Ch.9: Honolulu

Just on the horizon several days later Honolulu could be seen rising above the calm waters of the Pacific as the Rachel traveled easily along with the winds of that period. Here was a place replete with colorful folks of all sorts from not only the islands but from the continents on either side of the Pacific. The whalers were particularly fond of the ladies plying the oldest profession recorded, but looked with quite a jaundiced eye at the missionaries trying to stop one from buying and the other from selling a multiplicity of wares.

Ishamel was leaning on the rail with Saint Bob and several others as they were making toward port and opened his verbal foray on Bob's beliefs with Mephistophelian duplicity. "Can you explain to me, Saint Bob, why the Old Book says we are supposed to 'go forth and multiply' but has so many instances of the act required being frowned upon, even to the point of death?"

"Multiplication in both mathematics and biology is designed to stay within prescribed boundaries, Ishmael, which are carefully spelled out throughout the Book."

"You mean, one man and one woman should splice themselves 'until death do them part' as those missionaries standing on the dock would say?"

"While you've summed up mathematically the argument, something tells me you'll be dividing some texts to come up with a different answer to the problem than the ancient writers would."

"How do you explain, for instance, that Jacob had four wives instead of just one? Or, his father Abraham splicing with Hagar to produce the 'wild one' for whom I am named and then Sarah to bring forth Israel?"

"On the one hand, I don't explain it. There are simply some things past my understanding, and there's no shame in admitting that. On the other hand, I look at the long list of family names in Matthew and Luke, see many vast sinners and some saints in the ancestry of the Lord Himself, and wonder just what God was up to in using those folks to gain his end. I guess it has to do with Proverbs 16:4, "The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil."

Pappy Ishmael scratched his head, "Then He made Cap'n Ahab, Moby Dick, and the heathens who went down with the Pequod like my friend Queequeg for that very evil day, allowing Moby Dick to swim away from killing all those men, leaving me alone to tell the tale?"

"Well, Ishmael, you use the language of Job's servants who were left when the disasters occurred to his family and herds, so as they were messengers to Job and all of us who read of his story, maybe you were born for a similar purpose, considering you've already begun to write down your tale."

"Now you sound like my mother with all her Presbyterian predestinating and such."

"Well, when you write of the Fates, how far are you from a similar position, except that you give credit to three women instead of a Triune God?!"

"Something tells me this discussion is only going to swirl around like the funnel that took the Pequod to Davy Jones, so I'll think of the ladies ashore I may meet and say, 'Ahoy, Honolulu!' for now!"