In the Image of Rocky

In the Image of Rocky

(Exodus 3)

  

Shraga Weil, "The Burning Bush"1990  Serigraph 

Rocky was a young adult when I met him for the first time at a conference in the early 1990s, a young man with intellectual disabilities living in Kansas. As I ate lunch with Rocky one afternoon he insisted on telling me about his job in a rapid succession of spoken thoughts.  He told me that it was a great job, that he loved it and that he went to it every day, he said he made friends there, he worked hard, he earned good money, and he got up early to get there.  And if I hadn’t figured it out by that point, he let me know that it was the most important part of his life. Finally, in the split second that it took him to catch his breath, knowing that it might be my only opportunity to jump in, I did. 

“Rocky,” I asked, “what is it that you do?"

He paused for a moment, gathered his thoughts, looked me straight in the eye and with all sincerity he said, "I do … what I do."

That was the answer. There was no better way for Rocky to describe not only what he did for his job but also to say who he was, what he was about, and how he lived his life. "I do what I do," he said, and as soon as it hit my ears, I heard in my head the words of Moses when God spoke to him from the burning bush. "If I come to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your ancestors has sent me to you, and they ask me, 'What is his name?' what shall I say to them?"  God said to Moses, "I Am Who I Am.” (or "I will be who I will be"). (Exodus3:14)

"I do what I do," said Rocky. "I am Who I am," said YHWH.

The truth of those statements is reality for each of us, not just for Rocky, in that they describe who we are in this world. – I am Who I am, I do what I do.  There is no need to even try to define God, or us for that matter, any further than that basic phrase. God knows what it means to "do what I do" because God is one who knows what it is like to quite simply be, to exist, to be the one who is called, I Am.  And God created us in that very same image of God – b'tzelem Elohim in Hebrew, Imago Dei in Latin, in the image of God in English – we are created in the image of the one who is, simply stated, I Am. You and me and Rocky in the image of God.

Martin Buber, renowned philosopher and theologian, a person of influence in the revival of the Hassidic movement in the middle of the 20th century, was convinced that the only way for people to know each other and to know God is through intimate relationships.  In his seminal work, I and Thou, he writes:

The word of revelation is: I am there as whoever I am there. That which reveals is that which reveals. That which has being is there, nothing more. The eternal source of strength flows, the eternal touch is waiting, the eternal voice sounds, nothing more.

When Moses stood at the burning presence of the Hebrew God, YHWH, on that mountain, he experienced ever so briefly that very same word of revelation. I Am was there in front of him –

and beside him and behind him and surrounding him. And if Moses got the message clearly he began to understand in a new way that this One in whose image he and everybody else has been created was explaining to him what Buber reminds us, "That which has being is there, nothing more."

Isn't this what Imago Dei and b'tzelem Elohim is all about? Isn't this what God means by I Am?   Isn't this what it means for us to be created in God's image?

Until we are ready to recognize in each other, whatever our ability, the reality of that description – I am who I am – then adding ramps and elevators and bathrooms to make our buildings more accessible for those we look at as other than I Am, is an absolutely useless process. Until we realize that each one of us has been created in the image of God and that we are who we are simply because God is one who knows what it is like to be – nothing more – until we realize that fact, we will never be truly accepting of each other.

Jean Vanier, founder of L'arche communities where people with and without physical and intellectual disabilities live side by side, wrote that “Interior growth is only possible when we commit ourselves with and to others.” We cannot grow spiritually until we are willing to allow others to grow as well and otherness is no longer defined by whether or not a person can walk or speak or hear or see or think or learn as quickly as I can. We cannot limit our circle to those who are just like us if we want to move beyond where we are spiritually and until we submit to the needs of others and allow them the opportunity to grow as well we will never grow.

For those with what society has labeled as disabilities, for their families and their friends, their doctors and advocates, their teachers and therapists, their pastors, priests, rabbis and imams, the reality is that those statements – I am who I am or I do what I do – describe each of us. No need to try to define it any further.

God knows what it means to "do what I do" because God is one who knows what it is like to simply be, to exist, to be the one who is called, I AM.

© Copyright 2015

James F. McIntire

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