On the Turning Away

The phrase presented itself to me, and I could have swept my mind for an age and not know where it came from or how it got there. The words felt older than lifetimes and as new as today. They seemed to tell an epic history, hint at deep loss, and foreshadow a restoration: Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained. Or Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso.

"... on the turning away ..."

We live half-asleep, half-aware, half-full. Insensitive, inert. Full of holes, full of dirt, like cavities. Yet Someone, Something, is putting something there all the time. Mostly things seep out of us like waterdrops from a poorly tightened faucet. Sometimes something stays, bonding in the awful empty spaces.

" ... on the turning away ..."

I could not account for their presence, but they belonged there, firmly. It felt right for them to be there. My intuition told me they were an admonition. Reaching for the edge of my consciousness, I searched for the phrase. (God bless the Internet for externalizing our collective consciousness.)

This is what I found:

On the turning away
From the pale and downtrodden
And the words they say
Which we won't understand
Don't accept that what's happening
Is just a case of others suffering
Or you'll find that youre joining in
The turning away

It's a sin that somehow
Light is changing to shadow
And casting its shroud
Over all we have known
Unaware how the ranks have grown
Driven on by a heart of stone
We could find that we're all alone
In the dream of the proud

I found a song. No, the song found me. It has a haunting melody with well-matched words. It could have been sung four hundred years ago, born under gray skies in the distant green hills. I can hear it being sung today and many tomorrows from now, stirring streets and soaring in sanctuaries. With this song, I can pray.

On the wings of the night
As the daytime is stirring
Where the speechless unite
In a silent accord
Using words you will find are strange
And mesmerized as they light the flame
Feel the new wind of change
On the wings of the night

No more turning away
From the weak and the weary
No more turning away
From the coldness inside
Just a world that we all must share
It's not enough just to stand and stare
Is it only a dream that there'll be
No more turning away?

David Gilmour and Anthony Moore

***

Scholars whom I trust say Paul was not "converted" but "called" to life in Christ. That's true enough; Paul had always believed in the one God of Israel. And through his experience of Jesus, Paul believed only that he had come more fully and more perfectly to live in the light of the Lord. But he did not always believe in others, in the "nations" or Gentiles. Before Paul experienced Jesus, the people beyond his own people were to be turned away if they could not be made to believe and live like his own people.

After Jesus, for Paul there was no more turning away. Only a radical turning toward.

So there is fundamentally a call, but the call is heard through a million little whispers, soft breezes that collect and turn your direction while you walk. The call is heard through numerous little conversions, increments of turning toward. It is not a negative motion; it is always a positive movement.

Conversion comes through the call. Turning away from sin, turning toward God and humanity. Paul was called to God's life in Christ. But he was converted, too: away from alienation, toward all peoples.

" ... on the turning away ..."

I was half-awake, half-thinking of conversion, when this phrase surfaced. Now I ponder with wider eyes. To what, to whom must I turn my face? Who have I turned away? To what, to whom does God bid me turn?

Can I do it, God? Will I do it? Can you make me feel the breezes? Will I go where you will? Even now, despite my desire to know you and serve all, have I turned very far away from you and all your loved ones?

I will turn again to you. Show me the pale and downtrodden, the weak and the weary. Show me the ones I will love. Show me just one, if one is all I can love.

Thank you, God, for calling me.