Mumbling Hope
Stories
Contents
"Mumbling Hope" by David O. Bales
"If It Hadn’t Been Spring" by David O. Bales
Mumbling Hope
by David O. Bales
Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67
Phabi and Nahum rode obediently behind Eliezer, tossed rhythmically side to side on their camels. They glanced to one another with knowing looks. Eliezer was mumbling again. “I suppose I could’ve told them the whole story. They were certainly interested. A display of wealth will do that, especially to a fellow like Laban.”
Phabi and Nahum had listened to Eliezer’s rambling for two months. It was a joke among the men who accompanied him. Nahum spoke quietly sideways, “It’s like anything he thinks just trickles from his mouth.”
Phabi responded, “Not only does Eliezer repeat his own thoughts and actions. He starts with a redo of the master’s instructions and dribbles on: ‘Insisted on my solemn oath. Scared me to death, like the destiny of all human life on my shoulders.’ He tells himself again about the situation, ‘Poor old Abraham’s thinking … getting more sketchy every day and, instead of dispatching his son to scrutinize the Canaanite lasses, insists I head off a month north to Aram-naharaim. Have to keep asking directions; and I’m no spring sparrow either. Aches in my knees, hips, back, shoulders. And this camel-rocking jars me step by clomping step.’”
Nahum gave a snigger to Phabi, “Old Eliezer can’t even enjoy ninety-five percent of success. Never known a guy who worries this much, even when everything’s working out. All the way to Aram-naharaim he kept mumbling, ‘O LORD, God of my master Abraham, please grant me success.’ I’ve had to sleep by him sometimes and the muttering continues till dawn. While we were traveling north, he’d roll over in his sleep whispering, ‘Where’s the angel? Where’s the angel?’ Then, after we’ve gained the women, his sleep talk is, ‘Heaven and earth, heaven and earth.’”
“I calculate three days at the most till we’re home,” Phabi said. “He delivers the young princess and he’s done. Anybody else would be ordering older and older wine day by day. But he can’t relax. He’s so jittery that if he had feathers, he could fly.”
The two servants rode in silence through the morning. Then Phabi screwed up his face as though he was thinking hard. “Know what it is?” He said. “The oath. He can’t shuck the seriousness. Not as though the master sent him to market with a flock of sheep and said, ‘Sell all you can and get the best price possible.’ No, he hung all of heaven and earth on his senior servant’s shoulders with the oath. Anybody ever make you put your hand under his thigh and take an oath?”
Nahum shuddered and answered, “Yes, yes. I mean no, no… I see what you mean. I guess I’m just anxious to get home too. At least we recognize the trail in this direction. That’s a blessing.”
The caravan entered a woodland and Eliezer called a halt for a rest. He rushed to Rebekah and her maids’ camels and watched to make sure they knelt slowly for the women’s safe dismount. He left them and worked his way down the line of other camels, looking at each animal to confirm its healthy condition.
Standing by his camel now, Nahum said to Phabi, “Treats her like a queen.” Phabi laughed and Nahum continued, “I admit she’s a looker all right.”
The two tied their animals to tree limbs and sat in the shade. Eliezer came by inspecting each servant with a nervous glance up and down. “Just checking,” he said, then he went back to the women, to see if they needed anything.
“This Rebekah is Isaac’s cousin,” Phabi said, picking up what he’d been thinking before Eliezer walked by, “and she gets along with everybody. Might be just what the boy needs.” He ran his hand through his beard and said, “With Eliezer it’s about the boy, not just his oath. Eliezer’s been around Abraham’s son a long time.”
“I’m always with a different herd. Don’t really know the son,” Nahum said.
“Eliezer has always been protective of him,” Phabi said. “The boy seems like a slightly crooked arrow that’ll never comes off the string right. Spends a lot of time just walking around. Started when he was a kid. Shouldn’t happen to anybody’s son. You know what I’m talking about?”
“No.”
“A couple years before you hired on. The old man took Eliezer and me and traveled with his son three days to the land of Moriah. This is his only child by Sarah and born late in life. He left me and Eliezer and went off with the boy. Over the years I’ve put pieces together from what the boy and his mother have said. The old man built an altar there, set wood on it. Bound his son and laid him on top the wood. Had his knife raised to kill him as a sacrifice when he’s struck from heaven by an angel and told instead to sacrifice the goat caught in yon thicket. Let me tell you, that boy was shook up when they came back—having seen his father hovering over him with the knife pointing down. To my mind he hasn’t been lively since. It’s no wonder the master doesn’t trust him to find his own wife.”
“I don’t know the son,” Nahum said, “but I know Eliezer and he’s been good to us. I hope at least for his sake that all works well when we finally deliver the bride. I pray that the destiny of heaven and earth be lifted off his shoulders. And,” he shook his head, “I hope for a quiet night’s sleep after we get home.”
Preaching point: Feeling responsible for heaven’s future on earth.
* * *
If It Hadn’t Been Spring
by David O. Bales
Song of Solomon 2:8-13
The twins Angelica and Ariel accompanied their mother to their parents’ university during spring break of their junior year, considering if they wanted to attend there. Their mother Cecily had just gained the girls’ attention by telling them how she first saw their father. “Yes, I’d been startled. A male face through the bookshelves peering at me with this goofy look. I didn’t know what to say and neither did he.”
“Sounds freaky,” Ariel said. “Like he was stalking you.”
“Yeah,” Angelica said. “I’d have told the campus police. At least I’d have screamed for help.”
“He genuinely scared me. Not the fright of being in danger, but just this face suddenly poking through the library stacks.”
“Would’ve freaked me out,” Ariel said.
“Not quite like that,” their mother said.
Angelica asked, “What’d you do?”
“After a moment he was able to choke out, ‘Uh, hi.’ Then I just nodded and left. He grinned, though. Not leering. I suppose maybe I smiled too, but that was it.”
The three stepped out of the Arts and Science building and walked toward the women’s dorms. Row of daffodils dripping from the recent rain lined both sides of the sidewalk. “Over there,” their mother pointed, “the bluff walk, a gorgeous view of the river.”
“Go on,” Angelica said, having never heard this ‘college story.’
Their mother gave her usual ‘aw shucks’ shake of the head, but the girls weren’t going to let her quit halfway through the tale. Ariel said, “And then…?”
“‘Then,’ nothing for about a week. ‘Then,’ he shows up serving me dinner in the commons. Big smile. Not just once. About the third evening I go through the line I realize he wants to say something, which, when I pause half a second he says in his bashful way, ‘I’m Leo.’ What can I do but respond: ‘I’m Cecily?’”
“Oh boy,” Ariel said, laughing towards the sky, “sounds like the beginning of something wonderful!”
“You know your Dad: persistent but never bothersome.”
They walked into the senior women’s dorm, wandered to the lounge, and sat on a couch near the window. Few students were on campus during the break. A television was on and small groups of people were scattered around the couches.
“Quiet today,” their mother said. “This has all been remodeled. Lighting’s better. Used to be more orange-ish and no computers then.”
“You and Dad spent time here?” Angelica asked.
“Yes, but it was a while. First, I had to realize he was serving me dinner every night. I mean every night. I had graduate seminars Monday and Wednesday evenings, so I ate early on those evenings. No matter day or time, there was your Dad’s bright face at dinner. Don’t know how he arranged it. After a few evenings he managed to say, ‘Hi Cecily, how are you doing?’”
“Oh the drama,” Ariel said as she patted her heart and bent in half laughing.
Angelica said, “This is really intense, Mom,” and joined her sister’s hysterics. The group next to them turned toward the girls’ uproar.
“Sh, sh, sh,” their mother said.
“You two think this is funny. I’d figured it out by then and I wasn’t interested. I was thrilled to get into the graduate seminar while I was still a senior. I wanted my masters. Wasn’t interested in romance. But … but, it was spring.” She gave a sly grin. “One Friday at dinner he wasn’t there. I shuffled across the serving line to the hot dish and he wasn’t there. I looked up and the girl he usually served beside obviously recognized me and stifled a laugh. I moved on a couple feet more before I realized he was behind me in line to be served. I turned to him and nearly dropped my tray, ‘Hi Cecily,’ he said, and all the servers roared in laughter. I’m sure I turned four stripes of red, but I had to laugh and admit I’d noticed he was missing behind the serving line; and, as I expected at that point, he followed me to the milk dispenser. As I got a glass, he spoke his memorized line, ‘Want to walk along the bluff after dinner?’”
The girls never thought they’d so enjoy hearing about their parents’ courtship. They leaned eagerly to their mother. She looked to them with mock sternness, “All right, so we went for a walk.”
“Oh, Mom,” Ariel said, “how daring!”
“A walk, yes, after dinner. Not far from the commons. Really nice, like this in spring. It’d rained for two weeks and now a warm sunny evening. Daylight savings had switched on another hour of light. He was so nervous he could hardly get one foot in front of the other. You know your Dad. But he’s always a good listener. Asked about my studies, hometown, plans for the future. And I didn’t have to pry on him too hard. He pushed out a few brief answers; but, when I got him talking about his pre-med studies, he was off and running. He was going to be a pediatrician and he described, I think, his every pre-med course and explained how that was preparing him. That’s it. That was our walk.”
“Request for a second walk?” Angelica asked. “Another date?”
“Are you kidding? Your father had reached the ragged end of his emotional abilities and his psychological gas tank had hit red. No matter,” she said with a chuckle, “how many more miles he’d like to drive.”
The girls’ laughter was spliced with, “Go on, go on. What next?”
Their mother placed her hand softly on the couch and looked at it pensively. “Seemed all my friends showed up to tell me he was sweet on me. As if I couldn’t tell. A couple of his buddies mentioned to me, ‘Leo’s quite the guy, isn’t he?’ What was I supposed to do? I was flattered, but the pursuit was on and a couple times I felt like the fox followed by hounds. I started worrying about it … except when I was actually with your Dad. We walked more and talked more and slowly it worked out that, yes, I wanted my masters; but, life seemed better when I was with him. Something was growing between us, became so real I could almost see it. Yet he was going to medical school somewhere else. I wouldn’t be able to marry him and get my masters here.”
The twins didn’t laugh. They sat seriously and watched their mother relive her experience. She said, “Well, that’s enough.”
Instantly the twins fluttered their hands at her and said, “Go on, go on.”
“So, we got married.”
“That’s where we come in,” Ariel said to Angelica as the grinned knowingly to one another.
“And I put off the masters until three years later at Stanford. Worked out okay.”
“Sounds like it,” Angelica said.
Their mother sat silently, pretending to be grave. “Maybe if it hadn’t been spring,” she said.
“Uh huh,” Angelica said.
“Sure,” Ariel said.
Preaching point: Romance rates high in the Bible.
*****************************************
StoryShare, July 5, 2020, issue.
Copyright 2020 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
"Mumbling Hope" by David O. Bales
"If It Hadn’t Been Spring" by David O. Bales
Mumbling Hope
by David O. Bales
Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67
Phabi and Nahum rode obediently behind Eliezer, tossed rhythmically side to side on their camels. They glanced to one another with knowing looks. Eliezer was mumbling again. “I suppose I could’ve told them the whole story. They were certainly interested. A display of wealth will do that, especially to a fellow like Laban.”
Phabi and Nahum had listened to Eliezer’s rambling for two months. It was a joke among the men who accompanied him. Nahum spoke quietly sideways, “It’s like anything he thinks just trickles from his mouth.”
Phabi responded, “Not only does Eliezer repeat his own thoughts and actions. He starts with a redo of the master’s instructions and dribbles on: ‘Insisted on my solemn oath. Scared me to death, like the destiny of all human life on my shoulders.’ He tells himself again about the situation, ‘Poor old Abraham’s thinking … getting more sketchy every day and, instead of dispatching his son to scrutinize the Canaanite lasses, insists I head off a month north to Aram-naharaim. Have to keep asking directions; and I’m no spring sparrow either. Aches in my knees, hips, back, shoulders. And this camel-rocking jars me step by clomping step.’”
Nahum gave a snigger to Phabi, “Old Eliezer can’t even enjoy ninety-five percent of success. Never known a guy who worries this much, even when everything’s working out. All the way to Aram-naharaim he kept mumbling, ‘O LORD, God of my master Abraham, please grant me success.’ I’ve had to sleep by him sometimes and the muttering continues till dawn. While we were traveling north, he’d roll over in his sleep whispering, ‘Where’s the angel? Where’s the angel?’ Then, after we’ve gained the women, his sleep talk is, ‘Heaven and earth, heaven and earth.’”
“I calculate three days at the most till we’re home,” Phabi said. “He delivers the young princess and he’s done. Anybody else would be ordering older and older wine day by day. But he can’t relax. He’s so jittery that if he had feathers, he could fly.”
The two servants rode in silence through the morning. Then Phabi screwed up his face as though he was thinking hard. “Know what it is?” He said. “The oath. He can’t shuck the seriousness. Not as though the master sent him to market with a flock of sheep and said, ‘Sell all you can and get the best price possible.’ No, he hung all of heaven and earth on his senior servant’s shoulders with the oath. Anybody ever make you put your hand under his thigh and take an oath?”
Nahum shuddered and answered, “Yes, yes. I mean no, no… I see what you mean. I guess I’m just anxious to get home too. At least we recognize the trail in this direction. That’s a blessing.”
The caravan entered a woodland and Eliezer called a halt for a rest. He rushed to Rebekah and her maids’ camels and watched to make sure they knelt slowly for the women’s safe dismount. He left them and worked his way down the line of other camels, looking at each animal to confirm its healthy condition.
Standing by his camel now, Nahum said to Phabi, “Treats her like a queen.” Phabi laughed and Nahum continued, “I admit she’s a looker all right.”
The two tied their animals to tree limbs and sat in the shade. Eliezer came by inspecting each servant with a nervous glance up and down. “Just checking,” he said, then he went back to the women, to see if they needed anything.
“This Rebekah is Isaac’s cousin,” Phabi said, picking up what he’d been thinking before Eliezer walked by, “and she gets along with everybody. Might be just what the boy needs.” He ran his hand through his beard and said, “With Eliezer it’s about the boy, not just his oath. Eliezer’s been around Abraham’s son a long time.”
“I’m always with a different herd. Don’t really know the son,” Nahum said.
“Eliezer has always been protective of him,” Phabi said. “The boy seems like a slightly crooked arrow that’ll never comes off the string right. Spends a lot of time just walking around. Started when he was a kid. Shouldn’t happen to anybody’s son. You know what I’m talking about?”
“No.”
“A couple years before you hired on. The old man took Eliezer and me and traveled with his son three days to the land of Moriah. This is his only child by Sarah and born late in life. He left me and Eliezer and went off with the boy. Over the years I’ve put pieces together from what the boy and his mother have said. The old man built an altar there, set wood on it. Bound his son and laid him on top the wood. Had his knife raised to kill him as a sacrifice when he’s struck from heaven by an angel and told instead to sacrifice the goat caught in yon thicket. Let me tell you, that boy was shook up when they came back—having seen his father hovering over him with the knife pointing down. To my mind he hasn’t been lively since. It’s no wonder the master doesn’t trust him to find his own wife.”
“I don’t know the son,” Nahum said, “but I know Eliezer and he’s been good to us. I hope at least for his sake that all works well when we finally deliver the bride. I pray that the destiny of heaven and earth be lifted off his shoulders. And,” he shook his head, “I hope for a quiet night’s sleep after we get home.”
Preaching point: Feeling responsible for heaven’s future on earth.
* * *
If It Hadn’t Been Spring
by David O. Bales
Song of Solomon 2:8-13
The twins Angelica and Ariel accompanied their mother to their parents’ university during spring break of their junior year, considering if they wanted to attend there. Their mother Cecily had just gained the girls’ attention by telling them how she first saw their father. “Yes, I’d been startled. A male face through the bookshelves peering at me with this goofy look. I didn’t know what to say and neither did he.”
“Sounds freaky,” Ariel said. “Like he was stalking you.”
“Yeah,” Angelica said. “I’d have told the campus police. At least I’d have screamed for help.”
“He genuinely scared me. Not the fright of being in danger, but just this face suddenly poking through the library stacks.”
“Would’ve freaked me out,” Ariel said.
“Not quite like that,” their mother said.
Angelica asked, “What’d you do?”
“After a moment he was able to choke out, ‘Uh, hi.’ Then I just nodded and left. He grinned, though. Not leering. I suppose maybe I smiled too, but that was it.”
The three stepped out of the Arts and Science building and walked toward the women’s dorms. Row of daffodils dripping from the recent rain lined both sides of the sidewalk. “Over there,” their mother pointed, “the bluff walk, a gorgeous view of the river.”
“Go on,” Angelica said, having never heard this ‘college story.’
Their mother gave her usual ‘aw shucks’ shake of the head, but the girls weren’t going to let her quit halfway through the tale. Ariel said, “And then…?”
“‘Then,’ nothing for about a week. ‘Then,’ he shows up serving me dinner in the commons. Big smile. Not just once. About the third evening I go through the line I realize he wants to say something, which, when I pause half a second he says in his bashful way, ‘I’m Leo.’ What can I do but respond: ‘I’m Cecily?’”
“Oh boy,” Ariel said, laughing towards the sky, “sounds like the beginning of something wonderful!”
“You know your Dad: persistent but never bothersome.”
They walked into the senior women’s dorm, wandered to the lounge, and sat on a couch near the window. Few students were on campus during the break. A television was on and small groups of people were scattered around the couches.
“Quiet today,” their mother said. “This has all been remodeled. Lighting’s better. Used to be more orange-ish and no computers then.”
“You and Dad spent time here?” Angelica asked.
“Yes, but it was a while. First, I had to realize he was serving me dinner every night. I mean every night. I had graduate seminars Monday and Wednesday evenings, so I ate early on those evenings. No matter day or time, there was your Dad’s bright face at dinner. Don’t know how he arranged it. After a few evenings he managed to say, ‘Hi Cecily, how are you doing?’”
“Oh the drama,” Ariel said as she patted her heart and bent in half laughing.
Angelica said, “This is really intense, Mom,” and joined her sister’s hysterics. The group next to them turned toward the girls’ uproar.
“Sh, sh, sh,” their mother said.
“You two think this is funny. I’d figured it out by then and I wasn’t interested. I was thrilled to get into the graduate seminar while I was still a senior. I wanted my masters. Wasn’t interested in romance. But … but, it was spring.” She gave a sly grin. “One Friday at dinner he wasn’t there. I shuffled across the serving line to the hot dish and he wasn’t there. I looked up and the girl he usually served beside obviously recognized me and stifled a laugh. I moved on a couple feet more before I realized he was behind me in line to be served. I turned to him and nearly dropped my tray, ‘Hi Cecily,’ he said, and all the servers roared in laughter. I’m sure I turned four stripes of red, but I had to laugh and admit I’d noticed he was missing behind the serving line; and, as I expected at that point, he followed me to the milk dispenser. As I got a glass, he spoke his memorized line, ‘Want to walk along the bluff after dinner?’”
The girls never thought they’d so enjoy hearing about their parents’ courtship. They leaned eagerly to their mother. She looked to them with mock sternness, “All right, so we went for a walk.”
“Oh, Mom,” Ariel said, “how daring!”
“A walk, yes, after dinner. Not far from the commons. Really nice, like this in spring. It’d rained for two weeks and now a warm sunny evening. Daylight savings had switched on another hour of light. He was so nervous he could hardly get one foot in front of the other. You know your Dad. But he’s always a good listener. Asked about my studies, hometown, plans for the future. And I didn’t have to pry on him too hard. He pushed out a few brief answers; but, when I got him talking about his pre-med studies, he was off and running. He was going to be a pediatrician and he described, I think, his every pre-med course and explained how that was preparing him. That’s it. That was our walk.”
“Request for a second walk?” Angelica asked. “Another date?”
“Are you kidding? Your father had reached the ragged end of his emotional abilities and his psychological gas tank had hit red. No matter,” she said with a chuckle, “how many more miles he’d like to drive.”
The girls’ laughter was spliced with, “Go on, go on. What next?”
Their mother placed her hand softly on the couch and looked at it pensively. “Seemed all my friends showed up to tell me he was sweet on me. As if I couldn’t tell. A couple of his buddies mentioned to me, ‘Leo’s quite the guy, isn’t he?’ What was I supposed to do? I was flattered, but the pursuit was on and a couple times I felt like the fox followed by hounds. I started worrying about it … except when I was actually with your Dad. We walked more and talked more and slowly it worked out that, yes, I wanted my masters; but, life seemed better when I was with him. Something was growing between us, became so real I could almost see it. Yet he was going to medical school somewhere else. I wouldn’t be able to marry him and get my masters here.”
The twins didn’t laugh. They sat seriously and watched their mother relive her experience. She said, “Well, that’s enough.”
Instantly the twins fluttered their hands at her and said, “Go on, go on.”
“So, we got married.”
“That’s where we come in,” Ariel said to Angelica as the grinned knowingly to one another.
“And I put off the masters until three years later at Stanford. Worked out okay.”
“Sounds like it,” Angelica said.
Their mother sat silently, pretending to be grave. “Maybe if it hadn’t been spring,” she said.
“Uh huh,” Angelica said.
“Sure,” Ariel said.
Preaching point: Romance rates high in the Bible.
*****************************************
StoryShare, July 5, 2020, issue.
Copyright 2020 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
