God and Nature Spring 2020
1:30 am on a Tuesday
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By Lowell H. Hall
I came in through the door
leaving it half open
teeth clenched
fist clenched.
Why did this have to happen?
It isn’t fair
I said.
The words just fell to the floor
at my feet.
Casually
almost casually
I picked up the words
and shaped them in my hands
as I had done often before.
I looked around to find a place for these words
this congealed thought.
Perhaps over there
in my growing work of art
the sculpture standing near the door
reaching from the ceiling
right down to the floor.
It had grown over the years.
It started, well, it didn’t start.
It happened,
just a small collection at first.
By now, it was rather large
each part crafted by me.
There, I thought, that is just the spot
for these words rightly to take their place
these words molded in my hand.
With tools I had collected
and skills developed through the years
I fashioned the needed arrangement
to build the words into their place.
I found the right premise, the needed assumption,
made the proper deduction and
now the right conclusion.
Yes, and I put them into the rightful place.
At first I did not hear the voice
softly spoken, insistent,
so intent was I in my task.
Hello, Hello in there,
may I come in.
That voice was clear to me
so well known.
I knew at once
it was my Lord.
Please come in, the door is always open
for you.
He said, It is a little difficult to get around this,
this impressive sculpture by the door,
It is so
so interesting,
reaching from the ceiling
right down to the floor.
The Lord is here
in my place,
I heard myself say.
My Lord is here
right here in my place.
Yes, He said,
I AM.
With a gesture towards my work,
gazing straight at me,
my inmost self revealed,
yet gently he asked
Is this your art work?
Yes, I said.
Does it contain your list of questions?
Yes, I said.
Will you show them to me?
I said, yes,
eagerly and reluctantly.
In a way I cannot fully describe
He read
yet without reading
He knew.
He asked to hear from me
the details of each story
the name of each person
and place.
And even when
with dry-eyed tears
I felt the anger
and the frustration once again
He wanted to hear.
Though He also already knew
He waited to hear my voice.
Several times I saw a tear
well up in His clear eye
and fall down His cheek.
Always calmness, serenity
and sometimes sadness were
on His face.
When I turned away as tears began to flow,
He spoke.
They never learned to love
who never shed a tear,
I heard Him say, though
it was less a spoken word
than the echo of experience.
He gazed at my sculpture,
suggesting how it could be improved
with better logic,
with greater care for detail
not the voice of the critic
but the voice of the lover.
How long we sat together
I cannot say
In length of time
how little, how long
He sat with me.
Together knows no measure.
When we finished reading my list,
He looked into my eyes.
May I stay here, with you, inside?
Then we will go out
only side by side.
Carefully he considered my list, standing
beside the sculpture near the door
which seemed no longer to reach
from the ceiling
right down to the floor.
He turned to me and
took me in His arms
and then
Jesus wept.
With the effect of gentle force
not of oratory nor rhetoric
I heard
Walk with me.
Your questions are not your destiny.
Answers are not the answer.
He said
I AM.
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Lowell H. Hall, PhD Physical Chemistry, Johns Hopkins University, is currently Professor Emeritus, Eastern Nazarene College. Dr. Hall taught Chemistry at Eastern Nazarene College for 46 years. He has published four books with McGraw-Hill and Academic Press and has written 17 invited chapters, as well as over 120 research papers. He has been a consultant and an active lecturer for the American Chemical Society and other venues.