Arc of the Covenant

My daughter and I returned to Tae Kwon Do last week, after a month off. As we were practicing spinning hook kicks, I thought of the fact that, whatever the steps we are taught in learning the movement, we have to go beyond those steps to really do it. The steps are like dots we connect, but the movement itself is a smooth arc. Though we use the dots to understand the arc, we must then let go of them so that our movement is the smooth flowing from one impulse, with no stopping along the way.

This is true in many areas of life. In my daughter’s fiddle training, she goes beyond “the dots” – the musical notation – to the actual music, which is governed by its own internal order – the natural flowing of one phrase out of another. In social interaction, we go beyond the dots of polite behavior to find grace. In seeking truth, we must go beyond the dots of religion to the graceful arc of spirituality.

Riding my bicycle up the hill, feeling the complementary circles of arms and legs, connected by the undulating s-curves through my torso, I heard in my mind, “arc of the covenant.” I know the actual Biblical phrase says “ark,” and refers to the box which symbolically carried God’s promise to His people, or alternatively, to the boat which carried the promise of continuity of life for God’s creation. But I like to think of God’s promise, instead of something carried in a box or even a boat, as the laws which hold us in harmony, which make our movements flow in a perfect arc.

I’ve thought about how waves in water reflect the motion of Love. Each molecule receives the impulse of the wave in its own moment. No one is left out, and there is no strain of the impulse hitting a molecule more than once or failing to move through it to the next one. Each one is needed; each one is touched. Each one passes the impulse on to the next. The message of Love reaches everyone. The arc of the covenant is the circle-impelled wave that must fulfill all needs, because that is the law of it.

Even the first ark story also contains an arc – the rainbow which signified the promise of God’s continuing presence. And that arc appears unfailingly as a law of light – it’s not there at the whim of God; it’s there as a sign of God’s constancy. So, too, is the presence within us of the skill which lets us go beyond the dots to the arc of grace. Our lives are, themselves, a testimony to God’s constancy.