The Ashes of Our Idols

I thought about Exodus 32:20 a lot this summer. Assumptions, friendships that I'd centered myself on collapsed, and when it seemed like all my ideals were in powder at my feet- were a choking taste in my mouth- I couldn't help but be reminded of the Israelites' experience.

Picture it- sunrise in the desert. Cold sand rolling beneath your feet. Perhaps a carpet of grey mist lurking at the base of the towering, rugged peak of Mt. Sinai. Rocky outcroppings lit to gold as the sun looms on the horizon. Scarlet streaks burning across the lightening sky. Behind a newly built altar, the crude figure of a calf, molded of fine, heavy gold, glints in the icy morning light. People threading their paths like spectres through the rocks. The bellowing of terrified livestock. The sick-sweet smell of blood as the ritual sacrifices are performed. And then, the smoke of thousands of cooking fires rising across the camp as the day of feasting begins. It says in verse six:

"...the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry."

Hundreds of drums thump and echo among the rocks. Long wailing notes are blown. A shower of music jangles from tambourines. Bare brown feet dance rythmically, pounding the sparsely planted earth. Laughter rings out from swaying leathern tents. Children chase each other gleefully in the open spaces. Eager, loud, excited masses mill about.

Moses struck this holiday crowd like a tornado.

Exodus 32:19-20
"When Moses approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, his anger burned and he threw the tablets out of his hands, breaking them to pieces at the foot of the mountain. And he took the calf they had made and burned it in the fire; then he ground it to powder, scattered it on the water, and made the Israelites drink it."

Sooner or later we always 'drink' the consequences of our sin. Israel tasted the bitterness of idolatry right down to the last of its very literally bitter dregs.

I wrote the following poem this summer, intended to be from the perspective of a young Israelite woman in Moses' camp:

They poured the shimmering stream into the mold
I watched, in nervous awe
To see in that bright rush of molten gold
The dimming of the Law-
The flash of seeming power-
In that hot brilliance, pleasure taking shape;
The form of my desire.

I watch the fire
Flare up and die, recalling how he came
A thunderclap from God, a storm of rage
And sick disgust- the crash of broken stone
That shattered my hard heart- his words of scorn-
A flicking lash which all at once laid bare
My vain pretensions, and my childish fears.
I still can taste
That terrible, glittering draught of molten shame;
It mocked me with its gleam
Oh God, my God!
The ashes of my idol are bitter in my mouth.