Advent, day 11. Forty days and Forty Nights.

Now we enter into a strange part of Elijah's spiritual journey, but one with echoes throughout the Biblical narrative: his desert wandering for forty nights and days. This is a long period of time for us post-modern people to get a perspective of, especially when it involves no contact with other human beings and nothing to eat or drink. As Elijah ruminates in this poem, I imagine him mulling over other people's experiences (which he will have learned about as a boy) and attempting to bring some cohesion to it.

I have also fancifully played with a little prescience on his part: of things to come that he does not yet know. He is a prophet, after all. Above all, it is important to recognise that Elijah was in a frame of mind that helped him be receptive to God. That frame of mind was not a quick adjustment, but a quiet time of deep silence and solitude. Something our technology-driven life is in danger of losing altogether.

Advent, day 11. Forty Days and Forty Nights.

1 Ki 19:8 So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God.

Sustained by such angelic bread, I sojourn.

Into the desert—the distance

deeper, farther, more soul desolate than ever—

Forty days and forty nights to the Mount of God

a day for each wandering year

brought by fear

fear which birthed rebellion

rebellion to break the heart of God.

Treading shallow graves of centuries

—moments in heaven’s time

—ghostly flickers in desert dusk

—mirage faces mourning the lost chance.

Forty

—that number again—

++the days to cover the earth with water

“Oh, Noah, send rain. Dust is in my nostrils,

caked in my heel-cracks, searing my soles.”

I dream of drowning.

++the days Goliath rose to taunt the army of God

cowering in their tents

—but that sling-wielding shepherd boy took him down

day 41 he was silent.

++the days Moses entered the cloud and stayed on the mount

what does one do

alone with God

on a cloudy mountain-top?

waiting, waiting

while stone is etched 

—two tablets

—inscribed front and back

—top to bottom

in God’s own handwriting:

with ten perfect laws for life, 

offering perfection within grasp,

alas, perfectly impossible:

now smashed stone,

descending from unimaginable days.

while I would never presume such proximity

—or remotely long for it—

Moses returned for another forty.

++the days the twelve spies reconnoitred

the milky-honey promised place

and ten said: too risky

“Risky for what?” I wonder

and the stalwart risk-takers persevered,

wandering till the fearful dropped like flies

—and buried shallowly.

where centuries after I would tread

—catching glimpses of their haunted fears.

Now my forty days stretch

reflected in the past

mirrored in the future:

++the days Nineveh will watch a

man of acid-eaten flesh

criss-cross the metropolis

counting down the days 39, 38, 37 . . .

++the days another prophet of YHWH

will stumble into this wilderness

for infernal ambush and temptation

of blessings,

and honour,

and power,

and glory

all on the wrong terms.

Forty days and nights

Wandering to this Mount of God—

What’s this? a cave

—time to sleep.