To Moses.

Dear Moses,
I can’t get you out of my head. I keep reading about you, and your life blows my mind. I imagine it probably blew your own at times.

I just wonder sometimes. I wonder a lot, but I wonder what was going on in your head and between the brief lines that I read. I know that it’s partly due to the fact that brevity is token of the Hebrew language, but I find myself scratching my head and struggling to take the account of your life found in the Pentateuch at solely face value. What went on between those beautiful and all too clipped lines? What crossed your mind when you saw that burning bush? Did God ever just make you want to cuss? How often did He frustrate you and blow your mind? What rage did you truly feel right before you heard those infamous stones crack? What was it like to be frustrated about and for an entire nation? What was it like to bear Israel on your shoulders so much as you did? Did you ever get so tired of everything that you just wanted to curl up and take a nap and forget about it for a while?

Did you have any idea, growing up, that you would end up being such an instrument of such great things? Any idea at all? Your brother Aaron and your sister Miriam, what did they see in you? What did they think of all the turns that your life took, and theirs too, as a result? Did they know that you were great? Were you great? Or did you just let God do great things with you? How does that work, anyway?

One of the things that has struck me reading about you this time around is the part of the story when your father-in-law comes back into play. He’s impressed with you and God's accomplishments through you, but he also offers some wisdom: that you needed to find some help within Israel to bear the burdens of the people. I guess it’s one of the early foreshadows in the Old Testament of how the Church was one day supposed to function. Interesting how that wisdom came from an apparent “gentile”. But anyway, that moment demonstrates that the responsibility which you were born to carry wore on you from time to time. Your father-in-law was able to pick up on it. I know you were human. It just hard to believe sometimes when I look at the feats accomplished in your lifetime.

I guess when I read your story, one thing that I lose sight of is the lapse of time between the lines and between point A and point B. Over a century passes in the story and after the Exodus and the construction of the Tabernacle, nothing happens with haste--with exception of that Tabernacle itself. That first year out of Egypt was quick and huge, but after that things intensely slow down. But, is that because Israel as a people did not seek His Best and settled for Good?

Those Israelites seem so short-sighted, anyway you read it. I know you knew that better than anyone except Yahweh. But then, is that just human? Or, was there something particular about their impulsiveness that attracted God and made Him choose them? Or did He fashion them that way from the beginning on purpose? Did you ever even wonder that and ponder questions like that? I don’t get it, that’s for sure. But it’s beautiful--because He makes it so, since that's His way. Hm.

I’ve learned a lot of things from your story. But I’ve come away with a couple of major things. First, I want to know Him like you did. You knew a God more emotional and intimate than I can even imagine at this point. I keep thinking of a molten bush that wasn’t really burning and a torrent of wind flying by a mountain--and you hidden in a strategic crevice so as not to die....Death by contact with holiness, would that the most truly painful of all?

I keep thinking of that moment you put your foot down, in the desert sand, with God and told Him that you might as well perish right on that spot before you’d go anywhere without Him. You and/or His people. A moment amazing and awful, in the truest sense of the word. And He listened, and changed His mind. Did I mention that this all blows my mind? I feel I have no other terms in which to couch my nearly speechless awe regarding my literary observations of the relationship that you shared with my--our God.

This intimacy demonstrated also brings me to that other thing I’ve come away with from your story. I’ve learned that God is an emotional God. And it’s not a weakness. He’s a God who can know the outcome of everything, that is, the end of everything--but He still chooses to experience and feel every last facet of the means. And He still thinks it’s all worth it. We are still worth it to Him. I can’t shake growing realization in my soul of the ramifications of such an aspect of His character. Process is such a part of Him. Scary and, once again, beautiful.

But, this has been brought to my attention more than once because of your story and because of the nature of your relationship with Him. Thank you for that. Thank you for living your life so that you could get there with Him. It proves, in a way, that it can be done and that we just don't. This said, our priorities these days are sorrowfully out of whack. But then, when in the history of humanity haven't they been, I suppose?

You’ve taught me much, Moses. I hope I can keep gleaning more from your profound and difficult story every last time I come back to it. Thank you for the life you lived and I’m sorry to you and every one whose lives lived deeply for our Creator have been taken for granted over the centuries and millennium. It’s so trite and naive to even say, but maybe I’ll “get it” one day. I guess it just probably won’t be here when that happens, hey? Well, anyway, I can’t wait to meet you.

So, with barefoot respect and until one day--
T. Emerson