The Israelites cheated lesson

Taking another look at the story of the small tribe the Gibeonites making their peace with the Israelites I noticed that when the Israelites sampled the Gibeonites food to see if they had come from a long way away, they did not refer the thing to God and were cheated. How often do we get into trouble by agreeing to something or making an arrangement in business, a dinner date, buying another ‘thing’, or agreeing a price or delivery without conferring with, or even referring to our partner or our boss. The lessons the Bible teaches are not always ‘in our face’ and that’s why it is worth reading it with care and reflecting on its teaching. I once agreed an exchange rate, just for the purposes of calculation, with a supplier and found myself in trouble when the supplier insisted I had agreed it as part of the contract. I was lucky, by the time payment was due, the exchange rate was on our side. 

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Mergers and marriages

The next part of the Israelite story as they claim Canaan finds a small tribe coming to make peace with them, claiming to be from far off. They are included in the Israelite community as slaves, but are included and not slaughtered like other groups. It’s like the takeover business and a lesson as to how a small organisation might live within a major company by offering to be overtaken rather than wait for a hostile acquisition. In a well-managed takeover, the employees of the smaller company will still have jobs and careers, whereas in a hostile acquisition the anger generated by the resistance of the company taken over means a clear out of staff. How does the lesson apply to relationships? It’s unacceptable that one party in a relationship will become a slave to the other. In fact there should be no stronger and weaker partner and perhaps that is the lesson. If one partner feels inadequate, or is made to feel inadequate, then they will become a slave, losing personality and will, a sorrowful thing to watch. The story deals with two extreme alternatives and ignores the idea of just running away, which, in personal relationships is the best escape from something that is not based on mutual respect.

Ai

When the Israelites had taken Jericho, they went trying to Ai and were repulsed. According to the story, all the precious metal was reserved for God yet one of the men had taken and hidden some for himself. In other words, the organisation was rotten from within. It’s like a takeover of a business but one of the parent company’s people has set an asset aside for himself. The same is true of a relationship where one partner has kept alive part of an old relationship. The new relationship is doomed. Or a business selling flowers that tries to keep something from the old butchery, selling sausages, maybe, going as well.

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Hero or Heroine

One reason I stopped to think about a hero is that I have written a novel set in Scotland during the 1820 uprising and the 'hero', I should really call him the protagonist, is an ordinary man caught up in the disturbance. Even Broon in Best in Show is an ordinary man finding himself having to deal with things beyond his experience. For some reason my 'heroes' are 'heroines', like Miss Kirkwood who encourages and inspires Broon; a bit like Bertie Wooster's Jeeves. Even when I wrote the WW1 South African tales, the protagonist was an ordinary man of mixed race who had been mistaken for white and made an officer and was forced to cope with missions beyond his capability - when he learned to fly, he crashed but survived and his superior sent him off in another flying machine with the comment, 'Even if you crash, you'll get there quicker than by train.'
By contrast, the women are sturdy in their opinions and push the poor devils to take on things that terrify them. Even when I wanted to do a story on King Arthur, it was Guinevere who demanded a round table.
I'm over eighty and maybe I've always felt the men built things, drove things, made things, but it was the women who had the courage to deal with life's real problems, like children and the family, and had the final say in where to live.
Anyway, I've been reading Sharpe and watching bomb aimers let bombs go and those little flashes which are the bombs exploding are someone's house with their furniture, pots and pans and curtains they've just washed going up in flames. The man goes to work next day but what does the woman do? Pick up the pieces and get on with life.

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Where's the Hero?

I’m busy with two short stories, one about people coping with something missing in their life for Writers Magazine and the other a bit about fake jewelry for Writers Journal but as I watched Sharpe on TV yesterday and it set me thinking that, while I have written ten novels, I don’t really have a ‘Hero’ like Sharpe or Hornblower. The closest I’ve come is Miss Kirkwood in A Land Fit for Heroes, Broon in Best in Show, and Fergus Findlay in Drover. There’s also Mrs Boniface in Oakhaven and Jinks with Broon in Cairndhu but, while I love them both, they are best in frantic cameo appearances. There is no John Wayne. I think I’d be happier with James Stewart, someone that is only violent when there is no option. In what setting? A Jacobite would be romantic and I love the Highlands, the Lord of the Isles has real potential from the Romans to Bruce and Bonny Prince Charlie, Irish history is full of myth and magic, but there is more immediacy in Kimberley and the early days of the diamond fields, lots of rogues and clowns and the excitement of finds as well as the deaths and disappointments. I like it but it’s set in the days of empire and white supremacy, would it sell? Probably not. Never mind, seek and ye shall receive, I have always believed, or maybe it’s, don’t seek and you’ll find nothing.

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Samson's hair

I want to look at the Samson story in the Bible and what lessons it has for the reader as far as ordinary life is concerned. I don’t for a minute believe his strength depended on the length of his hair, so there must be some other reason for telling the tale. Samson married someone from a group that was opposed to his own but this isn’t about racial purity but about sensibly having a partner who shares your philosophy in life. That shared ideal applies in all walks of life, marriage, business and social. Then Samson tells Delilah where his strength lies and is betrayed. That’s a warning not to expose your weakest areas to anyone you can’t trust, in fact anyone with an interest in hurting you. Then we have the denouement and Samson takes revenge on his tormentors but kills himself in the process. Taking revenge often has that effect, in personal relationships, in general life and in business. It is always better to look at what is best for you, your relationship, or your business, than how you can damage the opposition.

A List-less plot

Once again I have been guilty of not looking carefully at a competition brief. I rushed off making plans for the 'List' flash fiction story in Writers Journal and found I was only allowed ten items. No matter, all these aborted attempts produce story lines for future use. The 'Hidden' one for Writer's Magazine was a lost cause until I listened to that I'm just a Country Boy, Don Williams song and I wondered what the girl he loved might be missing, especially if the situation was set in Victorian times when the girl was fenced in with social rules. The draft in short story form looks good but, after reading a Katie Fford and an Anne Tyler, A Spool of Blue Thread, which was a finalist in Booker Prize competition, I wonder if it is really a novel. My normal reading being Bernard Cornwell, C.S. Forester, or P.G. Wodehouse, which all have ACTION and PLOT. Like Mark Twain, I feel Ann Tyler writes wine, I try to write water, everybody drinks water.

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