Dear Abraham

Dear Abraham,

It’s been awhile, and hard to know how to measure the time, but I think I've found a footing in the promised land. And I think I get what you were trying to tell me about the sacrifice. The willing knife let me see the ram. In my own stubbornness, I didn't want to accept the provision. But by grace I got caught in the thicket, where struggle subsided into submission and I was ready for the altar. I cut the cords and found I didn't need them. My heart and all my blood stood still, and I knew He was God. 

He and not I, and everything else faded and there was the freedom I had been running so hard to find.

A new longing rises from the stillness, desire refined by the fire and all the brighter for it. It surrounds me like the pillars of old, now blazing, now blanketing, and when I step out of the tent at night I see a million promises beckoning. I think of you and smile. It may be a thousand years or it may be tomorrow, but I know we’ll stargaze together again. 

~lg

strange hospitality

Wow, it’s a scorcher Abraham. Have I been here before? And by here I mean now. This day. It just feels familiar – the way the flies are buzzing, the position of the sun in the sky, the drowsy cattle. Those three guys coming toward us . . .

It is rather astonishing, even the second time around. Three strangers, three measures of fine flour, one choice calf, and one outrageous announcement. As they sat to eat beneath the trees, I couldn’t help but feel as if the tables had been turned. I don’t suppose you’ve yet heard the phrase “entertaining angels unawares.” I think you coined it. You bustled them into your home and brought out the best of your hospitality, but it is they who served you. You became the guest of the divine.

Now Sarah is doing the dishes, alternating between silence and nervous laughter. She sweeps up the bread crumbs with wrinkled hands. The air is cooling, and you are gazing into the darkening hills with a kind of glow on your countenance. Their presence still lingers. And I am left to consider the strangers in my own camp. Who will I find in their faces? I know what it is like to feel like a stranger. So I will give the invitation, and perhaps meet Yahweh at my own table.


~lg

return to Mamre

Abraham! I wasn’t sure if I’d ever see you again, but here we are under the oaks. I’ve missed these branches. So much has happened since I saw you last! I’ve travelled a long way and I’ve seen the faces of many promises, some still in the distance, and others in my arms. In the midst of a strange place I’ve found something like home, or at least a spot in the hills to set up my tent and stay awhile. Is this how you felt? When the earth stopped shifting under your feet long enough to plant a garden? When Isaac was born? When God conjured laughter out of thin desert air?


~lg

Abraham again

Abraham, I’m glad I can tell you my secrets. (The trees may have ears out here, but they are always discrete.) This ancient path is perfect for sorting them out, sorting me out. I guess I want to say thanks for putting up with a straggler like me. I think I’m learning the way. I think I can make out the contours in the earth now. I think I’m learning what to take with me and what to leave behind. All my tears have evaporated, leaving tiny pillars of salt to remind me not to look back.


~lg

breaking camp

Hey Abraham, would you give me a hand with these cardboard boxes? I never knew so much stuff could come out of one little tent. I don't really want to talk about leaving yet, so let's just keep busy. Just stuff those blessings in with that pile of promises over there. If you get tired, we'll take a nap under the tamarisk tree you planted. It's big enough now to provide shade for two. Maybe God will whisper in our dreams. Isn't that just like Him?

~lg

Coming soon to the blog...

Abraham's Advent

A daily devotional for the season of advent, starting Sunday November 30th.
It's something I started writing a few years ago, and this year have finally finished it!

~lg

sifting sands

Abraham, I’m tired. Tired of not knowing, still keeping going, no roots for growing. My roots lie back in the boreal forest, but it’s unlikely I’ll ever return. I’m a tree who hasn’t been planted yet, trying to stay warm in a brown burlap covering. The desert is like a sieve for the soul. All my delusions of grandeur have been sifted through the sand. I have a handful of dreams and ideas, but I don’t know what to do with them anymore. Pack them away in the saddle bags for awhile I guess. I’m afraid they’ll break out here.

And, no offense, but you’re not always the best conversationalist. I’m a little lonely. I envy the Berean caravans that pass by, just out of earshot. Sometimes I talk to the sheep, just so I remember I have a voice. They listen politely, but have a bad habit of wandering just when I get to the good parts. Maybe you could introduce me to some of your friends?


~lg

coming up on three years...

Well Abraham, it’s been about three years now. Three years of Bedouin camps and bumpy camel rides. I remember the first time we met, at the shepherd’s midnight fire. It’s funny how Bethlehem was the door to time travel. It makes sense, considering who we met there.

I must confess, I haven’t always enjoyed the pace. I’ve been tired and frustrated and lost, not to mention the lack of general hygiene. And your lead camel seems to save all his spit for whenever I pass. The whole thing just isn’t sanitary. But I think you’ve saved my sanity in many ways. I’m glad you’re here. At least we’ve been lost together.

I’m pretty sure I’m not ready to go home yet. It’s not really my choice, and I don’t know where home is yet either. So I hope you don’t mind me tagging along a bit farther.


~lg

doubt

Abraham, how could you? How could you follow a God who seems to laugh in your face by turning promise to torture? Did doubt scream protests and tear its clothes inside your head? Sure, it turned out for you. The lesson, we are told, is about trust. Just trust and it will all be ok. But I’m not so sure what will happen to me. I’m afraid to walk the path of self-denial, three days to the top of the hill, heaping kindling upon what I welcomed as a gift. I have my old swiss army knife, heavy in my pocket. Is it big enough? Will I have to use it? I doubt there are rams in these parts, much less angels. Abraham, will you carry me home if I have to come back alone?

~lg

under the oaks

Father Abraham, do you know your children have ipods? That we can look up your travels on Wikipedia? But we have oak trees too, that look something like the ones here at Mamre. Shade is a timeless treasure, and it’s nice to sit under the oaks on hot summer days like today.

When the tent flaps blow in the wind, slapping against the frame, I remember the day three strange men came. I remember the promises made, incredulous promises that seemed to mock dead wombs and old bones. The heat puts me in a contemplative mood - the sound of the branches rustling and goatskins flapping and flies buzzing makes it all seem like somewhat of a dream. The horizon looks hazy, as if a lake could appear in the distance at any moment. A trick of the eyes, of the heat… I hear whispers in the wind. Do you hear it too?

I think I might be crazy. It’s not just about the mirages and voices in my head. It’s about being here, following your steps. I’m a descendent, you know, though I look nothing like you or Sarah. I’m trying to figure out where I’m going by tracing family history. This detour into the past may give me clues to my own future. I heard the call too, but now it seems so distant. Ur was a long time ago. Who have I become along the way?

I see you, hoping against hope in something that does not yet exist. You tell me your God gives life to the dead, calls something out of nothing. I see you growing stronger, staggering less. Well I just feel like a drunkard, wandering around the desert on sour curds and milk. But the oaks are talking still, echoing words of glory I strain to hear:

Is anything too difficult for Yahweh?

(Romans 4:16-25)

~lg

hey Abraham, wait up

Change is the wind, unpredictable and unstoppable. Abraham, where are we going? Do the breezes talk to you, pushing you out of your tent and along an unseen path? Is it God’s face you see in the thunderclouds, and if it is, why do you look weary and sad? When Sarah is frustrated she calls you Abram, but you silence her and keep moving. I guess that’s called faith. I’m following you because I don’t know where else to go. He hasn’t told me my new name yet.

Do you ever miss Ur, or the friends we camped with at the oases? We’ve seen many beautiful places along the way. How will you know where to stop? Maybe you never will.

~lg

calling out your name

Call me Abraham. A crazy old geezer who picked up and went after some mysterious God of the wilderness. Ok, maybe not the old or the geezer part, but definitely the crazy. I'm drawn into his story, as if my star fell out of the sky and landed on the path out of Ur. I'm tagging along, one of the servants carrying the camel-hair blankets or something. I try and listen in on his whispered dealings with the smoking firepot, and I can see the blazing torch hovering in the night. We're strangers and aliens, following the path between the cut up pieces of meat. It's a strange path of sacrifice and having angels to high tea. It's fearful and wonderful, and yes, crazy.

I don't know how to get where I'm going, but I've seen it before. I can't remember if it was in a dream, or when I was a little girl in Saskatchewan roaming the plains. It's a hill, a moment of reaching its crest, the thrill of the wind behind me and the sudden opening of the sky above. The grass is long and rustling in the wind, and I think there's a big rock, the kind you can sit on and pray. Maybe there are stars, billions of them, or it could just be a storm brewing. I've got that feeling that something is about to happen and yet I've never been more at rest. This is home. I know I'll recognize it when I see it.

Is it a place of earth or is it on the other side of the door? I think Abraham probably asked the same question.



Rich Mullins wrote a song about the way I feel when I get that longing in my stomach. Here's the last verse to "Calling Out Your Name"

From the place where morning gathers
You can look sometimes forever 'til you see
What time may never know
What time may never know
How the Lord takes by its corners this old world
And shakes us forward and shakes us free
To run wild with the hope
To run wild with the hope
The hope that this thirst will not last long
That it will soon drown in the song not sung in vain
And I feel the thunder in the sky
I see the sky about to rain
And I hear the prairies calling out Your name
And I know this thirst will not last long
That it will soon drown in the song not sung in vain
I feel the thunder in the sky
I see the sky about to rain
And with the prairies I am calling out Your name