by Kathy Brasby | Jul 19, 2013 | Hope
A literary technique that biblical authors use extensively is the motif. A motif is a recurring theme or distinctive feature woven through a literary text.
A common motif in the Bible is the barren women.
We first encounter this motif in the story of Abraham and Sarah found in Genesis. In that story, Abraham is promised a son who will become the first of many descendants: a great nation.
The problem is that Abraham’s wife, Sarah, is too old to bear a child. She has never had a child. She is barren.
However, following the promises of God, Sarah becomes pregnant and delivers Isaac. Isaac in many ways has a significant role on the Old Testament story line. He is the father of Jacob who is the father of twelve sons who become the heads of the twelve tribes of Israel.
A significant man is born from a barren woman.
The motif continues in Isaac’s life, when his wife, Rebekah, is unable to conceive until he prayers for her. Then she delivers twins. The reader is ready to see if the barren woman motif is incorporated in this story – and it is. One of the twins is Jacob.
Jacob’s beloved wife, Rachel, also is unable to have children while Jacob’s other wife, Leah, is prolific. But eventually Rachel produces two sons. The oldest is Joseph, who ends of as second in command in Egypt.
From there, he provides protection for his family during a devastating famine. The family of Jacob moves to Egypt and, during their time there, grows from a family to a nation.
So we have three barren women – Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel – all delivering men significant to the history of Israel.
The motif continues with stories of Samson’s mother, Samuel’s mother, and Obed’s mother (Ruth, who had been married for 10 years without offspring). In each case, the son born to the formerly-barren woman had great significance.
Samson became a judge who helped the Israelites overcome Philistine oppressors. Samuel was the last of the judges and the man who anointed King David. Obed was the grandfather of David.
The motif continues into the New Testament. John the Baptist, the last prophet before Jesus, was born to Elizabeth, a barren woman. Each barren woman conceived through a miraculous touch of God.
Consider the birth of Jesus, born to a virgin who conceived through a miraculous touch of God.
In the Bible, the son born in a miraculous way will become a man of significance. Biblical texts use a motif – in this case, the barren woman – to highlight the theme.
by Kathy Brasby | Jul 16, 2013 | Hope
I have a friend who claims to love doing laundry. She’s still my friend, which, I hope, reveals a ton about my tolerance level.
Who loves doing laundry?
Not me.
My children were all instructed in the operation of our washing machine so that, by the time they could climb, they could do their own laundry. OK, maybe that’s a bit of a hyperbole but it still stands as a standard to attain.
I do admit that the result of requiring the kids to do their own laundry is that they now can use their bedroom dresser drawers for books and computer programs because those drawers never see clothes. They draw clean clothes from the laundry baskets.
At least that’s the theory. Sometimes clean and dirty co-mingle on the floor.
I did mention I’m tolerant, right?
I cannot blame my upbringing for this laundry tolerance. My mother was a Type-A laundrist. A laundrist is someone who takes the chore of laundry seriously. Even to the point of folding and stashing clothes on the same day they were washed.
I remember how Mom resisted changing from a wringer washing machine (see photo) because it cleaned fast and deep. But I’m happy to report that I was the reason she moved into the modern era of washing machines and dryers.
One day she was hanging up clothes in the back yard and I, being about 3 at the time, decided to explore without her supervision. What, I thought to myself, would happen if I stuck this knife blade in the electric socket?
I don’t remember what happened but I do know that Mom got a clothes dryer and that for years we had a butter knife in our flatware drawer with a blackened point.
One day my husband came home with a story about the wife of one of his customers who ironed all her husband’s underwear. I was so pleased I had the strength of character to resist such laundrist temptation. I know it wasn’t a hint. My husband has no illusions about my laundry abilities.
I mean, I don’t even fold my own underwear. Why would I iron his?
But recently our washing machine went belly up and my husband decided he wanted a front-loading set, those new energy-efficient machines that should save water and electricity.
So we have a new set with portholes facing into our laundry room. My husband is still bummed that the dryer doesn’t fold the clothes, too, but he’s adjusting. I’m bummed the clothes don’t come out on hangers. I’m adjusting, too.
But I do have one concern. Our grandson, at 18 months, now likes to stand at the glass windows and watch the clothes tumble.
I’m worried that this might be planting the seeds of a whole new generation of laundrists.
by Kathy Brasby | Jul 12, 2013 | Hope
Authors learn early to do their best not to repeat words. Repeating words is monotonous in our English literature. Rather than use stairs four times in the paragraph, for example, use stairs and steps and pronouns. If you have to, rewrite to avoid repeats.
A useful biblical technique is word repetition and, ironically, we often miss it because our English translations plug in synonyms for the repetitions.
But in doing so, we sometimes overlook the author’s point.
For example, there is a return motif in the Bible. The story of Jacob is about a man returning to his homeland after 20 years of exile. The grand story of the Old Testament is the return of a remnant of people to Palestine after the Babylonian exile.
But the story I want to examine briefly is the return story of Naomi in Ruth 1.
The Hebrew word for return in Ruth 1 is shub, meaning return. It carries deep meaning and rich connotations of the rhythm of life, of people returning to a previous condition, of people going out and coming in.
At times, shub is translated return and at other times synonyms are employed. Those are similar in meaning but we miss the repetition which underscores the theme of return. Here is where shub is used in Ruth 1:
- Ruth 1:6 “…then she started to return with her…”
- Ruth 1:8 “Go back each of you to your mother’s house…”
- Ruth 1:10 “No, we will return with you to your people…”
- Ruth 1:11 “Turn back, my daughters, why would you go with me?”
- Ruth 1:12 “Turn back,my daughters, go your way…”
- Ruth 1:15 “See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods…”
- Ruth 1:15 “Return after your sister-in-law…”
- Ruth 1:16 “Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you.”
- Ruth 1:21 “The Lord has brought me back empty…”
- Ruth 1:22 So Naomi returned together with Ruth.
- Ruth 1:22 …her daughter-in-law who came back with her.
That many uses of shub mean something. Although the translation obscures the repetition of shub, we still can uncover what the author intended. He wrote about Naomi’s return. His repetition clarifies his point.
Naomi was returning to her homeland and to God. She was returning to the fullness she thought God had torn away from her. She was returning to the kindness of God’s plan.
Word repetition set the stage for the author’s intended purpose in Ruth.
by Kathy Brasby | Jul 10, 2013 | Stories
In the days before I had much money, I got myself a poor person’s cruise control on my car. In those days, I drove a 5-speed VW Rabbit and so I sweet-talked my brother, the mechanic, into installing a throttle lock.
What the system consisted of was a gadget attached to the gas pedal and another line attached somehow to the brake. When you engaged the system, the gas pedal was locked into place. Pressing the brake released the lock.
This sounds like the sort of thing a person whose brain has not fully developed yet might try out. And that was the case.
Because the area where I generally drove was flat, the system worked adequately. I’d reach the right speed, lock in the throttle, and relax. My speed would shift with any ups and downs in the road but not much.
I was now in league with those fancy-schmancy cruise controls.
So one day my sister and I took off for Denver in my Rabbit. I don’t remember why she was driving but I do remember that we had a good-sized hill to clear on the route.
When I drove, I kicked off my throttle lock when I got to the hill.
My sister didn’t.
So up the hill we climbed. Gravity being what it is, our speed dropped. And dropped.
Cars passed us. Lots of cars passed us.
We chugged our way to the top like the little engine that could.
And then we started down. We zoomed down the hill, flying past cars that had passed us like we were tortoises. Now we were the hare.
“Those people think I’m crazy!” my sister wailed.
Perhaps they did. But we got so far ahead of that pack we didn’t see any of them all the way to Denver. So it really didn’t matter.
by Kathy Brasby | Jul 8, 2013 | Hope
The secretary and I were the only two women working in this shop. There’s something about rubbing elbows with a bunch of guys that can give you bad dreams.
Let me explain.
The secretary was deathly afraid of mice. This was not a good thing to reveal to a bunch of guys but there it was.
I wasn’t overly fond of mice myself but determined not to admit to it. But the guys still tested me. I was in charge of checking in shipments – large and small – at our business and so one day found a small plastic bag on my desk. This wasn’t really unusual and I flipped the bag to check the shipping tag.
A dead mouse was stapled inside the bag.
I dropped the gift and looked up to see our service manager and parts manager peering around the corner watching. The service manager threw his hands in the air.
“It wasn’t my idea!”
And the parts manager put his hands up, too. “I didn’t put that bag on your desk.”
I decided to ignore Tweedledee and Tweedledum that day.
They didn’t harass me again – not enough hysteria to suit them, I’m sure – but one day our secretary came back from lunch to find a brown lunch bag on her desk. Stapled shut and wiggling.
She ran screaming to the break room, sure they had trapped a live mouse for her.
After shaking her hands and sobbing forever, she still refused to enter her office. So the service manager retrieved the bag from her office and brought it out, where he sliced off the top and set the trapped frog free.
Tweedledee and Tweedledum spent the afternoon freshening up the secretary’s desk before she’d return to work. Boss’s orders.
Something good did come out of it, though. Whenever the two guys got the idea to go in search of mice, they remembered four hours of scrubbing a desk and sat down until that idea passed.
