Name Calling III

The calling of a name bids a particular other into close proximity to the one calling.
 
Isaiah 30 speaks of the name of the Lord coming from an unbounded place and he is intense and awful in his coming. The Holy Name of the One – his appearing is described as a speech act. His nostrils burning, thick clouds arising, his lips boiling over with rage. ‘Who is this one who comes ? I do not know him !’ His tongue is like a devouring fire & when His breath reaches me, it overwhelms like an overflowing stream reaching up to the neck ! There is nothing gentle in this speech act. ‘Under the whole heaven he lets it loose & his lightening to the corners of the earth’. This is violence, annihilating consummation – a radical discontinuity, dust & ashes.
 
My mistake is that I mostly think of God in equilibrium – omni this & omni that. There is power certainly but it is mostly benevolent, expended on behalf of mercy, grace & forgiveness. I rely on that God. Yet this One who comes from beyond the margin of the boundless is perilous and unpredictable. He leaves me feeling anxious but He certainly has my attention. If the Empire of the Same is about to be broken open by something wholly Other, I would rather be overwhelmed by God dangerous and creative – with an angry heart of compassion, the very pain of God - than whimsical, capricious chaos.
 
The Psalmist says God raises ‘the poor from the dust & lifts the needy from the ash heap’. That is because when he comes in anger, breaking out on behalf of His justice – that is all that is left – dust and ashes. The wonder of it is that the other others are not consumed.
 
When I am overwhelmed with trouble I am often silent & inactive in equal measure. I retreat inwards, waiting for the equilibrium to return. Yet when oppression births injustice, God breaks forth and his voice is majestic and heard, indeed his nostrils, lips, tongue and breath quiver with his purifying, terrible activity.
 
I think the thing I react to most is that this is not a God I am familiar with – Yahweh – God of righteousness & justice – totally Other breaking out in Holy bedlam !
 
That I may stand in the presence of God like one before the blast furnace and survive it. To rise up from the dust & the ashes – penitent, poor and needy - surely that is newness & wonder & resurrection. Outwards & downwards !