There Arose a King Who Knew Not Joseph

 

There Arose a King Who Knew Not Joseph

I have a habit of not caring what went on,

before I entered the room, assuming history

begins with my first squalls passing for oratory,

when I dare to command, “Shine out fair Sun!”

Confederate blood runs in my veins, warming

“lost cause” memories passed to me by father

reverently speaking of Jackson, Lee, slaughter,

chivalry and glory of Pickett's charge swarming.

I first have to learn Faulkner's past not being past,

healing begins when I let Word of past incarnate

my very flesh, hopes and dreams. Try sublimate

as much as I can; it must still be faced at last.

Denial, tearing asunder past monuments is easy;

but refusing to change the present is just sleazy.

The tellers of the stories who later collected Joseph stories in the Book of Genesis to lead into the Book of Exodus set Joseph's relocation in Egypt as part of the Hyksos, an influx of Semitic people coming down from Canaan, dominating Lower Egypt, ending the 13^th Dynasty and beginning the Second Intermediate Period. The Hyksos rulers tried to blend in and adopted Egyptian names and manners. When Upper and Lower Egypt were reunited under Egyptian control in the New Kingdom of the 18^th Dynasty, there was a move to purify their History, which is seen with this opening statement of Exodus that the new Pharaoh tries to forgot the past, feverishly working on a version of MEGA,“Making Egypt Great Again”, a racist message of building monuments to glorify himself, to escape the stigma of having to depend on the help of Semitic rulers in the past.

When Pat and I were in Egypt we were so impressed by the building patterns of Ramesses II of the 19^th Dynasty. One of the things he would do is to to take the name of a previous Pharaoh off a monument and replace it with his.

There is an old saying used by people in recovery, “Denial is not just a River in Egypt.” As I thought about this lesson, I was thinking about the individual, and national, habitual need to purify history to fit into our legends, instead of facing the truth with honesty in order to change the present.

The Gospel of John begins with the statement that Jesus is the Word made flesh. My faith journey is to try to be open enough to have the Word incarnate me on a daily basis.