4

The addition of Lot and his wife to our party added both the joys of camradarie and a certain tension. I was suddenly the leader of an expedition, and over it always hovered the fear that I had brought these people to follow a lie, or worse. Where we were going, after all? I didn’t know. I couldn’t tell them. I was waiting.

But there was less to do, with four of us, so there was more time to enjoy ourselves. All of us had, at one time or another, spent time in the long fields alone, for any number of reasons. This began to feel like that, and as we had plenty of food, and water, I will say that morale was generally quite high.

But it never completely went away. One night, sitting around the fire Lot waved his hand at the mighty wall of the stars and asked me, was I sure, and did I know. Those stars which had always been to our fathers the many angels of the many gods, he wanted to know, could I, staring at them deny them?

A wind blew through me and I felt my eyes darken. I said to him imagine a person, your wife say. Is she always the same? Is her speech only of the rare issue with which she is always concerned? Or shall your wife be many things? I smiled at him. Will you always avoid the rough side of her tongue?

I gestured at the sky he claimed. Shall the gods be greater than us, yet shall Enki speak, and live, and act, only of water? Shall Enlil be only air? Shall our gods be more tedious companions than ourselves? Or is there not a name for that part of this world which is Enlil, and that which is Enki? Could you not as easily name your wife’s tempers and moods, her rages and smiles?

The wind sifted softly through my fingers now, like sand. I continued. Do you know what we claim and what we do not claim? This new god speaks of a compact we understand, and the world He brings is not a new one. For this reason, He does not claim that the sky is otherwise empty.

This belief that I say I have, you tell me it may deny the sky. I say it does not. How could it? If my God is the beginning point, if what has gone before is all lie, with no truth mixed in, what kind of claim am I making? Or, rather, how many truths can there be in this world? For I am Abram. I have a mother and a father. I came from somewhere. I came from Ur. And that Ur exists, no man could deny.

If this God alone, if this belief, has no mother and no father than none of us are as He is, nor shall any of us hope to be served well by the glory He brings, who does not understand what a man is or what he needs. Shall I put myself in the hands of such a God?

Or if He is so wise, would he put himself in my hands? My father was a wandering Aramean. If I am his prophet, then it is my father’s blood speaks his name, whose voice called upon all the starry hosts. Shall I teach my children to remember me, who has forgotten what my mother knew?

But the voice I heard was one voice, and there is no moment nor sound which does not speak with one voice no matter how many stars there are in the sky, nor how many gods into which He has placed his voice.

Lot looked at me for a long time, and I saw in his eyes awe, and fear. Worry, a good deal of worry. But first and foremost Lot was a good comrade, and in a moment he laughed a hearty laugh and he told me he knew why I had to find another land. I asked him why and he smiled and asked me how long I thought I would be allowed to sleep under these stars which I had so offended?

And he smiled again and left for his tent and in the purple dark he left behind with all the ancient gods hovering around me like a vapor, I thought to myself but this land will keep you Lot, and your children with you, and when these stars turn upon you, then you will come to the land I have been given. And sadness was upon my heart.