4 IT MUST BE THE RABBIT STEW
Well, that
evening, he asked not to be called “Prince” any more, just “Beorn.” The rest of
the trip, it was decided to forget rank, position, all that; just go by “Beorn,
Hathach, Melzar.”
While eating
rabbit stew, Beorn was asked to tell about himself, and this is what he said:
Beorn’s father
was a black Arab nomad, his mother a Jewish woman who taught him about Yahweh
and read to him from the sacred writings of the prophets. Because Beorn is half
black, many people think he is 100% black. He could probably fool people into
believing he was an Egyptian. Beorn grew up learning many of the ways of the
Nomad and life on The Wilderness of Paran. However, Beorn’s
father died, and his mother returned to the land of her birth, Israel.
Here, Melzar
interrupted Beorn. “That was too bad. If you hadn’t come up to Israel, but
stayed down south, you wouldn’t have been brought all the way to Babylon as a
slave, right? You would be free as a bird today in the wilderness you grew up
loving. The Babylonian Kingdom extended quite a ways, but I don’t think anyone
would’ve gone as far as Paran! I was starting to think this Yahweh God was
great, but…it seems He let your father die then let you be exiled as slaves. I
don’t know. Sounds like He handed you some pretty sad circumstances.”
“…Melzar, you
say, ‘That’s too bad.’ But not my mother.
She said Yahweh
always does good for His own, for reasons we may not even be aware of ourselves
at the time. Later on, we’ll always look back—always—and marvel at how Yahweh
arranged it all perfectly. For example—you know our relatives, the family down
south that were ‘so lucky’ not to get taken to Babylon as slaves, like me?
Well, we heard later, a band of thieves raided that area, raped and murdered
Then they burned the farms to the ground. Mother and I escaped all that.
And Melzar, look; now
I am a Prince. Is that really…so…bad?”
“Hmm.” Melzar had to rethink that one.
“Don’t think too hard, Melzar.” Beorn
rolled his eyes at him, taking his empty plate off his hands; “What I’ve found
out is that it’s not really that important that we get it all figured out
anyway. The important thing is that we let Yahweh be in charge, that we keep
coming back to Him.”
Beorn went on to say that when he was made
prince, his mother had not been allowed to come along. So from that point on,
mother and son had been separated.
By the time he became prince, she walked
with a limp, Beorn remembered. On the day he was taken to his new post; she had
hobbled over to her corner of the room; and reached for her treasure under the
pillow: the sacred writings! He would not—he could not—take them from his
mother. He had put his hands behind his back and shook his head desperately,
but she had pressed them against his chest.
“Beorn, take them. Keep them,” his mother
had said; “Yahweh will keep you. And wherever you go my darling son, you will
be right here in your mother’s heart.”
And Beorn could not push her away.
“So you took the writings?” Melzar asked.
Beorn nodded.
“One of the most precious things my mother
gave me.” Beorn managed to say.
“One of?”
“Her name. Another precious gift. My
mother’s name is to me…like a pearl I take out and look at from time to time to
soothe my soul.”
“Her name?”
Hathach had been watching the two talk.
Never before had he seen Melzar like this. He usually went halfway through a sentence,
pressed his lips together, said no more; that was the extent of the young man’s
effort to communicate. But with the prince--perhaps he had identified with some
of the hardships Beorn had had to endure and felt safe with him; Melzar freely
expressed himself and anything he was curious about.
“Yes. My mother’s name.” Beorn paused—the
three men had been washing their bowls and began putting them back among their
supplies. He shook his head and smiled at a memory, saying,. “Oh, she was
strong.” They turned and leaned against the camels’ backs. All this time,
Melzar waited.
“You will not laugh?” Beorn finally asked.
“I am not laughing now,” Melzar said.
“My mother’s name is Arla.”
“Pretty name, Arla,” Melzar said,
sincerely.
“I know. Sounds pretty, but that’s all it
is to most people. There is another story about why it is special. Will you
listen?” Beorn didn’t move his head gazing at the stars; only his with his eyes
he peered towards Melzar.
“I am listening.”
“Mother told me long ago in the writings of
the prophets of a slave Hagar who was cast out in the desert with her son,
given only a pitcher of water. They almost died, but Yahweh led them to a
desert spring. The slave said, Beer-lahai-roi, which in my mother’s language means
‘Well of the Living God Who sees’.”
“Beer…?”
“To help me remember that story, whenever
she told that story, my mother made a funny face, threw up her hands, and said,
‘Barla-hairoi!’ We pretended she was tongue-tied and I had to help her remember
her name was ‘Arla’ and the place was
‘Beer-la’. We died laughing. Maybe
it’s ridiculous, but…
It’s not a bit ridiculous, Melzar thought.
After that, whenever something happened I
needed to remember that people don’t understand but Yahweh sees and does—and will
provide a way out—it was like a password. I would say, “Arla”, and my mother
would say, “Hairoi”. –when we moved to Negeb where not everybody around had the same color skin as me…when most of our
belongings were stripped from us when we were brought to Babylon…that day after
carrying that little girl on my shoulders over the cesspool…when I left for my
post as prince, and Mother couldn’t come along, instead of ‘good-bye,’ we said
‘Arla,’ and ‘Hairoi’. People around thought we were saying goodbye in Hebrew.
Beorn pretended to chuckle; Melzar didn’t.
I like talking with you, Melzar,” Beorn
coughed; “I don’t think I talked with anyone like this before.”
Then, tossing some bedrolls over to his
companions, he advised, “Let’s get some sleep. We need to start off again early
in the morning. Oh—and be sure to make your bedding off the ground where it’s
cooler and safer from desert varmints.
5 FIRST-NAME BASIS
But the rabbit in the pot came hopping out
and sniffed at each of the three sleeping forms. When he came to Melzar’s face,
the rabbit’s whiskers must’ve tickled a bit. Melzar muttered a “Stop that;”
giggled; turned over…and fell off his perch.
“Ouch!”
Beorn was already up—“the rabbit” had
disappeared—the human desert traveler was tying his things to his camel.
“Better wake Hathach. We need to get
moving.”
“Right;” Melzar said, moving toward
Hathach. He whispered, “Did you see the rabbit?”
“What rabbit?”
“Ra…never mind.”
Melzar and Hathach got on their camels and
were moving, perhaps not quite as quickly as Beorn would’ve liked, but it had
been, after all, only their first night. They would improve. That day, they
made good time, wearing nomadic clothing—those veils—from the beginning. The
only thing that slowed them down even a little was Hathach’s cries of: “Look!
Look!”
Desert wildlife. Actually, it was not for
himself, but Melzar. Hathach knew Melzar loved animals. The beautiful spotted
Persian deer he couldn’t not show Melzar. And over there, by the canyon. That
adorable sand cat. Hathach knew it could be a ferocious animal, would not stay
anybody’s pet! But he had to have Melzar see the kitty anyway.
They did not take time this day to kill and
cook but chewed on cured meat Hathach had brought and munched on raisins. What
took surprising little time was the watering of the camels, for the amount they
drank. Because Beorn knew how to travel in the desert going from watering hole
to watering hole, there was always enough. But my, the amount of water those
camels could drink! But of course the group dared not move onto the next stop
until the camels had drunk to their full.
The three would dismount, lead their
animals to the water, and…it seemed the camels forgot for a few minutes about
their loads, their journey, their masters. All they could think of was “drink”.
While a camel is filling up on water like that, it is doubtful even a strong
man could pull him away from the spring. Melzar, Hathach, Beorn never once had
to worry about someone running off with one of their camels.
“Treat your camel well, and he will serve
you well,” Beorn once said to the two men, while patting his tan friend on the
side of the neck. “A righteous man regards the life of his animal, but the
tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.’ (Prov.12:10)
“It says that in the sacred writings?”
Melzar was surprised. “I thought those writings were about the Yahweh God and
man, not about animals!”
“The way a man treats animals says a lot
about how he feels about God,” Beorn explained; “Yes, it is in there. My mother
said the first job man was given when Yahweh made him was to give names to the
animals.
Yahweh said, Okay, anything you like:
‘Spot’ or ‘Mr. President’ or ‘Ling-Ling’ or whatever name you want.”
Hathach interrupted. “Wait. You don’t mean
‘give animals names’, like: ‘You’re an elephant’,
‘You’re a tiger’, ‘I’ll call you a horse’, ‘You’ll be called hippopotamus’, etc…? You mean ‘name’,
name?”
Beorn looked back at him. “All right. The
next person you see walking his pet, Ask its name, and it’s close to 100% sure
the owner will not say, ‘I just call him “dog” or say “come here, cat”.’ I
think he will call him by a ‘name’ name. And when Yahweh looks at me, He
doesn’t just love ‘that human being’, but He loves me, Beorn.”
People who can be cruel to animals show
they have a cold relationship with God too. They don’t realize they can be on a
first-name basis with Him.”
“First-name basis?”
“To tell you the truth, I’m not real clear on this. I wish my mother
were here to tell you. She said it has to do with the Star leading us to
Israel. Yahweh will send us special Help to be able to understand all truth.
Including this first-name thing.” Beorn looked almost pained that he could not
answer more clearly.
Hathach spoke up. “That’s good enough for
old Hathach. Melzar, isn’t that good enough for you too? If any father tells
his sons that he’s got a treat coming for them but he can’t tell them about it
yet--they’ve just got to leave it up to him, don’t you think they should?
Especially if that father always gave good surprises in the past, and if the
son who knew him best already decided to believe him.
It seems to me Yahweh has already shown
Himself trustworthy to Beorn and his mother who know Him far, far better than
we do, Melzar. If they are willing to let Him care for the rest of their lives,
can’t we believe Him too? Of course we can! We can, and we will do no less.
Beorn’s eyes showed both thankfulness for
Hathach’s words as well as a bit of surprise. It sounded like this
white-bearded man had thought through much for himself. Beorn wanted to hear
more from him.
“Maybe another waterhole,” he thought; “it
looks like the camels are done.”
6 MELZAR TAMES TASSIE
Desert travel had become almost routine for
the three from Babylon. No matter how hot it got during the day, they knew to
stay covered up—their skin needed protection from the burning sun. And by
midday—almost every day--the pounding heat and thirst would have them thinking
they would die before they reached the next watering hole. But wasn’t that how
it always felt?
After a while, the trio actually began
expecting the feeling of doom between the springs…so when it came, it was no
surprise. As Melzar put it, “It was like the sandstorm came, but I had my hood
on and was ready.” Then it wasn’t so bad.
The accidents that are the hardest are the
ones that come when you aren’t expecting them.
Melzar and the camels hadn’t expected a
midnight visitor. He had been out having a little visit with his four-footed
friend as he sometimes did after Beorn and Hathach started snoring. Melzar felt
safe then to have short visits before crawling back to his place of sleep
again. Teddy would never tell on him.
One night, while Melzar was leaning his
back against his tan buddy, he noticed the camel started snarling and baring
his teeth.
“Why, what’s wrong? Did I say something…to
upset you?” Melzar looked where Teddy was glaring.
He froze. What was it?!
Teddy scrambled to his feet and stomped his
hooves, rousing the other two camels from their slumber. Melzar, seeing
everything come to life, rushed back to his bedroll and pretended to be asleep.
The creature Melzar had seen slipped into the bushes.
Teddy and the other two camels were
howling—growling—necks rocking back and forth.. The other two camels had not
seen the intruder, only Teddy had; they were just acting like two excitable
camels stirred from deep sleep!
Beorn
and Hathach were awake by this time.
“What on earth…” Beorn rubbed his eyes.
“Melzar, I think it was your Teddy that
started all this. Maybe a bad nightmare? Can you get him to go back to sleep?
Until you do, I don’t think any of us will.”
“Right away, sir.” Melzar tried to calm him
down. “He’s gone Teddy,” he whispered. “Whatever it was, he won’t bother us.”
“Cush.” Melzar got Teddy to sit down again
and gave him a big hug. “It’s okay, Teddy. You were protecting me from that
thing, weren’t you? You’re the best. Thank you. Now go to sleep. Shhh. Good night,
Teddy.”
Whew. Close call. Melzar slipped into his
bedding, and, tired, fell fast asleep.
He did not see Hathach had not gone back to
sleep but had wanted to speak with him.
He looked at Melzar’s sleeping face and
smiled at it. Melzar had become to him like a grandson. “I guess it can wait
until morning…” Hathach said, and went back to sleep.
The next morning, Hathach said he wanted to
take Melzar falcon-hunting. Melzar was
getting rather tired of the doing the same thing day in and day out, so this sounded
like a nice change to simply packing up and heading to the next watering hole.
They had seen Saker falcons in Babylon too.
Hathach knew a way to catch them by getting their talons tangled in wire; there
was no killing; and not a single feather of the bird’s coat was moved out of
place during the “hunt”.
“Are you going to tell me what really
happened last night?” Hathach asked, as they picked up the bird they had
caught; “I told Beorn we were coming out falcon-hunting but did not say when we
would be back at camp.”
“Well…” Melzar looked down at the ground,
thinking. Hathach would not believe him, for sure.
“You do not have to tell me,” Hathach said,
smoothing the feathers of the falcon; “and we can take this bird to camp right
now, if you like. No pressure, Melzar.”
Whew, Melzar thought. So the two went back
to camp.
And Beorn thought the two men just went
falcon-hunting in the morning, leaving Beorn at home. He didn’t suspect
anything, about the night before, right? Really?
But Melzar couldn’t tell Hathach he saw a
kitty as big as a lion with a worried look…with lips like it wanted to whistle,
but eyebrows that went straight up…and had tassles on the tips of its pointy
ears! No, no, no; they would lock him up and throw away the key.
But Teddy had seen him too…hadn’t he?
Melzar almost wished the animal would come back again another night and show
himself.
*
* * *
* * *
* * * *
* * *
*
Almost, not really. But the caracal didn’t know
that. The next night, after Hathach and Beorn were fast asleep, Melzar got up
and tip toed over to his desert pal.
The same way he’d talked with Beorn that
first night—Melzar lay back against Teddy’s side, looking up at the night sky.
He loved it when it was so peaceful and quiet like this.
“All those stars line up to form Aries the ram”…Melzar stroked Teddy’s neck…”and that King star. I am so glad you’re here, Teddy,” he said softly, still stroking him, “and will take me all the way to Judea …” But Teddy’s ears didn’t have soft tufts on the ends of them like the ones Melzar was feeling! Slowly, Melzar turned his head.
He was looking into the face of a mountain lion, the “kitty cat with tassels” that came the night before. Melzar knew the worst thing he could do was to scream.
That moment, he remembered what Beorn had
said about a shepherd boy named David who had come face to face with a huge cat
too—except for him, it wasn’t a mountain lion; it was a real big lion, mange
and all—what did Beorn say? David prayed for Yahweh God to help him, and he ended
up killing that lion and protecting his sheep. That story came to Melzar’s mind
in a flash.
Melzar didn’t want to kill the mountain
lion, but he prayed to this Yahweh God right away. “Help”, he prayed; “please!”
And the strangest calm came over him.
“We’re headed out west, Kitty. You wanna
come too?” And he found himself stroking it again. The cat didn’t seem to know
how to respond at first—he hadn’t been spoken to like that or pet so much
before—but to Melzar’s surprise, after a while, it curled up at his feet and
started purring. It’s like a kitten, he thought, only much bigger.
The sound woke Teddy—yes, he had been
asleep the whole time—and it took Melzar some doing to calm him down. Of
course, by this time, everyone was awake, and they had to be told about the
caracal.
“He’s my new friend,” Melzar said
defensively. I’m calling him Tassie (because of the tassled ears). Tassie
squeezed himself against Melzar’s body with a worried look, asking for
protection. (Well, Tassie’s “worried” face only looks that way because of the
caracal’s darker hairs near the eyes.)
“It’s okay; nothing’s going to happen to
you. Everyone’s afraid of you, that’s all. Show them that you don’t mean any
harm, and they won’t do anything to you either.”
Although Teddy and
Melzar always had that bond between animal and rider, the loyalty Tassie felt
towards Melzar grew as well, and she was always looking to see what Melzar
needed. Tassie never left Melzar’s side, and after awhile, Melzar himself
couldn’t think of traveling without Tassie.
7 SECRETS AT WATERING HOLES
If you asked these men from Babylon about
their journey out west, they probably would tell you about things that happened
at several watering holes.
One Watering Hole: “Hathach’s Star”
Beorn had sensed in many different ways
there was more to Hathach than met the eye. It was at these short rest stops
Beorn was able to get to know Hathach a little better. He had told them that
his ancestor had been a servant for the king of Shushan, and that he had heard
about the protection of the Jews then.
However, it came out in one of the stops at
the watering holes that that king’s wife, was named Esther—they had all known
this—what they had not known was that her name meant “Star”. And she had been
told, as Beorn and his family had been told, that Yahweh God would one day save
His own people. His sign would be a star.
And she was given that name at birth. Hathach was a mathematician, a scientist.
Logic told him this had nothing to do with him.
Yet, there had been something inside him
that said that there was one in a million chance that this Yahweh God really
did exist; and perhaps He had sent a star as a sign; and for some reason, he
let Hathach know about it so that they could be sent out on this journey? Was that not a possibility? At one
watering hole, Hathach told his friends he had not been able to get away from
these thoughts, and they had pushed him out on this journey. (You can talk
freely about things at watering holes you wouldn’t dare talk about anywhere
else.)
Melzar jumped in. “You mean when I
mentioned Astrological signs pointed to a great King being born in Judea, you
felt in your heart it was true?!” Tassie snuggled down quickly at Melzar’s side
as if to say “let’s not get all excited. We’re in this together.”
“I had no way of proving it, Melzar.”
“But you felt it was true?” Tassie rubbed
her face against his, saying, “I believe you; whatever it is.”
Beorn broke in. “That is why we must see
the King with our own eyes. That will take care of everything.”
“My, those camels are fast. 15 minutes, and
you’d think they drank up a tenth of the water in the world.”
Another Watering Hole: “Diamonds” & Stew
When it looked like it was the journey’s
end and the trio could’ve turned into Jerusalem, Beorn looked at his two
friends and asked, almost like a little boy, “A big favor…for me? It won’t do
anything to help this trip…but I just want to see the wilderness where I grew
up. Could we make a detour south for a week? No, even three days, two?”
Hathach and Melzar looked at each other and
smiled.
They were this far from Babylon. If Beorn
wanted to see his old backyard—and he’d gotten them through…how many sandstorms
and terrible scrapes already?—they would by no means limit his time!
“Beorn, a week, two weeks, take all the
time you want!”
“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Beorn
almost cried, he was so happy. Tassie shook her tassels, and jumped over to
Beorn’s side. “Thank you, Tassie!”
That desert was just as hot as Beorn remembered it. Hathach had studied about “Arabian Diamonds” on the desert floor that can be seen best at this time of day. There! And there! He saw them sparkling, glittering in the sun. Hathach gathered these rocks and put them in a small sack, amazed that something so beautiful could be just lying here for the taking.
Animal-lover Melzar, almost one with Teddy after his long ride from the east, had been on the hills of the place and delighted with the wildlife he found there. Tassie came flying to his side though, when he heard Melzar scream at the 2-foot-long lizard in the shadow.
Beorn came running; but threw his head back
and laughed when he saw what Melzar had seen, then quickly apologized for
making light of something that must’ve been frightening. Apparently, dhub stew
is not an uncommon nomadic dish, which they had for supper.
“Chicken Stew…pretty good….you made this,
Beorn?” Hathach said at supper. Beorn winked at Melzar.
“Yes, I made it” was all he said.
At bedtime, Hathach was told about the
nomad “chicken” stew…what it had probably looked like before it had become
stew. It was probably knowing that he had gathered a sackful of “Arabian
Diamonds” that kept Hathach from getting in a bad mood, even when he found out
about the giant lizard he’d been tricked into eating.
