Once we had “canons” of what we should read and notes for future reference, but now we have Google and Wikipedia. Okay. I’ll go along with it. GILEAD. What have we got?
In the Bible "Gilead" means hill of testimony or mound of witness, (Genesis 31:21)
Half Gilead" was possessed by Sihon, and the other half, separated from it by the river Jabbok, by Og, king of Bashan. The deep ravine of the river Hieromax (the modern Sheriat el-Mandhur) separated Bashan from Gilead, which was about 60 miles in length and 20 in breadth.
In Hebrew, Gilead can also mean a memorial site, and is used to name boys, while "Gil" means joy in Hebrew and "ad" means forever, or eternity.
The name Gilead (Arabic: جلعاد Ǧalʻād) is used in strict sense of the mountainous land extending north and south of Jabbok. The name Gilead first appears in the biblical account of the last meeting of Jacob and Laban (Genesis 31:21-22). King David fled to Mahanaim in Gilead during the rebellion of Absalom. Gilead is later mentioned as the homeplace of the prophet Elijah.
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This is a well-known traditional African-American spiritual. The “balm in Gilead” is a reference from the Old Testament, but the lyrics of this spiritual refer to the New Testament concept of salvation through Jesus Christ. The Balm of Gilead is interpreted as a spiritual medicine that is able to heal Israel (and sinners in general). In the Old Testament, the balm of Gilead is taken most directly from Jeremiah chapter 8 v. 22: "Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is there no healing for the wounds of my [God's] people?" (Another allusion can also be found in Jeremiah chapter 46, v. 2 and 11: “This is the message (of the Lord) against the army of Pharaoh Neco … Go up to Gilead and get balm, O Virgin Daughter of Egypt, but you multiply remedies in vain; here is no healing for you” - see also Jeremiah chapter 22, v. 6.)
The first appearance of the spiritual in something close to its current form is uncertain. Glass attached to one of John Newton's Olney hymns of 1779 this refrain:
There is balm in Gilead,
To make the wounded whole;
There's power enough in heaven,
To cure a sin-sick soul.
The 1925 7-shape Primitive Baptist songbook Harp of Ages has an unattributed song "Balm in Gilead" with a similar chorus, but verses drawn from a Charles Wesley hymn, "Father I Stretch My Hands to Thee."
The second verse quoted below ("If you can't...") is also found in some versions of another well-known spiritual "(Walk That) Lonesome Valley." . . . Lyrics are as follows:
Chorus (in bold):
There is a balm in Gilead
To make the wounded whole;
There is a balm in Gilead
To heal the sin-sick soul.
Some times I feel discouraged,
And think my work’s in vain,
But then the Holy Spirit
Revives my soul again.
(Chorus)
If you can’t preach like Peter,
If you can’t pray like Paul,
Just tell the love of Jesus,
And say He died for all.
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“The Trail of the Lonesome Pine,” a novel which Old Ames’ young wife loves and Old Ames sits up all night to read, is about feuds, a Romeo & Juliet tale in the Blue Ridge mountains.
Clearly, Old Ames is witnessing and tracing the lines of old schisms. It is the old spiritual that is most relevant.
I may change my mind later, but I’m thinking about “Housekeeping” which is about women and could be interpreted as a way of being at home in homelessness, life as a journey, the trail of the lonesome pine. I haven’t read it for a long time, but maybe one could put “Housekeeping” as third in a sequence about patriarchy: “Gilead,” then “Home” and finally “Housekeeping.” Surely the family home, the close community of small towns that we think of as the ideal, is like that old word “cleave” which means both to separate and to cling to. The home family is the source of healing but also the source of the deepest wounds and most unanswerable questions.
Warm common sense is the sort of advice a trusted auntie would give you at the kitchen table along with pie and coffee. My two maternal aunts married two brothers who were in a state of war their whole lives. The aunts were helpless to stop it. They were not churchy and I'm not sure that would have helped. Only one aunt had sons, fraternal twins, who inherited, bought, stole, acquired somehow the same land and continued the war until the present. The next generation is not likely to be too different, though probably pretty soon modern times will take the land into unknown hands. Already the timber has been sold off, leaving eroding pasture for sheep no longer profitable. I’m the only preacher in the family but they don’t consider me family anyway. We don’t communicate.
Likewise our whole politically riven nation is divided by the chasms and tectonic drifts of a whole planet. Our own families are scattered by technology, yet joined by it, raising many questions about what to do.
Martha Nussbaum’s 3-part interview with Bill Moyers is an excellent guide to Marilynne Robinson’s novels:
Especially in the second video, Nussbaum calls for a connected, human, domestic examination of ethics through fiction/theatre/stories. Marilynne Robinson may have answered that call. I don’t know whether she was consciously responding or simply coming to the same conclusions in her own way, as, on some level, do I. Our shared tragedy is that we are all, no matter how hard we strive, caught in circumstances (sometimes our own bodies) beyond our control. Then the larger society must lend support.
If that means letting John Brown hide his mule and horses in our church, manuring the floor, then do it. If your eye is put out, then contend that it is on that side where holiness can enter. Eternal joy. Gilead. Tell it. Hmmm. I meant this essay to be about immanence, the welling up of healing from the land. Maybe it is.
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