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

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