On January 1st, I started reading the Bible through again. I decided to use the Amplified version this year because I appreciate the added synonyms that give me a fuller meaning of words.
Sometimes, I find it hard to get a sense of the people in the Bible stories as real people in relationships with one another and with God. They appear as paper cutouts like the image above.
Last month I shared a poem with you written by my friend, Agnes Fisher. I loved what that poem did for me in sensing some of the emotions Mary, the mother of Jesus, would have felt. Today I want to share another poem by Agnes. It is titled Noah’s Wife. I read it as I got to the story in Genesis of Noah and the ark. It made me pause to reflect on Noah’s obedience to God over a long period of time as he built the ark and what it cost him emotionally.
We know from the Bible that Sarah questioned God’s promise to Abraham that he would have a biological son. Since she couldn’t believe the promised son would be born to her, she proposed that Abraham have a child by Hagar.
Job’s wife told him to curse God and die, after Satan was allowed to afflict him physically.
We don’t know from the Bible what Noah’s wife experienced. However, this poem helped me to see her as a real person as I caught a glimpse of what it might have been like.
Noah's Wife She stood far back listening to her neighbors laugh and deride Noah pointing accusing fingers shaking wise heads shooting scornful looks laughing, laughing, laughing at her husband at the boat builder at the dry ground. The great Ziggurats the sophisticated city the gardens and roads the tree-lined streets the modern cafe's serving the flat breads and fruits that stood in mocking judgement to the folly of the simple-minded builder hammering his silly vessel together as though it would rain. They slunk out of the city to observe perhaps to spy perhaps to ridicule perhaps to laugh to double over in mutual hilarity and be entertained by the madman the "captain" at they called him now. "Hey, Captain Noah when's it gonna rain?" How much rain would it take? she thought as she struggled her way through Noah's obstinate building days, through her former friends' ridicule and laughter through dried out days to launch such a great, such a stupid ship? Jaweh, Maker of heaven and earth had given orders. Jaweh was the planner, the predictor the architect the contractor the foreman and Noah the poor mad builder. Why had Jaweh made such a fool of him? She could not grasp Jaweh's plan, Noah's obedience, her friends' derision, her own confusion. His wife laughed him to scorn with the others. Then the rain came.
The times, customs, culture, and language described in the Bible are vastly different from our own. However, despite these differences, we, like them, are human beings living in a fallen and sinful world. After reading this poem, I found myself contemplating what Noah may have been feeling – the pain and loneliness in his marriag and family, having relationships that are unsupportive, full of questions and doubts, and the weight of sacrifice. Also, I wondered about the encouragement, the honor, the reverential fear, the intimacy in Noah’s relationship with Jaweh.
Since I am now reading in the book of Deuteronomy, I have read the stories of so many others that have caused me to pause, ponder, think of them as real people, and then look at myself. There was and is always a price for obedience. But far more valuable is the invitation to intimacy with our Creator, who gives the necessary grace for living each day in the midst of all our circumstances and relationships.
Thank you, Agnes, for a poem that causes me to reflect and an opportunity to share it.
