Storming (Psalm 29)

Revere the Lord, all you mighty ones. You who sit on high, secure in your dominion, bow before God’s raw power.

The voice of God thunders down the mountaintops, it roars from the waves. It whirls across the prairies. The voice of God incinerates everything in its path.

The voice of God arcs across the buzzing sky. It swells above the coast. The earth trembles at God’s voice, and all who hear whisper awe to the unfathomable.

The voice of God strips the suburbs bare. It disrupts the work of mighty cities—causing metropolises to stagger and buckle.

God in the flooding streets, God in the raging flames. God in the gray ash descending, in the gathering darkness and the searing flash.

And in the preternatural early morning stillness, it is the voice of God that silently whispers peace.

Distinction, המבדיל

First he washed and shaved and trimmed his nails. Then he pulled on a simple cotton robe, and his loved ones spread a prayer shawl above his head. Everything was prepared, because she had arrived.

She approached—also dressed in white. So beautiful that the rest of us had to turn away. She surrounded him, circled him and became his everything. With each step she took, he forgot a little more of the world beyond her embrace.

When she finally stopped before him, he placed all that he valued into her open hand. She scattered worldly concerns beneath his feet, where they lay motionless—brittle and fleeting. In the end she led him away. The rest of us remained behind, in bittersweet abandonment.