Friction

As I have done before, the following imaginary dialogue and discourse is based on a true story, namely:

Genesis 16:1 Now Sarai, Abram's wife, bore him no children. She had an Egyptian maid whose name was Hagar;
16:3 So, after Abram had resode ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her maid, and gave her to Abram her husband as [additional, not replacement nor substitute] wife.
16:4 And he went in to [into?] Hagar [missionary or doggy-style?], and she conceived; and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress.
16:15 And Hagar bore Abram a son; and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore: "Ishmael." [maybe "Ishy" for short]
16:16 Abram was eighty-six [prostate-enlargement-free?] years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram.
21:9 And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, mocking.
21:14 So Abraham rose early in the morning [maybe 5 or 6 a.m.], and took [whole-wheat or rye] bread and a skin of [Ice-Mountain-equivalent?] water, and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder [better than carrying it in her arms], along with [his first-born] child, and sent her away. And she departed, and wandered [map-less?] in the wilderness of Beersheba.
21:17 And God [with full-range excellent hearing] heard the voice of the boy; and the angel of God called [with perhaps bass and not tenor voice] to Hagar from heaven , and said to her, "What troubles you, Hagar? Fear not; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is [not could have been].
25:12 [Arabs] are the descendants of Ishmael, Abraham's son, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah's maid, bore to Abraham.

Galatians 4:21 Tell me, you who in woefully-pathetic and rebelliously-insane futility try to atone for your past and present sins by now trying to obey the law and even obeying it as much as you do yet fail to do, do you not see that atonement for your past and present sins was and is done only by and because of the sacrificial death on some cross of and by the Divine-Redeemer Jesus?
4:22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave and one by a free woman.
4:23 But the son of the slave was born according to the [faithlessly-sinful] flesh, the son of the free woman through [sexually-connected] promise.
4:24 Now this is an allegory: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar.
4:25 Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children.
4:26 But the Jerusalem above is free [predicting Revelation chapter 21?], and she is our mother.
4:27 For it is written, "Rejoice, barren one who does not bear; break forth and shout, you who are not in travail; for the children of the desolate one [and who was "the desolate one:" barren Sarai, or ousted Hagar wandering around in the desert?] are many more than the children of her who is married." [and I thought that both Sarai and Hagar were married to Abram!]
4:28 Now we, brethren, like Isaac, are children of promise.
4:29 But as at that time he [of Hamas and Hezbollah and Fatah and Al Qaeda, plus ISIS or ISIL or whatever the excrement they are called or call themselves] who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now.
4:30 But what does the scripture say? "Throw out the slave and her son; for the son of the slave shall not inherit with the son of the free woman."
4:31 So, brethren, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman.

Here goes:

Sarai: [to Abram] "I wonder when God is going to cause our neighbors to stop calling you Abram and start calling you Abraham."

Abram: "Probably about the same time God is going to cause our neighbors to stop calling you Sarai and start calling you Sarah."

Sarai: "Why would He do that?"

Abram: "Refrain from imposing lawyer-like tricky-talk on me. First, we have to decide if He would do that, and then we can get to the why about it. And you are trying to get me to get a little ahead of the story, and that history has not either be done yet nor has it been written in what is going to be called the book of Genesis to be authored by some future guy known as "Moses" who will be a Hebrew raised in Egyptian royalty."

Sarai: "How do you know all that?"

Abram: "Consider it a gut feeling. I suppose that God put it all into my mind, instead of me merely thinking it up at random. In any case, I can't say that I've been hearing any actual audible voice from the sky - woofer or tweeter."

Sarai: "Spooky."

Abram: "Whatever. Tell it to my future replacement wife Keturah, as will be recorded in:"

Genesis 25:1 Abraham took another wife, whose name was Keturah.
25:2 She bore him Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah.
25:3 Jokshan was the father of Sheba and Dedan. The sons of Dedan were Asshurim, Letushim, and Leummim.
25:4 The sons of Midian were Ephah, Epher, Hanoch, Abida, and Eldaah. All these were the children of Keturah.
25:5 Abraham gave all he had to Isaac.
25:6 But to the sons of his concubines [Oh yeah!] Abraham gave gifts, and while he was still living he sent them away from his [then-quarantined] son Isaac, eastward to the east country [eastward-to-east sounds logical...and there are lots of Koreans, Japanese, Chinese, Cambodians, and more around now].

Sarai: "Holy-harem polygamy! Maybe some accursed sexist feminist will concoct the concept of "bigamy" someday. The IRS would get in a tizzy trying to figure out your marital status on Form 1040, because who will sign as your spouse? And wow, you certainly did get ahead of the story!"

Abram: "You asked."

Sarai: "You know, one of us isn't working properly. Either you are impotent, or I am a barren senior citizen now getting close to relying on Depends instead of menstruating with Always (with wings) feminine napkins, haven't had a menstrual period in years, and I wanna find out who is causing the problem....as if we needed to wonder. So give me children, or I shall die...even though "as in Adam (and perhaps Eve also) all die."

It's more important for me to get offspring than chafe with jealously at the shared-husband prospect of you getting a sex surrogate pregnant whose child I will attempt to claim as my own, so take my cute and shapely 20s-something brown-eyed brunette and never-before-married virgin Egyptian maid Hagar and genitalize her."

Abram: "Whoa! You realize what you are asking? I will then be required to affectionately love two permanent wives and not be unfaithful to either one of you. My erotic affection and sexual energy will then be shared with and by both of you, even if you double up on me at times. My credit-card bill will enlarge overnight, as will other things more frequently enlarge. "Double your pleasure, double your fun" yet "Two's company but three's a crowd?" I'll get the Purple-Penie Award. You really want that? What if you cannot get pregnant anymore now in your 80s? Ever consider adoption, being that you can't have more than one husband at a time? You can't blame me for you being past the normal time of childbearing."

Sarai: "I can try, being that I am the somewhat-lacking naggy and accusatory inferior gender. But God promised you that your descendants would be as many as the stars, so we have to start somewhere, because I haven't a clue how else we could get that to happen. Oh oh, there's someone at the tent door ringing the cowbell....Hey, Abe darling, it's the Three Amigos."

Abram: "Howdy, guys. What can I do you for?"

The LORD: "My name in Michael Anthony (and unless you're at least a baby boomer who watched TV during the 50s or 60s or around then, you won't understand this).

For many years I was Executive Secretary to the late but fabulously wealthy John Beresford Tipton, who pursued the strange hobby of giving out - anonymously - one million dollars, to persons he had never met. Where's Sarai your wife?"

Abram: "What? Did she win the Powerball? Are you the Prize Patrol from Publisher's Clearing House with the Big Check? What?"

The LORD: "I will surely return to you in the spring, and Sarah your wife shall have a son."

Sarai "HA ha ha. That's real funny, if it wasn't such a serious thing."

The LORD: "Why laugh? Is anything too hard for the LORD?"

Sarai: "I did not laugh."

The LORD: "Yeah you did. You lie. You did laugh. I heard you. Shame. Nevertheless, at the appointed time I will return to you, in the spring, and Sarah shall have a son."

Abram: "You stay away from my wife, hear? Don't even go near her, unless any of you are female-gynecologist fertility experts ready with fool around with my wife's private."

The LORD: "Not a problem."

Abram: [a year later] "Well, Isaac was indeed born. If that don't twist the tail off the turtle! Now we got one big happy family, with me having two wives and two kids."

Sarai: "It's not all fun and games. Ishmael just threw some rocks from behind the Gaza bush, described himself with some weird name which sounded like Hamas, and has started calling the LORD: "all-AH." Kick them out of the tent."

Abram: "I'll ask the LORD." "What do you think, LORD?"

The LORD: "Heed the voice of Sarai, like Adam did concerning, and not regarding, his wife Eve."

Abram: "Hagar, take Ishmael and get your sexy little butt and associated remarkably-titillating sexual-oriented body parts out of here, or I'll call the cops for you trespassing. I love you so much, so get outa here and never come back. Once in a while I might phone you to meet me in some motel room for nostalgia."

Hagar: [after she leaves and wanders out in the desert] "What a bummer. No more husband, no more sex, out of employment, no money, no water, no food. You and I are screwed, Ishmael. Maybe even ISIS or ISIL, or whatever the feces they are called or call themselves, will come and chop off our heads, then burn the bodies. Sometimes you wake up, only to see the buzzards circling overhead."

The Angel of the LORD: "Not quite, Hagar. And to Hell with ISIS or ISIL or whatever the dung they are called or call themselves -- whether they all will be willing to kneel like ducks in a row clad sporting fluorescent orange or blue or red or brown or green or lavender or yellow or black-and-white strips, or whatever. Be pleased to have worthy Coptic-Christian males piss into their bullets-destined foreheads after ripping the Walmart-stolen, anonymous-cowardly, bank-robber-like, stocking-cap masks off their to-be-individually-and-thankfully-dismembered heads...with or without Kenyan-not-Hawaiian-born Barack Hussein Obama's wimpish or pro-islamic-and-cultic-muslim approval. Note what is going to be Scripturally recorded in:"

Genesis 21:9 And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne unto Abraham, mocking.
21:10 So she said to Abraham, "Throw out this slave woman with her son; for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac."
21:11 And the thing was very displeasing to Abraham on account of his son.
21:12 But God said to Abraham, "Be not displeased because of the boy and because of your slave woman; whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for through Isaac shall your descendants be named.
21:13 And I will make [a great Arab] nation of the son of the slave woman also, because he is your offspring."
21:14 So Abraham rose early in the morning, and took bread and a skin of water [and perhaps a credit card], and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away [being that either she would walk a mile for a Camel or the camel would walk a mile with her and the kid]. And she departed, and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba.
21:15 When the water in the canteen was gone, she tossed the child under one of the bushes.
21:16 Then she went, and sat down near him a ways off, about the distance of a bowshot; for she said, "Let me not look upon the death of the child." And as she sat by him, the child lifted up his voice and wept.
21:17 And God heard the voice of the boy; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, and said to her, "What bothers you, Hagar - if it already isn't quite obvious? Fear not; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is.
21:18 Get up, lift the kid, and hold him fast with either hand; for I will make him a great [Arab] nation."
21:19 Then God "opened her eyes" [ouch!], and she saw a well of water; and she went, and filled the skin with water, and gave the kid a drink.
21:20 And God was with the boy, and he grew up; he lived in the wilderness, and became an expert with the bow.
21:21 He lived in the wilderness of Paran; and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt. [it figures]

Hebrews 11:11 By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the [normal age-range of fertility], being that she considered Him faithful who had promised.

First Peter 3:5 So once the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves [with burka or hijab or at least an up-do chignon with long-sleeved blouses or gowns and full-length roomy slacks or non-slitted long skirt and socks with shoes] and were submissive to their husbands,
3:6 as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him: 'sir' [or: m'lord]. And you are now her children if you do right and let nothing terrify you [or freak you out].
3:7 Likewise you husbands, live considerately with your wives, bestowing honor on the woman as the non-equal weaker gender, being that you are joint heirs [with compatible non-homosexual plumbing] of the grace of life, in order that your prayers may not be hindered [and you not become extinct screwing yourself with porn, abortion-homicide, or self-abusive, sickening and sordid, applications of same-gender homosodomy-unions licensing mis-termed "same-sex marriage"].