The offering
The offering
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( For Jimmy)
The narrow mountain path was hardly there. On one side a shear rock wall rose a thousand feet into the cold night air. On the other side spring rains had washed out much of the rock and gravel support in some places leaving a thin shell that would collapse if any weight were put on it.
He smelled it before he saw it. Proceeding with utmost caution he approached a gapping section of the path that had vanished. Drawing as near as possible the old man peered over the edge into the gloom. On a ridge four hundred feet below lay something white twisted and broken. He sniffed the air again. Mountain goat. Even the lions would have a hard time getting at it down there. That meant the vulture would feast a little longer. He turned away and examined the rock wall. There were small indentations picked out long ago by metal tools. If a man were careful he could use those hand and foot holds and cross the gap to more solid ground. He flexed his sore arm and rubbed it a bit. Rewrapping it in the cloth soaked in balm and aromatic oils he breathed a small prayer and took hold of the first handhold.
He didn’t think about what was below him. He didn’t think about what was before him, he just reached for the next handhold and willed his feet towards the next crack or crevasse.
After a lifetime of aching fingers and joints he was back on the trail and chilled from exertion. He breathed a prayer of thanksgiving then took a small perforated clay jar half from his belt. Bending down on ancient knees he took tiny bronze tongs from his pouch, removed the jar’s lid and placed living coals in the tiny open metal baskets attached to his sandals. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet. On the way across the chasm the baskets had jarred against an out cropping of rock and launched twin red embers arching and twirling into the darkness below like a twin sister shooting stars hurrying to hell. The fresh coals glowed fiercely with each step he took and lit the path just a few feet ahead of him.
He and his son wound their way though the mountain pass and down into the valley where they met two of the man’s ranch hands and a wood laden donkey that had gone on ahead.
The ranch hands kept the bandits away and the donkey kept the scorpions away, shying up and clopping down on them with its heavy black hoofs with remarkable accuracy. On the third day he looked up and saw the place in the distance, Moriah, the mountain of instruction.
He told his men, “Wait here with the donkey. Me and the boy will go up there, worship a bit then come back. The coals in his clay pot had been recharged. He loaded the wood on his son and he himself carried the knife. It was so sharp knife he feared for the sheath.
Father.
Yes, my son?
Here is the wood and you have the fire and the knife but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?
God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son…
Sister Mary Rosetta closed the book. That’s all we have time for today. Next week we’ll see what happens and with Abraham and Isaac and take a look at Elijah and the prophets of Baal. Larry make sure you dog doesn’t eat your homework next week. Steven don’t go anywhere. You’re on eraser duty for that fight on the playground during lunch.
Stories of Abraham and Elijah calling down fire from heaven to consume the burnt offering made a huge impression on seven-year-old little Jimmy Case. Of the ten kids in his family, all adopted, he was in the middle. Two older brothers, two older sisters, then Jimmy, then the rest of the hoard below him in pecking and lumping order.
People in the olden days offered sacrifices to God. He should offer something to God too. He looked around his yard but couldn’t think what. Did God want his bike? He could have it since the tire was all chewed up. No. Something else. Something better. But what? He looked over at the apple tree in the Falatta’s yard next to theirs. There were huge apples up there. Sure most of them were spotted and wormy but maybe…
The roof was very steep and the green asphalt shingles virginal because none of the hoard had been up here to wear them down hurt his hands and knees. Vespa, their very large very loud German Shepherd was a terror in his young life. If he crab walked down low it would keep his center of gravity down by the roof and he was less likely to pitch forward into the yard where Vespa trotted on patrol.
Last week having sampled his sister Gail’s leg and finding the flavor excellent Vespa spotted Jimmy on the roof among the branches and yipped encouragement to the roof and any branches that would like to act as roller bearings between the steep roof and his worn slick tenny runners.
Hundreds of flies, big fat bold ones sat on the branches, leaves and fruit extending their long black flat ended feeding sucker into the soft brown spots on the apples. They’d buzz up angrily as Jimmy crab walked through saying, “You’re in our world now pal. We were here first and we don’t like you so watch your step. Vespa gargled and yarled down below suggesting if they could just buzz in his face and get him close to the edge of the roof he perhaps could make one of his famous gravity defying leaps and snag a cuff or tennis shoe. The flies thought this was an excellent idea and swarmed up en mass.
Most of the fruit was spoiled with two or three black fly bites in each piece but out at the end of a thin branch directly above Vespa there was a huge apple blush red and green by the warm August sun. He looked at the dog and suspected Vespa had willed that magnificent piece of fruit to be right there. The dog slowly looked up at Jimmy and smiled with enormously large curved teeth.
The branch would not hold Jimmy. The flies, Vespa and Jimmy knew that. So what’s it gonna be pal Vespa seemed to say. Are you gonna man up and get the apple or you gonna let your God go hungry? Maybe you could offer him a worm. Those are easy to get if you just scratch around.
Jimmy brushed a fly off his eyebrow and squinted hard at the dog. If the devil had black eyes, a long brown muzzle and a wet black nose he’d look just like Vespa.
Wanting desperately to disappoint Vespa but God Jimmy came up with a plan no sane person would even consider. He ran it by himself and the sane, rational part of him screamed no no no while the parts that told him climb up on the roof in the first place said, “that could work,” so of course he went for it. The plan was this. If he stretched his right hand out as far as he could while holding on to the thin branches with his left hand he could bend the thin branch back to his teeth. He’d grip the limb with his teeth while his right hand seized the prize. If he opened his mouth at just the right moment the rotten brown apple on the branches all around him would rain down on Lucifer and he’d be home free.
Against all odds the plan worked. Jimmy, the apple safely tucked inside his shirt climbed back up towards the roof peak and safety. An apple marble in league with the cur lodged underneath his shoe. He fell forward his breath gone. His other knee was now smarting and the twigs under him acted like roller bearings. He was an ingot of steel picking up speed as it rolled towards a blast furnace named Vespa, the wasp. Vespa, wearing a towering white chef’s hat flipped through his cookbook for that recipe of boy with raisin stuffed apples in his mouth. Drat. He was out of raisins. He pitched the cookbook over his shoulder.
Sushi was just as nice.
His one foot shot past the edge of the roof and out into space. Vespa leaped up. Time slowed to a crawl. His toe caught on the edge of the gutter and he lay between the living and the dead. Hot breath across his ankle told him Vespa would get the gold at upcoming Olympics in Rome. He willed himself to move. The course gravel hurt his fingertips as he dug them into the shingles. He willed his fingernails into the green surface arched and inched himself up. Slowly s lowly wormed his way up the steep roof, over the peak and down the other side to the mulberry tree ladder and safety. His chest was scraped raw. His arms and legs numb he collapsed in the long grass and cool shade between the two garages.
Miraculously the prized apple with only one or two small fly specs came through the ordeal unscathed. Jimmy didn’t have a Mt. Moriah to offer it up so where could he… The slide. The tallest thing in the yard it’s blindingly brilliant silver surface used to cook his legs on hot days.
Now was the dangerous part. Maybe God really wanted that apple and couldn’t wait. What if he was in a hurry and couldn’t wait and send lighting or flaming fire or whatever while he was on his way up the stairs. This was bad. He thought about it with his foot on the second rung. Maybe if I hurry.
He hurried and put the almost worm free apple in the center of the top of the slide and got down as fast as he could—just to play it safe.
He ran to the edge of the yard and squatted down beneath the lilacs in full bloom.
Ok God. You can have it now.
Jimmy waited for the roar and the flash and the terrible thunder. Maybe he should move some more. No. It was too late. He’d have to take his chances when the blast came. So he waited. And waited. A bird chirped in the bushes above him. Was that the signal? No. That was just the bird.
Nothing happened. God had rejected his offering and did not consume his best least wormy apple. He thought about it for a moment and then slowly climbed the slide and retrieved the apple. Bringing it back down to his spot under the lilacs he said, “If you don’t want it I’ll eat it.”
Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name. 17 And they shall be mine, saith the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. Malachi 3: 16 & 17
Prologue: Author’s note: Jimmy got his bible stories muddled up. He’d heard about Abraham’s call to sacrifice Isaac and he’d heard about fire coming down and consuming an offering and his young mind homogenized the two stories together and had fire coming down to consume Abraham’s sacrifice which was not the case. And finally speaking of sacrifices that brings up a good joke. Who was sorry to see the prodigal son come home? The fatted calf. The End.