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Imagine a warrior with a notepad full of sonnets in his breast pocket, rock-hard chiseled frame, a stone-cold killer, who suddenly, under seemingly divine compulsion, pulls out quill and parchment to record the most vulnerable choruses and refrains. His shoulders and arms bear the clawed and teethed scars of many beastly encounters, yet his hands, as calloused as they may be, prove to be as gentle as his heart. His appetites turn from kingly garb and luxury toward the subtle, simple, and sentimental. A cup of cold water from a well back home is preferred to all the spirits of the world's finest distilleries. His sword-gripping muscular hands, seemingly oversized, can transform to pluck and strum tender melodies on a harp, zither, or guitar. His ferocity is as accessible as his tears. As for his disposition, poet or warrior? Romantic or pragmatist? Reckless or reliant? Who wouldn't want him as a friend? Who wouldn't want him as a brother or a son? Who could ever look into his jovial face and automatic smile and not want to be him? If offended, he grants the benefit of the doubt. If injured, he will twice or thrice forgive. Deep are the roots of a man like this. Many are the complexities of a soul like his, but few are the men who will live as he did. Fathers pledged their daughters to him in marriage just to have him near. Enemies gave him rank and file among their forces so as not to fight against him. His soul was so filled with courage that he inspired the indebted, depressed, and downtrodden. He made warriors of the weak and soldiers of the simple. Because the most menial tasks splashed his imagination with adventure, when he would emerge victorious from a seemingly unwinnable war, it seemed commonplace. Surety and humility, the most unlikely friends, graced his every word. When asked about his military experience, he once replied, "Fear not, I have been keeping sheep." When his enemy disgraced his God and country, such an insult he took personally. When a vetted champion and warlord, whose spear was notched with the lives of hundreds of men, threatened to feed his carcass to the crows, he saw and raised, upped the ante, and said, "But it will end with me taking your head." Then, when standing before the king, the giant's head in his left hand and the giant's sword in his right, he was asked, "Who are you?" Even then he uttered not his own name. "For I am the son of Jesse from Bethlehem." Where do I begin? I can't tell you of his success without telling you of his struggles. You can't understand his kingship without understanding the context. His craft was so much more illustrious than his crown, and his person was more splendor-laden than his palace. So where do I begin? His mighty men? No, they were weak until they knew him. His clout? No, that grew from the damp floor of a cave. His victories? Those were simply the follow-through of a heart set on God. His origins? What? "My dad's name is Jesse?" You can't know David unless you know Jonathan; his only friend. And you can't understand Jonathan's love for David until you can taste the bitter disappointment of being the son of a cowardice king. And you can't know Saul alone. You must also know the orphan, servant, priest, and prophet who once held him up and eventually tore him down. But who reared the orphan to become this king-maker and king-breaker? That was a High Priest, named Eli, an old man then. And little did he know that a customary blessing said in haste to a barren woman named Hannah would be the redemption piece that they both desperately needed. Hannah, then. That is the most fitting place to begin. For where is the man if not for the maiden? Where is the warrior, if not for the woman?
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