Wild Ass

 

Genesis 16-17

He (Ishmael) shall be a wild ass of a man, his hand against every man and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen.” (RSV)

I’m stuck on the idiom, “wild-ass” when it’s used as an adjective, as in “I just took a wild-ass guess.” I went and looked up “idioms from the bible” and couldn’t find it on any list, but I’m pretty sure that’s where it comes from. Here’s a bunch more idioms that I know for sure came from the bible:

“The writing on the wall” (Daniel)

“Bite the dust” (Psalm 72)

“By the skin of my teeth” (Job)

“A drop in the bucket” (Isaiah)

“A fly in the ointment” (Ecclesiastes)

“Nothing but skin and bones” (Job)

“Go the extra mile” (Matthew)

 

Matthew 5:27-48

⁴¹ And if a soldier forces you to carry his pack for one mile, carry it for two!

 

I feel like a wild ass myself today, but don’t you go calling me Ishmael!

 

In our world today, soldiers don’t have the legal right to call on a person to carry their pack for a mile, but nevertheless there are many burdens that can be forced upon us, and are.

I think I’ve had a biblical satori about these burdens. Some burdens I resent because, to me, they aren’t burdens that are worth carrying, and when they are forced on me, that’s when I really want to buck and kick like a wild ass.

Right now, the burden comes from having to make choices that wouldn’t be any sort of issue for me personally, but which have become inescapable because of the weight of popular opinion.

I realized that, like the soldier’s pack, this burden doesn’t belong to me, it belongs to someone else. I’m carrying it only because I have to. So, if I go the extra mile, I turn a grudging, grumbly, heavy-footed slog into a courteous and generous act.

Like Ishmael, I get the chance to repent in my own wild-ass way.

 

Plus, I can take care of going that extra mile ahead of time, and leave that burden behind when it’s time to show up at the ancestral funeral and make my peace with all that I’ve lost.

Nobody wants a wild ass at a funeral, but when it shows up everyone just has to make the best of it.

—and then—

Old Man Zen wanders down the hall with a beer in his hand, wearing a tie as a headband, and says, “Them wild-ass funerals are the best kind.”