Jonah

The story of Jonah and the whale

Jonah

Jonah he lived in a whale
He made his home in
That fish’s abdomen

Oh, Jonah, I have heard the story of your epic journey across the sea from Joppa.  The night hanging heavy on the crew’s haggard limbs; on the hull, the sudden blunt butt of waves; in the sail, the petulant scream of wind that slaps its rain in the faces of six sailors that no-one can hear – they’re throwing their cargo, profanity and prayer into the chasms of water.  And you are below deck, not sick, not wracked with terror – just asleep, like a proper Messiah!  Then comes the dislocation of the mast, the snapping stanchions, salt-scoured eyes straining for a calm reason; but a fever of disrepair has those six sailors fumbling for the draw-strings of blame.  They shake you and you open up for them, making such a grand confession – you have reneged on a holy mission, the storm is your due punishment.  So as their fear rears in a last split of thunder, they throw you down through the sucking water, down to the bottom of that shuddering ocean where weeds reached for your soul.  Now comes the miracle, now comes the humour!  A huge fish swallows you through its gullet and into the softness of its belly. There amongst the krill and tiny plankton you swear to your god in his solid sanctum that you will be his prophet and missionary.  The fish sickens, spews you out on dry sand.  And you come here to take your stand, in Nineveh.

But it ain’t necessarily so

I was a harbour-girl in Joppa. I sat on the quay, sewing old stories, mending failed nets – yes, I do know my right hand from my left. I was one of those who rowed out to help your boat in that storm. We found you curled in the hold below deck, the six brave sailors had been washed from the wreck, whilst you had succumbed to a stunned disinterest, wrapped in your vomit and a comfort of loneliness. As a grey dawn seemed to ease back the storm, we towed that vessel ashore, left it, beached, like a dead cetacean. And you stepped out, an embarrassment to us all, in Joppa.

Do do do do do do do

In Joppa, the sea was something I sat and sang beside; but after that storm I came here to Nineveh, to become an astronomer, to find some science behind my wonder.  Then you turned up, claiming to be a prophet, an heroic preacher of divine justice; planting a tale tall enough to remain in the imagination of generations, to shade your fear of your cowardice.

We will all make up stories but we cannot construct truth. The truth is intangible, often unknowable, but real, immutable and eternal. It is something of God. Without it we remain in the tempest: meaningless, bereft, not even knowing our right hand from our left. But if we can believe in truth, and have the courage to even just glimpse it, the truth can set us free to become that which we should be.

2023.