Daily Prophets
Day 62
“And God said, just as my servant Isaiah walked naked and barefoot three years, it is a sign and potent for Egypt and Kush. And said the dwellers of this coastland, In that day if those we looked to for rescue and help from the king of Assyria, how can we escape ourselves?”(Isaiah 20:3, 6).
Isaiah is walking around barefoot and naked to get the people’s attention and, in three years, they stayed blind to him and his message. They must have written him off as a kook, a nut, a homeless person who can be ignored. It takes God’s direct intervention for the people to make the correlation between Isaiah’s appearance, prophecy and what will happen to Egypt and Kush, the ones Judah things will save it.
Once God gets through to the people of Judah, they finally get the hint of Isaiah. They realize, once again, that they have put their faith and trust in mere mortals and not God. They have believed that some human power could save them and realize that just isn’t true.
The last fragment of verse 6 says “how we can ourselves escape or how can we escape ourselves” and this is the question that Judah faced then and we face now. How do we “get over ourselves” how do escape our narcissistic wounds, needs, our egocentric ways of being to serve God, to worship at the Altar of the Ineffable One rather than at the power of greed, power, prestige, ego, etc? We are so full of ourselves the we can’t see nor hear the prophet sent by God, we cannot comprehend nor understand that these words are for us, today and God keeps sending prophets, if we would only listen to the true prophets instead of the false ones.
Rabbi Heschel is/was a true prophet and more people are reading him now, hopefully. My concern is that these same people are not living his teachings and his wisdom so we can all avoid the disaster our actions will cause. Regarding this entire chapter he says: “Not only would they (Egypt and Ethiopia) fail to send effective aid to the rebel states of Palestine; they themselves would fall victims to the might of Assyria. It seems that Isaiah’s advice was heeded.”(The Prophets pg 68). Look what it took for them to listen, Isaiah walking barefoot and naked, look what it has taken for us to truly heed the words of Rabbi Heschel, Dr. King, et al; we still haven’t fully taken them to heart and made them part of our daily living, just as we haven’t made the words of the prophets part of our daily living.
Our politicians believe that they can make “deals with the devil” and come out just fine. Ron Johnson’s comments were abhorrent, what is worse is that his Republican colleagues have said nothing!! In essence, agreeing with his words by their silence. People have been walking around naked and barefoot for years in this country, calling out a message from and of God; “Help Me”, “See Me”, “Don’t Shoot”, “I can’t breathe” and our politicians and many of our citizens have ignored God’s words, God’s messengers and prophets for the comfort of “prosperity gospel”, “Jesus was a lion and strength makes up for sin”, and other words from these false prophets claiming to be servants of God, yet serving themselves and the wealthy. Have you no shame, Senators, Congresspeople, Statehouse elected officials?
In recovery, we know that no human power; especially ourselves, our willpower, could save us from our self-destructive behaviors and thoughts. We are so aware that every time we count on someone to save us, we end up being disappointed and our situations become worse. It is only when we realize: “no human power could relieve our alcoholism. That God could and would if He were sought” from Chapter 5 in the Big Book of AA. We also realize, welcome and seek out the wisdom, advice and experience strength and hope of people who are further down the road of recovery, our sponsors and “wise elders” in recovery. We are constantly “getting over ourselves”, it is a daily struggle and, in recovery, we hit this mark each and every day-otherwise we would not be in recovery any more.
In my life, getting over myself has been, is and will be a constant struggle. I can confuse being/heeding Isaiah with being narcissistic and egocentric. I work diligently to keep the latter at a minimum and the former at a maximum and some days I fall short. I have watched Harriet Rossetto be like Isaiah, being transparent, speaking about Recovery and being laughed at and scorned because she stands for a spiritual solution. I have seen Recovery become a big business and people who are not drinking or using believing it is okay to game the system, lie, cheat, body-broker, etc without realizing the incongruence of their actions. I have seen myself be hurt and reactive from the actions of people I trusted who have betrayed principles we have agreed to live by. I have seen me betray these same principles as well. I am looking to God for safety and redemption, I have experienced waiting for people to give me this and found myself more isolated and alone. It is true, God helps me escape myself, saves me and redeems me each and every day. How are you ‘getting over yourself’ and asking God to save and Redeem you? God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark