Jig is up

Sometimes you pray for a window, hope for a door, and receive a concrete wall. Glancing right and left, you pace alongside its flat façade, and no cracks are found.  Desperate, you lean close, pressing your ear against the cold surface, knuckling the wall in a silent supplication for a hollow echo, a whisper of direction from opposite this obstacle unjustly impeding your earned, deserved path. It says nothing; it's a wall.
Shortly, you discover your tantrum solves nothing, your whining echoes irritatingly off that haughty wall. You settle your back against a door opposite the wall, fixating your gaze on that inconsiderate slab - if it moves, you'll know. Why is it there? Won't you please move it, Lord?
If walls could smirk, especially plain grey walls, this one's smugly blank expression was enough to drive one mad. The wind sighs through the door at your back, the autumnal smell bringing to mind thoughts of fallen leaves, golden, orange and crimson, and mountain pines with a trickling burn meandering down in a gully, joyful fish leaping out and catching water-skippers. You hear a blue-jay whistling the song of the hills. What is with this abysmal wall? Just. Let. Me. Through. This is my dream!
The sound behind assumes a dull ambiance, and the fragrance melts into the backdrop of your mind. The jig is up. Is that a ram caught in the thicket on that mountainside?


I have an old, old, yellow-leaved copy of a Kierkegaard book that contains two distinct essays he wrote: Fear and Trembling and That Sickness Unto Death. The latter is an assay into the contemplation of despair, beginning with a reference to the story about Lazarus. It discusses different forms despair may take, three in particular, with the conclusion that faith is the opposite of despair. The other story is, to me in concept, more intriguing. Fear and Trembling embarks on a journey into the mentality of Abraham on his journey of sacrifice and faith. Kierkegaard travels through the stages of Abraham's resignation and hope and inner dilemma. It is a fascinating question. What was Abraham thinking as he climbed the mountain towards the sacrifice of his beloved son. There's a metaphorical connection to Christ's own sacrifice, and the faith requisite of the son. I remember a sermon that I heard as a child where the pastor discussed how Abraham had faith, despite the grim outlook, and what he never knew was that a ram climbed the other side of the mountain, a ram destined for a thicket. Seems a grim end for a ram - I'm uncomfortable with the death of anything - but the ramifications are worthy of contemplation (I made that pun un-sheepishly. I apologize to ewe).
Now I'm bashing my head into walls, and maybe I'm not seeing the mountainside, maybe I'm not seeing the Autumn, maybe this obstacle is still too concrete in my tunnel-vision. You have to back away, sometimes, from your tunnel-vision or microscope vision, where a tiny fiasco looks like the whole of things.