Genesis Cycle Two Noah 6:9 to 11:32

Noah

Life happens in waves. God happens in waves.

They swell above us…all of us…male and female, two by two, above the community, the world. Subliminal, they break the surface rolling with repetitions and numbers spinning particles of joy, destruction, anger, impossible love. This is not chaos. This is purpose and pattern. Trembling, smooth as our skin, they honor us with their merging brilliance. The only way to rise beyond is to know them, really know them…their innards as well as the sparks at the edge, to morph with them, to take on their silver sheen. We just don’t want to get confined within the experience.

I’m not a wave-expert. I’m just learning. Best to witness the lives of Noah and Jeremiah, two prophets faced head-on with the mega-wave of our people.

What do they have in common? Well, a lot. They are both spoken to by God during times of devastation. And while Jeremiah is thrown into pits and forced into starvation, Noah gets away almost free of pain. Or, so it seems.

Let’s look at Noah first. The world is young. Things aren’t going well. The earth is shachat both passive and active, rotting inside-out and outside-in. God, not surprisingly, decides to heal it by shachat-ing it completely with a flood. The wave of destruction therefore is part of the continuum. This is not anger. This is mercy and love. Let’s roll on to see why.

God chooses Noah to ensure the continuation of life. Simple guy. Doesn’t talk much. He walks inside himself to God. He’s perfect for the mission. As compared to Moses, Abraham, Jeremiah or any prophet, Noah is bland, a cardboard cut-out. What do we know about him? Not much. He’s righteous within his generation, as if he owns it spiritually. We know his age, the names of his sons, his success in building the tavnit.

What he’s doing is huge. He’s inventing a new paradigm made out of atonement (cafer). And how is he making it? With his very own fingers and forearms (amah). Truth or myth, God is the main player, Noah keeping step. Pre-covenant, pre-Exodus, pre-Promised Land this prophet seems to have held onto some spark of Eden, of birth, of creation. Understanding or not, he supports the spiritual cleansing and the physical devastation without reaching to his people. Rashi says they are given three chances. Still, it’s a far cry from Abraham’s defense of Sodom and Gomorrah. Perhaps Noah sees that nothing can be done, that he doesn’t have a people. The cord connecting human-kind to God is not yet entwined through experience. I think a better explanation though is that Noah is so deep in his love and in his divine spark that he loses touch with his human-ness.

He gets confined in a wave of God.

In short, his intimacy with God is not only beyond-human, it’s torture. And while we are all ready for this kind of intimacy, our human form is not the vessel. Therefore Noah, torn in two directions, finally reaches to merge both by getting drunk (physically devastated) and naked (like Adam in Eden). Even that desperate attempt though is turned by his grandson. The experience is the definition of pain.

Now, what of the fall of Jerusalem? Once again we have people who are corrupting themselves, making rote animal sacrifices, being idolatrous, sinful. Jeremiah, in deep love with them and God, tries to warn of the coming disaster, the aggression of the Babylonians. The question isn’t whether or not Judah is in trouble. It’s what to do about it. But Jeremiah clearly zigs where he should zag. Blessed with the joy of divine consciousness, his inability to communicate creates an inner agony that makes it even harder to be understood. The anger had become the prophet’s own, rather than remaining…a reflection of the divine pathos. (Heschel). God even calls him back to return. If you will return I will restore you. (15:19).

So, both Noah and Jeremiah get confined in this one wave because it is not within human capability to merge absolute equanimity with great love. And if they can’t, none of us can…yet. The result is that one era after the next, the wave rises to the surface when we least expect it. It never stops hurting. Maybe we are warned, maybe not. We feed into it with our own delusions, an unkind word, a loss of self restraint, an action based on fear and control, joy used to blind others, ambitions run wild, disrespect for God.

We see this and shudder. Covenants seem to be broken. Parents and children get gassed within the fall and rise of consciousness. After a while though what matters about waves is their wave-ness, not their hue in the eyes of man. That’s because even the darkest surge propels us into a whole new paradigm. Even the darkest surge is a gift of love from God. The prophets certainly knew something. The flood is still happening (notice the present tense in 6:17) and we are this moment being brought to a higher and higher place of regeneration. With the next wave, personal or communal, we are propelled to a satisfaction of a covenant meant for enlightened beings beyond human. In the end, we are one silver-bright dove breaking free from a cage …and yes it hurts like mad…rising from the scorched earth, the glory, the void, the desperation, the shattered hearts… rolling the shatters into one rock solid form beneath our wings.

So, may we understand that all waves, big and small, are a heart-pattern of divine consciousness. May we see hope in the impossible surging. May we hear and save those (of all races and religions) who are drowning. May we reflect the love of prophets. May we know this: Here it is…the one final wave to fold into itself. The pattern is here to be clinched and we know dry land, the sweet smell and the music of bliss when we see it. Here it is. We are cleansed and free and we can deliver our very solid light to God.