Rebekah

Let her be the woman

whom the LORD has appointed;

and she came,

drawing water from the well.

In place of fathers, O king,

you shall have sons.

Something which was not there before

tries to exist, though

of course it cannot,

and cannot try.

She bears it.

Gets herself a new nose ring, 

some gold bracelets, veils

her face and walks out into the desert.

She takes him who was

and makes to-come.

Let her be the woman

whom the LORD has appointed

for him.

It is so easy for me to identify with this reckless woman who agrees to a marriage site-unseen.  She just crosses her fingers and jumps in feet first.  And it is beautiful to me that she is a comfort to Isaac.  But I cannot ever be allowed to forget that this isn't really Rebekah's story.  I cannot feel that her story is told quite right when the blessing for Abraham and Isaac is a future, and the women are always only the means to that blessing; not a part of the blessing.  And they don't seem to qualify for much blessing themselves other than the shared glory of making a baby boy.  This is a Rebekah chapter in Isaac's story.

But the sons in place of fathers still seem so important.  I don't want to let them go.  We need to be reminded that the future doesn't have to look like the past.

We compel our children to repeat our mistakes so we don't have to face the fact that, no, that was not the only way we could have gone.  We want them enslaved to consumerism and lust and sexual shame and xenophobia because we are desperate to not have to confront the child in us who could have been something new, who maybe still can, but dear God, what would it look like?

And what of Rebekah?  What of the woman foolish and brave enough to do the work, and then to fail in her own ways?  I want to be so foolish and brave, but how do I continue to ask her to bear up under this burden, a burden of secondariness, even if she is strong enough to carry it?