Journal

Because of the fall we, humans, try to create a different version of ourselves than the one which God created. Why would they choose to make the Tower of Babel out of bricks, not stone, especially for something that would reach "heaven"? Man makes bricks out of dirt, the same substance from which he is made. So in essence the Tower of Babel represented man trying to, on his own, build this new, human created form up to God.
They built the tower because they didn't want to be scattered, yet God scattered as a punishment for building the tower. Ironic.

I always imagined Abram in a tent or two with his small circle of children when God called them to leave for a new land. I didn't see his departure as an exceptionally hard choice, excepting the strain that comes from moving to a new place. It is true that he didn't know to where he was following God, but that seemed like the only real difficult part of the situation. He didn't live by himself in a few tents, he lived in a city, a small empire built with his father and mother, brothers and sisters, family judges, family livestock, and example of the completed promise of many offspring. God called Abram away from this full-grown, prosperous set up. He had the logical promise of all that a good man of that time could want to inherit, and God called him away. Abram literally gave up the inheritance of a nation for the inheritance that God offered him. One offered stability with the promise of a solid, pre-established system, and the other offered limitless possibilities (that means death and the loss of the family name as well as recognition and a great nation) with no base on which to establish a nation, not even a fertile wife. When God offers for us to walk together, it goes away from everything we ever wanted and offers nothing at all in face value. We must literally walk away with no hope of getting anything at all from the decision. Christians must be lemmings, following God where ever he goes even if it is off a cliff. We must become almost self-destructive, losing all regard for ourselves for the sake of this unexplainable love. 

Sacrifice is ugly. Sacrifice is gross and bloody. When I think of sacrifice, I think of a paster with a self appreciating smile on his face speaking metaphorically from the podium of a serene chapel. Sacrifice doesn't bring smiles, at least not a smile for yourself. A happiness for the person who benefitted from the sacrifice causes a smile, but the slaughtered thinking at all of himself will not bring a smile. If it is a real sacrifice, the slaughtered loses life. It becomes fractured, no longer whole by itself.