A Brave Heart: Hagar

Can you imagine…

the weight that comes from

being named "Alien",

walking through the streets,

your body owned?

The reality in your womb –

your child,

but belonging to another.

Where did she come from,

this stranger,

before this was her story?

What was the name her mother

gave her the day she was born?

(Perhaps it was Bravery.)

Can you imagine…

knowing it was nothing short

of slavery,

the reality that brought about

this life inside you?

To be cast out, ironically,

for fulfilling your purpose?

Then, to be alone in the wilderness

at an unknown well,

Beer-lahai-roi,

and to be met there by the Divine,

a presence you had never known.

(But isn't this the place

where God meets us all?)

Can you imagine…

the Divine granting you

the privilege of giving it a name?

"You are a God of seeing…"

To be known so deeply

after perhaps a lifetime

of invisibility,

of never knowing your

place, your home.

What courage did it take,

when God told you that

you must return to the one

who abused you

(Not just return but submit?)

Did you know that later,

there would be

the story of the man

on the cross,

an alien in his own right.

Can anything good

come from Nazareth?

Can you imagine…

that he would know

your suffering.

That he,

named by the Divine,

would be called

to heal the world?

(Inspired by Wilda C. Gafney's Womanist Midrash)