I, Naaman

 

The king of Aram had high admiration for Naaman, the commander of his army, because through him the Lord had given Aram great victories. But though Naaman was a mighty warrior, he suffered from leprosy.

Now groups of Aramean raiders had invaded the land of Israel , and among their captives was a young girl who had been given to Naaman’s wife as a maid. One day the girl said to her mistress, “I wish my master would go to see the prophet in Samaria . He would heal him of leprosy.”

So Naaman told the king what the young girl from Israel had said. “Go and visit the prophet,” the king told him. “I will send a letter of introduction for you to carry to the king of Israel .” So Naaman started out, taking as gifts 750 pounds of silver, 150 pounds of gold, and ten sets of clothing. The letter to the king of Israel said: “With this letter I present my servant Naaman. I want you to heal him of his leprosy.”

When the king of Israel read it, he tore his clothes in dismay and said, “This man sends me a leper to heal! Am I God, that I can kill and give life? He is only trying to find an excuse to invade us again.”

But when Elisha, the man of God, heard about the king’s reaction, he sent this message to him: “Why are you so upset? Send Naaman to me, and he will learn that there is a true prophet here in Israel .”

So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and waited at the door of Elisha’s house. But Elisha sent a messenger out to him with this message: “Go and wash yourself seven times in the Jordan River . Then your skin will be restored, and you will be healed of leprosy.”

But Naaman became angry and stalked away. “I thought he would surely come out to meet me!” he said. “I expected him to wave his hand over the leprosy and call on the name of the Lord his God and heal me! Aren’t the Abana River and the Pharpar River of Damascus better than all the rivers of Israel put together? Why shouldn’t I wash in them and be healed?” So Naaman turned away and went away in a rage.

But his officers tried to reason with him and said, “Sir, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, wouldn’t you have done it? So you should certainly obey him when he says simply to go and wash and be cured!” So Naaman went down to the Jordan River and dipped himself seven times, as the man of God had instructed him. And his flesh became as healthy as a young child’s, and he was healed!

Then Naaman and his entire party went back to find the man of God. They stood before him, and Naaman said, “I know at last that there is no God in all the world except in Israel . Now please accept my gifts.”

But Elisha replied, “As surely as the Lord lives, whom I serve, I will not accept any gifts.” And though Naaman urged him to take the gifts, Elisha refused.

Then Naaman said, “All right, but please allow me to load two of my mules with earth from this place, and I will take it back home with me. From now on I will never again offer any burnt offerings or sacrifices to any other god except the Lord. However, may the Lord pardon me in this one thing. When my master the king goes into the temple of the god Rimmon to worship there and leans on my arm, may the Lord pardon me when I bow, too.”

“Go in peace,” Elisha said. So Naaman started home again.

THE HOLY BIBLE (New Living Translation) 2 Kings 5:1-19

I, Naaman

Holy crap. What am I doing? They’d throw me in the crazy house if they knew what I was doing. Or at least, what I am thinking about doing. They’d call me deranged and try to heal me with their sweet incense or concoctions of hyssop and figs. They’d call me a lunatic. And you know, by their standards, they’d surely be right. But, honestly, if doing something that appears to be lunacy from the outside saves a man from lunacy on the inside, then is it lunacy after all? Who knows. God knows. Let’s hope.

More than anything, I wish I could go back and ask the man of God what to do, to see what he thinks. But I know what he would say. He’d raise a couple fingers in my direction and say something short and cryptic, like “Go in peace.” That is really what started this all, you know – going in peace, back home to my army and that prick-less greedy king Ben-Hadad. I sure thought I knew what the man of God meant when he told me to go in peace. Plain and simple, I thought he was saying to go on man, you’re free and clear, get back to kicking ass and sleeping well. But it got a lot more complicated, believe you me. I sure would like one more talk with the man of God, to see if I could get anything more specific out of him. But I’m sure I wouldn’t. This man did not strike me as the type to take too kindly when people use him as a psychic hotline. “Go in peace,” he said. It’s all in there, somewhere. It has to be.

It’s getting chilly out here. I left home just before dusk, when the sun was still warm enough to draw the sweat from my skin. Now the sun is down, and the skin on my arms and shoulders is cool and covered with salt. There is a big orange moon rising in the east. God, it’s huge! Just south and out of sight, thank goodness, is my town, teeming with noisy Arameans, bustling around doing things they think are so important. It never ceases to amaze me how people can be so lazy by being so busy. They probably haven’t even noticed the moon tonight. It’s a big, beautiful, magnificent ball of gleaming amber. I can’t even imagine moving on until it has risen higher and its amber cools to white. I will sit here and look, out of respect, or maybe awe, or thankfulness, or all of these things. And no, I’m not procrastinating. I can procrastinate later, when the moon is not so beautiful.

The funny thing is that I myself didn’t often take notice of the moon or the stars until about a year ago, on the way home from Samaria. Come to think of it, I don’t recall noticing much of anything outside of my raiding, pillaging, conquering, and general, all-around kicking of butts and bedding of maidens. Not until I got sick and went to Samaria, that is. And after that I just have not been the same. It amazes me to remember how easy life seemed to be before I got sick and went to that man of God. Easy doesn’t always mean better, though. Obviously, or else I’d ride myself back into town, lay with my hot wife, drink wine in the king’s palace, and let people fawn over me in the streets. “That’s Naaman,” they would whisper, “the greatest commander Aram has ever known…” And yet I, Naaman, the most powerful man in Aram, am sitting on my horse north of town, thinking about leaving it all. I have two mules loaded up with bags of dirt, and even they are looking at me funny. “Go in peace,” he said, that man of God. Go where?

I’m not whining, really. I have nothing to whine about. I am truly a blessed man. Whining…that’s what I did when I got sick. Man that was the pit of despair in ol’ Naaman’s life. It sucked, bad. It started with a boil on my thigh, which I summarily lanced with my knife and doused with wine, as any good warrior would. But then came the fever, and more outbreaks, then pale skin and an overwhe lming fatigue. That was the worst of all – the fatigue. When a man is used to sprinting and lifting and throwing, when a man is used to rounded and explosive muscles, when a man is used to power and speed, then the curse of fatigue seems worse than death itself. During those weeks, soreness sank deep into my joints, and my head pulsed with every faint heartbeat.

When I got too sick to even throw a spear, the king freaked out. What would he do without his prize fighter, his bloodied and battle-scarred good luck charm? So he mourned and offered all of his help to restore my strength – the best food, wine, and more sponge baths than any man could rightfully use. He told me that he prayed to Rimmon three times a day to heal my wounds and bring back my power. What a selfish pile of blubber, the king. He sure couldn’t fake sincerity very well. I knew then that he was really just praying to Rimmon for the restoration of his army commander, and therefore his army, and therefore his accumulation of piles of wealth. I, Naaman, just happened to be his army commander. I also knew even then that he might as well pray to a pile of sheep dung as to Rimmon. Rimmon was a hoax for those weak of heart and short of manhood. Come to think of it, all of the king’s gods were hoaxes. Not one of them ever won him a battle, and not one of them could make his prick bigger. I knew that even then.

That is why I asked the girl. I don’t think anyone knows that I asked her, and that is probably for the better. People might have questioned why the Aramean army commander would seek advice from a little slave girl. She was a spunky little handmaiden, that Israelite. My wife loved her. She served us well, and seemed to frolic about with a certain self-confidence uncommon for an eight-year-old, must less a slave, much less a girl. I would watch her with a kind of harmless envy, more an adoration, really. She reminded me of me as a child. We surely had the same creator, the same Lord, the same heart. I loved her like a daughter and didn’t even know her name! So when she came to tend to the linens on my sickbed, I asked her, or rather told her, “You know how to fix this, honey.” I think I was delirious at the time.

Without batting an eye, and with a prophet’s smile, she replied, “Don’t you?” Then she left. Looking back, I realize that I did know, but I just didn’t know the specifics of how, not enough to make the next steps. So when my wife walked in to tell me what the little girl had just said to her, I was relieved, deeply relieved, to hear the instructions. Thank God, I thought out loud, and then laughed at what I had said.

Getting the king’s permission to leave was easy. I think at that point, he would have done anything short of standing on his head in sackcloth in order to get his army commander back in good health. Sending me off to Samaria to see some notorious prophet seemed a reasonable act of desperation. He even sent me off with enough gold and silver to last ten lifetimes, it seemed. But it was a pittance for King Ben-Hadad, that fat oaf. He knew that if I returned in good health, I would go on to win his next battle and come back with ten times that amount in the least. So I, Naaman, set off in a caravan of horses and chariots, with a boatload of cash, all at the direction of a servant girl from Israel. That cracks me up every time of think of it.

The moon is up a bit further now, bright and white. In its light I can see my bare arms. They are cold but strong and smooth. I can hardly look at my own skin anymore without being in awe. My arms and legs look like they did twenty years ago, before any of my scars of war curled and rose from my skin as if erupting from my bones, and certainly before my sickness. One year and a few weeks ago, I boiled with fever and my flesh fell off of me as we ventured out to Samaria. The journey seemed eternal over painful terrain. I took some of my best soldiers with me to help pass the time. They told war stories and got drunk under the desert stars, every so often remembering to encourage me that things would be okay. “We’re goin’ to the PRO-phet, dude! He’s gonna rock your world, bro, just wait. Tip top. Boo ya!” they’d swagger in their party rages. Funny, I already knew this somehow, but not from their words, rather from some strange feeling, a feeling like I had read this story before and knew it had a good ending. I just couldn’t remember the ending.

I was excited to meet the man of God. I had it pictured in my mind, how it would all happen. He would invite me into his palace, he adorned in purple robes and surrounded by children dressed in the color of angels’ wings. Everyone’s face would be bright but serious, as if they had been waiting, perhaps even preparing, for this important moment for a long time. I would be dressed in white linen, with my battle armor displayed prominently at my side to remind everyone of my status and decoration. Candles would be all around, their glow forming halos in the blue haze of burning sandalwood. The man of God would address the room, and in the presence of everyone he would wave his powerful hand, speak in exotic tongues, and heal the mighty warrior in the name of his Lord. At that moment, lighting would split the horizon, thunder would shake the walls, and I, Naaman, would rise again with the power of five men, as ruddy and beautiful as that young Hebrew who slew the giant ages ago. This is the vision that got me through that awful trip to Samaria. This, and the vision of having skin that no longer stung with sores that burned during the day and itched during the night.

The sores are gone all right, and I can hardly look at my own skin anymore without humming a prayer of thanks in my head. But this God of mine, bless His imagination, sure did keep me in my place over this whole thing. Darn straight. Purple robes, white linens, halos of light, thunder…yeah, right. Try a tepid dip in the Jordan River, downstream of some little boy who I think was taking a piss in the water and laughing at me. What a triumph. But that is how it happened, you know. I traveled, sick as a dog but under watchful eyes of a caravan of Aram’s best horses and chariots, all the way to freakin’ Samaria, got blown off by Israel’s whiny fat-ass king what’s-his-face, sent to the man of God who lived in this little hovel of a house with goat shit on the front porch, all to have his nappy-headed, pimple-faced messenger with sandals twice as large as his feet come out to meet me to tell me to go dunk myself in the Jordan River seven times. I was stunned. Come on, prophet-man! At least come out to your porch to tell me yourself, or send me to a decent river for cryin’ out loud. Man, I was confused. I had a fever, my skin was hideous, it was damn hot outside, and nothing was happening like I had envisioned. I felt like the brunt of a practical joke, which really could have been the case given that my army had bullied these Israelites around like little school girls for years. Maybe it was payback time.

But there was something still very appropriate about the whole affair. Again, it was like some book I had already read, but just forgot the details. I try now to remember my thoughts, and I mostly remember being angry not at the man of God, but more at myself. I was mad at my own imagination, my own script that I had written for this moment, because I realized that I all along I had been writing myself as the centerpiece of this amazing story of healing and redemption, a hero of epic size, I was…in my own mind at least. After I ca lmed down with what seemed a half a skin of wine, I stared at this story, at myself, in third person, and realized that if this God of Israel was the real deal, from beginning to end, and if he could really heal me, then why would he make me the center of the story? I mean really, if you were God of everything, who would you write about? Damn right – yourself! But a God who adores humility wouldn’t likely write stories so blatantly about his own grandeur. That would be boring, for him and for us, I imagine. Good teachers teach with analogies, metaphors, parables…so that their students can feel the lesson, not just hear it. So how would God write stories, I wondered. How would he teach us the timeless lessons?

The wine or the heat or my fever, or all of these things, then led me to a simple epiphany as a west wind blew dust in my eyes, and my eyes watered and blurred. I stared at the sorry shack where the man of God lived. God must have some sense of humor, or irony, I thought. He works in such subtleties, but simplicities. I asked myself again, how would God tell his stories? If the subject is himself, if he wants us to know him and love him as our father and creator, how would he do it? How else, but with human analogies, in the form of a rag-tag group of everyday, approachable heroes. You see, God gets to pick his actors, and a good actor never overshadows the story. And most likely, it would be through these simple folks that he would unveil his mysteries and truths. He would work through his beloved children, whose hearts understand his heart and whose actions are really his actions. These characters would be walking, talking, human parables. And if that were the case, and I, Naaman, was born to be a servant with God’s heart, a living parable to be used in God’s classroom, what would I therefore do in my current situation? That’s easy…I would go strip down and dump myself seven times in the stinking Jordan River, that’s what I would do!

So, I did. And holy shit if it didn’t work.

What a strange rush, numbing all logic, that dip in the Jordan. That river water washed away more than my sickness. It also washed away some murky shroud that had bound my spirit. Suddenly, my eyes were open to all the blatant ugliness and surprising beauty of the world I live in. That was the beginning of people thinking I was weird. That was the beginning of what might be the end of my life as a famous army commander. That was also the beginning of me finally feeling myself again, for the first time since I was a child.

Elisha. That was his name, Elisha, that man of God who sent me to wash in the Jordan River. I will never forget this man. Not that he was extraordinary in any physical sense, mind you. In fact, he was cut from simple cloth. He was really skinny, first of all. Of course, food was a little scarce those days, so everybody was feeling their ribs, but Elisha was naturally thin, you could tell. I just don’t think he ever ate more than the bare necessities to get from point A to point B in his life. The hard core prophets, I have heard, are very simple in lifestyle, inviting no pleasure or hobby or woman to distract from their focus. That is admirable to me, I must say, because I’m a man who loves a good steak and glass of wine, whether I need the nourishment or not. And feeling the curves of a hot gal ain’t so bad, either. From the looks of Elisha, he didn’t care much for steak. Nor did he cavort with hot gals. Nor did he care much for appearance. I don’t mean that he was scrappy or dirty, not at all. He just was not extraordinary in any way. He was no cocky Samson or hairy Samuel, that’s for sure. He was middle height, skinny, straight gray hair, pointed nose, with long legs and a quick gait. He did, I must say, smile with his wide eyes when he spoke to you. He was gentle. Far gentler than I would have expected from a man whose mentor was that hairball legend Elijah, who once mocked and trashed talked over four hundred of Jezebel’s lackeys before slaughtering them all by the sword. Elijah was one tough dude. But Elisha didn’t seem that way. Elisha was approachable. I liked him from the moment I saw him.

Of course, I didn’t actually see him before he sent me to the Jordan. He just sent a message with that goofy messenger kid. I felt dissed. I was pretty miffed at first, but when a man gets healed from the inside out of ai lments such as mine, he is quick to forgive and forget. Why, I got out of that freakin’ Jordan and, without even saying a word, took off on foot as fast as I could to get back to the shack of the man of God. It was all very surreal, in a way. I truly was living in third person at that time, watching myself as that character in God’s play. But I felt everything, intensely so. What did I feel? I felt saved. And not just saved in the physical sense, but more like my whole lifeblood had just been saved, snatched from the jaws of death. I was euphoric. My soldiers thought me crazy, but that had at least seen with their eyes what I was feeling inside, and they ran with me. Together, in seven dips that took about two minutes, if even that long, we had all discovered the real God. The one God. Elisha’s God. And now he was my God, finally and officially.

When I got back to the shack is when I finally saw and met Elisha in person. He was sitting in a rocking chair on the front stoop. He was carving wood and whistling, of all things. I was happy to see that somebody had at least cleaned the goat shit off the floor. A man of God deserves better than to track a stink around with him. Anyway, he looked up, didn’t stop carving, but did stop whistling long enough to say curtly, “Well, you look better.” He resumed whistling and I, Naaman, commander of the Aramean army, dropped to my knees in the dirt.

A lot of people like to pick up the telling of my story right at this point. They like to hover around the fact that Elisha refused all of the silver and gold that I brought with me. I think they like to do this so that they can paint Elisha as an idiot, to make fun of him and his complete lack of practicality. People feel better about themselves when they can criticize people that they envy, it seems. “Dude, I would have so taken that dough. What a crackpot,” I would overhear them saying. But to me, this was a non-event in the whole experience. It has been blown out of proportion. Elisha, the man who ate only what he needed and lived bare and simple, what would he do with all that money? It would complicate his life, and distract him for sure. So he balked on it. What a stud, a man secure in himself. The funny thing was that he wasn’t even trying to be controversial by refusing the reward. He simply wasn’t tempted by it. It’s like he had this sixth sense to know what was good for him and what wasn’t, to know the honey from the hive, but in the spiritual rea lm.

It came time for me to go home. Mission accomplished, so it seemed, and my soldiers were anxious to get back to their wives in Aram, not to mention that our wine had run out. But the concept of going home seemed strange to me, not quite right. The last day in Samaria meant more to me than the first 32 years of my life. Strangely enough, Samaria and the land near the man of God seemed more like home to me now. When my soldiers presented me with my battle armor, thinking I would adorn the gear again in pride and power, I felt like they had found the wrong guy. The sword didn’t even feel right in my hand, although it did feel exceptionally light and quick, more like a scroll of papyrus than a sword of iron. My past came back to me, and became again my present. I, Naaman, was again an army commander. I had to see Elisha once more. Again, I ran.

I found him still on his porch, still carving the wood. He wasn’t whistling anymore, but was chewing on a large blade of grass. This time, he didn’t say a word. I think I beat him to it. To this slight man I hardly knew, I found myself spilling my guts. I told him thank you for introducing me directly to the one true God. I told him thank you for being a simple, gentle man rather than a glowing orb of perfection in a purple robe. Then I told him all the wicked shit I would have to go back to in Aram, all the greedy, stupid crap that my boss, King Ben-Hadad would drag me into. I just didn’t know if I could be that man anymore, that commander of tens of thousands, that man who would escort that fat bastard king all around to count his riches and worship his silly idols. What do I do Elisha? Will God pardon me for this world I live in?

And then it came, that moment that I replay again and again every day of my life. Elisha pulled the blade of grass from his mouth, raised the carved wood to his lips, blew off the sawdust, then twirled it around his fingers quickly like a street magician, and handed it to me. I took it, but my eyes were wide open staring back at Elisha. “Go in peace,” he said. He put both his hands on mine, gave a squeeze, and stood up to retire to another room. I didn’t move for awhile, but finally walked out in a dazed stupor, back into my waiting caravan of horses and chariots. We started back to Aram.

The next year of my life was spent in clever civil disobedience. I think Ben-Hadad, although glad to have me back to full strength, was a bit spooked that this God of Israel thing had actually worked out for me. He didn’t like the stories that were starting to circulate amongst the Aramean slaves, and we saw more soldiers defect during this year than any before. Some people just didn’t want to take their chances against the God of Israel anymore. So Ben-Hadad decided to end this once and for all, to wage war against the Israelites like never before, not just for slave children and spoils of war, but for blood. For extinction. And he wanted me to lead the charge. So, I quickly crafted a way to forewarn the tribes of Israel about Ben-Hadad’s battle plans. Again, I employed my little Hebrew friend, my wife’s handmaiden. She was crafty. Drawing up maps of the routes of attack, I would feed her the details about two weeks in advance of the charges. She would then stealthily work her network of Hebrew children, somehow leading straight to Elisha. And much to my delight, and much to Ben-Hadad’s confused rage, whenever we would set battle against Israel, we would find nothing but evacuated camps. We spent, in effect, a whole year waging war against an adversary that never showed up where they were supposed to! Oh, it was all I could do to keep from smirking when Ben-Hadad threw into his tantrums. He was constantly accusing my officers of treason, but never did he accuse me. After all, I, Naaman, was the greatest warrior Aram ever knew.

Well, there were enough witnesses to my experiences with Elisha that rumor spread that this prophet could read the mind of Ben-Hadad, even to know his deepest secrets, including his battle plans. That’s when it got dicey. That’s when Ben-Hadad set his sights on killing Elisha as priority one. And that’s when I got uncomfortable. I felt responsible, in a way. I didn’t want to be the cause of the hunt for Elisha, and I certainly didn’t want to be the hunter. I packed up my best horse and my best two mules. I took bread, water, my Samarian dirt, and at dusk this night, I snuck away to the north.

And so here I sit, with my foot halfway out the door of my career in Aram, that successful position of power and authority under a witless king who needs me more than he needs himself. They will surely find me missing in the morning, and murmur about how that God of mine finally got the best of me and drove me back to Samaria. They will call me a lunatic. Let ‘em. Or perhaps I will write them a letter to explain. I will seal it with spit and put them all in my past, forever. Better a lunatic with a free heart than a commander enslaved, I will tell them.

But there is this churning inside me, these strange niggling questions boiling in my heart. I can’t help but wonder, is my destiny to escape them and leave behind the obvious lost world of Aram? Or could it be that I am supposed to be that lunatic, living and ruling within their borders, a lunatic with the knowledge to teach them how to be free on the inside? And if I did stay, would it eventually cost me my life? I recall again the legend of the shepherd boy who became a warrior, and later a great king of Israel. He knew God’s heart, so the story goes. He struggled with his God. They called him a lunatic plenty of times.

A shepherd turned warrior. Can it work the other way? Can a warrior become a shepherd? A year ago, Elisha gave me a wood carving. The top half took the form of a shepherd’s staff, the bottom half, a warrior’s sword. I cannot know now whether he knew the answer, or if he too was asking the question.

The Arameans that I have lived with…are they my enemy? Or are they sheep in need of a shepherd? And if so, am I to play the shepherd?

Ha! Such questions! Such questions! What hubris of the mind?! Am I delusionsal, visions of grandeur and dreams of importance? Oh listen to me now oh Lord, hear my pitiful plea, see my weakness shake forth from my bones...for in the darkest of moments, in the loneliest of times, I can never forget the other question that I I live and breathe every day...the question, the possibility, the fear...

That I perhaps I am just a wolf. A ravenous wolf. And hunted for good reason.

Tonight, I will again sleep with no answers. But I sleep under a beautiful moon, that shines now brightly, for wolf and sheep alike.

 

bn

written smugly at age 33

closing paragraph edited at age 37

written, and writing still,

just south of the glacier ridge

and just north of everywhere else.