The glare. It came at you, white and fierce, defying you to take one more step into the sun. Yet there was something benevolent about it, something beckoning, a guide toward the promised land.

Abram squinted. He was never one for bright lights. They reminded him too much of Ur. It was, he recalled, a world in flames. The furnaces built for the Great Tower were discovered to have many uses; soon Ur was full of them, brick-making kilns and sacrificial altars and stakes at which heretics were burnt. The Tower's site grew dotted with the light of a thousand fires, crackling sparks and muffled screams, black smoke, burnt flesh.

Abram hated it. Every morning, as his brothers would leave to go to work on the Tower, Abram would go the other way. "Hebrew", his brothers would taunt him, "Other-sider".

Outside the city, in the cool of a cavern, Abram would think about Him, and was comforted. He, the source of all that was good, all that was righteous and just. There was no place for Him in this wicked world, Abram knew, yet he still believed in Him. The thought of His being gave him peace.

Until the day his brother fell from the Tower. Abram returned from his cavern to see Haran's body lying beside the bricks and mortar, builders stepping over it as they passed.

Something broke within him. He railed against Ur and its Tower, against the cruelty of this world, against Him. The Judge of all the earth who does not do justice. His cries were stifled by a pair of heavy arms, seizing and hurling him into the furnace.

There Abram saw Him, His glory ablaze among the flames. "I am He", the flames whispered, "Judge of all the earth, Master of this burning universe, and you are the one I've been waiting for. Walk before Me, Hebrew. Bring My light into the world."

Abram looked back into the glaring horizon. "Walk before Me". He took a deep breath and stepped forth, into the light.