Ishmael had to be born

 

What if I am invisible, do I still exist? 

Esse est percipi (to be is to be perceived) is a famous line by George Berkeley, a seventeenth-century empiricist. But Berkeley was not the first person to reveal that existence is dependent on being seen. This ideology was born in the desert, near a spring beside the road to Shur. 

Hagar, a servant of Sarai, ran away to that road after she conceived. Sarai assumed that the unborn child was a mistake – a backup plan for when the covenant her husband made with the creator failed. So Sarai abused Hagar for the tomorrow she was holding in her womb. 

But near that spring, Hagar met the messenger of the creator. He told her to go back to her abuser and suffer at her hands. Now, for a twentieth-century reader, this might sound odd. How could a loving creator hand her over to the one who mistreated her? Why would he allow suffering? 

Hagar found the answers to these questions just by meeting the messenger. She named the well Beer Lahai Roi, her esse est percipi. Because she was invisible in that desert. She could not exist any longer. And yet somebody cared. Someone saw her.  

Later in Genesis (21:20), we discover that God was with Ishmael (Hagar’s baby); the creator wanted him to be born. Even though Ishmael was not the covenant child, he was still valued. But if he was to be born, Hagar had to survive. And by no means could she bear a child in the desert. So the messenger saw her when she was invisible and cared enough for her unborn son. And that is why the messenger told Hagar to go back to her mistress: because Ishmael had to be born! Ishmael had been seen; he existed in the eyes of the creator.  

The creator is still at work. He perceives those who are invisible.