Ishmael

Sarai knows the vision, the promise. She wants to agree. She orders her environment. All that she’s been given moved with the goal to achieve, to enter into the promise, as best she sees it possible. Hagar has little power. Then things change. She also recognizes, values, and orders that which she has been given.

No one is adequate to the circumstances. Everyone feels wronged in some way.

An angel comes.

Drama followed by what must happen anyway. Still this power is undeniable and must be exercised, must be discharged. Why? How?

Yesterday someone asked me why I bother with the scriptures. “Knowing these things”, it was said, “can make no difference in the way life is lived.”

In this moment I simultaneously feel as confused as Hagar and as vexed as Sarai – and then an angel shows up. Just for the moment.

Breathe out. Like Hagar, Sarai and Abram – I go on. No wiser, but no less determined. Still, I have to admit, something has changed.