Words by Sinope

I've often wondered what it would be like to grow up as Isaac, knowing that your father had tried to kill you because a voice in his head commanded it. "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and slaughter him," God said, and Abraham did.

Isaac loved his wife Rebekah; so it was written. But a famine came upon their land, and they had to travel elsewhere for a time -- sojourners, strangers in a strange land. Isaac was afraid, because Rebekah was very beautiful, and he feared that the foreigners would kill him and take her.

So Isaac took his wife Rebekah, whom he loved, and he told the men of the land that she was his sister. Days stretched into months, and the silence of the text speaks volumes about how often he may have bartered his "sister"'s beauty for economic security in that time. Only when the king of the land espied Isaac caressing his wife was their ruse revealed.

Abraham laid the son he loved under the knife because a god told him to. Isaac sold off the wife he loved because he wanted stability in a strange land. I'm not sure whose act disturbs me more.

I still feel like a sojourner these days -- someone inhabiting this world, this house, these friends, this job. I'm not sure where home is, but it's not yet here. Sometimes, I wonder what I'm bartering away in order to feel stable in this strange land.