“Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his children because he was the son of his old age, and he made him an ornamented robe.” – Genesis 37:3
You strive with family, heel-grabber. You strive with God (hey, how’s your hip?). You set up strife of wives and slaves to seek your favor, bear your children. So from your favored woman you select a favored son, just as your father did (and as your mother did on your behalf), and with a single coat you paint a target on his back.
You seized the heel. You took the blessing and the land. You wrestled through the night with God and were not fully overcome. You stole your flocks from Laban and his daughter stole his gods. You’re set up well, heel-grabber. You’re blessed, God-wrestler, in your tent.
But now they’ll fool you, Trickster man. They’ve sold your favorite son away. They couldn’t tell you that. Oh no, not that. They’ll bring that stunning coat with tears and stains and you will be deceived. Your weeping will not move them to the truth.
Your sons have learned their lessons well, just as you did from soft Rebecca’s words, and as your father did from Abraham, the father of his slave’s offspring, the wife-concealer, son near-executioner. Where, heel-grabber, will it end?
A poem/prayer based on Genesis 37:1-4, 12-18, the Revised Common Lectionary Alternate First Reading for Year A, Proper 14 (19).
How tall an ohi’a tree grows depends a lot on where its seed falls. If it falls into old, deep soil, rich with nutrients and able to hold water, the seed will spread its roots wide and raise its stem tall, until its leafy crown can wave eighty feet above the forest floor.
If the seed falls on the bare expanse of an old lava flow, however, the seed may struggle to sprout at all. It needs some soil, and the soil has to hold some water, but with time, an ohi’a’s roots can actually crumble some of the rock into more soil. In this way a plant with just a couple branches can grow into a tree – granted, still a small tree, but recognizably a tree and not a bush hugging the ground.
One such ohi’a seed had done just that. It had found a crack in an old lava flow, one that had contained some sand and some soil and would hold water. The ohi’a grew, and as it grew its roots found new spaces in the rock and filled them with soil. It took years, but one morning as the sun rose scarlet flowers bloomed along its branches, the red tendrils tipped with gold that gleamed in the morning light.
An ‘amakihi had already been visiting the little tree, because its leaves sheltered – almost – some of the bugs and spiders she liked to eat. She was the first bird to discover the ohi’a flowers in full bloom. She sipped their nectar and she ate the insects that had followed the scent of blossoms and basically enjoyed a good breakfast.
This went on for a while, with flowers blooming, then fading. After some time no new flowers grew, but where they had been, seed pods took shape. The ‘amakihi watched with interest as the pods split open and the winds took the tiny seeds and scattered them about the landscape.
And then… the tree did nothing. Well, it spread its green leaves, and it pushed out its roots, and maybe it got a little taller. But there were no new flowers, no new seed pods. Just… leaves and roots and stems.
One morning the ‘amakihi came by again to find the little tree aglow with crimson blossoms again. She rejoiced – she’d come to really like this tree – and she enjoyed her breakfast and lunch and dinner. She watched again as the blooms faded and the seed pods formed. She watched the tiny seeds sail away on the wind.
And then… nothing.
“What are you doing tree?” she asked one night as she settled in to sleep among its branches. “Why do you bloom and then stop?”
As I’ve noted before, trees talk in a dream. Sure enough, the tree replied in the whispery voice of air moving among leaves, “I’m resting.”
“Why do you rest?” asked the ‘amakihi, although she was resting as she asked (dreams happen while you’re resting most of the time).
“It takes a lot to make those flowers,” said the tree, “and to share that nectar with you and with the other creatures. Then it takes a lot to transform those flowers into seeds. I’m happy to do it, I’m happy to share, and I’m happy to be part of a new forest of ohi’a trees on this rocky ground – but I can’t do it all the time. Could you? Could you do anything day in, day out, forever?”
The ’amakihi wanted to say, “I could eat all the time,” but she was an honest bird and she knew she was asleep, and if that’s not resting what is?
“Rest well, tree,” she whispered.
“Rest well, bird,” came the soft reply.
All God’s creatures – including us – need our rest.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Story
I write these stories first and then tell them from my (faulty) memory of the text I’d prepared. Differences are… inevitable.
Photo of an ohi’a in blossom (not resting) by Eric Anderson.
Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. – Matthew 14:13-14
Where is he, then? This Jesus who is my last hope of healing from this bitter rash? It lingers and it spreads; my friends all know that without healing, I will be cast out.
So where is Jesus? Yesterday I knew he had returned from Nazareth to learn of John the Baptist’s execution. Then, they say, his weary face dissolved in tears.
He took a boat, they say, and so my son, his wife, and daughter, shepherd me along the rutted hillside trails above the beach so we can see the sails of Jesus’ craft.
We’re not alone. The path, though trampled firm, shows sign of feet ahead, and we can see that others follow us behind, and more, I’m sure, beat down the trail I cannot see.
He sailed, this weary disappointed man, to weep and grieve in peace, and I regret that he will find a multitude of us awaiting his attention and his care,
Yet not enough regret to risk my health and home and loves and place to “it will heal,” for healing’s failure ends the life that I have known and cherished deep within my soul.
My son cries, “Quickly, father, come! The sails a-shiver! Look! The boat has turned to shore!” We stagger down the pathless bluff. Now I can see the spray-flecked face regard us all.
Just for a moment, graven deep, I see the hollows of the skull beneath the skin worn thin by weariness and grief. “He’ll turn the boat,” I whisper, “out to sea, away.”
He gestures to the sailors and they strike the sail, then bring the boat ashore. He stands, he leaps upon the strand. He takes three steps and people gather all about him there.
First one, then five, then ten, then dozens more present their bodies’ and their souls’ dis-ease. He comes to me; he sees my skin, he sighs, and tells me not to fear. I will be well.
Before he turns away, I have to ask, “You could have turned your craft far from this shore. Why did you stay?” He gently says, “My friend, I’ll always be with those who follow me.”
The day has drawn toward dusk. Somewhere they found a heap of bread, and even some dried fish to share about this seething crowd. My skin is softening. I know I will be well.
Soon we shall follow once again the ruts along the bluffs, this time toward hearth and home, but not the same. For any path I take to any place from here: I follow him.
A poem/prayer based on Matthew 14:13-21, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year A, Proper 13 (18).
Like a lot of clergy, I tend to identify primarily with Jesus in this story. We have something of a self-narrative that we are people who get asked to do many things. If I’d been in the boat, I’d have wanted to sail to somewhere else that the people seeking me couldn’t reach. This poem takes the perspective of those who tracked those sails along the shoreline of the Sea of Galilee, and helps me understand why Jesus didn’t do that. In a very real, embodied sense, those thousands of people followed Jesus.
Generally, ‘apapane are pretty honest birds. They give warning calls when there’s danger near, they sing “Waiting for the rain to end” songs when it’s raining, and they sing “Oh, look what I’ve found!” songs when they’ve discovered a tree particularly rich in ohi’a blossoms.
One day an ‘apapane had a different idea. He had sung his “Waiting for the rain to end” song when it was cloudy, not raining, mostly because he was sure it was going to rain. Even though nothing ever fell from the sky, a number of birds, ‘apapane but also i’iwi and ‘amakihi, took shelter for a few minutes. It didn’t take long for them to come out again when the rain didn’t happen, but it started him thinking.
A day or two later he found a lovely ohi’a tree just dripping with nectar and already attracting a number of the bugs he liked to eat as well. He told some members of his family and a few close friends to wait for him in a certain spot, while he flew over to a place where there were trees with a few blossoms on them, but nothing like what he’d found on that one tree.
There, surrounded by mostly greenery, he sang his “Oh, look what I’ve found!” song.
When he heard wings approaching he flew off low to one side and circled back around to where his friends and family were.
“Somebody’s found something,” said his sister. “We should go see.”
“I just found something better,” he said. “Follow me.” And they did.
As a result, their little group of ‘apapane had quite some time enjoying the nectar-rich flowers before other birds discovered it – as a result, I should say, of them singing their own, “Oh, look what I found!” song.
He repeated the trick a few days later when he discovered another very nice tree, and about two days after that, and a couple days after that, and he was very pleased with himself.
He was caught, of course, and that was by his grandfather. There were rumors going about that some of these “Oh, look what I found!” songs seemed to be overly optimistic at best and downright deceptive at worst. Grandfather had perched at the top of a tall ohi’a and heard the early morning call from a group of trees he knew was pretty sparse for flowers. He looked for the flash of red and black wings, and when he spotted it, he followed. To his surprise, they led first to a little flock of his own family, and then to a tree that glowed red in the morning light.
As the birds fed, he perched next to his grandson. “Come,” he said, pointing to a neighboring tree. “We need to talk.”
When they both had landed on a branch with enough flowers for a breakfast that wasn’t nearly as extravagant as the other tree, the younger ‘apapane wanted to know what it was about.
“Grandson,” said the elder. “You’ve been lying.”
“Not to you, tutu,” protested the younger one. “Not to any of our family or my friends.”
“I appreciate that,” said grandfather, “but truth isn’t just for family or friends. Truth is for everyone.”
“What’s the harm?” demanded the grandson. “Everyone is getting fed. I haven’t prevented anyone from finding good trees. I mean, I haven’t driven anyone away.”
“You’ve misled them – and concealed that it was you doing it,” said grandfather.
“Well, sure. Because then they wouldn’t trust my song,” said the younger one, and that was when he realized.
“Because I wouldn’t be worthy of trust, would I?” he asked.
Grandfather said nothing.
“Because I haven’t been worthy of trust, have I?” he asked.
Grandfather and grandson sat quietly for a few moments.
“I’ll be worthy of trust, Tutu.”
“I know you will.”
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Story
I tell these stories from memory of what you’ve just read – without a manuscript or notes. Inevitably, it varies from the text I’ve prepared, as it does today.
Photo by Eric Anderson
Author’s note
I found myself with a real quandary in developing a story that comments on Genesis 29, a text with so much that just makes me stop and go, “That’s not right.” Bringing its themes to children (or even to adults) looked impossibly difficult. Finally I settled on one theme of Jacob’s saga, something that happens again and again to cause pain and distress to the people involved: deception and lies. Thus this story about lies and truth.
“When morning came, it was Leah! And Jacob said to Laban, ‘What is this you have done to me? Did I not serve with you for Rachel? Why then have you deceived me?'” – Genesis 29:25
O Holy One of Abraham and Isaac and of my husband-now-by-fraud, Jacob:
Hear my prayer.
My veil is now cast off. But will he view my face by flickering lamplight, or instead will he embrace me knowing that I am my sister. How could he not know?
I shiver here, O Holy One, for fear of what he’ll do upon discovering he’s been deceived. My face has never pleased him. Will he break it in his rage?
What am I doing here? My father claims I need a husband and to be the first to wed, before my sister does, and so I stood a-shaking in the gown and veil.
My sister, I am sure, wept bitter tears which I imagine I could hear during the vows, and which I still hear echoing within this dark and stifling room.
God, here I am, compelled to wed, and soon I’ll be compelled to mate, and then I’ll be compelled to bear, and bear resentful eyes of sister and of him.
What can I do? Where could I run? Perhaps I’ll speak to him, but to what end? The deed is done – except the deed, of course – and who will credit anything I say?
Oh, God. There’s laughter in the hall. My father’s voice, and his. Dear God. Preserve my life this night from violence, and bring me safe to morn.
Perhaps a dawn will come, some day, when Jacob, Rachel, and myself will laugh as Jacob laughs outside the door, and then we’ll weep for all the pain we’ve borne.
Quick, God! Oh, spirit me away! I dread this night, and fear the morn, and cannot see beyond these hours a future brighter than this unlit room.
He comes.
A poem/prayer based on Genesis 29:15-28, the Revised Common Lectionary Alternate First Reading for Year A, Proper 12 (17).
An i’iwi overheard some people talking one day about a disease that was harmful and even fatal to ohi’a trees. He followed them and listened closely as they took care to clean their shoes and avoid bringing the fungus spores to where healthy trees were. The i’iwi decided that he would help protect his favorite ohi’a tree.
It wasn’t a very big tree, which was one of the reasons it was his favorite. It had a nice shape and plenty of leaves and it tended to blossom quite freely, which made it a great place to find safety and enjoy a good meal of ohi’a nectar. And because it wasn’t very big, it was a size that he could guard.
Guard it he did. When ‘apapane came by, he drove them off, and likewise amakihi, mejiro, and even the little ‘elepaio. They squawked and complained, but a determined i’iwi is difficult to convince, so they all went to other trees.
The i’iwi then set out to make sure that the tree was safe from being infected by insects that might carry the dangerous fungus. He flicked bugs off the leaves and branches with his wings, with his toes, and with his long curved beak. The spiders and insects didn’t try to argue. It’s hard to argue when something many times your size has kicked you off a branch when you’re a long way up in the air. Some tried a second or a third time, but found the i’iwi ready for them, and so they headed off as well.
The i’iwi found himself pretty much alone in the tree, and quite satisfied, settled down to sleep as night fell, prepared for another day of defending his favorite tree.
As the wind moved the tree limbs, however, his dreams turned strange. It seemed like the tree was speaking to him. “Why are you doing this?” asked the tree. “Why are you chasing everyone away?”
In a dream, of course, you can talk to trees, so the i’iwi said, “I’m keeping away everything that might make you sick. I want to keep you well.”
The tree creaked thoughtfully for a few minutes – trees think long and deeply – before replying.
“That’s good of you,” said the tree. “I appreciate the thought. But has it occurred to you that if no one visits me, my flowers don’t become seeds?”
That had not, in fact, occurred to the i’iwi, who hadn’t known it. Most plants blossoms attract creatures like honeybees, who in traveling from flower to flower bring the pollen that enables the blossoms to produce seeds. In the ohi’a forest, this gets done by bees, and by beetles, and by birds such as the amakihi and ‘apapane and yes, the i’iwi.
“If nobody visits other trees, and nobody visits me, there won’t be any seeds,” explained the tree.
The i’iwi didn’t know what to do. “If they visit you, you might get sick,” he said, “but if they don’t visit you, there won’t be new ohi’a trees.”
The tree limbs sighed in agreement.
“We’ll have to chance it,” said the tree. “But thanks for the effort.”
“We’ll have to chance it,” said the i’iwi. “May it all go well.”
You and I can still help protect ohi’a trees by cleaning our shoes before entering ohi’a forests and not moving ohi’a wood around and by taking care to not damage the tree bark when we’re in the forest. But the i’iwi and the birds and bees of the forest will also be sipping nectar and flying from tree to tree, and its risky – but it’s also how the next generation of ohi’a will take root and grow.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Story
On Sundays I tell these stories from memory of the text I’ve prepared (which you’ve just read above). Between failures of memory and the creative impulse, they are not identical.
“No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.” – Matthew 13:29-30
Such a simple story, Jesus. But I have to say that life is much more complicated than you’ve said.
We are not seeds, you know, that can be labeled “good” and “bad.” A person wobbles like a child’s toy through life, a nod to good this moment, leaning to the bad the next. No simple good and bad.
We need no enemy except what we call up ourselves to sow the bad amidst the good. Those who claim “good” know well their ill within and evil souls have shown the signs of care.
We’re more complex than this, your tale, suggests. We struggle so against the ills around us and we struggle with the ills within. How much we’d welcome weeding in our fields!
But…
If life is much more complicated than your story, how much harder would the task of weeding be, when wheat and weeds are all the same, and each may bear good fruit some day.
Your story may be simple, Jesus, but its lesson holds. Our lives are far too wound about with good and bad, with health and ill, to separate them in the here and now.
May we, someday, bear good fruit.
A poem/prayer based on Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year A, Proper 11 (16).
The image is Les Sataniques. Satan semant l’ivraie (The Satanics: Satan Sowing Tares) by Félicien Rops – photo by Hans Joachim Neyer (Hrsg.): Felicien Rops. 1833 – 1898. Katalog der Ausstellung im Wilhelm-Busch-Museum Hannover 17. Januar bis 21. März 1999. Hatje, Ostfildern 1999, ISBN 3-7757-0821-9, Abb. 61, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12525528.
There were three fledglings in the ‘apapane nest, a sister and two brothers. All three had hatched on the same day, which is pretty common for ‘apapane. All three had steadily grown from the food their parents brought to them each day. They’d just begun to learn to fly.
For whatever reason, and who knows the reasons for these things, the sister grew more quickly than her two brothers. Her wing muscles got stronger faster, and she stood taller than they in the nest and on the branches near the nest. And… she started to take charge.
When father or mother came by at mealtimes, she got to the front first. Her brothers got the same amount of food that she did, so the parents didn’t remark on it, but she increasingly got fed first. When it came time for their first test flights, she summoned more of her parents’ attention than her brothers did. She’d fly a little farther among the branches of the nesting tree so they had to keep track of her. But she’d also sing out, “Look at me!” when father or mother started giving instructions to one of her brothers.
When they settled down at night, her brothers had to be satisfied with what room she left them in the nest. She began to push them aside when she wasn’t comfortable, and she began to order them to do things for her. She was bigger. She was stronger. They did what she ordered them to do.
They weren’t happy about it.
“Don’t complain,” she told them. “I’m the oldest and the biggest. You have to do what I tell you.”
She wasn’t actually the first to hatch, but they didn’t dare to tell her so.
Father and Mother didn’t actually notice all this. When one of them was nearby, they were the oldest and the biggest, and she didn’t try to dominate them. But the moment the three chicks were alone, she was in charge, and when she was in charge, she got what she wanted.
If one of her brothers had flown to a particularly nice cluster of ohi’a blossoms, she’d come along and order him away. If one of her brothers was relaxing in a sunny spot, she’d push him off the branch. If it was raining and one of them found a spot where the leaves kept the drops away, guess who would be dry at the end of the shower?
You guessed it. She would.
It was grandmother who spotted all this, observing from a neighboring tree. She flew over when big sister had taken over a cluster of ohi’a flowers.
“Not like that,” she told her granddaughter.
“Not like what?” said granddaughter.
“Stop bullying your brothers.”
“I’m not bullying them,” she said.
“You certainly are,” said grandmother. “You just took over this flower cluster.”
“I’m entitled,” said the big sister. “I’m the biggest and the oldest. How should I treat my little brothers?”
“Not like that. You all hatched on the same day,” said grandmother, “and soon enough your brothers will catch up to your size and one or both of them might get bigger than you are. Will you be content to be kicked off your flowers then?”
Her granddaughter had to admit that she wouldn’t.
“Treat your brothers the way you want to be treated. Treat them better, in fact. That’s how we build a strong family. It’s how we make peace among ‘apapane.”
She did change her ways, though it took a little while. Fortunately she did it before one of her brothers did, in fact, grow to be bigger than she was – but he had learned that lesson, too, and treated his sister as he wanted to be treated, and even better.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Story
First I write the story (you’ve just read what I wrote). Then I tell it without the written copy in front of me. And… things change.
“Cast out this slave woman with her son; for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac.” – Genesis 21:10
O God who values children, how could You applaud this hideous, this (dare I say it) visibly unholy plan to send a mother and a child out to die near Beer Sheba, and of all places, this the Well of Seven, this the Well of Oaths.
What of the oath a parent makes to child when he is born? What of the oath a mistress lays upon herself when making one a slave? What of the oath a man should owe to one with whom he has conceived a child? What of the oaths pure decency demands?
Instead an oath to Sarah’s son is paramount. Instead You credit Sarah’s oath to see her son to elevation. Instead You make another oath to make another nation from another child. Could not You value these two lives for Ishmael’s life, for Hagar’s life itself?
I’d like to judge You, God, but I cannot. I’ve wondered if, like Hagar, I could bear to see my child’s life come to its end. I’ve tried to comfort those whose children died and known that mine had not. If anyone can judge You, it is they.
In humble, grateful, timid words I offer you a whispered thanks, for when the harshest wilderness was all I saw and knew, I found beyond all hope and bitter fear, You’d dug a well of water.
A poem/prayer based on Genesis 21:8-21, the Revised Common Lectionary First Reading for Year A, Proper 7 (12).
The little noio chick was convinced that her father didn’t love her.
I have to admit that she had some reasons for thinking this. Noio (or black noddy) nests tend to be kind of shallow, and her parents had chosen a rather bumpy section of the cliff shelf to place their nest. She was never able to get really comfortable, because a bit of rock poked her if she was here, and another bit of rock poked her when she was there, and for quite some time listening to humans she thought of something very different to the word “poke.”
She had to admit that they’d found a spot that kept most of the rain off, but when it was sunny she thought she was going to become a baked noio. If the wind turned the wrong direction while it was raining, well, it blew the water right over her. Big waves would toss spray in her direction as well.
There were plenty of other nearby noio nests, none of which had any great advantages over hers and plenty of them were even pokier, but she wasn’t happy.
There was also the issue of what her father fed her, which was, and forgive me for being gross here, what her father had just eaten. Again, this was no different from what other nearby noio chicks were eating in their no-more-comfortable nests, but she thought that a loving father would have found a better way.
Her father had been a great comfort when she was small, keeping her warm and protected from rain and spray at night, and even shading her from the sun by day. Along the way, however, father had done less and less. As the chick grew, of course, there was less and less room on the nest for father or mother.
The worst, however, had come when it was time to fly. Suddenly father had become the nit-pickiest tyrant ever inflicted upon a daughter. “Spread your wings. Hold them up. Twist the left one. Hold it lower. Lower! Now flap. Not like that!”
She thought she heard the words, “Not like that!” more than any other words in the day.
After a particularly hard day when her flying had been quite erratic and her father quite emphatic about “Not like that!” she settled into the nest. Father perched silently and, she thought, judgmentally on the rocky shelf next to the nest. “Why, Father,” said the young fledgling bitterly, “don’t you love me?”
“Who said I didn’t love you?” asked father, who was quite shocked.
“You show it every day. You watch me so closely, you criticize all the time, you hardly ever hold me close any more, and let’s not even talk about the food.”
Father had to admit that there wasn’t much to say about the food, but he did hop over and sheltered his chick beneath his wings.
“I do love you, and I’m sorry I don’t say it clearly enough,” he said. “First thing in the morning, I’m here to make sure you awake safely. The last thing in the day, I’m here to make sure you’re able to sleep safely, too. I am strict with you about flying, because the ground is hard and the sea is harsh. Hit either of them wrong and I’d be crying for you rather than criticizing you.”
His chick snuggled into his feathers and felt somewhat better.
“I’ll tell you what,” said father. “The quicker you master flying, the quicker you can start catching fish for yourself.”
“Which means?” asked the fledgling.
“You’ll enjoy your meals a lot more -and so will I!”
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Story
I write the story. I memorize the course of the story… and when I tell the story, it’s simply not the same as the written version.
Photo by Eric Anderson
Author’s note: I originally wrote this story to be about a chick and her mother. Then I remembered it was Father’s Day. It does somewhat change the story’s character.
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