True to nature

I have been meditating on Sarah (read Genesis 12 onwards) this week for she will be the woman we will discuss tomorrow evening at the W2W Ministry weekly meeting (we are covering women in the Bible).

It's quite amazing to me that at age 65, she willingly embarked on an arduous and dangerous journey with her husband Abraham into an unknown land, later gave her husband permission to have a child with another woman because she thought she herself was incapable of the task and has her husband's ear in a way that suggests he loves and respects her as an equal.

Both Sarah and Abraham clearly lived out their marital vows committed to one another, through thick and thin, better and worse. Certainly a model of marriage that seems outmoded by the rise in divorce figures and the number of "committed' relationships men and women run through in one lifetime.

In David Quammen's book The Flight of the Iguana, there is an essay entitled The Miracle of the Geese where he proposes that geese are the image of "humanity's own highest self" for they "embody liberty, grace and devotion" in they way they live. "Geese mate monogamously and for life" for both male and female rely on each other for survival.

They are committed by "physiology and anatomy, to a life of mutual reliance in permanent twosomes" dictated, in part, by the incredible distances they have to travel on their annual migration and a life that is hard by any measure.

Given the many choices that allure us in today's world, couples have lost this sense of hardball commitment that is the glue to marriage as it was created to be, for a lifetime of tears and laughter, bearing witness to the foibles and victories of everyday banality.

Instead we now live in a world of disposable utensils, appliances and, sadly, relationships.

If only we took a leaf out of nature, and like the geese, re-discover what it is to be in a monogamous relationship, making the requisite sacrifices to create a relationship of love that will bear fruit.

If only we loved as Abraham and Sarah did, traversing time and distance in the bid to be faithful to their ideals and find "pleasure" in their latter years.

Humans were created for a purpose. When we live true to nature, true to the purpose that we were created for, then we will discover the meaning of life that is "ecclesiastical" and be able to restore "eternity to life".