Jasmine's Serve

Dear friends and readers, the concluding selections to Just like Eve are now back.  If you are new to this series, you can get an overview here, or start at the beginning, or start at the recent set of selections between Jasmine and her friends, or click the hyperlinks within the text for the selections referred to.  

Saturday, June 30, 2012.  Glendale Racquet Club, Colorado Springs, CO.

             “Tim and I have made a decision.” Jasmine is bouncing a ball onto the court she’s walking onto with her racquet.  She and her partner Mindy are switching court sides with their friends and opponents, Kristin and Gabbie.  It’s Jasmine’s serve. 

Mindy smiles.  She knows Jasmine’s news, but their opponents, Kristin and Gabbie, are waiting in anticipation.  Could she be pregnant?  Moving?  Splitting up?

At the baseline, Jasmine adds that she and Tim have been to seven marriage counseling sessions.  She positions herself behind the baseline, bounces the ball three times, says, “We’re getting a divorce,” bounces the ball one more time, announces the score 5 to 4, tosses up the ball, and serves a fast spin to Kristin’s backhand.  Kristin can’t reach it with any part of her racquet.  An ace.

            “What?!” Kristin shouts.  “You can’t say that and then serve one of those!”  Mindy chuckles, Gabbie smiles, and Kristin groans.  “Can she re-serve that point, Mindy?” 

            “You could have returned that serve, Kristin?” Mindy catches the ball Gabbie has just tossed back to her.

“Too good.”  Gabbie shakes her head.  “Your point.”

            “All right.”  Kristin relents.  “A round of daiquiris on me, Jasmine, if you give us the full scoop at The Alley.”

            Perhaps having thrown off her opponents, Jasmine serves a love game, winning the set 6-4.  Kristin has no complaints, just curiosity.

 The Alley, Glendale’s sports bar

             The friends find seats at their favorite table at the back of the sports bar.  Kristin orders a round of drinks and turns to Jasmine.  “A divorce?  Are you sure?  How do you feel?”

            “Relief, mostly.” The sweat on Jasmine’s face after playing tennis seems to reflect her relief after the uphill battle of her marriage.

            Kristin enjoys breaking rules in the religion that raised her but knows that’s not Jasmine’s habit.  “Are there any more surprises? Kristin asks, “even like you and Davie getting together?”

            “I haven’t seen him since February.” Jasmine reminds her friends that Davie is a youth pastor, still married, has been ordered out of their mixed doubles group by Quail Canyon Church, and she’s been ordered out of Quail Canyon altogether for the kiss they shared.  “I’d say that adds up to . . . probably not?”  Jasmine looks at each of her friends, hoping any of them might challenge her “probably not” reply.  No.  They each offer an ever-so-slight nod, more with their eyes than with their head.

            “How do you feel about being single?” Gabbie asks.

            “If I think about it too much, I’m terrified.”  Jasmine’s voice is now lower, slower, somber.  But when she doesn’t think about it, she feels peace.  Her chest isn’t tight and her breathing comes easier.  “My body is responding to my relief.”

            “I get it.”  Kristin replies quietly.

            Jasmine can see in Kristin’s eyes she really does understand, possibly in a way Jasmine has never really understood.  In a way, Kristin had “divorced” herself from her parents, rebelling against them when she refused their plans to continue homeschooling her in middle school.  Kristin was so young.  She must have been terrified.  How did she muster the courage?

Gabbie leans into the table and asks Jasmine what she and Tim learned from marriage counseling.

“That we are two different souls on two different paths who cannot forge a ‘truly new new.’”

That’s their marriage counselor’s term for couples with no glaring issues, hurts, or mistakes.  He says it’s unusual, but has seen it before, and has created for a goal for such couples: to forge a “truly new new.”

“Cool.” Gabbie nods.  “I like that.”

“Me too,” Jasmine nods with Gabbie.  “Not Tim.”

“Tim the Rock didn’t want a ‘truly new new’”? Mindy smiles.

“I, the rolling ball, love it, and he, the rock, hates it.”  Jasmine chuckles.  She reminds her friends that she was drawn to Tim’s rock-like nature and his archer qualities.  Jasmine’s friends all know that Tim’s training to her in archery has given her an edge in tennis.  She’s told the story often of how he wooed her with archery, standing behind her so close their entire bodies touched, as he trained her to position every part of her body to aim for perfect precision, a skill she has transferred to her own sport of tennis.

“That straight-shooting archer can hit a bulls-eye on anything.  As long as you don’t make it too complicated for him,” Jasmine chuckles, “like trying to create a ‘truly new new’.”

            “But he stuck with your marriage counselor?” Gabbie asks.

            “Yes, because I liked him so much.”  Jasmine honors Tim’s willingness to accept a counselor she likes, even if he had to consider creating something new.

            “It was my mom who really wanted us to get a new counselor, though.  A Christian one.” Jasmine tells her friends her mom reminded her of what Jesus said about divorce.  Jasmine smiles and moves in closer to her friends to tell them how she replied. “’To the male religious leaders in the first century, Mom?  You really think that’s what he’d say to me?”  Jasmine shakes her head as she recalls the conversation and relays her mom’s reply that Jesus’ words were “timeless.”

            “I said, ‘Some of Jesus’ words were timeless.  Some of his words were cultural.”  Leaning on her right arm on the table, Jasmine tells her friends what she said Jesus did say that was timeless.  “No one can put new wine into old wine skins.”

Mindy is sitting fully back into her chair with her arms are folded in front of her chest.  She smiles at Jasmine with a single soft nod.  Jasmine can tell her singer-actress friend is imitating Simon Cowell, with his classic look of “Well done.  I didn’t think you could pull it off, but you did.”  Still mimicking Simon Cowell, Mindy moves forward into the table, rests her crossed arms onto the table, and looks straight at Jasmine.  “Is it actually ‘new wine’ if you’re returning to the person you’ve been all along?”

“The true me,” Jasmine nods.  “She’s hard to find beneath all the layers of what other people say I should be and what I should think.”

“Have you found her?” Kristin asks.

“I haven’t known her since I was in the fifth grade.”  Jasmine shakes her head.  “I let my family, my church, and my community define who I am, and I married into that definition of me. That’s who I call ‘old wine.  With each layer I peel off, I find another.  It’s just as Alice says of her Wonderland: ‘curious and curiouser’ this rabbit hole is.”

Mindy nods, soft, quiet nods, all Mindy.  No more Simon Cowell.

            “A rabbit’s hole is windy and unpredictable,” Jasmine continues.  That’s a game an archer won’t play.

“The rock archer probably doesn’t play divorce either,” Gabbie says.  “What made him decide he wants divorce too?”

            “He heard my heresies.”

            “Heresies?” Mindy scrunches her eyes.

            “That’s what he calls them.”  Jasmine tells her friends she decided to be no-holds-bar open with him and told him what she was learning about Eve, women, the church, what she’s found the Bible to actually say, and about God, even the sinister way God is portrayed in the Bible.  “I told him in fifth grade I wanted to know why Noah let God drown the world, and that I gave Joshua got an ‘F’ forcommitting genocide.

            “How did he take it?” Mindy asks with sensitivity.  Simon Cowell has left the room.

            “He asked me who I am.  Said he doesn’t know anymore.” Jasmine takes a sip of her daiquiri.  “I asked him if he loves the new me.” 

“He took on Rhett Butler’s voice and said, ‘Frankly, my dear, no.’” Tim shook his head, closed the door, and went for a walk.

A week later, Jasmine confessed to Tim that her questions were deep, and to be married, she needs a man who loves her for asking them and no matter what she finds.  “Then I told Tim I know of one, Davie, and that I’ve fallen in love with him.”

            Jasmine takes a long sip of her drink.  “Tim was hurt and cynical.  He said Davie would never come back and I need to get over him.  I said even still, he’s sparked something in me that isn’t going away.”

            The friends sit silent.  “He went to shoot some arrows and was gone at the archery field all day.  They close it at sundown, and he didn’t make it home until one in the morning.”

            Tim might be stubborn, but he’s a good guy.  Everyone likes him.  Kristin says quietly, “This must be hard for him.”

            Jasmine nods, feeling grief.  She wants him to be okay, and she wants to be okay too.  Could there be an easier way?

To be with Tim, Jasmine has to stop caring about what’s deepest in her heart.  Tim thinks he is supposed to be deepest in her heart, but he isn’t.  Even Davie isn’t.  She longs for Davie, but there are passions within her that run deeper than both men.

“Remember my obsession with that curse to Eve, ‘you will long for your man’?” Jasmine looks Mindy, who nods.  “And I thought the curse is the woman thinking she needs a man to be complete?” (Explained more in her journal here.) Mindy nods again. 

“I know the key now: know myself and live it.”

“That’s profound,” Kristin nods, “but I understand.  We’re incomplete when we try to be someone else.”

“We need to quit trying to please everyone else, like me listening to my mom who wants me married by 30.”  Mindy muses.  “I wonder if my mom doesn’t feel complete herself and has never realized that a woman can be complete without a man.”

“Harmonizing our inner masculine and feminine,” Gabbie nods, reminding her friends of what she’s said about the harmony of the individual human’s inner masculine part with the inner feminine part.  “Our problem is everyone else keeps telling us who they think we’re supposed to be, so we can’t merge these two parts of ourselves.”

            “If I can do that,” Jasmine muses, “Can I know myself and live it?”  

           "You sure can," Gabbie nods.  "Read Women who Run with the Wolves.  You are running, Girl!  With the wolves.  Keep on running, and don't turn back."

           Jasmine opens into a triumphant smile.  She hasn't heard of the book Gabbie just mentioned, but she she'll check it, and she knows her friends understand.  She can think at odds with them, discover whatever she does, and they will always be with her.  She might still long for Davie, but, with or without him, she know herself, live as herself, and be complete.

© 2022 by karina.  All rights reserved.  Please use with permission and/or a link to this blog post

Continue to Liberating Eve

Start at Jasmine's recent discoveries

Follow Davie's story: here 1st, here 2nd and here 3rd 

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.

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0 Jasmine's Journal: Who is Eve? God? What is the Fall?

       Now that I, Jasmine’s author, have shared some of the many mysteries of the Adam and Eve story outside of the scope of Jasmine’s quest (due to her Evangelical reading of the Bible as she was taught: literally) Jasmine, having reached the end of her quest, is ready to record into her journal some of her discoveries.  Now, to Jasmine, and her journal in Jasmine’s words . . .

 Who is Eve? God? What is The Fall?

 Dear Spirit,

       How little I understood!  Had I not been ex-communicated from church for asking for accountability after my kiss with Davie, I might never have learned what’s beneath what the whispers have called “centuries of misunderstanding” about Eve.  I’ve learned not only about Eve, but also about men and women and our relationship to God, actually named the masculine/feminine/plural Elohim, our duality, our illusion of separation with the divine, which has been called “The Fall,” and our potential to transcend this illusion.

       My no contact order with Davie has tortured me, Spirit.  So have my two decades of burying my questions after being reprimanded, at age 11, for being “just like Eve” – just for asking questions -- and then scared away from asking any more.  Perhaps healing can come as I record what I’ve discovered:

 1.      The irony that I was reprimanded at 11 for doing just what Jesus calls for us to do: “to ask, seek, and knock.”  But Sunday school teachers don’t like it when we ask inconvenient questions that make God look bad, like why Noah let God drown the world, or why God commanded Joshua to commit genocide, or why God would forbid Adam and Eve from something good: knowledge -- knowledge even of what is good and evil.

2. The quick assumptions of the church elders to immediately judge me as a temptress violated basic biblical steps of accountability even for those who have not confessed needs of accountability, let alone for those like me and Davie who did. (My author hasn’t written this yet; please be patient with her.)

 3. The church elder missed and entirely violated the spirit of the very verse he quoted, 2 Timothy 2:22, by omitting the second part: to pursue righteousness with those in our church body, upon fleeing the very lusts for which we were seeking accountability. (My author wrote about this in “Always the Thorn?”)

4. Never in church do we hear that Eve had two additional curses to the only one we ever learn, pain in childbirth: “you will desire your man and he will rule over you” (Gen 3:16).  As my author wrote in “Synchronicity,” I was flabbergasted the Bible actually says this. That last one, “he will rule over you,” chills me so much, Spirit, I don’t even know where to begin, as my author showed in “Space. Get it?” I’ve spent more time on that middle curse, “you will desire your man,” which my author showed me beginning to mull over in “You Complete Me.”

5.      I’ve further explored the middle curse, “desire your man,” as an obsession for some women, as my author showed in “The Ancient Obsession,” and one that the fashion, cosmetics, beauty, and romance industries capitalize on to their great profit, as my author developed in “Girls’ Day Out.”

6. Sometimes, the woman’s obsession can get under the man’s skin; therefore, as my author pointed out, sometimes he just needs his “Space.”

      Although these are some significant discoveries, Spirit, even more astonishing ones are to come, and my author has yet to write them!  I hope her readers will be patient.  But, I, her heroine, have the prophetic crystal ball of what I have yet to discover, and these are on their way:

7.      The character translated as “God” into English in the Adam and Eve story was called Elohim in the original text, written in Hebrew.  The -im suffix shows this figure to be a plural entity, and the name contains both masculine and feminine parts, suggesting this “God” power is masculine, feminine, and plural.  Why, Spirit, are we not taught this?

8. The word translated into English as “helper” or “helpmeet” is ezer in the original Hebrew, for which a better translation is “life-saver.”  How many English speaking women, Spirit, have any idea the woman was created to be a life-saver?  (My author hasn’t yet let me discover this, but she has shared this mystery on her blog in “In the Beginning, Part 2.”)

9. This same Elohim figure forbid something good, something the New Testament later calls for: knowledge of good and evil.  Why would a “good” God (or Elohim) forbid something good that would later be called for?  Why, further, would a good God/Elohim punish his subjects so severely for taking something that ought to help them progress further in their human evolution?

     10.  As I further reflect on this mystery, I will perceive that the problem of the tree may be less about “knowledge” and more about “duality”: good and evil.  I will reflect that a more fitting name for the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil might be “Tree of Duality.” Duality leads not to death, but to suffering and to the illusion of separation.  (Even though my author hasn’t yet let me discover this, she has written about it in “The Tree of Duality” on her blog.)

     11. According to the Jewish mystic system of gematria, the serpent (nahash: Nun (50) + Het (8) + Shin (300) = 358) holds the same mystical energy of 358 as the Messiah (Meshiach: Mem (40) + Shin (300) + Yod (10) + Het (8) = 358), suggesting the carry twin energy.

     12. The illusion of separation can be transcended by finding “completion” not in a human man, but in the heavenly man, Christ, the Christ within (Luke 17:21, KJV); “the mystery is this: Christ in you” (Col 1:27).  This mystery is too complex for the scope of my quest in this book, but my author plans to have me at least ponder it.

Stunning revelations You’ve given to me, Spirit.  Most of these came by way of reading the Bible the way I was taught, beginning back in Sunday school, as my author began to show in the “BE Filled Forever” context selection.  Having completed this quest, I have one more significant discovery: perhaps the reason I was so unreasonably reprimanded for asking the questions I did was because my questions implicated God.  They made God look bad.  Therefore, the church leaders preferred that I be not “just like Eve” and seek not knowledge.  However, by seeking knowledge the way they taught me, through a literal reading of the Bible, I have discovered that possibly – just possibly – the divine forces, “God” if you like, may have permitted an unfriendly version of himself to be presented in the Bible to test us to see if we are willing to wrestle with him.  (My author has Davie hint at this idea in “Love 30, Part 3” and my author explores it more clearly in “Obey or Wrestle?” on her blog.)

 Therefore, Spirit, perhaps we should not read the Bible literally, but wrestle with it instead.  Do I thank You for letting me learn all of this through the hardships You’ve permitted?  I’m not yet sure, but I’m getting there.  Stay tuned, Spirit, for my future thank You journal entry to You, and until then, please be patient with me!  

 Begin "Just like Eve" at 1: Why did Noah let God drown the world?

© 2020 by karina.  Please use with permission or a citation with a link to this blog post.

Reposting Introducing "Just like Eve"

Originally posted in April, 2020.  Reposting.

Breaking from its traditional non-fiction format, whispers of mystery is currently following Karina’s fictional novel, Just like Eve. Karina began the themes explored here in 2008, in a non-fiction book she titled The Feminine Mystery, alluding to Betty Frieden’s 1963 classic, The Feminine Mystique, which explores what Frieden calls “the problem that has no name” -- a problem Karina believes is Eve’s second curse to desire her (earthly) man, not sexually, but as a completion to her.  As she kept discovering more and more, she realized her discoveries were too controversial for non-fiction, and decided to clothe her message in fiction. For years, she tried many storylines and faced much writer’s block. In late 2017, she birthed Just like Eve, mixing the main storyline with a backdrop she could write about with her own sport of tennis.

Storyline: Heroine Jasmine, 31, is judged several times in life for being "just like Eve," first in 5th grade for asking off-limits questions, like why Noah let God drown the world. Now she's judged again with the same "just like Eve" line. She and 30 year old Davie are both married to others, are USTA mixed doubles partners, attend the same church for which Davie is the youth pastor, fall for one another, briefly act upon it, and seek accountability from the church leadership. It backfires. The church can't handle it. Jasmine is kicked out of church, thought to be a temptress. But was she? And what about Eve? And what might Eve really stand for? Jasmine is on a quest . . .

Among her discoveries for humans in general are these: (a) Eve risked her life for something that could potentially build her character and was later encouraged (Heb. 5:14); (b) this choice opened her eyes, but brought her suffering; hence the Tree from which she ate could be called "The Tree of Duality" -- it brought suffering, but a move forward; and  (c) this duality brought the Illusion of Separation.  To transcend this Illusion of Separation is the true Human Quest.

Among her discoveries for women are these: (a) the word translated into English as "helper" in Gen 2:18 is the Hebrew word ezer, and a more accurate translation of ezer is Lifesaver; the patriarchal translators did not wish to call woman a "lifesaver" for the man; (b) Eve was cursed not only for childbearing, but also to "desire her man" (Gen 3:16); that's a desire literally for her earthly man, not for sex, but for the man himself to complete her; and (c) most chilling of all, Eve was also cursed to "be ruled by him" (Gen 3:16); yes, how many pastors admit a curse to Eve is that her man would "rule over" her?  And Jasmine kept making discoveries

Click to start Just like Eve at the beginning

© 2020 by karina.  All rights reserved.  Please use with permission or a citation that links to this blog.