the crisis

 Today's epistle tells the well-known, well-loved story of Paul on the road to Damascus- so well known a story that a 'Damascus road experience' has entered common parlance. I take it that means a sudden change of heart, of mind. 

But the Acts of the Apostles is not a psychological study, and it seems to this observer that Luke fails to do justice to Saul/Paul- surely the nearer Saul got to Damascus, with his aim of arresting any Christians there, the more the incompatibility of his mission with the evidence he had gathered about Jesus, and the scene he had observed as Stephen was martyred, played on his mind and heart until a crisis point was reached as he neared the city. 

But what interests me more is that the crisis has to come to a head, work itself to almost a point of breakdown, of a shattering of Saul's personality, before we read of the voice of Jesus speaking to him.. There's a courtesy in this, which I find most striking, Given Saul's prodigious intellect and deep knowledge of Jewish tradition and scripture, I presume he exercised these to the fullest before he came to the point of seeing that he couldn't square the circle- and the Risen Christ steps in. 

I have a memory of the late Mahalia Jackson, gospel singer extraordinaire, singing 'He may not come when you want him, but he's right on time'. That squares the circle neatly enough and saves from breakdown, putting all back, over time, into one whole..