James 24:7

(Sixth in a series of reflections on a story from the Desert Fathers)

Again...here's the story:

"Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, 'Abba, as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?' then the old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, 'If you will, you can become all flame.'"

I cannot help but think of Moses' encounter with the burning bush when I read about Abba Lot's encounter with Abba Joseph's ten "little lamps of fire."   

Here is the story of Moses' encounter:

Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.  There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up.  So Moses thought, "I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up."

When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, "Moses! Moses!"
      And Moses said, "Here I am."

"Do not come any closer," God said. "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground."  Then he said, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

I think of the burning bush because, like the burning bush, it seems that Abba Joseph's hands became "like 10 lamps of fire" without being consumed.  I wonder whether the original teller of this story drew from his memory of the burning bush. However, I also think of it because of what it might suggest about the relationship between "signs" and the "signified."

Finger Signs

Without getting too far afield in the intricacies of simile and metaphor or sign and symbol, I think of Joseph's human glow sticks in the neighborhood of those terms. 

At the risk of stating the obvious, Abba Joseph's fingers are signs that point beyond themselves to something else.   I take that risk because I know something about myself and about many, if not most, of us:

We can be rather dog-like.

Have you ever taken your dog out to play in the yard?  Have you ever seen a squirrel, pointed toward it, and shouted to the dog: "Squirrel!"  Have you ever noticed where the dog looks?

I've had dogs my whole life and every one of them has done the same thing:  When I point toward the squirrel they've looked at my finger.

We can be that way about signs.  Signs point beyond themselves yet we are easily intrigued by the signs themselves.  While the story does not say as much, I suspect Abba Lot, if he is anything like us, was taken back by the fingers.

"Wowwww...Abba Dude!  How did you do that?"

(I think of Simon the Sorcerer who followed the evangelist Philip around: "...astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw."  (Acts 8:1-25)  Simon did not seem nearly as intrigued by the Power toward whom the signs pointed as he was by the signs themselves.)

The burning bush, which was not consumed in its burning, was a sign that pointed beyond itself to God.  While Moses was drawn to the burning bush he was not distracted by the bush.  He was drawn by the sign, drawn perhaps even to the sign, but managed to see and hear that which was beyond the sign.

Abba Lot would have made a grave error had he become enamored of Abba Joseph's glowing fingers. Glowing finger were not the point.

The fingers, like all good fingers, point beyond themselves.

They point to God.