Tower and Town, May 2024 (view the full edition)Encounter on Mt HorebWrite about an encounter? Well, yes, I suppose I could. That one years ago when I was still young and fit and full of vinegar; not like now, with COPD from all those burnt offerings and bone-on-bone hip joints from years of pounding the Judaean footpaths. It all began one beautiful sunny day, not a cloud in the sky. Not that that was any cause for celebration. Drought, it was. No rain for months; years even. Crops brown and parched in the fields. Wells dried up. Misery everywhere. But I knew what to do - or thought I did: call down fire from heaven. Show the people who's boss. And it worked. I really showed them; and we took the opportunity to slaughter as many of the opposition as we could catch up with. Lovely! Clean sweep. Didn't last long though. The trolls got to work; vile messages on social media, death threats, hate mail. In the end I had to run for it, go into hiding. It was then that I started really thinking. At first I just wanted to die. What a useless pantomime: fire from heaven, for goodness sake! Immediately crowded out of people's minds by that amazing Egyptian belly dancer at the Coliseum. There must be a better way to people's hearts. I found myself heading for Mt Horeb. I love that climb, the incredible views you get as you rise above it all. And there's that cave near the top. Good places for thinking, caves. I spent the night there and came out early to view the sunrise. And that's when it struck me. Like a thunderbolt, you might say - except that it showed me how useless thunderbolts are. Fire, earthquake, tempest? Vagaries of nature, nothing more; like whatever it was that hit Sodom and Gomorrah - sound and fury, signifying nothing. The only way to people's hearts is to listen to that voice inside you that shows you who needs the love of God and what you must do to bring that love to them. Now THAT was an encounter. https://i.ytimg.com/vi/KAQpZhuornQ/maxresdefault.jpg Hugh de Saram |