On Job: Moving From The Horse To The Wolf

Seeking a Liturgy of the Wild, (Part 24)

Viktor Vasnetsov, Ivan Tsarevich Riding the Grey Wolf, 1889

In part one I wrote that Job hasn’t happened, it’s happening. That as long as we suffer and rational explanations fall at our feet this story will have its mesmeric charge. Many will be aware of just how much of the Bible works like this. It holds the beliefs of peoples from thousands of years ago, but is also imbued with some restless power that means its symbolic range reassembles for every pair of eyes that surveys it. Funny as it sounds, it doesn’t get old. Yes, it contains history, law, poetry, myth (and is extensive in tabernacle construction), but there’s this roaming imperative going on. It’s a different book every time I open its pages.

A friend said something interesting to me, that Job rarely finds its footing with people, that we can only get so close to it then turn back. A difficult mountain to climb. Too knotted, too much tough country, maybe too triggering – to use a modern word. It hovers there casting a big shadow, disturbing in its implication. It broods. We limp away but we can’t quite put it down.