I Am Gershom
Stranger in a Strange Land
I am Gershom—or Gershon.
A stranger in a strange land. That’s not just how I feel; it’s what my name means.
It’s a description, but it’s also a calling. A built-in tension I carry through
the world: the sense of being part of something, yet always somehow on the
outside of it.
In the Book of Numbers, God gives a
specific task to the Gershonites—descendants of Gershom, son of Levi. Their job
was not priesthood or warfare. It was something quieter, more foundational:
“Take the Gershonites and let them
serve in the tabernacle… They’ll be responsible for curtains, coverings,
hangings and doors. They’ll hang gates and they’ll have tools to work with… Let
them be in charge of repairs.”
~ Numbers 4:22–28 (MCV)
That’s the assignment. That’s the
blueprint.
And strangely—or perhaps not strangely at all—that is my life. I’ve been placed
in a department where I deal with curtains, blinds, flooring, millwork, doors,
and windows. Not metaphorically. Literally. It’s like stepping into the pages
of Numbers and finding your name on the to-do list.
This kind of alignment doesn’t feel
random. It feels designed. I only feel at home when I’m helping construct
something sacred—even if I never fully belong to the thing I’m helping build.
Out
of Place, at Home
To be a Gershonite is to live with a
kind of holy dissonance. Always slightly off-tune with the world. Always
adjacent, never immersed. That disconnection is the essence of the name Gershom—a
stranger in a strange land—but it’s not a curse. It’s an operating system.
Even when I was younger, I
gravitated toward the margins. I used to hang around the “smoke hole” at
school—not because I wanted to smoke, but because that’s where the people who
didn’t fit in gathered. People with nowhere else to go. That made perfect sense
to me.
I was shaped by music that never
bowed to the mainstream. Alice Cooper. The Clash. KISS. These artists weren’t
interested in fitting in. They made space where there wasn’t any. I didn’t just
like them—I recognized myself in them.
The
Tribes I Walk Among
The irony is, I can function in
almost any group—but I never fully belong to any of them.
Among rednecks, I laugh at the
jokes, join the conversation, and even go deep sometimes. But then someone
talks about the thrill of hunting: how it feels to pull the trigger and drop a
big buck in his tracks. And suddenly I’m lost. I’m thinking, This buck had
to fight his way to dominance. He earned his position. And then you waited in a
tree, with a rifle, and took him out from a distance? That’s not a fair
fight—it’s an ambush. I can’t find the glory in that moment, and so I check
out of the conversation.
So I drift over to the “Ra Ra”
group—the well-dressed guys with tan legs, khaki shorts, designer polo shirts,
and cigars. They talk about football as if they own the teams. They know the
trades, the stats, the salaries. I listen, but I can’t speak the language. I
ask for clarification, and they politely dumb it down for me—but the moment is
gone. Eventually, the topic turns to golf, and I start to lose the thread
completely. I’ve played golf. I understand the mechanics. But I’ve never cared
about winning. To me, it’s a silly game in expensive clothes.
Next, I find the nerd. We start
talking about The Lord of the Rings, or slime molds, or something
equally odd and delightful. We click—until I learn they haven’t showered in a
few days, or that they’re 40 and living with their parents while working
part-time at a coat store. They came to this party for a rare Pokémon, and
suddenly I realize that we are not comrades, despite our shared interests. The
overlap is thin.
This has led me to a kind of painful
epiphany: I have what might be called a soft god-complex. Not that I
think I’m better—but that I feel apart. Slightly above—not in status, but in
perspective. I can’t fully identify with any group, yet I can understand
and explain each of them to each other.
That’s the tension: I can explain
the redneck to my trans friend, and the trans friend to the redneck. But I
don’t align perfectly with either. I am never inside the tent. I am always
standing at the edge of it—building it.
On
the Edges of Empathy
I’ve even had this moment with a
homeless man in San Francisco. For a second, I felt like I got him. But
then he explained that no one would hire him, and I thought, Well, maybe
it’s because you smell like you’ve lived in that coat for months. That
thought came uninvited, but it was honest. Empathy has limits when the senses
are overwhelmed.
That’s the paradox I live in: I’m
both deeply compassionate and profoundly detached. I feel connected to every
outcast, but I don’t stay long. I visit, I understand, I move on.
I am as odd as I can be.
I am a stranger in a strange land.
I am Gershom.
But here’s what matters: that name
comes with instructions. Gershonites aren’t supposed to fit. We’re meant
to build. We work on the tabernacle—not as attendees, but as architects.
We’re set designers in a divine play.
When
Asher Walks In
Something happened recently that
felt too perfect to ignore.
I was in the break room at work. The
TV was on, showing riots in Los Angeles. The energy was chaotic, heavy. I said
aloud, “This is so depressing. We shouldn’t be watching this.”
Asher walked in. A man of
near-complete isolation. No idle talk. No expression. He’s punctual, precise,
unchanging. He didn’t say much—he never does. He just walked past the chairs,
turned off the TV, and said, “It should have been on The Price Is Right.”
Then he left.
And just like that, the atmosphere
shifted. The room went silent. And somehow… it felt cleaner.
Here’s the thing: in Hebrew, Asher
means “happiness.”
So here’s the real version of that
moment, as I see it:
Gershom, who always feels out of
place, was sitting alone in the tabernacle of fools when Asher—the bringer of
happiness—walked in and recalibrated the environment.
Hoodwinked:
Seeing Beyond the Veil
There’s a word we use for people
who’ve been deceived: hoodwinked.
It literally refers to having a wool
hood pulled over your eyes—blinding you, just long enough for someone to take
something from you.
Most people are hoodwinked, not
maliciously, but by the design of the world. By tradition, by repetition, by
the hypnotic drone of everyday life. They’re staring at shadows and mistaking
them for reality.
This is Plato’s Cave. It’s The
Matrix. It’s every great myth and scripture. The idea is the same: most of
us are watching shadows on the wall, unaware that there’s a fire behind us—and
beyond that, the blinding sun of real truth.
The
Bible as Layers of Meaning
I believe something about the
Bible—not to cancel out anyone else’s beliefs, but to add another dimension.
You can read it literally,
historically, or spiritually—and each layer has something to offer. But what if
every word, name, and place is also a state of being?
- Gershom:
feeling like a stranger.
- Asher:
bringing joy where there was heaviness.
- Israel:
the one who wrestles with God and becomes a prince in God’s house.
Whether you see these as historical
accounts or archetypes, they remain true—because they speak to real
things in us.
And names still mean something.
- John
means grace.
- Myra
means wonder.
- Jeffrey
is divine peace.
- Harper
plays beautiful music.
- Wayne
builds the wagon, engineers the way.
These aren’t just names. They’re
clues to the story. If you’re paying attention, you start to see the script
unfolding.
The
Red Pill and the Red Sea
The red pill is real. It doesn’t
just wake you up once. It’s a time-release capsule. You wake up slowly, stage
by stage, while the world continues to chase you.
You are being pursued by Pharaoh—the
Great House of Darkness—from Egypt, which means blackness or obscurity.
You reach the edge of what you think is your limit: the Red Sea.
But with the red pill comes the
realization that dry land was always there. The sea was never a barrier.
Enlightenment consumes the army of unreality behind you, and suddenly, you are
free—not because they stopped chasing you, but because you stopped believing
they were real.
That’s the crossing. That’s the
revelation.
Final
Thought
Life plays out on two stages at
once.
On one side, you sit between the
glow of a fire, watching shadows and mistaking them for life. On the other,
there’s the real fire behind you—and even beyond that, the greater light of the
sun outside the cave.
If you turn, you’ll see. But if you
return to the cave, be careful how long you stay. The shadows are seductive.
The longer you stare, the more real they seem—and the more your memory of light
begins to fade.
So no matter how strange the land,
or how outsider the role, remember this:
You are part of a story.
Your part is necessary.
And your name is not random.
I am Gershom.
And maybe you are too.
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