The Honest Eyes of the Prophet

Abstract

Although innocent, the young Joseph found himself in prison, thrown again to the bottom of a pit. That prison, however, also became the site of the full bloom of his vocation, the one that had been announced to him by the prophetic dreams of his boyhood. Those early dreams got him to Egypt as a slave; the dreams that he interprets now in the land of the Nile will be the road that will make his great youthful dreams come true, and they will help him find his brothers who sold him and his father. It is in a prison where a new phase in the life of Joseph begins, the decisive one for himself and for his people. In that pit, from the teller of his own dreams Joseph becomes the interpreter of the dreams of others. As a boy he only told the story of his dreams, but did not interpret them. The pain he felt over being hated and sold by his brothers, becoming a slave and then being imprisoned helped him mature and discover his own self. And in the crucible of suffering and injustice he discovered his vocation: he became a servant of the dreams of others. And it was his salvation.