Wake up, Deborah!

“Wake up, wake up, Deborah!
Wake up, wake up, break out in song!”

So sang Deborah herself, a prophet and leader in Israel in the days of the Old Testament judges.

Who would have thought, at this late date in life, I’d find myself singing the same refrain, with a strange new confidence and joy? Who would have thought that a character in a local theater production in Mississippi and a wagon bed in North Carolina would contribute to my awakening?

The Deborah of the Old Testament served as a judge for years. Who knows how many people she helped as, one after another, month after month, “the Israelites went up to her to have their disputes decided” (Judges 4:5)? One day, Deborah awoke to a different assignment, an assignment to cooperate with God to deliver all Israel.

Cruelly oppressed for 20 years, the Israelites had at last cried out to the Lord for help. He responded by speaking to Deborah, telling her the strategy for deliverance. Sending for a man named Barak, Deborah gave Barak his marching orders from the Lord. As Deborah and Barak obeyed God, thousands of warriors rose up to join them – and the Lord himself routed their oppressors.

In a different era, on a different continent, I participated in a little theater production of The Miracle Worker, a play about the child Helen Keller, oppressed from infancy by blindness and deafness and by a well-meaning family with no idea how to discipline or teach her. As portrayed in the play, Helen’s father, Captain Arthur Keller, epitomizes the mindset of the Old South.

When Helen’s new teacher, Annie Sullivan, arrives, she and Captain Keller vie over who will carry her suitcase. Annie wants to hold the suitcase herself so she can give Helen a gift it contains. When Captain Keller tries to take the suitcase, Annie says, “I’d like it.” Keller holds on tightly, announcing, “I couldn’t think of it, Miss Sullivan. You’ll find in the south we view women as the flowers of civiliza—” Audiences smile as Annie wins the skirmish.

Audiences laugh out loud as Captain Keller clumsily carries Annie down a ladder after Helen locks her in a second-story bedroom. When Annie says, “I’m perfectly able to go down a ladder under my own—,” Keller interrupts her: “I doubt it, Miss Sullivan.”

Caught up in the drama focusing on Helen and Annie, play-goers find themselves liking Captain Keller, enjoying the laughter his antics provoke and overlooking his condescending attitude toward women.

One mild September day, sitting on a wagon bed in a North Carolina field, I encountered God. For decades I had known him. For decades I had recited Psalm 139:13-14: “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” God came to the wagon bed, not just to remind me of that verse, but to take me back to the place it describes.

From the womb I had accepted dishonor as normal. I had lived with an identity obscured by a culture that still today hides its lack of respect for women behind its gallant shows of respect for women. A likeable culture, it endears itself by laughter – yet often the jokes themselves subtly convey that women aren’t to be taken seriously.

On that wagon bed, God told me what should have been obvious. My Father said, “Your name is Deborah.”

In that instant, I awakened to my identity. I accepted my new assignment.

Now I sing to whoever will hear, “Wake up, wake up! Let God himself tell you your name!”

© 2008, Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.

Wrong number

You there – yes, you with the initials KB and the penchant for giving my cell phone number to your creditors – you need to hear the song I’ve found. You need to sing it.

For three years, I’ve enjoyed my mobile phone number. However, I haven’t enjoyed getting calls from the folks to whom you owe money.

I said so to the nice man who called yesterday. The phone rang. I answered. Like so many before, the man said your name. Oh, he didn’t know you – just your name.

Such calls tend to come in waves. Just when I think they’ve stopped, they start again. They provide insight into the intimate details of your debt cycle. I can provide nothing to the people trying to contact you, other than the strong suggestion that they delete my phone number from your record.

At first, I thought my cell phone number had belonged to you before I inherited it. Now, I wonder if you picked the number out of the air. I’ve never gotten a call from one of your friends or family members. If I had, I might know how to reach you.

We could talk. It would be like a “reveal your secret pal” meeting. You could get acquainted with the person to whom you’ve given so many “little gifts” of unexpected calls all these years. I could ask you questions.

“How did debt become a way of life for you?” “What about deceit – does it fix anything?” “Do you ever get incredibly tired of repeating the same cycle?” “Do you consider it a game?” “Have any of your creditors ever caught up with you?” “If you could find a way out, would you take it?”

After you answer, I could sing you that song.

Maybe a year ago, I complained to the phone company.

The courteous but unconcerned customer service rep said her company has no way to stop you from repeatedly giving out a wrong phone number which they have assigned to me. My only recourse? Change my phone number.

That solution creates other problems. Further, it may not end my calls from someone else’s creditors. Do you know CM? The two of you live in different states but have something in common. I get calls from CM’s creditors on my landline.

Which brings me back to yesterday’s caller. After I told him, “I’m not KB. I don’t know KB – but I can’t tell you how many calls I’ve gotten from her creditors,” he said, “I’m not a creditor.”

“You’re not?” I asked, astonished.

Apparently, KB, you’ve signed up on a job placement website. There, you listed – not one, but two – wrong phone numbers: my cell number and a non-working number. Maybe you hoped all potential employers would contact you by e-mail. Maybe you wanted me to serve as one of your references, since we’ve become so well-acquainted and all.

Yesterday, when I told the nice man what I knew about you, he seemed very grateful.

Long ago, the poet David “sang to the Lord concerning Cush, a Benjamite.” We don’t know what Cush did. We do know what David sang:

“See that man shoveling day after day,
digging, then concealing, his man-trap
down that lonely stretch of road?
Go back and look again — you'll see him in it headfirst,
legs waving in the breeze.
That's what happens:
mischief backfires . . .”

I bless you with a way out, KB – so that you stop digging your own trap and you too join the refrain:

“I'm thanking God, who makes things right.
I'm singing the fame of heaven-high GOD.”

© 2008 Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.