ORAL HISTORY

It’s a dark and stormy night. The air is dank; the ground is cold; and stars poke through the lowering clouds. On the distant horizon, a lone wolf howls. A group of men huddle around a roaring fire, while the womenfolk stay back in the tents to comfort the restless children. The men give an uneasy glance in the direction of their sheep, corralled in a makeshift pen of sticks and brush. A restless wind blows tiny orange sparks high into the late spring air.

The men, as men will do, tell stories of the day’s activities: how the ram caught his horns in a tree; how a yearling nearly died during castration; how a ewe gave birth to two lambs, rejecting one. As the flames subside, the conversation drifts. One little boy looks up at the stars dancing among the clouds and says wistfully, “Hey Uncle Saul, where do we come from?” Everyone sighs and looks at the kid.

But Saul is a very patient man, and being the patriarch of his small tribe, has an answer. He tells the boy his favorite story of Creation: the Adam and Eve version, with the Garden of Eden. How Adam and Eve broke the rules of the garden by tasting the forbidden fruit from the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Warming to his story, Saul reminds them all that The Lord felt so angry at the betrayal that He evicted Adam and Eve from the garden. And they were forced to flee to the East of Eden, where they dwelt in the shadow of the Lord’s wrath.

Saul warns the young men that they too bear the stain of Adam and Eve’s original sin. They must guard against the temptations of their own “fruit.” Saul reminds them that touching themselves “down there” is wrong. “Don’t spill your seed, boys,” he admonishes. He suspects too that, boys being boys, they are, in all likelihood, molesting the sheep, a practice not unknown in the shepherding community. There were more than a few sheep wandering around the paddock that very night with sore bottoms. “Do not commit bestiality boys, because you know that that sort of thing makes The Lord puke. Right?” “Yes Uncle Saul,” they answer. And they all promise to be better men and leave their private parts and the sheep alone…starting tomorrow.

All the talk about genitals encourages the youngest boy to ask Saul, “I went skinny dipping down by the river, and that Canaanite kid was there. You know the one with the tattoos and the pet pig?” “Pigs are traife,” said Saul. “Yeah, I know, but anyway, he asked me how come I have a mark around my pecker.” “Your manhood,” corrects Saul. “My manhood” sighs the boy. “And he wanted to know why I don’t have skin over my manhood like he does.” Saul takes a deep breath and replies: “I have told you, all of you, many times: we remove our foreskin to keep ourselves clean. This is a dessert. Tell me, when was the last time any of you had a bath?” Silence. “Exactly! And if we leave this piece of skin over our manhood, it gets all nasty down there, and our manhood gets infected. We want to keep ourselves healthy and clean for our women. That’s why we each have a mark.

“Yeah, I know. But why do we make such a big deal out of it?” the boy continues. “Remember when my brother Isaiah was born last week? Well, this morning, ten men had to come in from the fields and stand in a circle and wear little hats. And then this Moyle guy comes up, and cuts off the extra skin on his thingie, and then he sucks it up and spits it out. Which is totally gross! And then everyone says a little prayer…like it’s a good thing what he did. I don’t know. It feels, you know, weird.”

Saul has never been asked about the importance of this ritual before…. at least not in quite this way. And he realizes he needs to give the boy an answer that is not just about hygiene, but one that has pith and significance to it. In fact everyone around the fire is eager to hear a deeper reason for the ritual of circumcision. There’s the sound of distant thunder. Saul takes a pause, and begins.

“Once upon a time, a long time ago, there lived a man named Abram. Abram was a good man, a righteous man, and he longed to be a better man. And Abram began to ask himself: “What is the right thing to do? How do I set a good example to others? How do I become the man I have always wanted to be?” And Abram gave the questioning voice in his head a name. But he couldn’t think of a name, so he called it, The Unnamable One. But that became too cumbersome, so he shortened it to Yahweh. But Yahweh sounded too esoteric, so he shortened it to God. He could have just as easily used Dog, but dog was already taken; so God it was.

And the inner voice started to give Abram advice and Abram started to follow the advice, and things went well for him and he began to depend on the voice. Then an odd thing happened: the inner voice said to Abram one day, “I want you to sacrifice a sheep to me…just to show that you fear me and will do what I say.” And Abram said, “This is odd, God.” But, he also remembered that the missus was asking just the other day, “When we are going to have Lamb again?” And so he thought, why not? I mean, if it makes God and the missus happy, and if all it takes is a little lamb, it is a small price to pay. Plus we have the little lamb whose mother was taken by a wolf. It’s a win/win situation for everyone…except maybe the lamb.”

Saul pauses wondering if his story has gained any traction with the huddled shepherds. But the crowd is mesmerized. Their eyes shine brightly in the firelight. And the littlest boy says, “Please don’t stop, Uncle Saul. What happens next?” Saul throws another log on the fire, and continues.

“Well Abram made the sacrifice and the smell was most pleasing to the Lord. But then the next day the voice said the most astonishing thing to Abram. He said, ‘Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there, as you would a sheep!” The whole crowd of men and boys gasp in horror. “Why would God want him to do that,” asks one? “Why would Abram even consider killing his own son,” exclaims a second? “Maybe the inner voice is evil,” snaps a third! But Saul ignores them and plows on. “And God said to Abram, ‘If you do as I say, I will reward you and all your children and your children’s children.”

“But Abram continued to demur, so God added, “Think about it Abram. Don’t do it for Me. Don’t do it for yourself. Do it for your children…for all your children yet unborn.’ This was terribly painful for Abram, because he truly loved his son Isaac. The boy was a beautiful gift, given to Abram late in life; a golden child, loving to his mother and adoring of his father. But Abram thought about the future generations of his people, and realized if he was going to be the Patriarch, there was only one thing he could do.

So Abram took his only beloved son up into the hills to sacrifice him to God,” said Saul. “One man shouts! “Saul, would you kill your own son Ephron because some voice in your head says to?” And Saul realizes he is losing his audience; so he cuts to the chase. “Abram built the fire, tied up his son, and took out his knife and raised it over his head.” “NO!” screams the little boy and falls into his father’s arms. “YES,” said Saul. And the boy’s father takes the hysterical child back to the tent; back to his Mother. When she hears what has happened, she says, “You tell that Saul that if he starts this crap about sacrificing children again, the next time it’ll be me raising the bloody knife. You tell him that!”

Meanwhile back at the fire, Saul is building to the climax. “But then, three angels…” “Three what?” shouts someone in the crowd. “Angels, messengers from God.” “But I thought God was our inner voice? Why does He need messengers?” another man barks. “Because…,” said Saul, scrambling at this point….”He lives in each of us but He spends a lot of time up in the mountains, and can’t always…” “The mountains? What the hell are you talking about?” interrupts a third. “Never mind about that. Anyway, one of the angels says: ‘Abram. Abram. Do not lay a hand on the boy. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from Him your son, your only son. You are ready to be the leader of your people. From now on you will not be called Abram; you will be Abraham’.”

“Oh, so now he is called Abraham? This is a load of crap,” someone hisses in the crowd. At this point one of the fathers gets up and says, “I don’t know about the rest of you, but any minute it’s gonna rain, so I’m hitting the percales.” He is joined by a few others, who gather up their children and head back to the tents. “Check on the sheep, will you, Maacah.” And they disappear into the night.

“What the hell does any of this have to do with circumcision,” says one of the remaining men? “Well,” says the exhausted Saul, “because at this point God made a covenant with Abraham. He said if you do what I tell you to, I will lead you to the Land of Milk and Honey. Your part of the deal is that you have to circumcise yourself and all your people and all your slaves and everyone you meet from now on. So that’s the reason, don’t you see? That’s the reason we make such an important ritual of circumcising our men,” says Saul. “It’s a sign of our covenant with God!”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” says one of the shepherds. “You had me at cleanliness. Why all this BS about sacrificing an innocent child? Honestly, Saul, sometimes you go too far.” And with that, the rest of the crowd disband and go back to their tents leaving Saul alone, staring down at the dying embers.

And Saul thinks, “Note to self: OK, so from now on, don’t tell this in front of the kids. But it’s a good first draft. And the idea of a covenant is a nice touch. And when I tell it next, I’ll edit the angels down to one; three just confuses people. But by spinning it this way, it looks like we got a pretty good deal with God. All we have to do is give up a little flap of skin while He’s stuck getting us, all of us, to the milk and the honey. I think it shows that the Almighty likes a good deal as much as we do. It may sound a little litigious, but, hey, if it works for Him, it works for me. And then Saul, now the world’s first lawyer, smiles to himself. He pulls on his beard and watches raindrops hiss on the glowing logs. As he heads off to his tent, the wolf howls.

© Bruce Gray 2009