There is a quirky story in Genesis. Abraham and his wife Sarah go down to Egypt to find food, and as a precaution he identifies her as his sister. Otherwise the pharoah might desire her enough to kill her husband. This is because she is so beautiful. At sixty five.
Abraham was right, it turns out. Pharoah does claim her for himself. God
rains a plague down on the Egyptians as a deterrent for taking Sarah as his wife, and he recognizes the warning. Having narrowly avoided adultery, he gives her back to Abraham.
It's not a circumstance that comes up much these days. And yet the explanation touched me.
Egypt is symbolic of our thirst for knowledge. Facts that are satisfying without any intention of implementing them.
A blue
whale's veins are large enough for a person to swim through.
In every Star Wars movie a character says "I have a bad feeling about this."
A 600 lb octopus can squeeze though a hole the size of a quarter.
Learning them is like being a sister to those details. You enjoy them well enough but have no plan of marrying them to your actions. They are fun. That's all. But when Sarah is rightly joined with Abraham, they
bless each other as partners. Knowledge that goes on to bear fruit is remarkably beautiful, and not in merely an "isn't that cool?" kind of way.
Book smarts about ideas like The Five Love Languages, and His Needs Her Needs makes for pithy table conversation when we go out with other couples. But it only comes alive when I respond.
