Stay a while
James Cathcart
September 04, 2021
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Leviticus 25: 23-24 (NRSVA)
23 The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants. 24 Throughout the land that you hold, you shall provide for the redemption of the land.
There’s a planet waltzing through space. A giant waltzing rock. It’s papered in a vibrant pattern of living things in constant flux, operating simultaneously in deep time and nanoseconds. On and below the surface a history is being told that is continually being written and rewritten. Nothing is fixed in place.
You travel through the cosmos on the back of this giant waltzing rock. You do not travel alone. The rock is full of strangers. Pilgrims like you. You’re all travellers, on the move, not one of you is stationary or stuck or frozen — the waltzing takes care of that. The time that bubbles up around you and that allows you to measure the waltzes in days and nights transports you all. You were all somewhere once and now you are all somewhere else.
Tides come and go. Mountains rise and fall. Boundaries ebb and flow. Doors open and close. Paths are made and remade and then forgotten and rediscovered. Anything that exists, exists because it is being enacted and re-enacted, re-trod, rebuilt, regrown.
Deeds are drawn up and the land beneath you changes hands, but it doesn’t change feet. It can’t. You can’t own a rock, or a sunrise, or a human being. They don’t belong to you. The people with you on this rock — and the rock itself — are a gift. A strange riotous, multifaceted gift. The rock has no resale value. There are no prospective buyers.
One part of the waltzing rock is a handful of rocks nicknamed Scotland. These ceilidhing rocks have their own strange riotous, multifaceted gifts. On those rocks people talk of ‘staying somewhere’ rather than ‘living somewhere'. To put down roots is at best to stay a while before the river sweeps you downstream to reroot somewhere else. To make a life is merely to stay a while, maintaining a balance on the shifting rocks, hurtling through the ocean, through time, through the universe.
PRAYER:
God this is your world
we are merely travelling through
may our paths lead to justice
and tread towards mercy
may we be wayfarers of peace
and ramble with grace.
Amen.
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