Winter Solstice 2021: What a Year

 

          Oh 2021!  What a year.  😳 Have any of us made it through these past two years without some battle scars?  May we have mercy on one another, as each of us is not in “PTSD,” but “DTSD,” During Traumatic Stress Disorder.  

           In my own life this year, I faced two very great losses and changes: my teaching career, much sooner than anticipated, from which I was thankfully able to retire, and a separation from my husband.

            Was COVID involved?  As an accelerator and exacerbator, it was, and I wrote a poem, “Live Together 24/7” that started like this: 

Live together 24/7

But don’t go anywhere 

Don’t do anything 

 Move your office into your bedroom

            Yes, we did move my office and my classroom into our bedroom.  The kids had their rooms while doing school online; my husband had our little office which he had already been using; and my building was considered “COVID condemned” and we were ordered in an email typed in all caps to stay out of our offices and go there only to pick up or drop stuff off.  Since the stories of both my career and my marriage are complex, I’ll just let my office and classroom in our bedroom serve as an apt metaphor for the challenges faced in both of them.  These challenges were dove-tailing and happening all at once.  What a year.  However, I found myself like the child in the “Footprints” poem carried by a heavenly force from Above.  

        What else have I learned?  Well, I’ve compiled a list, and you’ll see it closes with “Let yourself mess up with numbers 1-9!”

Lessons from 2021

1.   Let yourself have mercy on yourself, and on everyone else.  We are all fighting DTSD – During Traumatic Stress Disorder.  Let’s applaud ourselves for making it through not only 2020, but also 2021, and give mercy to ourselves and to everyone else too.

2.   Let yourself feel whatever you feel.  Maybe what you feel is inconvenient.  Maybe it messes with your morality.  Maybe it could even bring pain to someone you love.  Sit with your feelings.  Listen to them.  Try to avoid acting upon them or speaking about them until you can minimize any harm they could cause, and if you mess up on that too, forgive yourself.  But don’t bury your feelings – no matter how inconvenient, “immoral” you think they are, and no matter the temporary pain.

3.   Let yourself be quiet.  Rest from the struggles and quiet yourself.  In time and with much patience, you will hear.  And once you begin to hear, let yourself trust.

4.   Let yourself release whatever is not you – those layers of conditioning sent into you by everyone else over many years and their expectations of you.  Release what is not you so you can begin to discover what really is you.

5.   Let yourself learn from the obstacles of your life.  Obstacles are there for a reason, and they carry a lesson in them.  What does the Spirit wish to teach you from your trials?

6.   Let nothing be forced – even your marriage or your career.  Follow the Flow of Life, and let the Spirit guide you.  You might discover the Spirit flowing into unfamiliar territory, but try not to force the flow, and if it flows into a new place, trust it.

7.   Let yourself have the courage to choose what others might not understand, once you’ve given yourself the space to watch where the Flow is heading.  

8.   Let yourself find new grass.  Sometimes, the grass is greener on the other side.  But you might not see the flowers blooming over there yet.  You might have to lie down on that grass and breathe a while and let yourself heal.

9.   Let yourself be the new authentic self you are discovering yourself to be.  Not everyone will like the new you, and many won’t know how to relate to the new you.  Let that be okay.

10.  Let yourself mess up on numbers 1-9!  We’re learning.  We can’t get all of this right while we’re learning.  We all have a learning curve.  Let that be okay too.

Winter Solstice 2020 

A Head-shaking Lot of Change

 Black Bear Diner, Colorado Springs, June 23, 2012

         “Ethan, remember when you asked me, ‘What will you do?’”  Ethan remembers well from his first lunch with David in March.  The elders of the church where Ethan’s former intern has been serving as a youth pastor had kicked David’s mixed doubles partner out of church for a kiss she and David, both married, shared.  Ethan also learned from his second lunch with David that the elders were not budging on their decision.  All Ethan knows now comes from David’s quick phone call that he has “a head-shaking lot of change” in his life. 

“My mind, at the time you asked, was building a case for the elders to bring her back,” David continues.  “I didn’t know the answer to your question would be that I would quit my job, separate from my wife, and find ways to start pursuing my own dreams.” 

“That is ‘a head-shaking lot of change.’”  Ethan smiles.  He’s cupping his right cheek with his thumb and index, middle, and ring fingers and speaks with calm objectivity.  This is why David trusts the former pastor.  If Ethan is ever agitated by anything David says that is out of the church’s box, he never shows it. 

            “How do you like teaching, Ethan?” 

            “I love it.  Why do you ask?” 

            “Cheyenne Mountain High School is looking for a Health and PE teacher.  Preferably one who can become their new tennis coach.” 

            “And you want to leave the ministry.”  Ethan replies in a neutral voice. 

“Truthfully, I want to return to my childhood dream of teaching and coaching.”  David confides that out of laziness, he gave up on his own dreams and has been living everyone else’s -- his parents’, his church’s, and now his wife Pam’s.  Thankfully, he kept his own dream on the back-burner and minored in Health Sciences and took some Education courses.  Cheyenne Mountain’s principal told him they’d let him earn his teaching certificate over the next few summers. 

“You need to pursue this, David.”  Ethan admits that he had never seen that spark in David’s eyes during David’s internship, and he shares his own satisfaction of his move from pastoring to teaching Hebrew at college.  “Sometimes university politics are vicious, but church rules can be worse.” 

David’s face pales and he looks down at his plate with eyes of sorrow.  He hadn’t realized how far out of keeping Quail Canyon Community Church is with his own values, until Jasmine had approached the church leadership for prayer and accountability after their kiss.  Instead of providing it, they sent Jasmine out of church and told David to quit mixed doubles.  “I’m not going to critique Quail Canyon, but their way isn’t mine anymore--” David’s voice trails off, “--or maybe ever was . . . ?” 

            “You’re finding what you most treasure.  Keep listening to your heart.” 

            “Thank you, Ethan.  Most people, especially in the church, are trying to force me to live what they treasure, or just believe in.”

“That’s because most people live lives of conformity.  They may appear like individuals on the outside.  They dress themselves unique, dye their hair unique, make jokes that sound unique, and put on an exterior of individuality, but they live a life that conforms to whatever group they find themselves in, and Christians are no different.” 

“Conformity.”  David pierces his eyebrows together in concentration.  “Obedience.”  He speaks the word “obedience” almost like a question, with his eyebrows still pierced together.  “It’s interesting that you say that, Ethan, because I’ve spent a lot of time pondering the church’s obsession with obedience as a moral imperative, when sometimes they are asking us to obey the wrong thing.”  

Ethan gives a soft nod while David continues. “I wonder if ‘obedience’ is another word for ‘conformity.’” 

“It can be.  Not always of course.  But conformity, and even too much obedience, can be dangerous.  Hostages have been known to take on not on the mannerisms, but even the crimes of their captors.  Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl described that sort of thing among some of the prisoners who were given guard duties in his book Man’s Search for Meaning.   They are an extreme example, of course, but conformity in much more mundane ways is the norm, and it’s been ingrained into us since childhood.  To overcome it, we have to ‘become like little children’ again.” 

David replies that a return to childhood sounds refreshing.  By the time he was a teenager, he had wanted so much to be “good” that he had forced himself into ministry, forced himself into the tradition that had been handed to him, and then forced himself to love the woman who was pursuing him because that was “easier” than to risk rejection with the woman he really wanted. David shakes his head in regret.  He can’t go backwards and change his choice in college; nor can he change his choice to marry Pam; but he can go forward before children enter the scene. 

Ethan tries to catch David’s eyes from his bowed head to reassure him he can move forward into whichever direction he is led.  “God did not design marriage to be a trap.” 

David lifts his head and returns Ethan’s gaze.  Go on.  “Marriage is a tangible, external symbol of an internal mystery, the union of the masculine and the feminine within each individual.  Since our external life mirrors our internal self, generally when two partners work on their marriage, they also each grow on the inside too.  Has this been true for you?” 

            David affirms that it has and that it has also helped him rediscover who he really is.  He adds that he and his wife have been seeing a Christian marriage counselor.  “He’s intent on saving our marriage, but not on listening to us.” 

            “Example?” 

“Both Pam and I have been dissatisfied in our marriage, and our counselor insists our dissatisfaction must be about pride or selfishness.  But we’ve been working through that and have both been learning how to love each other better.  But I’ve learned that the heart of my dissatisfaction is about truth: the truth of who I am, of who I love, of what led me into my marriage, of who I was then, and of who I am now.” 

            “A spiritual therapist, Maria Chandler said, ‘The more you wake up to who you are, the more unbearable it becomes to be who you are not.’” 

            David fixes his eyes on Ethan and color returns to his face.  “I needed to hear that.”  He takes a deep breath.  “Pam has told our counselor she married the man I was pretending to be, and she’s even tried to change that man I was pretending to be. I’m neither one.  She also admits the man we are learning I am is not the one she would choose to marry.” 

            Ethan nods with understanding.  “No fault divorce is true for some couples.” 

            A deep exhale runs through David’s body.  Finally, someone from the church, his senior pastor mentor no less, has admitted the legitimacy of his marital trials as no fault by either him nor his wife. 

            “The unified man,” Ethan muses.  “The one Paul called ‘the new man.’  The tradition that raised us both, David, is missing the gems of wisdom by interpreting as literal history stories that were designed to reveal the mysteries of the soul.” 

            “Like what?” 

            “Like the union of the opposites within.  These are first shown in the creation of Adam: from the dust -- the earth part -- and the breath of God -- the spirit part.” 

            “That sounds like the two opposing selves Paul talked about in Romans when he says he does what he doesn’t want to do and doesn’t do what he does want to do.  Maybe the earth part of his is in conflict with the spirit part of him?” 

            “Yes.  This is why I enjoyed mentoring you, David.  You’re quick, and you’re not stuck in what you were taught in seminary.  What a tragedy that Augustine missed this very important creation of our opposing parts within and claimed instead that men were born into ‘Original Sin.’”  Ethan pauses, puzzled.  “His hypothesis has been followed for millennia, yet the Bible presents us as humans in duality, just like Adam was.” 

            Ethan’s explanation resonates with David.  He shakes his head, remembering his seminary training with its paltry two scriptures attempting to support “Original Sin.”  He marvels that he had been pulled into a career that pressured him to teach concepts that made little sense to him. 

            “We see the metaphor of our two opposing selves again and again,” Ethan continues.  “Cain and Abel.  The twins Jacob and Esau.  Isaac and Ishmael.  Joseph and his brothers.  The notion of these competing selves continued in the early Christian church, but the strongest instances of it were in texts removed by the Council of Nicaea.  Did you know, David, that a highly credible gospel that was not included in the canonical Bible records Jesus to have said this . . . ?” 

            "When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female one and the same, so that the male not be male nor the female; and when you fashion eyes in the place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, and a likeness in place of a likeness; then will you enter the kingdom."           

            David shakes his head.  “That statement is a little weird.  Where does it come from?” 

            “The Gospel of Thomas, Saying 22.”    

            “If most of that gospel sounds like that, I can see why they chose not to put it in.” 

            “Yes, the Gospel of Thomas is a list of riddles, sort of like Zen kaons.  They are not for the masses, so the Council of Nicaea probably decided to avoid confusing their parishioners.” 

            “It confuses me too.  What does it mean to you?” 

“I see it saying the Kingdom is about merging the two sides within ourselves into one.  The earth part and the spirit part, the external and the internal, the upper and the lower, and the masculine and the feminine.  This, to me, is the deeper meaning of ‘marriage’: marrying the two parts of ourselves within.”  

Ethan pauses, looks at his former intern, and adds that it also suggests this: “There is a feminine side within you who dreams, and a masculine side within you who acts.  If you suffocate the dreamer from dreaming, the actor can’t act.” 

“Then I’d better start acting on my dreams.”  David gazes out the window.  “That might be easier said than done.” 

“Most certainly,” Ethan affirms.  “But worth it.”

© 2021 by Karina.  All rights reserved.  Please use with permission and/or a link to this blog.

Continue to Jasmine's Serve 

Return to Davie's 2nd conversation with Ethan 

Return to Davie's 1st conversation with Ethan

Jasmine's Journal: Our Completion Within

Dear readers, if you are new to “Just like Eve,” the fictional book I began in 2017, click here for an overview.

June 4, 2012, Jasmine’s home in Colorado Springs, CO

      Tim’s not at ease with my questions, Jasmine writes into her journal.  

Last night, I admitted that I gave Joshua an “F” for committing genocide, and Tim looked at me with eyes that said, “Who are you?  Do I know you?”  I’m not sure he really does.  I haven’t let him know me because I was too busy trying to find “completion” with him.  But something struck me today: I am complete when I am me!

          Jasmine pulls up her pencil and pauses over her revelation.  She makes a vow, prays it, and records it into her journal: 

No more faking the true me.  Help me, Spirit, become complete by being my true self.

          She pauses again and reflects on the difference between how she feels about Davie and how she feels about the man she married, Tim.  Since she has been musing over the concept that perhaps the second curse to Eve – “you will desire your man” – was a curse because the woman feels that she needs to be “completed” by the man, Jasmine now considers something new: 

It’s neither Tim nor Davie who completes me.  Davie helps me be complete, but only because he lets me be me.  Actually, it’s me completing myself by finding myself.

          Jasmine lifts her pencil up to her mouth like a finger that says “shhhh.”  Something mysterious is brewing within her that knows this revelation changes everything.  She does not need a man to be complete.  She just needs one who lets her be herself.  First, of course, she needs to find herself, and this task appears to be baffling in its complexity, seeming to call for the removal of layer upon layer upon layer of conditioning.  She had been conditioned by her parents, her church, her teachers, her community, and seemingly everyone to think in a certain way, and when she thought differently, she was mocked and sometimes even scorned for “thinking at odds.”  Eventually, to make her life easier, Jasmine permitted the conditioning of everyone else’s thinking to permeate into her.  Without even realizing what was happening to her, she became a person she didn’t recognize anymore.  Nor even like.

A whisper comes to her: Remember what Gabbie said?   The film strip of her conversation with her friends at The Alley begins to roll, and she prays for help to remember.  Bit by bit, enough returns.  She recalls Gabbie saying we each carry within ourselves a feminine principle and a masculine principle within, and some spiritual traditions teach that the masculine principle is dead without the feminine principle, and the feminine principle can’t act without the masculine principle.  Gabbie’s summary now comes back: “our inner feminine and our inner masculine need to harmonize themselves with each other.  Unless both our inner masculine and our inner feminine are alive and well, we’re stuck.”

It’s not about human people who might have lived named Adam and Eve, Jasmine records into her journal.  It’s about finding wholeness within.  We discover ourselves complete when our masculine and feminine parts come together.

With this new insight, Jasmine is eager to re-read the text of Adam and Eve.  Will it shed any further light?  Remarkably, it does.  The story carries a theme of unity and separation.  Adam was one being, but he was formed from two parts: dust of the earth (his fleshly nature) and the breath of God (his spiritual nature), suggesting a duality and a separation.  Then a rib is removed from him to create Eve, and they become two beings.  But they still have unity: they are walking in Eden together with the Creator, united with this divine force.  Later, they eat from a tree called “knowledge of good and evil.”  Duality: “good” and “evil,” or forces that are separate.  Upon these forces, now separate, the man and the woman also find themselves separate from one other.  Or, at least, they see themselves that way, as “their eyes were opened.” Upon seeing differently, one of them blames the other: “She made me do it.”  Again, they see and feel as if they are separate.  Finally, they are sent from Eden and find themselves separate from this Creator.  The story begins with unity and ends with separation.  

But are they really separate? Jasmine wonders.  Is it simply that they see differently and think they are separate when they really aren’t?

Jasmine is beginning to land upon a concept that mystics throughout the ages have called “the illusion of separation.”  We really aren’t separate, but we think we are, and discovering our unity is part of what this life on Earth is designed to teach us.

Could it be, Jasmine wonders, that this experience of completion, of unity within, is what Jesus calls the kingdom of heaven?  Jesus makes this entrance sound so simple: we just need to become like little children.  Of course, he also adds in mysterious remarks, like telling us to make our eye single.  Peter is blunt, calling entrance into the kingdom a “fiery trial,” and Luke says it comes only by way of “many tribulations.”

Ironically, one of Jasmine’s tribulations is that the closer she feels she’s coming to a single eye, the more she confuses and upsets the man she made a life-long vow to.  Is that vow one of the layers of conditioning she needs to peel off?  She shudders at that notion.  That would make for a harrowing double tribulation of both her marital trial and the trial of shifting away from one of the most powerful forms of conditioning her culture enforces.  Both of these trials terrify her.  Yet another would be even worse: cutting off the process that has begun in her to become her true self.  She has begun to find herself irritated by her former self, the one who had adopted the thinking of other people who had told her what to think and how to think.  The only person within her that she can truly love is the authentic, complete one, the one who is finding truth and unity within herself.

When she met Davie, he let her think for herself, and some of the layers of conditioning began to come off.  For the first time since she was eleven, Jasmine has begun to discover her true self.  She marvels that she is also discovering the very completion she had been seeking, and thought she had needed from a man.  Perhaps she has begun to glimpse into the kingdom of heaven.

Jasmine’s mind is spinning so fast she’s stuck on what to write next into her journal.  But she closes with a question she had never anticipated: 

Could some of the tribulations into the entrance of the kingdom involve not only thinking, but even living, quite different than what is taught by the very churches who follow the teacher who pointed the way into the kingdom?

© 2021 by karina.  All rights reserved.  Please use with permission and/or a link to this blog post.

Continue to Head-shaking Lot of Change

Eve's Test

 Thursday, May 26, 2012

            “Girl!  You did what?!!”

            Jasmine’s heart skips a beat as she reads Mindy’s text.  Jasmine had texted Mindy six hours ago to share her tour of Focus on the Family and her question to Dr. Dobson about the two lesser known curses to Eve and closed, “Call me.”  Mindy usually replies quickly and with a phone call, if asked. Jasmine had hoped her best friend would be proud of her, but these four words, with a question mark and three exclamation points worry her.  Mindy sounds not proud, but shocked. 

Jasmine was bold.  Maybe too bold.  Again, now at 32.  At eleven, she was curious, cared about people, and didn’t perceive herself as bold, and certainly not belligerent as a few people sometimes said.  Then she learned to shut her mouth, and now she’s opening it again.  Asking questions of authorities like Dobson still didn’t feel bold to her, just natural.

Perhaps because she was the forgotten middle child, Jasmine listened first to the wisdom within her and second to anything from anyone else.  She hadn’t learned the concept of listening first to those seen as authorities.   Nor did Jasmine realize that her inclination wasn’t normal.  Most people heed the words of their authorities.  Sometimes, when her parents rebuked her for “thinking at odds,” they also mused that she must have been listening to this person or that person, all of whom her parents condemned, and none of whom Jasmine had ever heard of.  On such occasions, she would gaze back quizzically, wondering who these people were, wishing she could meet them, and hoping they too might think at odds.

But, starting at the age of eleven, Jasmine began to learn that most people accept the words of their authorities, even when those words sound senseless and she began to learn the art of pretending: pretend to agree with your authorities; pretend to “think at evens.”  Eventually, pretending got tiresome.  Couldn’t she simplify her life with agreement? 

Then she met Tim.  Tim was an archer, and very skilled, not only at the sport, but also at firing his arrow to into the bulls-eye of agreement with authorities.  If an authority says leaves turn red in the summer, then they turn red in the summer.  If an authority gives out a list of rules, Tim follows those rules.  Simple.  How does he do that?  By the time they met, Jasmine could no longer exert the energy to respond to the rebukes she received for thinking at odds.  If only she could marry a guy who’s good at thinking at evens, then perhaps she too could acquire that skill.  At the time, Tim seemed as though he was the perfect groom.

Once Jasmine learned the concept that authorities know best, and that the character in the Bible called “God” is the biggest authority of them all, she found herself further perplexed: why would this big authority command something bad, or forbid something good?  And when this authority does, what should one to do?  Should one do anything about it, or say anything?  Jasmine, unable to contain her sense that one should, muses that such a choice is like a test.  As a teacher, Jasmine couldn’t help but to the give the biblical characters a grade.

Noah seemed to have nothing to say to God, and if he did, it might have gone something like this: “I understand, God.  You wish to flood the planet and kill everyone, but save my family and a pair of each animal species?  What would you like me to do?  Build a boat?  Yes, Sir.”  Noah didn’t do the killing, but to Jasmine’s way of thinking, he acted as an accomplice.  Jasmine gives him a D.  Joshua committed genocide.  F.  But Abraham spoke eloquently and respectfully when God wanted to destroy two cities, and he managed to bargain a deal out of God.  A.

What about Eve?  Her situation was different.  Eve didn’t yet know what was “good” because she hadn’t yet eaten of this knowledge.  But Jasmine notices the story says Eve saw that the tree was good and desirable for attaining wisdom, suggesting that she intuitively understood that it would advance her consciousness – something good. 

Why, Jasmine, marveled, would the Creator forbid something good?  Knowing what is good to do and what is not good to do: shouldn’t that be something the Creator should want?  And why would this Creator punish his creations for doing wrong before they learned to do right?  Wouldn’t they need to gain “knowledge of good and evil” first? 

Wishing to give the Creator in this story the benefit of the doubt -- especially since he is called “God” -- Jasmine wondered whether “good and evil” meant dualism, a manner of thought that can bring trouble and suffering.  But isn’t any advance of consciousness, whether or not it brings suffering, better than no advance? 

To Jasmine, Eve could not have failed her test because she chose not to obey a command that would have kept her stagnant in ignorance, but she also barely passed her test because she didn’t stand up to God.  Unlike Abraham, she didn’t say, “Hold on a moment, God.  Since knowledge is good, this command of yours is bad.  Can we strike a deal?”  Instead of facing God and asking for a better deal, she went forth on her own.  Better than Noah, but not as good as Abraham.  She gets a “C.”

No matter how Jasmine reads the story, Eve is hardly the villain she’s been made out to be.  Not, however, by the eyes her church or its entire tradition.  From their point of view, Eve failed her test.  She disobeyed the biggest authority of them all, and no matter how petty or cruel that authority’s command may be, disobedience of an authority so great is the ultimate sin, and, according to this tradition, Eve and all her daughters are to be rebuked.

Perhaps then it was better for Jasmine that she was cast from her church.  At least now, she has the freedom to think on her own, no matter how “odd.”

Can she explain any of this to Mindy?  Jasmine doesn’t know what she’d do if her best friend thinks she went too far.  For the rest of the afternoon, Jasmine keeps checking her phone and breathing, hoping her friend will understand.  At least it’s Mixed Doubles Night.  Soon she should see her friend in person.

Glendale Racquet Club, 6:45 pm

Jasmine has arrived to the warm-up room early, her heart pumping, still concerned over her friend’s response to her question to Dr. Dobson.  When Mindy walks through the door, with a glowing smile on her face, Jasmine releases a great breath.  Her chest loosens so deeply, she’s struck by how tight it had been.

Mindy, light-hearted in face and voice greets her.  “Who are you?!” Mindy asks with a chuckle and a tease and a clear love in her voice, “Sending messages to James Dobson?!”  Mindy laughs again.  Jasmine joins her in the laugh and admits she couldn’t pass up the opportunity to find out what a true Christian patriarch might say to her questions about the second two curses to Eve, “your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”

Still laughing, Mindy says, “I don’t think most men rule over their wives, Jazzie.  Actually, it seems a lot of wives rule over their husbands!”

Jasmine chuckles.  “That’s probably true, Mindy.  But have you read any of James Dobson’s books?”

“Thankfully no,” Mindy groans, with a roll in her eyes.

“Well, my friend,” Jasmine pats Mindy on the shoulder, “you are blessed for that.  His books were practically required reading in my family, and he, admittedly with subtlety, seems to advocate husbands ruling over their wives.”

“And he runs a Christian organization,” Mindy laughs.  “Jazzie, you are crazy for doing this, but now you’ve hooked me.  The suspense is killing me.  What did he say?”

            Jasmine takes a deep breath and pulls out two small sheets, a photocopy of her inquiry to Dr. Dobson for his opinion about the curse to Eve to desire her husband and the next one that “he will rule over you,” and a print-out of the reply she received.   Mindy reads Jasmine’s inquiry first, then she turns to the reply from Focus on the Family:

     “Dear Jasmine,

     Thank you for joining one of our tours this week and for taking the time to place your question.  The doctor receives so many messages, he can’t respond to them all, but we did bring your question to him.  He said he can appreciate that this passage understandably confuses you.  Theological discussions are outside of the mission of Focus on the Family, and for inquiries like yours, we suggest you consult with the Billy Graham Foundation.

In case this passage might be relevant to you personally, we have many counselors who can offer you support free of charge.  Please let us know if you would like to consult with one of them about any personal relationship of you may have yourself, and we will connect you with one.

Thank you again.”

Mindy groans.  “Can we say condescending?” 

“I know,” Jasmine sighs.

“I wonder if he figured you were putting him to the test, and he didn’t want to go there, so he decided to be condescending?”

“Maybe,” Jasmine chuckles, catching Mindy’s point that she had put ‘the doctor’ to the test.  “But I hope I got him to at least think.”

“Or be ‘confused’?”

“Yes!” Jasmine laughs, “Or be confused!”

Mindy joins Jasmine in a laugh.  She pauses.  Mindy knows Jasmine has been ordered out of her church and that this question is personal to her.  She gives her friend a sympathetic smile, slows down her speech, and lowers her voice.  “He’s not worth a reply, Jazzie.”

“I know.  I am tempted to reply, to share how I see it, and even that patriarchal leaders like him need to repent of that ‘he will rule over you’ curse!”  Jasmine chuckles at herself.  Maybe this time, she is feeling belligerent.

Mindy smiles with understanding.  “I hear you.  Let it go, and just let him be confused!” 

A Truly New New?

Colorado Springs, CO, Saturday, May 19, 2012

         “Tim was the rock that I needed then, and now I’m like a ball rolling down the hill, rolling further away from him.”  How did that analogy enter her mind? Driving home from Glendale Racquet Club, Jasmine reflects on her remarkable conversation at Glendale’s sports bar, the Alley, where she and her friends had lunch after their tennis match.  Gabbie asked why Jasmine had married Tim, and Jasmine marvels that out of her mouth came a reply so quick and intuitive.

            How will this inconvenient truth complicate their attempts to follow through on that three word phrase everyone is calling of them: to “save their marriage”?  How might their marriage counselor respond?  He’s been encouraging them to seek ways to recreate themselves into something new and fresh, not a new version of their old selves, but “a truly new new” couple.  Jasmine smiles, repeating that lovely phrase to herself, “a truly new new.”  He’s the right counselor for her.  But what about for Tim?  Is this counselor the right one for him too, and does he also want “a truly new new”?  She lit up when their counselor used that phrase.  Then she looked over at Tim, stoic.

            A red light.  Thank goodness.  A pause for Jasmine’s mind.  Her thoughts are traveling too fast and to places too unwelcome.  To recreate themselves as a couple, it seems to her only two options exist: either Jasmine the ball climbs back up that hill to Tim the rock, or Tim the rock magically becomes a ball and starts rolling down the hill too.  Even a compromise half-way point means she’d still have to roll herself backwards, uphill.  She has no desire to stop the roll; it’s her natural, authentic expression.  And a transformed Tim makes more sense for them to become “truly new new.” 

But rock to ball isn’t in Tim’s character.  A ball is not his authentic expression.  Actually, he makes a really great rock.  That authentically outstanding rock is what attracted her to him.  Is there a third option?  Could he remain the rock and she the ball, rolling ever further away, and can they still save their marriage?  Perhaps he could become ever more excited about her, this new, adventurous ball.  He doesn’t seem to be, though, for which Jasmine is oddly grateful.  And even if he were, could she still be enticed by the rock?  When she’s traveling further away from it?

            Green light.  Time to store away that question for their marriage counselor.  Breathe, Jasmine, breathe out your anxiety.  She tries to command herself to quit troubling over that seemingly that impossible quandary, but she can’t.  Nor can her mind refuse another inevitable question.  Even if Tim feels the same way she does, if the rock and the ball no longer fit together as mutually supportive partners, how will their families, their friends, and their church community, from which she has been thankfully ousted, ever understand this? 

Jasmine lets out a deep sigh.  Jasmine isn’t yet ready to affirm to herself that she’s more worried over her community’s response to what the answer might be than to the answer itself.  Still, she asserts to herself that no blame should come upon either ball or rock for a distance that is increasing and has come upon them naturally.  And this distance is coming mostly from the traveling inexplicably initiated from within her, which is growing her, from a force seemingly divine.   

The church, of course, won’t see it this way.  They especially won’t accept that sense of hers when the elders know Jasmine accepted a passionate kiss from their youth pastor.  No, if Jasmine and Tim cannot “save their marriage,” their community will not understand, something Jasmine may need to come to terms with.

Another red light.  Saved again.  Jasmine chuckles.  She usually hates red lights.  But her conversation with her tennis friends has even more enticing nuggets, ones that aren’t so narcissistic and that are relevant for any woman, and man too.  The most relevant one for all men and women -- Eve representing an inner life force -- as Gabbie suggested, is still a little too far-out for Jasmine’s evangelical conditioning.  Perhaps in a decade, Jasmine, like her author, will be mulling over that one, but she isn’t there yet.  Her mind still operates under her evangelical training.

Yet that same training is what is opening her eyes, that training that taught her how to read the Bible, to take it seriously, to read it literally, and to examine every word.  For the essential words, she was even shown how to use Strong’s Concordance of the Bible to investigate the word in its original language and its the meanings and associations from its original language and context.

How could the very evangelical training that taught her how to read the Bible present an entirely different perspective on the Adam and Eve story than the interpretation of the story from that same tradition?  How have the evangelical leaders missed the meaning of the Hebrew word ezer, translated better as “life-saver” than “helper” for the creation of woman for the man? 

And how have they not puzzled over the character in the story, Elohim, translated as “God,” as an especially troubling, sinister character?  One who forbids something good – knowledge?   Who then severely punishes his creations for disobeying him before they had even attained the knowledge of obedience?  The text presents Elohim/God telling his creations, “Do not learn what good and evil is.”  Then when they did learn, Elohim/God said, “Now that you have learned what I ordered you not to learn, I will severely punish you.”

Naturally, most evangelical leaders would scoff at Jasmine for such an absurdly literalist reading of the Bible.  But that is what they had taught her to do.  From Jasmine’s point of view, they can’t have it both ways.  Either they interpret the Bible the way they teach, or they permit alternative ways to read the Bible, but not both.

Then there are the questions about Eve that Jasmine is most eager to ask of the church leaders: how have they missed the second two curses to Eve?  Why do they pretend those curses don’t exist?  Are the curses too inconvenient for them?

Perhaps they are, but, if so, Jasmine finds it amusing that the church should have a solution: Jesus.  According to the church, with Jesus, we are to overcome our curses, right?   With Jesus, men should no longer be ruling over women, right?  And shouldn’t Jesus be the evangelical answer to the second curse to Eve?  Should not the woman, in place of longing for her earthly man, be longing for her Heavenly Man of Christ?  Could that be why that middle phrase to Eve from Elohim/God, “your longing will be for your man,” is a curse at all?  Is the woman longing for an earthly substitute of a heavenly force?

            Not that Jasmine has learned any of this for herself, of course.  She still longs for an earthly man, and the one she longs for, inconveniently, is not her husband.  Perhaps her own curse, then, is even worse than the one suggested by the story, that she overly long for her husband.  But according to the teachings of her church, isn’t Jesus supposed to be the “answer” to her “curse”?  If she can “seek first the kingdom of God,” through her heavenly man of Christ, would she then be set free from this “curse”?

Divine synchronicity appears on the road sign ahead.  It’s one Jasmine has seen almost every day for years and has rarely paid attention to, but now it stands before her at a remarkable moment for her thought process.  “FOCUS on the FAMILY” reads the top of the billboard in great big teal lettering, with the first and the last words in all caps.  The C of “FOCUS” is wedded like a ring to its partner, the O.  At the bottom of the sign are two words, “Next right,” in smaller, but nevertheless visible lettering.  Between the heading and the directions is that very familiar smiling face, looking scholarly and authoritative in his grey-rimmed glasses and barely thinning and greying hair: Dr. James Dobson, President of this powerful organization, headquartered in Jasmine’s own town of Colorado Springs.

How might he reply to her question?  Jasmine pulls into her driveway.  Her smile takes on a mischievous curve.  Once inside, she wastes no time to visit the Focus website and book a tour for Monday afternoon.  Then she handwrites her question to give to the tour guide to pass along to the infamous doctor:

“Dear Dr. Dobson, I’ve been studying the story of Adam and Eve, and I’ve been curious about two phrases I had never known were given to Eve as part of her curse, and I’d like to know your take on them.

What do you think is meant by the curse from God to Eve: ‘your longing shall be for your man’ in Genesis 3:16?  What about the next phrase?  What do you think is meant by ‘and he will rule over you’?”

Beneath her question, Jasmine provides her name, email address, and phone number.  She takes a deep breath.

* * * * *

Postscript: while drafting the never finished non-fiction book, The Feminine Mystery, from 2008-10, I emailed Dr. Dobson the question above on these two rarely acknowledged phrases given to Eve.  A few days later, one of his staff members replied.  For the actual reply of Focus on the Family to the above question, return for the next installment of this story next month on this blog.  See you then, Karina

© 2021 by karina.  All rights reserved.  Please use only with permission and/or a link to this blog post

Continue to Eve's Test

The Inner Feminine: Life-giver, Life-saver, Life Force?

 Glendale Racquet Club, Colorado Springs, CO, Saturday, May 19, 2012

             “Where’s Davie been, Jasmine?”  Gabbie is stretching her left leg at the front of Court 1.  ”BD says he’s taking a break,’ but it’s been over three months.  He’s still going to Men’s Night.  Why’s he not coming to Mixed Doubles Night?”  

Jasmine bends forward and touches the floor between her straightened legs, wondering how she might reply.  The four friends have Court 1 reserved most Saturdays for their own doubles game.   On Thursday evenings, Glendale reserves half of its courts for Mixed Doubles Night, where Jasmine has been Davie’s standard partner.  For men’s doubles, he partners with BD.  

“BD said I should ask you,” Gabbie continues.  “Do you know what’s up with him?”

             Mindy shoots her partner a worried look.  Jasmine pulls herself up and slightly squeezes her left cheek and lip as she looks back at Mindy.  The truth can be concealed no longer.  She stands up, cups her chin with her thumb and two fingers, and turns to Gabbie.  “We kissed.  The church is mad.  They don’t want us to see each other.”

             “You kissed?” Kristin’s mouth widens. 

            “You?  And Davie?” Gabbie picks up a ball, bounces it, and shakes her head.  “And the church?” 

            “--is freaked out.  He’s the youth pastor.  He’s not supposed to do stuff like that.”

             “So they’re punishing him by taking away the sport that keeps him sane from them?”

             “They don’t see it that way,” Jasmine sighs.

             Mindy taps Gabbie on the shoulder.  “They’re punishing Jasmine even more.  They’ve kicked her out of church.” 

            Gabbie turns to face Mindy and scrunches her eyes.  For real?  Mindy nods. Gabbie shifts to stretch her right leg and turns to Jasmine.  “How do you feel about that?” 

            “I was steaming mad,” Jasmine replies, adding that she was judged without a hearing, then sent off.  “What Bible do they read?”  She shakes her head, perplexed.  In a voice so quiet her friends can barely hear it, Jasmine mumbles her own answer.  “Not the one I read.”  But now, she is resolved.  She lifts her head up.  “The real punishment is not seeing my partner, my friend, and--” Jasmine sighs, “--the one I can’t quit thinking about.” 

            Kristin quietly pulls out a can of balls, bounces one, then bounces it to Jasmine with a smile.  “Let’s play.” 

            Since their opening conversation distracted Jasmine, Gabbie and Kristin take decisive wins.  As the friends walk into The Alley, Glendale’s sports bar, for lunch, they see four large screen TVs showing Tiger Woods making a putt on The Alley’s ESPN station.  “We’ve got to hear about that kiss,” Gabbie teases, while pulling out her seat to sit down.  “Order a real drink on me.”  She smiles and winks at Jasmine.  “But get your own lunch.” 

            Jasmine points to the daiquiri special on the table’s triangular drink menu.  “Daiquiris for us all!” Kristin lifts her right hand with cupped fingers, like she’s already holding the drink, and raises it to a toast.  “Is this your first?” Jasmine usually orders pop, while the others order beer or wine or something more fun.   Jasmine smiles.  “No, not quite.”  

Leaning over the table so she can whisper, Jasmine tells her friends about the kiss, its magic, her nightly recollections of it, and confides her longing for love-making with Davie. 

            “So you do fantasize sex with him?” Mindy teases.  Jasmine blushes.  Time to shift the topic.  “I’m trying to scheme a way to reconnect with him.  I can’t go to Men’s Night. I’ve been blackballed from church.  Where else can I find him?” 

            “You can’t just text him?” Kristin asks. 

“What would I text?”   

            As hard as it’s been to have been cast out of church and to go three months without seeing Davie, Jasmine shares she’s been learning more than ever before: about herself, Tim, her marriage, why it worked when they got married and why it’s not working now, and also about women and what the church says the Bible says about them that the Bible doesn’t say. 

            Gabbie and Kristin stare at their friend.  “That’s a lot.”  Gabbie takes a long sip of her daiquiri. “Why did your marriage work when you got married, but doesn’t now?”           

            “Tim was the rock I needed then, and now I’m more like a ball rolling down the hill, rolling further away from that rock.” 

            “I get that, Jazzie.” Kristin smiles.  “But I’m curious.  What have you learned the church says the Bible says about women that the Bible doesn’t say?”  Kristin had been raised in a conservative, Christian home, and in middle school, she refused to keep homeschooling.  Then in high school, she rebelled against the church altogether, a choice she and her parents still argue over. 

Jasmine moves forward in her seat and rests her arms, crossed, on the table.  “I started at the Beginning, and I can’t even get past those first three chapters of Genesis.  The writer – or writers – of these chapters were so forward-thinking, but the church has turned the story upside down, especially when they demonize Eve, and then leave out how she was cursed, and they leave out their responsibility to repair that curse.  Right there, in that story we think we’ve all read, Eve was cursed to be ‘ruled over’ by her man.  You won’t hear pastors admit that.” 

Kristin chuckles.  Jasmine nods and says she’s just discovered something new, a tantalizing play on words the translators missed.  “You know that pesky little verse that calls the woman the man’s ‘helper’?” 

“Yeah, like we’re second-class,” Kristin groans, “here to ‘help’ the gender that really matters.” 

“I think it’s an error of translation,” Jasmine whispers.  “For centuries, the translators haven’t known what to do with the actual Hebrew word, ezer.” 

“How do you think it should be translated?” 

“Let’s start with Eve.  In Hebrew, Eve, or Havah, means ‘life-giver.’” 

“She gives birth, so she gives life,” Mindy replies. 

“It fits, right?”  Jasmine takes another sip of her daiquiri.  “And ezer means ‘life-saver.’”  Jasmine tells her friends ezer is used 21 times in the Hebrew Bible, and in every instance other than its application to the creation of woman, ezer suggests warrior-like power and strength.  It’s usually applied to God Himself as an ezer to the people of Israel or to David or to Moses.  Moses even named his second son Eliezer and gave this reason: “The God of my father was my ezer and delivered me from the sword of Pharoah.” 

“Powerful.”  Kristin is impressed with her friend. 

“In Psalms 33, 70, and 115, King David often called the Lord his ‘ezer and shield’ or ‘ezer and deliverer,’” Jasmine continues.  She pulls out her phone, opens her Bible app, and reads out of Deuteronomy 33, where God “rides the heavens to your ezer, or salvation,” and the Lord “saves” from the root ezer, like a “shield” and a “sword” with enemies “cowering,” while He “tramples their high places.” 

“That’s more than a mere ‘helper,’” Mindy says, shaking her head. 

“No doubt.  From these other uses, it seems as if ezer is more like a life-saver, and a play on words for Eve as ‘life-giver.’” 

“Wow, that changes everything.”  Kristin shakes her head in disbelief.  “Our identity as women takes on a whole new perspective."

“I don’t feel like a life-saver, though,” Mindy confesses.  “I think I’m looking for a man to be my life-saver.” 

“That’s also interesting, Mindy.”  Jasmine takes a breath.  “Eve was given three curses.  We all know the first: child-bearing.  The third is that chilling one that Eve’s man would ‘rule over’ her.  But the second one is the most interesting to me: that she will ‘long for’ or ‘desire’ her man.  Maybe what you’ve just said is part of it.  Maybe she longs for him to be a life-saver to her.” 

Gabbie’s eyes widen.  She slowly nods.  “So it works both ways?  Both men and women can long for one another to be each other’s life savers?”  Gabbie ruffles through her hair, searching her memory.  “I think I remember learning that the Hindus say that Shakti, the feminine principle, represents the life force.” 

Jasmine raises her head.  Life-force? 

“Shiva, the masculine principle,” Gabbie continues, “is said to become a corpse without Shakti, his life-force.” 

"Shiva is the masculine, active principle, the one who acts in the world," Gabbie tells her friends.  "Shakti, the feminine, represents the life force, enabling the masculine to act.  Both are within us.  Our inner masculine relies upon the life force of the feminine within each of us.  Our inner masculine, the one who acts upon the world, is the initiator, but the feminine gives the masculine the energy and the impulse to initiate."  

The merger of Shiva and Shakti, as Gabbie understands the teaching, point to something deep: "our inner feminine and our inner masculine need to harmonize themselves with each other."  The friends, silent, keep their eyes on Gabbie, who takes a drink and continues. “Unless both our inner masculine and our inner feminine are alive and well, we’re stuck.” 

“So what you’re saying,” Mindy muses, “is that Eve might also represent our inner feminine, our own life-force, and that Adam might represent our own inner masculine, our internal initiator?” 

“If so,” Kristin replies, “any blame of women for whatever people think Eve may have done, even if she did exist, must be misguided.” 

“Very true, Kristin,” Gabbie nods.  “Yes, Mindy, that is what I wonder.  Carl Jung says the same thing, using his own words of ‘anima’ and ‘animus’ for the inner feminine and inner masculine.  They need to merge within us.  We need to let our inner feminine be a life-saver to our inner masculine, so it can initiate.” 

Jasmine takes a long slow sip of her daiquiri.  Is her head spinning from the daiquiri or from what Gabbie is suggesting?  No, her mind is too riveted.  “Life-giver,” “Life-saver,” “Life Force” as the “inner feminine”?  For both men and women? 

These notions are like nothing Jasmine has been raised to believe, yet they suggest truth more genuine than anything she’s been taught.  She feels her spine tingle with electricity.

Continue to "A Truly New New"