Presence” is more important than anything else in the Bible. When people say, “God was present,” the Bible chimes, “If God is not present, nothing is worthwhile.” This is a story about ‘presence’.
In the United States, the American Indian tribes, especially the northern tribes, had the custom of initiating their sons. Boys would be about eleven years old and what they were to do is their father would take their hand and bring them out into a forest, a deep and dense forest.
And he would have a little opening in the forest and he would sit his son down and he’d give him a shield. And he gave him a sword and he gave him nothing else.
And he said, “Now, you are about to become a man and this is where you’re going to defend. With your shield and your sword, you will defend us from all the evil things that live in this forest and all the terrible things that can happen with wild animals overrunning the Indian reservation,” and going on and on in this way.
And the little boy would be looking back into his father’s face.
And his father would leave him.
And then the little boy would sit down and he’d keep watch.
And the minutes passed and the hours passed and the darkness deepened and the howling of wild animals all around him, and he would sit there and he would look.
And then he would get up. And he paced back and forth. And he would be frightened, but he was a man now, he was not allowed to cry for help.
And so he did all night long until finally the sun goes up and his father came back. And his father took him in his arms — and the little boy was so happy — and he said, “Now, my child, you are now a man. You have stood up to defend your people in the terrible darkness and did not run away.”
(To be continued next week when we are told what the father was doing)