I’ve been thinking a lot about Moses lately. He came up after a dream I had which was about me simply teaching a meditation class. As I was teaching this class, more and more people showed up. Every time I turned around to address another part of the group, there were more people and more chairs until the room had to be opened up into another room. There was more to the dream but it’s not relevant to my point today.
I awoke thinking about Moses. You know he was reluctant to accept his calling from God too. He wondered how he could be chosen to be any sort of spokesperson for the Almighty since he was just one guy and had likely had a speech impediment too. God told him all that he was to do, which included getting his people to believe that he had a direct line to the Almighty, calling everyone to change 30,000 years worth of not so nice behaviors, oh- and moving for years and years across a desert to some land that was supposed to be full of milk and honey.
Moses was reasonably reluctant. He begged God to send somebody else. “Anybody but me.” But God had made his decision. So Moses becomes a spokesperson and leader and follows God’s prompting each step of the way. It was years of walking in faith with his God.
I’ve looked at this story a thousand times before. I’ve even done a lot of teaching from a theological viewpoint about Moses and his relationship with God. What came up for me the other day was God’s response to Moses when asked, “Who should I say has sent me?” God replied, “The God of your ancestors.” Moses said, “Yes, but what’s your name?” God replied, “I am. Tell them I Am has sent me to you.”
What occurred to me is that the story is told in such a way that it is assumed that God really said this rather than that this is what Moses heard. In any case, it’s a brilliant response. Well- I guess that would be true because, after all, God came up with it. It’s a brilliant response for anyone who has practiced meditation or deep prayer because it is that very feeling that we are all trying to achieve. It is the great sense of “I am.”
Isn’t it interested that God did not offer a “rest of the story” as it were. There was nothing to follow the word Am. It is a statement of total being-ness and nothing more. Identity had nothing to do with roles, behaviors or qualities. God is a state of Am-ness. God just “IS.” It’s a very Taoist concept actually.
I remembered when my mom passed away, I did the eulogy for her. I sat for many hours trying to come up with ways to describe her. For every word though, there was a contradiction. She was kind but I could think of many times when she wasn’t so kind. She was funny and often not. Over the course of those days, up until the time I had to speak, I realized that I could not find a way to describe her that would truly capture her essence. Maggie just “was!” But she was fully, “Maggie.” There was no other like her, yet all the qualities I could come up with were rather universal: funny, fierce, kind, etc. Then I realized that the same was true for everyone. It’s so hard to pinpoint anyone and really capture their unique way of being in the world. We are no two alike and yet we are all alike.
I am. I keep wanting to finish that statement. I keep feeling compelled to complete it somehow as if it weren’t complete. Ask me who I am or who you are. It’s a tough one. I simply am. What makes me want to add more? My ego I guess. I want you to know me. But it’s experience with me that has you know me. I could do all the descriptions I want and you won’t have any idea what I’m talking about. You just have to experience me. Even then, all you will have is your own experience of me. It still won’t be who I am. I am who I am. Maybe that’s the part of us that is God.
So what if we trusted that? What if I trusted that the way I am led, deep from my heart, from that still, silent place- what if I walked with that trust and spoke the words that came to me- even if I stutter a bit. What if I allowed myself to say yes- YES. I AM!
Wow. Deep thoughts. And I’m not even smoking anything!
