Five Stones and a Burnt Stick

"We have been created for intimacy: intimacy with God and intimacy with others", says God in the opening chapter of 'Five Stones and a Burnt Stick' by Ernesto Lozada-Uzuriaga Steele. This short book is an exploration of what it means to experience an intimate relationship with God and with other people, intermingling Moses' encounter with God in the burning bush with preparations for his return to his people, ready to lead them out of oppression and slavery in Egypt. While it makes connections with the Biblical narrative in Exodus, the book is an imaginative exploration which aims to open up Moses' character and familial relationships in a deeper way.

 

In the burning bush sections, God reveals some of the secrets of intimacy to Moses, which include Demarcation, Difference, Dwelling, Disclosure, Discovery and the Sacred Fire. Demarcation is about needing to maintain boundaries for our own protection and in order to respect the integrity of others, while Difference unsurprisingly means recognising and affirming that which makes us all unique, seeing our differences as a gift and not a threat. In this, Steele picks up on similar ideas to those expressed by Rowan Williams in an essay on loneliness in 'Open to Judgement', in which the former Archbishop of Canterbury explores what it means to be human and to uniquely reflect God's image.

 

In a church environment often packed with words, Dwelling invites us to let our bodies go and simply to dance with God, as a way of expressing the language of our hearts. I love the image of the Trinity as being about the dance at the heart of the community of God, and here I feel Steele is inviting us to join in that risky but passionate movement. Disclosure offers an interesting take on original sin, with the fear that so often separates us from God and one another depicted as the mighty Leviathan, a beast that dwells in human hearts which must be disclosed, confronted, named and overcome, though as Steele indicates implicitly, the latter is ultimately God's work through Christ, rather than ours. Finally, Discovery acknowledges that intimacy is a lifelong journey, rather than something we acquire in a one-off event, and the Sacred Fire is much like the Quakers' idea of the light within, the indwelling of the Spirit which leads human beings into intimacy.

 

The narrative sections of the book explore Moses' relationships with God, his wife Zipporah, his son Gerson, his brother Aaron, and ultimately himself, prior to the exodus (the handing on of the tradition to Moses' daughter Miriam, who comes along after the exodus, bookends the main story). I found the reunion with Aaron and their discussion the most powerful of these, which shows something of Steele's passion for liberation theology and resonates with the depiction of the plight of the Israelites in the recent film 'Exodus: Gods and Kings'. The importance of Moses' artwork to the story also surely reflects Steele's own vocation as an artist, and I liked how the sharing of this with Zipporah and Gerson formed two of the most intimate and powerful sections of the story. However, I have to confess that I found the sexual scenes to be somewhat embarrassing to read; I hope I'm not prudish, but can't help feel there's such a thing as too much information!

 

This poetic and interesting book has much to recommend it, and I'm grateful for the gifts of a copy of the text and the invitation to write this review. Overall, I found the narrative less helpful than the burning bush sections of the book in exploring the nature of intimacy in a meaningful way, but there are useful ideas contained in both parts of the text which are worth exploring. Perhaps its biggest weakness is the dialogue, which at times felt unnatural and more like formal theological language lifted from an essay than anything one can imagine people actually saying in conversation. However, it's worth bearing with this to get to the gems therein, some of which this review has highlighted.

 

 

 

Five Stones & a Burnt Stick

 

Ernesto Lozada-Uzuriaga Steele

 

2014

 

Whispering Tree Original Books

 

ISBN: 978-0-9927363-1-6