There are a few reasons I want to cover the story of Abraham next. The first reason is that it happens to be the next big story in your book, and second, it’s kind of scattered and confusing, and really doesn’t explain how things got started, and since I was there, well for some of it, I’d like to shed a little light on the subject. To begin with Abraham and his wife Sarah started out as Abram and Saria. For some reason my old man renamed them to Abraham and Sarah. Doesn’t make a whole hell of a lot of sense, but not to worry, I’ll explain in due time.
One of the confusing parts of this whole story is the very beginning. Abram and Saria are married, with no insight on how they got together, and Abram is already having conversations with the big guy. This is one of the elusive aspects of your book. Pop’s is talking to all sorts of people with no real explanation of how that relationship was established.
I understand that there are a number of bible readers that read the bible for direction and to build a personal relationship with the old man, and very few to none(1) have ever had the big cheese show up and start having a personal chat with them in person. But in your book there are multiple people that have a face to face relationship with Pops. The thing missing is how they established this relationship in the first place, and with that in mind lets begin at the beginning, how and when Abram met God.
(1) The reference to none as a quantity is a mathematical derivative based on the total number of Pop’s followers from the creation to the present day. Because the number of people who have had personal chats with the big man has been zero for over 2000 years now and more and more follows are born/converted each year this fraction of a number has consistently dropped to the point that the number is much closer to zero than it is to 1 (this is based on a averaged percentage system).
Abram was born as Cecil and grew up as one of those kids that had standoffish parents. They were socialites that in an evening of drunken intimacy forgot to use protection and nine months later the little codger was born. Dealing with the pregnancy greatly impeded Cecil’s parent’s social life and by the time he was born their interest in having a child was gone and the desire to begin socializing again was in their foremost thoughts. From his birth Cecil always had a feeling of not being wanted by his parents, because honestly, he really wasn’t. He was watched by house keepers and passed around by relatives, until he ended up with a distantly related uncle who owned a farm and needed some help. Yes, I know it’s all a bit of a cliché, but clichés have to start somewhere and this is where this specific cliché started. It was really quite a new concept when it first happened.
I was not around for this part of Abram’s…er Cecil’s life, and the only reason I know about it is because I was drinking buddies with Cecil’s uncle and I happened to be there when Cecil got to the farm. Jimmy, Cecil’s uncle, and I knew a distant relative would be showing up, but had no other information other than that.
By the time Cecil reached Jimmy’s farm, he had been passed around so much that his parents were not really sure where the boy had ended up, and they were really not that concerned about it. Naturally, having this type of childhood left a rather bitter lump of resentment toward his parents and their lifestyle. When he got to Uncle Jimmy’s he had decided a new start was best and told us that his name was Abram, that way if his parents ever came calling, they would not be able to find their little Cecil.
It took a few weeks but I was able to get to know Abram a little bit. It was about a month later, during an evening of wine and cheese that, after Jimmy had gone to bed, Abram told me his story. Initially I kept the boys background to myself. Jimmy was just happy to have some extra help and didn’t really care where the help came from. But one night I suggested that the boy could probably use a little guidance or at least a father type figure to help ground the boy in some sort of foundation. Jimmy took that suggestion and decided to teach the boy about the Big Guy and His “father like attributes.” When I heard about this I had to ask, “What father like attributes are you referring to Jimmy?”
“Oh I dunno. The fatherly ones cause He had kids I think.”
“Wait…what?”
“He made those first people right and talked to them. I think I remember hearing that once. Ain’t that right?”
“I think I heard something like that, but how does that help the kid out?”
“Well I figure the kid can go ask Him if he has father type questions.” suggested Jimmy.
I mean I guess Pop’s has some fatherly attributes, but in my experience not very good ones. To be fair, I never did tell Jimmy any of my back ground. For some reason people at the time would always get weird when I’d explain exactly who I was. There was still a lot of negative emotion due to the scandalous and misrepresented stories about me. So as long as I found someone to exchange rants, conversation, ideas, or sometimes fart noises over a bottle of wine that’s all I could really ask for. “Just be careful there Jim, kids who have has as rough a start on life as Abram especially towards parents should probably be slowly introduced to the idea. No reason to cram all that info into his head just to “save the boy” you know?”
“You mean that kid ain’t been saved yet?”
“I don’t think he even knows what god is.”
“Well shit, we got some work to do. The boy needs savin.”
“I’ve never pictured you as the “saving” type Jim.”
“Well I ain’t…I mean I was and I did, just in case. Figure the kid deserves the same, you know, just in case.”
I saw no point in arguing and trying to detour Jimmy from his plan of godifying Abram. He meant well, and it was the closest thing people had to life insurance back then. If it was going to give Jimmy a feeling of well being like he had truly done something good to help another person, there was no way I would get in his way. I wasn’t going to help, but I sure wasn’t going to get in the way. So with that, Jimmy began his God educating for Abram.
The main point Abram focused on from all the God stories Jimmy told him was the idea that God loved everyone personally. It was from these stories that Abram chose to replace his biological father with God, which, let’s face it, when people tend to do this get a little weird. Abram was no exception, in fact due to his up bringing, you could say he got a little weirder than most. Abram became a deeply religious teen and an even more religious man, and sometimes he did seem to come off a little too religious. Ok, actually most times he came off a touch too religious, but it’s not like he tried to physically harm anyone, he just damned people a lot. At first, the whole thing was kind of cute, and people like to test the level in which they could achieve damnation in Abram’s eyes. Abram’s damnation covered a variety of things, such as damning someone for eating the wrong food on the wrong day, or damning someone for not getting married and making lots of babies. But like all fads of fleeting entertainment eventually the transference from cute to annoying as hell eventually comes, and usually it’s in the span of about one second from the 17 to 18 time you are damned by someone for the exact same thing he’s damned you for 17 times before.
When Jimmy first started to get annoyed by the boy, he gave him projects and had him build his own place on a small lot of the farm, which Jimmy gave to Abram. This kept Abram busy for a few years, mainly because he was the only one working on his place and he only had time to work on it during his free time away from his farm chores. Abram was still able to incessantly praise God and damn everyone he saw when Jimmy did spend time with him. After of about thirteen years of this, Uncle Jimmy was beginning to feel that perhaps he had made a mistake. The biggest problem that came about was what was happening at the market. Jimmy was loosing customers due to Abram trying to sell God along with the crops, and if a purchase was not made, thus began the damning of souls. After about thirteen years of Abram’s continuous damnation, the people went out of their way to avoid Jimmy food stand. In order for Jimmy to keep his sanity and to live a longer life, Jimmy knew that either he had to go or the boy did.
In the bible when Abram is introduced it says that he was living in his father’s house. This is mildly true. When Jimmy had decided something had to be done he let it slip out that he might be interested in getting rid of the farm, to see if anyone would bite. There were a few people that were interested, but when it was discovered that the kid went along with the farm, most potential buyers stopped asking questions and wished Jimmy a rather cynically sounding “Good luck.” But there was one buyer, a Mr. Johansson, from a neighboring village that liked the idea of getting a farm hand to help with the place. This was mainly due to Mr. Johansson not ever meeting Abram, or talking to someone who had.
When Uncle Jimmy and Mr. Johansson got together to discuss in more depth the sale of the farm it was discovered that Mr. Johansson had a daughter close to the age of Abram named Saria. Jimmy knew that in order to get this thing to stick he had to make it legal and binding. So this is what he worked out, that he would sell the farm to Mr. Johansson only if Abram was allowed to marry Saria. This way he became a family asset to the Johansson’s and they would get Abram’s section of the farm for free. Mr. Johansson, after a short meeting with Abram and observing him work, saw no flaws in the lad’s work ethic and agreed to Jimmy conditions. He even commented on how pleased he was to give his daughter to a man who, “…so openly praised the Lord.”
Yes, Abram and Saria were an arranged marriage, but most marriages were arranged back then. After the wedding Abram was taken into the Johansson family, where he continued to work on the farm and talk about God every chance he got. The morning after the wedding Jimmy had taken all his money and was gone. I’m not sure what happened to him, but I heard he opened a brothel in Gomorrah. I visited Gomorrah a few times and had heard of a new place called “Jimmy’s Love Shack.” I never stopped by. I figured that if it really was the Jimmy I’d known all those years that he had chose to start a new life and I didn’t want to remind him of that difficult and painful time in his life with Abram, but I like to think it was my old friend who opened the place. Jimmy did tell me on the night of Abram’s wedding, “That boy has damned God right out of me over these years. When I leave here, I’m leaving for good.”
So, yes, in a way the bible is correct when it says that Abram lived with his father. It’s just that it was his father-in-law father and not his actual or adopted father.
Jimmy did leave a note strongly encouraging Mr. Johansson to let his children work the market and keep Abram at home working the farm. Mrs. Johansson, Saria, and the rest of the kids helped at the market, while Abram stayed home. And by following that suggestion the farm started to do very well once again. Still, after ten years of Abram’s relentless God talk, Mr. Johansson was beginning to understand Jimmy’s deal to throw the boy in with the purchase of the farm, and never bothered to leave a forwarding address. Mr. Johansson was a thinker though, and he came up with a fairly ingenious idea to get rid of the boy. When it was first suggested that Abram set out to find his place in the world, he made it quite clear that his place in the world was right where he was, and no one was going to take his home away from him, no one except God of course.
Abram was a very naive boy, and up to this point he had nothing but blind acceptance of God based on the stories that he was told. He did not have any clear working concept of God, or communication with Him, or anything of that sort. So to this point, Abram’s relationship with God was strictly a one sided relationship. Mr. Johansson took it upon himself to help rectify this uneven relationship. As for me, I usually kept clear of the kid due to the immense damnation he always interjected on me simply because I enjoyed a taste of wine from time to time. At this point in my life, time to time, loosely translates into a bottle or two a night…or more. Trust me, as lame as things were at this time of human development and civilization, getting drunk nightly was a survival necessity. Otherwise, if I stayed sober long enough I would have attempted killing myself out of a sheer lack of anything else to do, and pissing off the “God boy” nightly, helped pass the time.
After six days of planning and eighteen rehearsals, it was finally time for Mr. Johansson to put his plan in motion. I was sitting on my porch across the street watching the whole event unfold. Abram was walking to the main house when a bush was ignited. In a panic Abram ran up to the fire trying to figure out what to do. At that point that Mr. Johansson, who was hiding on top of the roof, talking to Abram.
“Abram, this is the Lord thy God.”
“Oh my god, God! You have finally answered me. I knew if I stayed true this day would come.” he started to cry. “I have so many more things to ask you.”
“I know you do my boy, but I need you to do something for me before I will answer any of your questions.”
“Of course my Lord, what will you have me do?”
“Well Abe, to put it bluntly, get out of this land, and out of your father-in-laws house. In fact, I want you to go to a new land that I will show you. This land is to the south, and there I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you. In you, all of the families of the earth shall be blessed. Oh, and get some water and put out this burning bush, I only did that to get your attention. After the bush is put out, get your house in order and take you and your family away from this place. You have two weeks, so get busy. That is all, I’m going now.”
And that was all it took to get Abram motivated and off the farm. Mr. Johansson was pleased with the out come. The boy would be gone and would be taking the girl with him. It was not that he didn’t like his daughter, it was just that he wanted her out of the house, it was time she stopped mooching off all his hard work and learned how to get a real job. Besides she had produced no offspring since her and Abram were married, and he took that as a personal insult, since she knew how much he wanted grandchildren.
Here’s the thing about Saria, she, like most girls in this time, had this intense fear of losing her virginity. Sex and marriage, actually its marriage then sex, is a common teaching in most religions based on the old mans descendants. All church going girls in this era were taught that their virginity was their ultimate treasure, which no man should take. The part of this teaching that was usually left out was that it was ok once the girl got married. For some odd reason there is this teaching that a specific ceremony transforms a once evil and damning act, i.e. coitus, into a righteous and glorious act. I’ve always found that logic a little, well, stupid. But hey, that’s just me, and if you are one of those many followers that agree with the “evil act of sex turned righteous” because of marriage, good for you. Keep the faith brother, or sister, or … whatever. On a side note, I’d like to point out that there were a number of other gods that didn’t necessarily share this concept. But for some time, the sex before marriage has been an act of damnation according to almost all of Pops followers. The amusing thing is that even thought a majority of followers understand this teaching, not very many follow it.
So back to Saria, she had apparently missed the “sex is ok after marriage” lesson. This resulted in Saria becoming one of those rare exceptions that took the teaching about sex one step beyond the standardized teaching, which was, no sex before marriage = good, even less sex than that after marriage = better than good. She was also a very vain girl, which didn’t help the situation. She spent a lot of time prettying up herself, and she was very good at it. She had a way of turning heads, and that’s all she wanted. Sex was still a scary and evil thing and had remained that way the entire time she was married.
You may ask how it was possible that she retained her virginity in marriage up to this point. Easy, Abram was very naive. The boy had no concept at all about sex, where babies come from, how they are made or anything like that. He’d never had it explained to him. Sure he saw the animals doing it on the farm, but that was what animals did, not people. Saria took that naiveté and went with it. Sure they’d kiss, but that was the extent of it. Abram figured that if the Lord wanted them to have children then they would, but up to that point it was not the Lords will. Plus due to Saria’s vanity, she asked for that they use separate beds so she wouldn’t have to worry about tossing and turning causing her hair to get messed up. How do I know all this? Saria was quite a little chatter box after she’d had a couple. But then again, who isn’t. She appreciated a little nip now and again, and on days Abram was a bit to religious for her liking, she’d come over, help me finish off a jug or two, and complain about her husband. Only once did she get so inebriated that she started yelling profanities at him from across the street. Shortly after that, she wasn’t allowed to come over and visit anymore.
So a week later, under the direction of “the Lord” the journey south began. Why south? Mr. Johansson had family down south that could keep an eye on Abram and Saria while they were getting settled. He didn’t care much for these relatives. They were a mooching lot that had a tendency to take what ever they could get, without working for it, which is why he was sending Abram to live with them. But he also knew that they would take care of Saria if needed.
It was after Abram and Saria had arrived to their new location and set up their new home that something happened that no one ever expected, the old man actually got off the couch and returned one of Abram’s calls. I mean let’s be honest, in my years of keeping an on the old codger, he never starts talking to you earth dwelling folk unless there is something in it for him, and when he started to actually talk to Abram, I knew something was up, I just wasn’t sure what.
