Remember a few years back when surrogate mothers were a new reality and terms such as artificial insemination & invitro fertilization were much in the news? That raised complex ethical and legal issues in the Baby M case (1986-88) where Mary Beth Whitehead the surrogate (and biological) mother, sued William & Elizabeth Stern (baby's father and his wife) for custody of the child to win at least visitation rights. Not really so new, when we read in Genesis how Abraham's wife Sarai got him to beget an "heir" with her slave girl. That was about 4000 years ago in the land GOD had promised to Abram. GOD had intended for Sarai to have the son, but she was certain that couldn't happen in their old age. So she tried to help the LORD using the young Hagar. It backfired when the mother-to-be showed hate instead of gratitude; hatred into which Ishmael was born that caused Hagar to run away with her baby. Later, when Sarai finally bore her miracle son, he became the target of Ishmael ridicule, which he showed at the weaning ceremony for tiny Isaac So Sarai (now Sarah) ran them both away off into the wilderness. GOD had given heed to Hagar's cry when she named her surrogate child Ishmael or "GOD hears," though now He promised Abraham that "it is through Isaac that offspring shall be named for you"(Gen.21:12). Then to Hagar evicted with a child nearly dead, He said "Lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him." In later years she found him a wife from Egypt, though Arabia was his land into which he disappears from Scripture. Yet that split in Abraham's family we can still see to this day: Jews vs Arabs (Isaac/Ishmael). It recalls an old dictum: "The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world" doesn't it. From Sarah and Hagar come Christianity and Islam which together include nearly half the earth's population. The former sprang from the Jews and the latter from Arabs, and then both grew vastly larger than their points of origin.
Genesis says that Isaac (so named for the "laughter" of each parent at such an impossibility) grew up to father twins, Esau & Jacob. The first twin delivered lost place to the second, Jacob, the way Ishmael did to Isaac; so we say Jacob & Esau the same way we say Isaac and Ishmael (in reverse order of age). Then Jacob (wrestler who grabs brother's heel) got his name changed to Israel (wrestler with GOD). He also fathered the Twelve Tribes of Israel. As Abraham ancestored the Hebrew people, so Jacob did the Israelites. Then Judah became the major survivor of the twelve tribes, so that's were the name Jew begins as yet another sub-division. Today we equate Hebrew and Israelites with the Jewish people, but we don't see Arabs in any such descendancy. Surely that was part of the reason Muhammad, born 570 ad from a ruling tribe in Mecca, tried to call Arabs away from their widespread idol worship to reclaim faith in Allah as the same God of Abraham (one of the seven prophets of which Muhammad was the last). At age 40 he declared himself the Arab prophet of true religion. In 622 a plot was made there at Mecca to assassinate him, so he fled to Yathrib, (henceforth called Medina "city of the prophet") where he spent the rest of his life making Arabia their holy land and then Mecca as their holy city that his armies recaptured. Islamic time is measured from that escape in 622 just as we date from the birth of Christ. The more I learn of Islam, the more it seems to me like a copy of the Old Testament that holds Ishmael more prominent than Isaac, with an annual pilgrimage like Passover (Ramadan) and a holy mount like Sinai (Mt.Arafat). I guess the offense we feel about that Church of the Nativity being used as a place for Palestinian gunmen to hide compares to their feeling about our military camps placed on Arabian "holy ground." But since it's the focus of Islam, why not let the Palestinian state be formed down that there (maybe starting from Gaza). They should want a capitol in or near to Mecca instead of east-Jerusalem, it would seem to me. I posted an article below last week's column that was on the Internet about Jesus in Islam. It's a little long, but very interesting to me. My web page is
Having played as a PV Panther way back in the '40s, I learned in a newspaper article about one such dangerous animal loose over at Maysville a week or so ago. It said the correct name is "black leopards, a color variant" instead of the yellowish fur patterned with black spots and rings. "The largest are about seven feel long...the are solitary and nocturnal, preying on small animals and livestock." After all these years, to learn what I really was. Here in WW our Savages may have to shift names if that new law in CA catches on here about Indian terminology. And perhaps we'll shift to Native American too, since the true Indians are in India.
Mother's Day is reminding me that it's been 30 years since grandmother Hightower died. She was 92, if I remember right, back in her last year of '68. Looking across the years since, she seems to rise taller with time, though the name may have suggestive power as well. I mentioned her again today at my Jesus Sing in PV Health & Convolescent Center, as I've done numerous times before. One of the residents named Dorothy claims that she knew Mrs.Hightower and remembers the boarding house there at 403 N.Walnut. So that's where I refer to her in my recollections from back in the early thirties. She had lost her husband in '29, grandfather E.G.Hightower (seventh mayor of PV) who died in his sleep. So she undertook the "room & board" house to support herself and their six children. The only one still around any when I came was John, her youngest (always Uncle John to me). But the others would come to see her there while I got to live with her a summer or two. Gram (as my bother, sister and I came to call her in later years) was always an "in charge" lady even though times were tough as I see in retrospect. Yet we seemed to be doing well to my childish mind. And we always went to First Methodist Church. I began school in about '33 up and Lee Elementary, where I completed first and second grade. Then we moved away to Mt.Vernon in '35, and I missed grandmother Amy's place so very much. She had a black lady cook named Milissa that helped fix the wonderful meals in Gram's long dining room. There was a long table in there around which guests would sit and I found it interesting to listen to their talk. Several were school teachers. One was a lady with the Home Extension service. Her name was Gladys Smith and she worked out of the Garvin county court house and drove a little Chevrolet coup that became such a familiar sight in PV. Seems she went everywhere in that car. I remember how Gram took me to the next door to meet a neighbor kid, Ralph Andrews Jr., after which we struck up such a good friendship. Just recently the big house at the corner of N.Ash and Bradly St. which I remember as the Andrews family home, was wrecked by a demolition crew. I've felt sad every time I drive by to see the pile of rubble still there today. Gram's first name was Amy and her sisters were Annie Goodpasture and Ellie Burch. They were the Allen girls who came to PV from Altus. There was still another sister, Virginia, who lived in Colorado. But grandmother Amy was my favorite and the first person in my life who asked me about my faith in the Lord Jesus. She was truly a High Tower. Whenever I rode the bus back from Mt.Vernon to visit, the old downtown watertower would be my first sight of this beloved town from highway 77 coming south from OKC. So it became fixed in my boyish mind as Gram's "high tower" that brought me a surge of joyful anticipation. And I still feel the same way about seeing her in heaven someday soon. What a great woman she was here below.