When the people of Israel came to the Jordan River and the Ark of the Presence of God was taken into it a great thing happened. An upstream town named after mankind’s title cut witnessed an odd mound, a water heap if you will allow it. How to imagine such a thing has often frequented my thoughts as this event and its big Egyptian sister wandered off the pages of scripture and into my mind. Could they have gone fishing sideways? Could they see fish like we do in the Georgia Aquarium except without the glass to hold up the water? Could they put a hand into a wall of Red Sea water? I don’t know if the water heap up by that city called Adam was witnessed by Israel like the first one was, but surely someone got to see it. Maybe they even got to play with if they or their mommas weren’t to scared to let them near that boldly obedient water.
Now you may be wondering where Frankenstein enters this promised land story. That, after all, was how I hinted this to be heading. Well, Mary Shelley, in that inaugural science fiction told of a man who made something that was stronger than himself. Rivers even when flowing at flood stage are not so big that they cannot be controlled. God does not have to wait for the things he makes to flow on their merry way before his people can go on theirs. Frankenstein 1 battled his maker. God does not make Frankensteins. The river maker never finds himself servant to or at risk of them. The creator does not cower before things he assembled. He does not have to negotiate with the cosmos. He is so much bigger than the strongest of us that we must be careful that our stretched imagination does not break over it and think too little of the so Big.
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