Strange Innocence In Exile
A Message for Dissidents
“In the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I was among the exiles by the river Chebar, the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God.”
- Ezekiel 1:1 NRSVA
Strangely enough, this verse has stuck with me most through readings of the prophetic book of Ezekiel in the Bible. Something about Ezekiel saying that he lived “among the exiles” always struck a chord with me. Some versions replace the word “exiles” as “captives” because, at this time in Israel’s history, the people were conquered by the Chaldeans as a judgment of God due to many generations of compounding sin and iniquity.
If you continue reading the book of Ezekiel, you’ll find that, although he lives “among the exiles,” he himself is an “exile among exiles.” God calls him to walk a strange path where, not only his voice, but his lifestyle prophesied to his own nation. Not only does God unveil the otherworldly nature of the spirit realm through visions to him, but he also calls him to act out strange signs, often in public, to his fellow exiles that prophesy further judgments on many nations from God’s heavenly courts.
One such sign commanded of him by God was to bake his food on human dung as a sign that the people of Israel shall “…eat their bread, unclean, among the nations to which [God] will drive them” (Ezekiel 4:13 NRSVA); thus, Ezekiel must eat his own bread unclean, for a period of time, as a sign to the people. (Obviously, he wasn’t getting invited to many dinner parties among his fellow exiles…). Unsurprisingly, Ezekiel protests doing this as he claims that he has never eaten anything unclean and doesn’t want to defile himself. God basically says coolio and tells him to bake his food on animal dung instead. Ezekiel is satisfied by this and protests no more.
When I first read this book, I was utterly fascinated by it in a deep spiritual sense. I didn’t understand it at the time, but over the years, I’ve begun to see why. Ezekiel is a stranger among his own people, an alien to the rebellious people of Israel living during his time. He hears God and obeys, nearly without question. He sees what God reveals to him and speaks what God tells him to say. He does what God asks him to do no matter the intensity of the sacrificial act of obedience. He lives a life of pure humility to God at a time when most others like him, those from his own nation, lineage, and culture, do not. He is strange because he sees the truth that God reveals to him and nearly unquestioningly obeys. He is alien to those he lives among. He is an exile among exiles living by the river Chebar.
In obedience to God, the childlike nature of the one walking in humility is revealed. Like a child, Ezekiel lives fully trusting that his encounters with God and the signs that he lives out are truly important and purposeful to the plan of God, something that he cannot fully see from his perspective. He must trust that it’s all for a purpose. To some of us, what God asks Ezekiel to do could seem cruel, but Ezekiel trusts God so fully that he never fails to do what God asks him to do. Others in the Bible, fight, wrestle, and struggle against what God asks them to do, few walk the pathway that Ezekiel walked.
The strange childlike innocence of Ezekiel and the fact that he was an exile among exiles is what draws me to him. The first time I read this book, I read it 3 times in a row! I would have continued if I had not thought that it would be weird to reread this book again when, at that time, there were still a few other books of the Bible that I hadn’t even read through once yet. Still, over the years, I’ve gone back, and Ezekiel 1:1 hits me like a ton of bricks every time. In a strange way, Ezekiel 1:1 sums up the realities of how Ezekiel lived in just one sentence. Everything you read after it is just an extension of this first verse.
Most of us feel that something isn’t quite right in the world as an adolescent, but we have no avenue and no language to describe it. It just feels like everything is a little wrong. Something about the systems of life that humans live, especially in the west, is just wrong. I frequently recall all the little “glitches in the matrix” that I saw back then, the pattern-matching, the “noticing” (as it’s called these days) even back then.
Some of the things that I noticed were the fact that all the new buildings being built were horrifically ugly. If we’re the west and so rich, why don’t we go back to architectural styles that were actually beautiful? Why are all the cars ugly, shapeless, formless blobs? Why is it that all my liberal “Democrat” teachers break the rules and share their politics, but none of the conservative “Republican” teachers break the rules? Why are the houses in suburban neighborhoods so bland and uninspiring in design? Even recently, I had the thought that “nothing in my room, the items that I own, are unique.” They are all the millionth copy of the millionth copy pumped out by some factory or assembly line.
I went to a friend’s place last year, and I was amazed. She owned a table and a little cupboard passed down from her grandparents such that you could tell that they were uniquely made. Why hasn’t anyone passed down anything unique to me yet? before 2020: why do I drive an ugly car to an ugly building, to sit at an ugly desk, to stare at ugly little lines of code for an ugly 8 to 10 hours a day? The lack of beauty in this age does some kind of internal damage to me that I can’t fully describe…Why doesn’t anyone care about making things that are beautiful anymore?
Why doesn’t anyone care about making things that are beautiful anymore?
The abundance of our time would be great if it wasn’t so heavily overburdened by a poignant sense of wrongness permeating all of society. Of course though, when you’re young and even now sometimes, everyone else seems to go along and get along fine with the system, so the assumption is always that maybe I’m the one who’s wrong. Kids have been calling me “strange” and “weird” since my earliest years in elementary school, so I probably am wrong. Maybe I was born wrong. Sometimes I wonder how many times Ezekiel had just the same thought. Though the scriptures do not tell us, we know he was living in a culture that was in full rebellion against God, and he himself was so utterly living in deep submission to the Lord. There’s no way that his radical obedience didn’t cause many in his day to disdain him, to reject him.
Another prophet, Jeremiah, lived a similar life. In his case, God told him things, and he would speak them. Then, they would happen as he spoke them. Then, the leaders of Israel persecuted him and threw him in prison after a while of him being right a few times in a row. It pays to be right. The payout is never what you would expect. Jeremiah found himself in prison, where in deep depression, he bemoans what all “noticers” bemoan:
“Woe is me, my mother, that you ever bore me, a man of strife and contention to the whole land! I have not lent, nor have I borrowed, yet all of them curse me.”
- Jeremiah 15:10 NRSVA
Jeremiah wishes that he had never been born. He says what many of us think. If by being righteous and by obeying God, I am thrown in prison, then why even be born? He cleverly notices that his noticing and speaking regarding what God is revealing stirs up the rebellious people in his land against him. If God made him to speak yet his speech causes others to become agitated and belligerent toward him, then why even be born? Did God send him into the world just to be rejected and harassed and disdained and mocked and belittled? Was he born to bring a message that none would heed and all would ignore? If so many would find him a curse rather than a blessing, what’s the purpose of his existence? If Jeremiah, by being who God created Jeremiah to be, is someone that everyone hates and despises, why should he continue living? He is just a burden, an annoyance to everyone he knows.
Many people have memories of their earliest moments of noticing and commenting on what they’ve seen. Over the years, I’ve learned that people don’t really like it that much. Often by noticing, you see things that people don’t want to see, but in your case, you don’t have the good sense not to bring it up. But almost like a child, noticers speak about the “elephant in the room” in an uncharacteristic purity and innocence, and people become appalled and exasperated at them for pointing out the thing no one was supposed to point out (as now, you’ve made everyone uncomfortable).
Now, people feel awkward and uncomfortable around you. What if you notice something else that you weren’t supposed to notice? Before long, you’re living as an exile surrounded by people who strangely are alienated from their own environment, their own reality, by refusing to notice all the extremely noticeable things around themselves. They are foreigners to their own environment and society and don’t even know it. You point it out, and the response by the foreigners is to denote you too as foreign, though you’ve swam in the same waters as them your whole life.
There’s a peculiar innocence in the internet truth-seeker and his noticing. In innocence, one sees and speaks, and the response from the world is almost never kind these days. Strangely, the noticer, frequently the internet sage, is persecuted by those he wants to save most. He’s baking his bread on animal dung as a sign of what God has revealed to him, and for some reason, no one will invite him to their dinner parties anymore. He points out that most architecture being built these days is ugly and boring, and people gasp.
“No, it’s all beautiful!” They say.
“how? in what way?” the internet sage asks.
“They” have no sensible answer and become visibly disturbed and frustrated; thus, the internet sage sees this as the perfect time to list the 117 reasons why the architecture of today is terrible.
Yes, it’s true. Not many appreciate the purity and innocence of the concerned and noticing sage who just wants to understand why the world isn’t making any sense. Not only are the rules of reality being manipulated and bent, but the people are being lied to about how it all works. The internet sage digs into the data to deconstruct the lies and to promote the truth, and the very people to which he has come to reveal the truth to are the ones that ostracize and drive him out first.
Woe to the internet sage, the dissident who did not himself create!
This is not to be taken facetiously. It’s rather serious. The costs of seeing and saying are high, and many who live today are just beginning to understand the magnitude of such an expense.
Sometimes, when weighing whether I should launch into an explanation of xyz concept in real life or online, I wonder why I should even try to explain. Why bother? I may as well just skip to the “exile among exiles” phase and hop over the shunning part altogether. I’ll just keep to myself. It’s gotten me this far. After all, if God created me to notice and speak, then surely someone else would have been created to listen. Most days, it doesn’t seem like anyone is up for that, so most days, I’m also not up for speaking.
I suppose that I’m writing this because Christmas and New Year’s are coming up, and for some, this is a good time to connect with family and friends. Others, may not have anyone to connect to. I suppose all I want to say is that the life of living as an exile among exiles is difficult at times, and as all dissidents know, though we notice a lot, we don’t get everything right. However, it can feel like a deep betrayal to go out of your way to try and explain something you’ve noticed to someone you care for and for those particular people not to listen. Even if some among noticers would gloat over being right (the times that they are right), most will admit that it never feels good to have been right but then have to see those you warned choose not to heed your warning. In many ways, that’s the saddest part. To wave your hands like a madman to stop a loved one (or a beloved culture or civilization or tribe) from crossing a street as a car barrels by, only for them not to see you, or perhaps, to deliberately ignore you and suffer their fate.
Still, it’s important to understand your purpose. It’s not to get anyone to listen to you. It’s simply to speak the truth of the Living God. It’s up to individuals, tribes, and nations to decide what they will do with the truth that you’re speaking.
As for Ezekiel, living as an exile among exiles by the river Chebar, did anyone heed him? Or were his words and actions recorded to look back upon as a warning after the fact? Will anyone heed the voice of the dissidents today?
Only time will tell…
After all, sometimes they do listen. The people of Nineveh listened to the prophet Jonah. King David listened to Nathan, the prophet. Multiple Kings listened to the prophet Daniel. Sometimes they do heed your warnings.
But I will say, whether the people repent and submit to God or whether they reject God and receive destruction, the voice of the exile among exiles, the dissident, the postmodern internet sage, matters today.