatter to that
floor
and you became once more a snake--
swallowing alive Egyptian
staff-snakes.
The first time I spoke forth, "Let my people
go!"
I held you, at God's
direction, in my hands.
I raised you in Pharaoh's presence and struck
great Nile's water
turning it to
blood.
Aaron held you over all Egypt's other waters
and they, too, grew red with blood.
Twice more stretched forth by Aaron...
frogs upon the land...
and dust transformed to
gnats.
I held you to the sapphire sky...
hail and lightning flashed down
to the ground.
Again
the Lord commanded
and I
stretched you over Egypt in my hand
until the east wind brought locusts with
the dawn.
Then,
bursting with triumphant freedom,
once more your sanded holes dogged my steps
as out from Goshen we strode...
our faces to the
morning sun.
Too soon the triumph fluttered frozen to the
ground
as chariot sounds drew near behind.
Once more...the east wind in the night.
Once more...the waters yielded in obedience,
not in blood to
convict--
but in withdrawal to
save.
The passage done,
Once more...I stretched you forth at God's
command.
Once more...Egyptians buried in my sight...
buried in water, not in
sand...
buried by God, and not by
me.
A brief rejoicing...
all too brief...
then the people's anger, fear, and hate.
Would they even stone me?
What was I to do?
Calmness and authority spoke in divine
command,
"Take in your hand the staff wherewith you
struck the Nile...."
Of all the staff commands
Here, before the rock at Horeb,
He chose THAT one! Why?
But I knew it was again...the water.
blood
water...
parted water...
and
now...
water from Himself.
To convict, to save, now to sustain.
Sunset...
would it ever come?
You seemed a stone-carved staff and not a
slender almond rod.
My old arms vibrated with the strain
as trickling paths of sweat ran down my
spine.
My knees began to shake...
my
shoulders cried in pain.
I must! I must!
I simply, simply
MUST!
The sweat is in my eyes!
I cannot
see the valley!
Where?
Where is Joshua now?
My shoulders!
I can no longer stand the
strain.
I'll lower you...for just...a little while...
just...a little
while.
Oh, God...NO!
The screams and yells!
I must hold you up! I must!
I must!
Oh, God...I can no longer do it...
Lord...I can no longer DO
it!
What's this
this grip upon my arms
this sudden strength
both right and left?
I am compassed 'round with help...my muscles
freed!
Around each wrist a lifting and a holding
strength!
Aaron!
Hur!
Oh, my God, I thank You...
God,
thank You for these men...
these hands...
this strength...
when mine was gone.
Oh, Joshua...fight on!
Fight on!
Then...
that day of awesome choice
when the people spoke a
curse
upon themselves...
"If we had only perished in this desert!"
The Lord,
hearing,
granted their
request.
I never thought,
not once my mind
conceived...
they'd turn away...
AWAY!...
from the open gate.
A day of choice for me as well.
God offered Abraham's inheritance for
myself...
but...
I could not...
I could not...
THEN...
let the people go...
let them go without me...into desolation...
into death.
So near,
so very near,
the Promised
Land...as now.
Twice
so very near the long-sought,
wide-open gate.
I could have gone in then at God's free
invitation.
The people had turned from me,
disowned my role...my leadership.
Yet
my heart ever knew
I could not
let them die alone.
Would
not let them die alone.
And so the gate swung shut
with clang so loud it echoed for a
generation across the sands.
I simply could not BELIEVE that we were
turning back!
How could this be?
The joy of Tabernacle building seemed so far
away...
long gone.
A mighty clang...
then Korah...
the
censers...
and the plague.
Next...God's command to rid Himself of
Israel's 'plaint.
Twelve staffs...
one from each
ancestral tribe.
I brought you forth,
O staff of Levi,
and carved
Aaron's name across your tip.
I smiled...
it was the only unmarked
spot...
my father-son line
filled up all the length.
Fitting, it was, that "Aaron" be graved upon
you, too,
for he wielded you well in Pharaoh's
courts...
and brothers matter...not only
fathers and sons.
And, so, you--for that time--became "Aaron's
staff"...
a symbol of the house of Levi...
as I placed you in the Tent of Testimony.
The next day...
bud and blossoms...
almonds...
as a staff cut 40 years gone by
throbbed full with life...
the staff not merely of
Aaron...or Moses...or Levi...
The staff...OF GOD!
The Lord commanded you be replaced
before the Ark...
"kept as a sign to the rebellious"
Oh, prophetic words!
How could I forget so soon...
so
SOON!
Israel forgot the lesson of the staff...
shouting and cursing anew when water was
gone.
And I...
I, too,...
forgot...
"as a sign to
the rebellious...
as
a sign"
and I, in my pride and anger...
forgot.
My brother and I, facedown, before the glory
of the Lord...
in His Presence...
hearing
His command...
HIS command...
"Take the staff...and speak...SPEAK to the
rock!"
I gathered myself from before the Lord
and took that almond-bearing staff...
that staff still filled with
mystical God-life,
and I shouted to the crowd in such
bitterness of heart
my spirit shrank and closed up tight.
How quick and full the anger!
Did I hate them that the gate had closed...
for them...
and also for...
me...
because of
them?
Could I no longer bear the litany of
complaint...
the unending dissatisfaction
in their souls?
I was buried alive...
suffocating...
under their monstrous
mount
of murmurings.
Something in me snapped.
"Listen, you rebels," I snarled in disgust,
"must WE, Aaron and I,
bring you water from this rock?
Must WE!!!"
Somewhere between the Tabernacle and the Rock
I dropped the Lord off in the sand.
"Speak!" He'd ordered...
but my
ears...
my mind...
were overwhelmed with rage.
How DARE they!
How DARE they do this yet AGAIN!!
My eyes were red with my own blood...all I
could see was...you...
gripped white-knuckled in my hand.
The staff!
Always the
staff!
"Strike the Nile!"
"Part the sea!"
"Strike the rock!"
Strike the rock...
YES!
strike the
rock...
in blind and furious anger...
STRIKE THE ROCK!
With green leaves crushing between my fingers,
I swung you with a fury that long-dead
Egyptian had never known.
*CRACK*
Once was not enough to drain my anger...
and again I swung...smashing
almonds...
smashing flowers...
against the innocent rock.
A sudden gush of water struck me in the face;
My God!
Awareness of my deed!
Falling prostrate...lips buried in the sands,
I cried,
Oh, God! Oh...GOD!
"...as a sign to the
rebellious."
I had taken "the sign"...
crushed mystical fruit against the
rock...
crushed divine life upon the
rock...
that Rock wherein lay divine provision.
I had forgotten God...
forgotten His
word...
had acted in anger as though I
were He...
as though Aaron and I
in ourselves
by
ourselves
could provide life from within the
Rock.
I had not honored God as holy in the sight of
Israel.
And
across the sands
there came that
echoing clang
as MY gate to the Promised Land
swung shut...
swung
shut because of me...alone.
Oh, Adam...I understand, at last, your pain!
The Lord, not asking your return
before His Ark,
desired all these long years since
your presence in my hands
so never would I forget
the cost
of abusing great authority.
This callus here upon my palm...
from a sharp stub
where on the rock I crushed a blooming
shoot.
A million times you've made your sandy hole
beside my step...
and every one accompanied by that stub's
prick
'til it was worn and rounded with the
years.
My heart is ever grateful for reminding
pain...
The full cup given me by the Lord...
it has never spilled again.
And now, old companion, we are come to Nebo's
heights
and I have no strength to lift you from my
lap.
Aaron and Hur...
gone more years than I
can count.
The gate is open wide--
the
grasshoppers dead--
the
warriors grown.
Let My people go
over Jordan.
Let
My people go.
Yes, Lord...
I do let Your people go.
My connection...now...is with You only and
alone.
No fighting for an earthly home...
Let Your servant...
come.
The waters rise above my head...soft as angel
wings...
The staff...was it...a shadow, too?
The staff of God...
the only marker...
for my grave.
BACK TO INDEX