Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 100 · April 10
The Chain of Questions
“Can two walk together, except they be agreed?”
Can two walk together, except they be agreed? has spent a century in sermons about the company you keep, the person you marry, the partnership you should not enter.
Where it sits, it is the first of a run. Will a lion roar in the forest, when he hath no prey? Can a bird fall in a snare upon the earth, where no gin is for him? Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? Every one runs backwards, from a thing you can see or hear to the cause that must be behind it. Nobody hears a lion for nothing. Nobody sounds an alarm for nothing. Two men on the same road at the same hour arranged to meet. And the run arrives where Amos was always taking it: The lion hath roared, who will not fear? the Lord GOD hath spoken, who can but prophesy? A herdsman is standing in Samaria saying things nobody wants said, and his argument is that his own presence there needs explaining.
The truth in it survives the loss of the wedding sermon. Effects have causes, and the ones God sends are the ones people are most eager to call coincidence. The word that got under your skin this week came from somewhere, and Amos would ask you what.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 100 is Prayer from the Bottom (Jonah 2:7).