Abraham, Cornwall, and Writing…another ACW

You find me sitting in an idyllic farmhouse kitchen, in Pendeen, Cornwall as three generations emerge from a night’s sleep, or something like sleep.

The cast: there’s A, closing in on her first birthday, and E, who’s an advanced 1 year old, four parents, a daughter, and me, the third generation. 

 

The daily routine must have been quite similar for the three generations on the move, travelling  from Ur to Canaan. Terah, the grandfather and his two sons, Abram and Nahor, and Lot, Haran’s son. Sarai, Abram’s wife was barren, and Milcah, married to Nahor. Haran, Terah’s other son, and Lot’s father, had died in Ur. 

 

In some ways, a typical family: moving forward but carrying grief as well with the premature death of Haran, and the barrenness of Sarai.

 

Abram also, was carrying the impact of an encounter with God that was to lead to…the rest of the biblical revelation.

 

‘Now the Lord had said: Get out from your country and from your family and from your father’s house to a land that I will show you’ Gen 12 v 1

 

On one word – ‘had’ - turns the whole drama, typical perhaps in many books and films…where the plot suddenly unfolds through one scene, one sentence, or just one word.

 

‘Had’ evokes the question ‘when?’ How old was Abram when he heard this command and promise for the first time? There’s some evidence is that it was during his childhood. In Acts 7 v 2 we read that ‘The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran’.

 

Many of us may trace the beginning stirrings of our faith in Christ to our childhood or teenage years. I wonder, therefore, how common it is for writers to be aware of the writing bug in childhood, whether or not sharpened into a clear sense of ‘calling’.

 

Another aspect of the Abram/Abraham history is timing. He sat on the word, incubating it over many years, before the green light went on; the time had come to leave his family and his father’s house in Haran, and to move on.

 

Is that our practice as writers: to sit on ideas for novels, blogs, articles, or poems, waiting for the right time, or the right circumstances before hitting ‘Send’, or do we write, edit, and publish without hesitation?

 

As stated earlier, I’m writing this blog amongst the normal chaos and mayhem of three generations starting a new day with breakfast to navigate and plans to be made for the day ahead, keeping an eye on the weather…10% chance of rain…blustery….16C top temp. Today’s plan is Porthcurno beach for a swim and sunbathing, plus visiting a nearby village with a coffee shop, whose customers will no doubt dive for cover as two babies hanging off slings and their parent’s arms, and four beach-blown adults invade, looking for seats.

 

Who knows, it might be during today, at the most unexpected time during an unpredictable day that inspiration will strike like Abraham hearing the voice of God during his childhood?