Setting: Genesis 11:31-32
As a boy on the streets of Damascus, I did not dream that I would one day find myself in the service of one of the wealthiest families in the most prosperous city on earth. And when we lived in splendor in Ur, I did not dream that we would fall from our golden throne into the desert.
Then again, I have never been much of a dreamer. Life for me has been so unpredictable that I have learned not to bother with prognosticating. I have known, even before these past few years, that life can change in an instant for good or for evil.
We left Ur and headed north, following the route that I had taken from Damascus, but this time in reverse. It felt good to move toward home.
We followed the Euphrates for a long time. We camped outside of Babylon for several months, and had I not been in Terah’s inner circle, I would have assumed, as many did, that we were going to settle there for good. Terah was like that. He knew how to take his time. How to loiter outside of Babylon for no apparent reason.
Eventually we continued on, and encamped outside of Mari. Yet again we continued on, until finally we reached the flatlands of Paddan Aram. We crossed those plains until we reached Harannu, a city so named because it is situated more or less at the crossroads of the earth, at a place where caravans from the four winds meet as they go on their ways.
I was walking with Terah at the front of the camp as the city began to come into view. He asked me what was the name of this city, and when I told him I saw tears forming in his eyes.
He stopped in his tracks and called to Amathlai who joined him at his side. He pointed to the city, and though he said nothing, his spirit seemed to say to her, “prophecy.”
“Harannu.” she said loudly, with clarity in her eyes, “friend of man and friend of god. Resting place for wanderers. Here my son will rest in peace. You shall not be called Harranu, but Haran.”
As she turned to walk away, she spoke to Terah in a matter-of-fact fashion, “we will live and die here. You will build a temple to Nanna in Haran’s honor, and bury his bones in its foundation.”
Amathlai’s words came to pass, and the temple of Haran became a leading center for the worship of Nanna, with Amathlai the chief priestess and Terah the chief elder of the town.
But not before my son, along with Lot and the household of Abram, went traipsing off into the wilderness again, headed west on the trade route which soon turns south from Charchemish and heads for Damascus. How could I tell Eliezer not to go? Though he has never seen the place, his blood is Damascan, and as he goes home a part of me goes with him.
In truth I long to return to Damascus as well. To walk the banks of Abana and Pharpar. But how can I leave the house of Terah? And I fear that Damascus could never live up to the memories of Abdhulraman, the wide-eyed boy.