Isaiah 35:8 (ESV)

I was a child walking in the Way of Holiness when I saw the figures carved in stone, some distance from the path. One was reclining on its side and the other standing. To stop and look seemed but a little delay from my journey.

I stepped closer, curious to see what lay off this Way. The statue reclining on its side was a man chiseled from black rock. His head lay in two pieces on the ground beside him, half grown over with moss, split from the crown to the chin. His posture was elegant and lazy, but my curiosity grew as I took notice of his hands. The left was positioned under where his head had once been before its fall. The right was raised above his body, holding between thumb and forefinger a bunch of grapes still attached to the vine. The vine seemed so long that it wrapped around his body many times and down his legs. And as I peered closer, I perceived that the grapes were no grapes, and the vine was no vine. What he let dangle from his fingers was a cluster of serpents’ heads, cold eyes flashing. The heads all sprang from the same body, that long twisted body which had taken this man as its captive.

With a single bound I was well away from this figure, distressed at what I had seen. What had possessed this one to eat and seek sweetness from a venomous creature? And then my eyes fixed on the word so carefully chipped into the man’s stone leg. CONFUSION. Full of growing terror, I quickly moved to the upright figure, intent on distracting my thoughts.

She was carved from the same black rock, and it glittered in the rays of the sun. Her figure was fair, and her attire extravagant. A crown circled her head, and around her neck hung a large key. At first, I stood in awe and thought her a very great woman. But as I considered her face and hands, I became unsettled. Her arms were stretched out as if to receive something, but she had no hands. They lay at her feet, crushed and broken. Her countenance was one of sorrow and mourning, grieving and longing. Oh, to help her! But she could have no help.

This made my heart heavy. Before I turned back to my path, I looked one last time at her crown and saw engraved in its intricacy one word. EMPTINESS.

Isaiah 34:11 (ESV)

I came back to the Way, my mind full of thoughts and musings. To know that such leisure and beauty and power could simultaneously exist with hollowness and desolation caused me to ponder how this could be. Does not wealth bring fullness? Does not comfort and convenience bring with it an ordered and stable mind?

The shadows were growing longer as I contemplated these things, and I confess my gaze was fixed on the ground. These mysteries were perplexing and troubling to me. But then, looking up, I saw before me two more figures on the path before me. Both were cut from brilliant white marble, and one was reclining while the other stood. The contrast to those previous could not have been more stark.

I was soon right up alongside the reclining figure and saw to my delight that his face was full of peace and discernment. A sword lay just in front of him, his right hand resting on its hilt. It was very curious to me, for the blade of that formidable weapon, though from the same pure marble, was stained red. His eyes seemed to pierce me, and when I read the word cut into his forehead my heart trembled. JUSTICE. But even as I trembled, I again considered his posture. He did recline, and his sword was not being held aloft in threat. This must be justice accomplished, I reasoned, or else surely his expression would be one of vengeance and his sword would be on the ready.

I walked to the other statue and gazed up at it. Its height surpassed all the others, and its beauty was beyond words. He stood tall and mighty, his eyes turned upwards to heaven. His tunic bore the crest of a lion and a lamb encircled by a laurel wreath. A dove rested on his right hand, which was stretched out toward heaven, and his left hand held the book of the law. I stood for a long while til the sun was nearly set. And as I began to turn away, a last ray fell directly on the word etched beneath his feet. RIGHTEOUSNESS.

With these thoughts, I began to make my way along the Way of Holiness.

Isaiah 28:17 (ESV)