“I have let you see it with your eyes, but
                                                  you shall not go over there.” 
                                   
                                                            –       Deuteronomy 34:4, ESV Bible

Moses never wanted to go. He’d already borne
the whips and the scorn, the way you can mourn
beginnings, blessings, even the escape, time
and times again.  He wasn’t even meant to be
but he was, rescued from himself
and his blood, as if either had ever been
wrong.  And that was always the plan, wasn’t it?
Lose your mother to be a prince.
Lose yourself to gain favor.
Lose it all, but your life, so you’ll see
                     
                         (God)

Burning bushes can be distracting.
Burning bushes can be persuasive.

So he did the unexpected.  Did the unbelievable.
He stood tall and in the face of mortal demons.
Discovered a fire and a rock he’d never known.
Moved mountains in the name
of another. 

But it was never really you, Moses, was it?
You were fine, competent, useful while an emissary,
perfectly complete and enough until the moment
you let yourself be You. One moment of anger, one moment
of believing you deserved more, and it cost you
the Promised Land.  Healthy, never showing
a sign of age or brokenness, yet you died.  There
on the craggy face of Nebo. But not immediately.  No.
Not until after you’d been shown the land you could have
had, but would never, ever walk.

I’ve stood in that place. Physically, metaphorically.
I’ve walked through the chapel built in your honor.
Looked up at the cross, strangled by snakes, that serve
as the only marker for your unknown grave.  I’ve stared
at the olive trees, orchards climbing rolling hills to the horizon.
Seen what you might have seen.  Seen what we might have
had, in a different world, with a different end to the games
of divinity.  And maybe if I disappeared more, if I became

less, so that He, it, she, all of creation could be
more, then the stories might have ended differently—
for you, for me, for all of us.   

But you didn’t.
And I won’t

ever again
be less

than any
of us
deserve.