God-Fearing
Contributed by Lopez-McKeown
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me” Psalm 23:4
This passage is a memory of childhood. These are the words that bring back the white dresses which have walked under church lights and our gloves stained of wine. I think of it fondly when I unpack and repack a collection of vintage baptismal infant gowns, which remain crisp and like new as if nothing ever happened as if those children didn’t grow and fade away.
I have to say it out loud, though, when in the valley of the shadow of death I should ever read certain familial names in my voice mail alerts again. I’ve learned that memories are to become like the soils we pack over the ugly roots of a family tree in an effort to push trauma further away from us.
Today, I fear no evil.. for today, I have on my dining table a stack of old Ouija boards. I can date them and their varieties of blue toned reapers floating above gypsum fonts, starting from the 1940s to the 1980s. As I shuffle through the contents of each infernal box, I could wonder how many demons these pieces of pressed cardboard have channeled- or I would wonder, if they weren’t all as tragically crisp as the baptismal gowns, I had just laid to rest previously. In such pristine condition, these couldn’t have possibly been more than novelties existing on shelves to scare children closer to God. Too new. Too un-yellowed by time or the unclean bio touch of man.
But imagine if you could find me here. I’m at the table this very instant, eating a sandwich in the company of the devil’s scrabble board wondering, “Art thou with me, father?”
What would change between us in such a moment? You’ve shown me how entire worlds can shift over the subtlety of moments. Or I would ask you, how dangerous is the silence that blankets the snake’s movements?
Don’t worry. If I couldn’t answer your phone calls when you were alive, I would never disrupt your peace in rest with a board game that looks as cumbersome to use as a rotary stick phone. The potential of conversations that should have happened between us will remain at rest with you. Yet, I wonder: “Isn’t our faith in God too strong to be threatened by some pieces of cardboard?”
What do we truly have to be afraid of in this life outside of the sins between each other?
Amen.