"Here we are... in the same place you left us." "If we reach out, will you reach back?" "We want to trust you." "Do you have everything you need?" "Yes." "Thank you." "I'll come back with something to eat." "If they find you here," "I'll say you came on your own." "That I don't know you." "Don't make me sorry for helping you." "I won't." "My son..." "Carry these words for all of your days." "The Creator scattered beauty across the face of the earth and throughout the skies." "He wove the stars and the earth together with the seas and gave us a home." "God made man in his own image." "And man lived free in his heart." "The whisper of creation led him up to high places." "And he saw the earth spread out below." "In the depths of those waters he found something." "A memory." "A reminder." "Always God was with him." "It wasn't always this way." "We didn't always hide in the darkness." "Once, we stood in the light." "But that was long ago." "Eden is still in our blood." "And all of our lives we spend trying to return home." "But God has always been trying to bring us back to him." "Did all the earth fall silent in the ears of Abraham, as it does before a storm?" "You give us the blessing, so that we may be a blessing to all the nations." "This God is different than others I've heard men speak of." "He said he would lead us." "We will follow." "He said that through me, all the earth will be blessed." "He's giving us a child, Sarah." "He's giving us a new hope." "He's giving us a new life." "You invite us into your story." "You place the cup in our hands, to be spread over all the earth." "Just as you once did to Jacob." "Joseph slept, and you sent him dreams of greatness, that one day he would rise to the places you set aside for him." "You cannot speak to us in such a way." "Your brother's won't stand for this." "I won't stand for this." "It was just a dream." "That is all." "A dream in which you rise up, and the rest of us bow down before you?" "And a second dream of the same." "Do you really think you shall rule over the sons of Israel?" "It was just a dream." "I can see in your eyes you think this is more than a dream." "You think this shall come to pass." "Look at me." "Look at me." "Know your place, little brother." "Our lives become a reflection of your heart." "Your danger." "You are my strength." "You are my song." "You are my savior." "And to Noah, you gave the strangest journey of all." "That a flood would come." "That life would begin again." "I heard something today." "From God." "He told me he's going to destroy the earth with a flood." "And he wants me to build an ark." "You lead us to the edge of all things... where darkness and light collide." "There, you ask us to die." "There, you promise, that we will be reborn." "He is beautiful." "Thank you." "Are you hungry?" "I've just received the news that they will be here by dawn, or sooner, depending on how many boys like yours they find along the way." "I trust you've made arrangements." "What is your plan?" "You're just like the other girls who come through this place." "Who lay their heads on that pillow and hold their sons close, thinking that somehow you will be spared." " We will." " You won't." "A moment comes for each of you when you realize that this life, these people, this country owes you nothing." "And they will take everything away in an instant." "So my suggestion is that you go." "Whatever you are planning, go now." "I'm not ready." "I know this is difficult to accept." "I once had a son." "And this... is all that's left of him." "Dirt from the place where they laid him on the ground and ran a blade through his belly." "Pick it up." "Hold it with your hands." "Do not be so foolish to suffer as I have suffered when you still have a chance to spare him." "I am telling you to go." "Not yet." "Not yet." "Are we guilty?" "Of what?" "I think of the darkness in the heart of a man who would slay a child." "You and I would never do such a thing." "No." "But how many in Egypt raise their voices against the murders of our sons?" "And how many are silent?" "Are they not just as guilty as those who hold the blade?" "We are not responsible for what others do, or do not do." "But I question if the darkness is in us all, just the same." "Perhaps it is violence, or silence, but it is a darkness, nonetheless." "Don't wait too long." "There's nothing left for you to give him." "I can give him our story." "You don't have to tell me, but I'd like to know where you plan to take him." "God told me to put him in the river." "God told you this?" "And what else did God tell you?" "That I should trust him." "God of light." "We look out across these horizons and realize how far we have to go." "So bring us to the ones who will stand with us in the night." "A flame to warm ourselves." "I want to give you something." "What is it?" "I don't know." "A memory." "It's beautiful." "Your sister made that for you." "You look like her." "And your father, too." "They love you as I love you." "Sometimes I wonder if I'd rather you die in my arms than live in the arms of someone else." "I don't want to go on without you." "That is why I pray for courage." "You bind our hearts together with a thread that cannot be broken." "But when we open ourselves to love, we also open ourselves to pain." "Where am I?" "This is my father's land." "His name?" "His name is Laban." "If you wait here, I'll take you to him." "And what's your name?" "My name is Rachel." "Here is my other daughter, Leah." "I'm sorry?" "This is my oldest daughter," "Leah." "When Jacob saw the light in Rachel's eyes, he knew that he would stay." "And so he began to work." "Good morning." "Good morning." "And Laban began to lay his trap." "My son." "In the beginning we're filled with hope." "The fear and the doubt come after the journey has begun." "Our father, Noah, welcomed the madness." "He laid the foundation of a ship in the face of mockers." "And one season faded into the next, but Noah kept going." "So don't let us turn back now." "Let our direction hold true and our hope remain." "Let us come to find that this darkness is just your shadow hovering over us." "Mama." "Mama." "Mama." "Mama." "Mama." "Stay with me, Mama." "Stay with me, Mama." "You're dreaming." "Adam and Eve spent their nights looking into the stars wondering, what else?" "What more lay just out of their reach?" "I want to show you something." "You once told Abraham that he would be a great nation, as numerous as the stars." "But his skies remained clear for many years." "Not yet." "Soon." "Soon." "So don't be angry when we take your plans and replace them with our own." "Jacob." "We don't have much time." "Father." "Who is this?" "It is I, Esau." "Bless me, Father." "Father, what's wrong?" "Your brother." "It is I, Esau." "He came." "Are you Esau?" "It is I." "He deceived me." "What are you saying?" "I gave him your blessing." "May God bless you, and nations serve you." "May you rule over your family." "May those that curse you be cursed," "and those that bless you be blessed." "No!" "Esau, wait." "Jacob seized the blessing from his brother." "And then he ran from his family to the land of Laban." "Jacob!" "Your plans become less important than our own." "Brothers, we do nothing and he will rule over our families." "Is that what you desire?" "Our inheritance will not fall into his hands." "Our brother, the dreamer." "His words must be reconciled." "If we do this, there can be no chance he comes back." "There's no profit in killing him." "What price can we fetch for a man like him?" "You gave Joseph dreams of greatness, then made him nothing." "You let his life drift away as sand blown from the palm of your hand." "He was sold into slavery by his own family." "Slave." "That is your name." "You will do as your masters say, or I will gut you like a dog and feed you to the birds." "Do you understand, Slave?" "Yes." "Do you know what got you to this place?" "Three things." "Your fates have left you." "Your gods have left you." "And last, your brothers have left you." "Now what is your name?" "Slave." "Good." "How am I gonna do this?" "It's impossible." "Oh, Lord." "Oh, Lord." "How am I gonna do this?" "We tell you that our sin is an illusion." "Our darkness is temporary." "But you know the sound of our lying." "Be still." "Who are you?" "Give him to me." "Give me back my son!" "Father?" "Judah?" "Something's happened." "This is all that's left." "We can't find his body." " What?" " We've been searching everywhere." "A beast must have taken him." "No." "My son." "I'm sorry." "My son..." "Joseph." "Sometimes in this darkness we forget where you stand." "We clamor through the fog and cannot find you." "Do you find me beautiful?" "Yes." "And yet you do not look at me." "Look at me now." "Tell me I'm beautiful." "You're beautiful." "Do you desire me?" "I am my master's servant." "Yes, but he's gone." "And he won't be back for many days." "Slave." "You will come to my bed." "Slave!" "And you." "What led you over here?" "I had a dream." "Dreams do not lead men in prison." "There is pain in the wilderness." "Your face is hidden." "It's not easy for me to ask you this." "But we need children." "If God is gonna use this family... we have to make hard choices." "Sarah no longer believed" "God could place a child in her womb, so she sent her servant into Abraham's bed." "We hunger for assurance." "But you are a God of the unknown." "Is this the dance of faith?" "Or is this rebellion?" "You are my strength." "Your are my song." "You are my savior." "What do you want here?" "What do you mean?" "Most men that come through here stay a day or two, and move on." "I don't really have anywhere else to go." "I've seen the way you look at her." "Rachel." "And now you want to marry her." "I do." "As soon as I saw you I knew you'd ask." "Here's what I can offer." "Work for me for... seven years." "And I'll give her to you." "This is our inheritance from Adam." "The remnant of Eve." "You gave them all of the garden to roam, with one exception." "And their feet grew tired of the path you placed before them." "For everything we've been given." "And everything we haven't." "Mama." "No, no, no!" "I'm asking you for mercy." "Please." "I'm asking you for mercy." "Shh." "Shh." "You held Noah in that quiet place between life and death." "He floated the waters forty days and forty nights believing that you had not forgotten the promises you once made." "Are you a God who punishes our weakness?" "Do you repay deceit with deceit?" "Put out the light." "Rachel?" "Put out the light." "Laban sent his oldest daughter Leah into Jacob's bed in the middle of the night." "The deceiver had been deceived." "And somewhere Rachel awoke with a broken heart." "Your ways are a mystery." "In time, Joseph became a man who was known to interpret dreams." "Word spread throughout all of Egypt of the man who heard the voice of God." "His name even reached the ears of Pharaoh." "I am not the kind of man who likes to be confused." "If I'm troubled by a dream, someone should be there to explain its meaning." "Last night the gods sent me a dream." "And this morning, no one could tell me the meaning." "I have been told you're a man who hears the voice of God." "I am." "Egypt will see seven years of abundance." "That'll be followed by seven years of famine." "Terrible famine." " And what should I do?" " Please." "I am just a simple prisoner." "Speak openly." "Take one fifth of everything from the years of abundance and store it away for the famine." "Then find a wise leader and put him in charge of distribution." "It's the only way the people will survive what's to come." "I've already found him." "Come with me." "You make kings into slaves and slaves into kings." "Sometimes I imagine you moving across the tops of the mountains, carrying your cup that spills over onto the world." "Let there be another way so that we may be restored." "That's good for today." "No more today." "Come back tomorrow." "Traveler Please." "I have nowhere else to go." "I said no more today." "Come back tomorrow." "My family is desperate." "We have no food." "Don't make me beg you." "Did you not hear me, slave?" "No, I'm not leaving without something." "Enough!" "You." "Where are you from?" "Canaan." "We have no food there." "And how many of you have come to Egypt?" "Myself, and my nine brothers." "How many brothers?" "Nine." " You are a spy." " No!" "What?" "Seize him!" "Take him away." "Why?" "What's my crime?" "What have we done?" "Please, please have mercy." "Have mercy!" "He still doesn't know who you are." "Joseph held the lives of his brothers in his hands." "Vengeance stood before him." "But he sent them back to Canaan to bring Benjamin to his table." "How can a heart learn to forgive the guilty?" "I've seen you before." "In a dream." "We stood in the middle of the river and a peace came over me." "It filled my heart." "Like nothing I have ever felt before." "This peace, it came from God." "And I knew..." "I had to help you get back to the place you came from." "After they rebelled against God," "Adam and Eve were banished from the garden." "All of life became a reminder that they could not come home until a price was paid." "It's enough." "It's not enough." "It's never going to be enough." "No!" "No, no, no." "No!" "No!" "No!" "No!" "No!" "Cain murdered his brother and death walked into life and made himself at home." "Who will carry the burden of all we have wrought on the earth?" "We ask to be reconciled." "We want to come home." "Where will you go from here?" "God told me to put him in the river." "You will follow me." "I will show you a way." "Why are you helping me?" "Because this child... will change the world." "Pack your things." "We will leave at first light." "I send my son with a story of who you are." "We stand between these horizons, watching for the light to show us which way to go." "There you say, "Wait."" "There you say, "Trust me."" "Joseph brought his brothers to Egypt, and they sat at his table without knowing his face." "And how is you father?" "He's well." "Tell me about him." "His name is Israel." "He is a man of God." "And you?" "Are you a man of God?" "I'm a man who's made many mistakes." "What is your greatest mistake?" "I don't think I could say." "You brought your youngest brother." "As you wished." "Good." "Then we're all here." "This is all that I could find." "They leave before light." "Let's go home." "Would you steal from the man who showed you mercy?" "Would you take from me after all that I have done?" " No, no, no, no, please." " Go tell your father that one of his sons is a prisoner." " That he is a slave." " Don't take him." "Please?" " Have mercy." " Mercy?" "You're asking me to show you mercy?" "Please." "Take me instead!" "Take me!" "Take me!" "Look at me." "Look at me." "Hey, look at me." "Look at me." "Look at me." "What you have for evil..." "God meant for good." "We cannot lose hope." "We cannot lose sight of where we are going." "We pray to finish the journey you gave us." "To trust you." "We'll get off this boat." "In time, everything will fall into the places you have made." "Jacob worked fourteen years under Laban's watch to take Rachel as his wife." "To you, a moment." "A single step towards building us into your people." "You put the dream in our hearts." "Don't abandon your promises." "Abraham?" "Abraham!" " Yes?" " Yes!" " It's happened?" " Yes." "It's happened." "Always you are shaping our hearts." "Keeping watch over our days." "Weaving one life into another." "Giving us another chance." "God told Abraham to take his son up on the mountain and make a sacrifice of him." "The son he loved." "Isaac." "Wait here, my son." "All of this time you've been pointing us to a day when creation will be restored." "When a price will be paid on our behalf." "Jacob?" "My name is Israel." "Because in the light of this fire, we see ourselves for the first time." "You have saved us." "And you will save us again." "What you have done for me, for Egypt, can never be repaid in full." "I was a prisoner staring death in the face." "My wrists in chains and my stomach empty." "And now," "I have more than I could ever need." "I've been repaid." "Perhaps." "But I'd like to give you one more gift." "This place." "For your family and all of their descendants." "I open Egypt to them as their home." "There are many of us." "Good." "Let them come." "My son." "This is where we came from." "This is where we're going." "So let us build an altar and sing." "Let us tell stories and admire the stars." "Let us dream of those we love and those we have lost." "We will rise by light and face the wilderness once more." "We find that the river flows slowly for many years, and one day has left a canyon." "The rock cannot withstand the mysterious deep, and gives itself away until it is reborn as something beautiful and majestic." "You are the river." "And I, the stone, have been trying to withstand this flood." "We die a thousand times in this wilderness, but you give us strength to overcome." "Here you are, my creator." "Here you are, my maker." "You are not only merciful, you are mercy." "You are not only loving, you are love." "You are not only beautiful, you are beauty." "Take us back to the place we started." "Near you." "Pay our price." "Lead us to the garden." "Let us trust you again." "Mama." "Miriam." "My love." "Why are you crying?" "Where'd you get this?" "Miriam, where'd you get this?" "Come with me." "I'll show you." "Do you trust me?" "**" "Father," "Who is like you?" "You stretch out your hands and lead us in love." "You guide us to the holy mountain." "You are my strength." "You are my song." "You are my savior." "**"