JACOB’S LADDER
Ladders and angels and a stone for a Pillow. Even though that Torah Portion has passed I find myself thinking about a lot. My second graders are using the images from that Torah Portion for the Collage they will make for their presentation in a few weeks.. I find myself returning to that imagery as I contemplate the weeks that have passed since my father crashed his car.
It’s been a hard. I think I can relate to the stone for a pillow most of all. It feels like I have been trying to rest on a stone of stress for my pillow. Despite returning to the frailty of old age and the onset of dementia my father is intact. Even if he thinks he went off to Wilmar, and not Northfield it is such a relief to have him here.
We awake from this time and mark the place.
Anything is better than having to arrange shiva. It is so clear to me that he has been given one more chance.
Jacob. Stone. Ladder. Angels. As we rest on the hard stone of the aftermath of his accident I like to think that there are metaphors for us to hang onto. For that is how my dad thinks. Metaphors and poems. Let’s say those angels are going up and down the ladder holding poems he has written. Let’s say that mysterious forces combine to help him at last get seen.
When he held out the scribbled sheet of his writing after the accident I bent in close and listened. He feels low. He feels frustrated. His work has not been seen. He has not been published the way he would like.
And yet he sit there unharmed voicing these feelings. I can’t help but wonder about the unseen hands and angels that attended to him.
When I look closely at the map on Google I can see the roads surrounding the place where he had his accident. There is a Kerrville Trail, a Marion Lake and a Anita Road.
So did his sister who once lived in Kerrville, Texas come in close on angel wings and hold him so he remained unharmed. Did my Jewish relatives whose last name is Marion swoop in and hold him so he remained unharmed. Or was it just me and my intense worry that icy Thursday that held him as I phoned hospitals wondering where he was and filing a Missing Persons Report. We’ll never know. But seen and unseen forces were there. Did his Baptist preacher father Charles H. White hold onto him. Did the thunder from one of his sermons about Jacob keep the ground clear for Dad to land on..Who knows…it is all a great mystery.
As the car rolled was his father also there in that moment. Both holding onto him and pushing him away from death. My dad’s father was a farmer who got the call to preach and became a Southern Baptist Preacher. Later on in life he was obsessed with Jacob.
It’s been a hard time. I’ve had my usual financial stress, the roads are icy, winter. There has also been the maze of phone calls and worries to attend to. Sometimes you wake up and you realize that just a stone has been your pillow. Nothing soft or comforting. And then you mark that place and know that G-d has been with you and had held you for his own. When you wake up and your stone has been a pillow, know that it is a holy place. Know that it is holy ground. Know that from now on out nothing will be the same.
I look up into the mystical sky. I see angels going up and down a ladder. They are holding poems my dad wrote. They are holding them up so all can see them. We awaken and say, now, this is holy ground, this hard place we have been in. and now it is time for his work to be seen.
Once upon a time I had a stone for a pillow when I lived on an island of stone far away in a Gaelic sea. I was there because my father helped me stay there. He supported me financially so I could live out my dream. I lived in the house of the storyteller and yes I had a stone for a pillow.
Now it is time to tell his stories. We mark this place and call it holy ground.
Weeks pass. Regular family tumult resumes. There are hassles here and hassles there. The $3,000 from the Insurance company for the totaled car is deposited into my parents bank account. It will help.
It is grey and wet and drizzling out. I look out at the shiny snow and inward to the Torah scrolls as they are put away. We sing the song I love:
“It is a Tree of Life for all that hold fast and all its supporters are happy!!”
I see mystical mysterious tendrils extending beyond the physical scrolls. They wrap around me, illuminating my life with light that shines from an ancient source. I feel courage to navigate the mysterious road that lies in front of me.
