Joseph and his brothers are at an inflection point. Their father has died — maybe their only glue given the immense harm and hurt between them — and now they stand at a threshold, about to cross over into the rest of their lives. There was a “before,” and now begins an “after.” What comes next for them? Most of us have stood at similar monumental thresholds, having experienced harm and brokenness in our families or communities, faced with a similar question in our grief: “Now what?” Joseph’s choices shouldn’t be precisely prescriptive for our own, but the story is powerful and resonant. It is a story to hold in one’s heart as we face the sheer impossibilities of our own lives.
image: detail from art created by Dave Huth, in the The Peace Table: A Storybook Bible, Herald Press and Brethren Press (2023), 46-47.
