The Ancient Obsession

Jasmine's home, Colorado Springs, Friday, April 5, 2012

            “You complete me” never came from Steven’s mouth.  Nor did any other words come from him to her, nor from her to him.  It took years, but the pining finally subsided. Then it occasionally burst up again unsummoned.  No matter the years, the relationships, even the marriages, one can never be cured of the loss of one’s first love.  Even now, nine years later, with a sweet husband and a whatever-you’d-like-to-call-it with a hot jock youth pastor, Jasmine feels the pierce in her heart for her first love.

            At least it was a momentary break from the never-ending images of those moments with Davie – their introduction, their one-two punch winning shots, their High 5 slaps, followed by their Low 5 shakes – held barely longer than what’s considered appropriate.

Set it aside.  Steven’s in the past and Davie never really was.  Think on your husband.  You know, that amazing man you fell in love with who is not forbidden?   Jasmine kept the vow she made with her friends after Jerry Maguire.  Mostly.  Her husband Tim might not have fully completed her, but he completed her in the way that mattered at that time: he was a stable force.  Jasmine was scattered, unsure of herself, and felt like she was living on a roller coaster.  But Tim is like a rock, stable, confident, and always certain.

Familiar music breaks her thoughts – the instrumental version of the chorus of Lonestar’s crossover 2000 hit, “Amazed.”  Tim had the song playing during a dinner he made for Jasmine, and he perfectly timed his kneeling presentation of an engagement ring to the lyric, “I wanna spend the rest of my life / with you by my side.”  Then her gorgeous stable rock timed his next move brilliantly.  Just after “Baby I’m amazed by you,” he asked, “Will you marry me?”  

Jasmine smiles.  Her trick seems to be working.  Last month, she found an instrumental version of the song and downloaded its chorus onto her cell phone to set as her ring tone.  Yes, even her phone is helping her rekindle that early, elated spark with her husband.  She almost doesn’t want to answer the phone so she can keep listening to the music.  Can she let this call go?

It’s Mindy.  Better not.  

“Hey Jazzie, are you free for shopping and lunching on Sunday?”

Sunday.  Perfect.  She can idle away her day with her best friend and forget where she isn’t. Sundays usually started at church and then continued with lunch out with her husband and their friends at Quail Canyon – until she not been cast out.  Tim has decided to take a break from church, but says he and Jasmine should think about checking out a new one.  For now, Jasmine wants to boycott church altogether.  But still, Sundays are hard – especially at lunch time. 

“What’s the occasion?”

“I’m turning 29 and freaking out.  Maybe you and Girls’ Day Out at the Mall can save me.” 

“You baby girl!”  Jasmine’s 31.  She can say that. 

Mindy chuckles, but says Jasmine doesn’t get it: “You were married by 30.” After a pause, she adds, “You were even married by 29!” 

At 25.  Jasmine wonders why she married so young. 

“Are you freaking out because it’s your birthday, or because your heart’s still crushed over Justin?”

“All of it,” Mindy groans. I tell myself not to think about him, but I can’t stop, so I think around him.  And I think around the break-up.”  Jasmine can relate.  It’s how she was after her break-up with Steven, and it’s even how her mind is working now, thinking “around” Davie -- not that they “broke up” and not that they were ever “together” in the first place.

Mindy continues, “When I’m not thinking around the break-up, my mind returns to the ‘omen’ – that ancient obsession women should be married before 30.” 

Ancient obsession.  Like ‘you will desire your man’? 

“And that ancient obsession that we can’t stop thinking about our man,” Jasmine adds. 

“Yeah, that one.”

Do we women still have to live this way? 

“Haven’t we outgrown the archaic ‘married by 30’ madness?”

“Maybe the other seven billion people in the world have, but not my family,” Mindy groans.

            “Really?  Are you getting pressure from your family?”

            “Maybe it’s just Mom.  Married at 29, she often says she made it ‘just in time to beat the omen.’  She likes to brag about the next part too: she had all her kids by the time she was 40.  I’m the youngest of four, born when she was 39.”

            “Uh oh, you’ve got big shoes to fill!”

            “I do!  Mom reminds me of it too, saying, ‘29: great year to get married!’”

“Uh oh.  You’re deep in the mud.  Do you tell her things have changed?”

“Haven’t mustered up the courage yet.  How do I break it to her that life has changed since the days of eight track tapes, black-and-white TVs, and disco?  I think I need a cheerleader.  You.  So, Girls’ Day Out Sunday morning?”

“To cheer up my bestie?  Of course!  When do you want to start?”

“How about right when the Mall opens?  Ten, at the fountain, in front of Macy’s.”

“Perfect.  I won’t be missing church, since I’ve been ex-communicated.  Ten it is.” 

“Ex-communicated?!  Do Protestants do that?  What have you done, Girl?!” 

Uh oh, what have I just done?

© 2019 by karina.  All rights reserved.  Please use with permission or a citation that links to this blog.

Continue to Girls' Day Out
Return to They Lied
Start at the Beginning: Why did Noah let God drown the World?

0: Jasmine's Discoveries

UPDATE: Jasmine's Discoveries has been updated.  Check the newest version here.

Spoiler Alert: Given the once or twice a month pace for Just like Eve, this draft will be further developed much later in the book as one of Jasmine's journal entries.  She's journaling her thoughts and writing them like letters to the One she calls "Spirit."  (For a disclaimer of what is not part of Jasmine's quest, see "The Quest not Taken.")

Dear Spirit,

            How much truth could be contained in the brief story of Adam, Eve, the serpent, and the mysterious plural part masculine, part feminine entity called Elohim?  Upon the conclusion of her quest into her question, “Who is Eve?” Jasmine sits dumbfounded.  Each discovery holds profound insight, yet is entirely different, even directly opposed to the lessons provided by the church – even when the story is read the way she had been taught by the church to read it.  Jasmine lists out the astonishing revelations into her journal, beginning with those pertaining to the relationships of men and women:

1.   Women were sentenced to a mysterious longing: to be completed by their man (Gen 3:16).

2.   This longing would so burden some women that it would be a curse.

3.   Others – those in the fashion, beauty, jewelry and other romance businesses – would profit in multi-billion dollar industries from woman’s burdensome longing.

4.   Meanwhile, the man would suffer from the woman’s curse to be completed by him as she unwittingly attempts to force him into becoming the savior/completer she thinks she needs; and since he was not also given the same curse to be “completed” by her, he would not understand and marriages would break-down.

5.   A woman was also likely to suffer from the most chilling of all curses:  to be “ruled” by her man (Gen 3:16);

      Spirit, when will the church leaders admit the Bible notes a curse to women is to be ruled by men?

6.   The woman (an ezer) was designed to be more than merely a “helper” for the man, as the essence of ezer suggests “life-saver” (Gen 2:18).

Spirit, how many English speaking women have had any idea when they’ve read of the woman’s creation for man ‘I will make for him a suitable helper’ that a more accurate translation would be ‘I will make for him a suitable life-saver?’

But, Spirit, I'm discovering so much more too:

7.   The serpent both deceived and told the truth and both liberated and oppressed.

8.   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).

9.   the God figure, Elohim, is plural (-im) with a feminine root, but masculine in plural form, suggesting a far bigger, complete, and more mysterious entity.

10. Elohim would forbid something good, that the God of the New Testament would later call for: knowledge/discernment of good and evil (Gen 2:17 vs. Heb 5:14).

11. As “good and evil,” the tree would be better called “The Tree of Duality.”

12. Duality involves the Illusion of Separation, which leads not to death, but suffering.

13. The suffering can be transcended by finding “completion” not in a human man, but in the Christ, the Christ within (Luke 17:21); “the mystery is this: Christ in you” (Col 1:27).

14. The illusion of separation, however, is so deep within humanity that such transcendence cannot be clichéd, nor over-simplified, but acknowledged as a life-long journey of discovering, deepening, and peeling the illusion and the ego, layer by layer by layer by layer.

Spirit, could it be that this Illusion of Separation, embodied on Earth in our male-female relationships, that is at the center of suffering?  

Start Just like Eve from the beginning

© 2019 by karina.  All rights reserved.  Please use with permission or a citation that links to this blog.

If My People

Originally written in the G. W. Bush years in 2006, then posted in the Obama years in 2010, I'm re-posting "If My People" as a 2019 New Year's wish in the Trump years.  It's built upon 2 Chron 7:14, "If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land."

If My People

who are called by My Name

will humble themselves and pray

and seek My face

and turn from their wicked ways,

then I will hear from heaven,

will forgive their sin,

and will heal their land

But if My People

who are called by My Name proclaim,

“Our Kingdom is not of this world,”

yet they weep and wail

when their kingdom of the world

goes the way of the world

and, for this, they trust not in My Kingdom,

then My people have not heard My voice

And if My People

who are called by My Name cry out,

”Change their hearts and minds!”

and cry not, “Change my heart and mind!”

and pound their fist in prayer,

“Cleanse their heart, Oh Lord”

and not, “Cleanse my heart, Oh Lord,”

then My people have not heard My voice

And if My people

who are called by My Name say

“If the sinners stop killing babies,

if the men stop marrying men,

if the movie makers dawn modesty,

if Caesar cuts taxes,

if the schools discipline,

and if these people and those people ad nauseum,”

and, for this, if My People think

their marriages will be saved,

their children will follow Me,

and their land will be healed

because those I seek to save

have been rescued by politics,

then My people have not heard My voice

If only My people

who are called by My Name

will loosen the bonds of wickedness,

let the oppressed go free,

bring the homeless into their home,

clothe the naked,

and feed the hungry,

then I will hear from heaven

and will heal their land . . . 

See the rest and the comments

© 2006 by karina.  All rights reserved.  Please use with permission or a citation that links to this blog.

You Complete Me

Jasmine's Home, Sunday, March 25, 2012

"Yet your desire will be for your husband"

(Genesis 3:16)

Jasmine would not expect a disc jockey of a secular station to seamlessly segue to its music format from a pre-taped radio preacher, but she was amused by the choice of the first song after the sermon, Bruce Springsteen’s 90s classic, “Secret Garden”: 

"She'll let you in her house
If you come knocking late at night

She’ll let you in her mouth

If the words you say are right”

            “If the words you say are right.”  Jasmine had never caught that line.  The song featured in Jerry Maguire, and the words the hero said were right, exactly right: “You complete me.”  Played by Tom Cruise, Jerry Maguire spoke the line when he returned to his girlfriend after their separation.  The film writers brilliantly expressed what every girl longs for: to be “completed” by her man.   Jasmine’s mind races back fifteen years, to her sophomore year of high school, and feeling those words reverberate through every part of her body . . .  

Kimball's Peak Three Theater, December 13, 1996

            For the first time in her life, a week before her Sweet Sixteen, Jasmine saw a film on Release Night, and, even better, she went not with her family, but with her two best friends, Jill and Stacey.  A month earlier, she had broken up with her boyfriend and heart-throb, Steven, because he wanted sex and she didn’t want to give it.  Except – she didn’t know she was breaking up with him.  She thought she was giving a mindless threat, not actually breaking up.  The couple had been arguing, not even about sex, then he said something absurd: “You’re really cute when you’re mad.  Makes me want to quit talking and see what’s behind your shirt.”  Later, she scolded herself for not taking a different tact, something like, “Not funny.  How about a hug instead?”  Why, she wondered, had she flown off the handle and yelled back, “If that’s all you’re after, we’re through!”  She hadn’t really meant it, but he had taken it literally.  To her horror, he suggested that was all he was after. “If that’s how you feel, I guess we are,” he replied.  “I guess we are,” said the angry Jazzie, and he turned and walked away.

            For the following month, Jazzie discovered what a broken heart feels like.  She also learned something no one had ever warned her about: a broken heart comes with a tortured mind.  Hers was obsessed with questions about their final interaction.  In the heat of the moment, Jazzie believed Steve took her comment literally, and she also took his literally.  What if one of them had misunderstood the other?  What if he misunderstood and thought that she really wanted a break-up and was just using his silly comment to do it?  Or what if she misunderstood him?  What if his reply, “If that’s how you feel” was a reaction not to her words, but to the anger in her voice?  Desperately wanting Steve back, she wanted more than anything to believe that one of them had misunderstood the other. 

When her mind was not obsessed with questions over their final argument, it was instead torturing her with fantasies of their reunion.  She imagined it many ways, all, of course, clearing up the misunderstanding.  Just in case she had to be the one to initiate clarity, she imagined a few different settings, mostly at school, and a few ways she could break the ice.  Unless another, more brilliant option presented itself in the moment, she decided upon the simplest: “Did we misunderstand each other?”  Still, no fantasy at her initiation turned out as beautiful as any when he initiates the reunion.  Her favorite image had him approaching her at school, during lunch, when she is sitting with her best friends, and he sits down next to her, and whispers in her ear, “Jazzie, I just want you to know, it’s not your body I want.  It’s you.”  In this fantasy, she asks her friends if they’d be willing to excuse her, to which they smile and nod, and then she and Steve walk off together, holding hands, to their favorite spot on campus, the pole vault.  As a Varsity pole vaulter, Steve had a special place in his heart for this place on campus, so Jazzie always felt extra connected to him when he shared the spot with her.

            How similar -- yet better – was Dorothy’s reunion with Jerry Maguire, who knocks at Dorothy’s door, walks into a home filled with women complaining about their ex-s, and says to her, “You complete me.”  Jasmine felt heat spreading through her chest, up her neck, down her arms, into her face, down her abdomen and even into her legs.  Chills tingled all up and down her spine.  “You complete me.”  Jasmine now had a new fantasy.  She wanted Steve to knock at her door and say, “You complete me.”  Nothing could better capture her deepest desire than to be “completed” with her man, and – even better – for him to be “completed” by her.

            Walking out of the theater, Jill quoted the line, “You complete me,” sighed, swooshed down, and pretended to faint.  Jazzie and Stacey both laughed and mimicked her fainting spell.  Stacey proposed a friendship vow: “We will only date a guy who ‘completes’ us.”  All three girls cast their right hand into the center, clutched them together, and popped their hands down, then back up, and then up to the ceiling.  It was a done deal.  Jazzie, Jill, and Stacey had vowed to one another to seek out only men who “complete” them.  If he doesn’t complete her, or if she doesn’t complete him, the relationship is a no-go.

Jasmine turns off the radio and lets her mind return to the present, in March, 2012.  She had long since forgotten her first boyfriend.  Horrified, she wonders how she would have survived that break-up had it occurred now.  She and her boyfriend would have cell phones, and they would be used to non-stop texting when they are not together.  They would be not only “friends” on social media, but “in a relationship.” Publicly, they would be known by all of their friends and friends of friends to be dating.  Should they have a change to their “relationship status,” they would have to make that public.  And, would a “relationship status” change also mean that one would “de-friend” the other?  And, if they did not do that, would she have been “spying” on Steve every moment she could – and sometimes when she shouldn’t have been – and scheming, all the time, to clear up the “misunderstanding”?  Her tortured mind would have also questioned whether the “misunderstanding” get cleared up personally, or by text, or by a social media message, or by publicly hinting at it on social media?  Taking a deep breath, Jasmine prays a very big “thank you” that she had been spared from an even more dreaded first break-up in the social media age.

Looking down at her Bible, Jasmine sees again what sparked her astonishment just before hearing Springsteen’s song: the three curses of Eve, the familiar first of childbirth, the chilling third, and the curious second, “Yet your desire will be for your husband” (Gen 3:16).  In an instant, the passage speaks to her: “You complete me.”  Another synchronicity.  Are these the same?  Does a woman’s longing for “You complete me” equal “your desire will be for your husband?”  If they are the equal, then why would the desire for completion be a curse?

 © 2018 by karina.  All rights reserved.  Please use with permission or a citation that links to this blog.
Continue to They Lied
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Start at the Beginning: Why did Noah let God drown the World?

Outer experiences/Inner Discoveries Whisper

Life on Earth is a remarkable interplay

between outer experiences and inner discoveries.

The purpose of life is for the inner discoveries

for which the outer experiences are merely catalysts.

~ whisper of mystery, 8/19/18

 © 2018 by karina.  All rights reserved.  Please use with permission or a citation that links to this blog.

Synchronicity

Jasmine's Home, Sunday, March 25, 2012

            Jasmine didn’t know it yet, but she was about to discover a pattern within the kingdom: when one embarks upon a spiritual quest, synchronicities appear to guide the pilgrim upon her path.  Was it merely coincidence that a few days ago, a whisper of mystery had prompted her to find out who Eve is and, today, the radio preacher Jasmine turned on had chosen for his topic “The Fall”?  Carl Jung would say, “No, not ‘coincidence,’ but ‘synchronicity.’”  Jung defined “synchronicity” as “meaningful coincidence,” but it could be further defined as “divine coincidence”: those connections that are divinely ordained to help guide a seeker upon his path.

            Cast from her church, Jasmine decided that Sunday morning she would “do church” by listening to one of the popular radio preachers.  She had never heard of this preacher, but she found one whose voice didn’t scream.  Given Jasmine’s stereotypes of radio preachers, his voice and tone sounded unusually rational.  Little did she expect him to spend much of his sermon on Eve.

            Having been carefully taught from her childhood church’s “BE” program to always bring her Bible to church, Jasmine had her Bible opened to Genesis 3 to follow along.  Unlike the pastors at the churches she had always attended, this one did not begin with the scripture passage, but bounced all over it, reading the passages relevant to his message, so Jasmine opted to multi-task reading the chapter and listening to his sermon.

            “Men, do you know why you toil at work?” the preacher asked.  “Do you know why you are getting interrupted by people calling you to sell stuff you don’t want nor need?  Or why you are finding your e-mail inbox overloaded, much of it with spam, while the messages from your boss get hidden in the inundation?   Or why you find yourself unable to discreetly take leave from the office gossip when you just wanted to warm up your coffee?  Or why you knock heads with your supervisor who insists on the most inefficient way to get the job done?  Or why you’re fighting viruses on your computer, battling red tape in your bureaucracies, or getting earfuls from clients who blame you for their mistakes?”  Jasmine could resonate with all of his examples, and her mind added more of them, not only from the businesses where she had worked, but also from the school where she was now teaching.  The preacher continued, “Do you want to know why you face all of these seemingly unnecessary pressures?  It’s the thorns, men, the thorns you toil at work.”

            Jasmine’s mind stopped at the word, “men.”  She knew all of those thorns and more, as did every one of her female friends.  What century, Jasmine wondered, is this radio preacher living in?  Since he had perfectly nailed what “thorns” are like in today’s society, his internal clock couldn’t be too far off.  Perhaps that single word was an unconscious slip from his early days as a pastor.  Jasmine decided to let it go and keep listening.

But she felt another sting when he blamed the women for the “men’s” toil.  As Eve had been the “first” to “fall,” the preacher accused her of “tempting the man to join her as an accomplice in their crime.”  He added in a pre-caution: “Be careful, men, not to heed bad advice.”  Reading along in Genesis 3, Jasmine smiled at the irony.  The preacher seemed to be doing the same as Adam: “She made me do it.”  Had he caught Adam’s words?  “The woman you put here with me – she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it“ (Genesis 3:12, NIV).

            The preacher seemed not to have caught the irony that he was playing the same blame game as Adam, but, at least, he included women in his following admonishment: “This pertains to all of us.  We each need to heed good advice, as King David taught: ‘Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked’” (Psalm 1:1).   Naturally, the preacher put in a plug to honor one’s leaders and accept the sound counsel of those in positions of authority, presumably, of course, his counsel and that of other church leaders. 

            Cynical though Jasmine may have been, she was grateful she didn’t turn off the preacher mid-sermon, because he closed with a disclaimer showing he did not believe Eve was all bad, nor did he place full blame upon her alone.  “Perhaps we place too much blame on the woman for being the first to fall, when she was deceived by a seemingly divine and, as the text states, ‘cunning’ creature.  Adam fell fully upon the prompting of another human, but Eve followed a ‘cunning’ creature she may have thought she could trust.”  Jasmine sighed some relief the preacher admitted this.  He continued, “She should have known, of course, to trust God.  But we should not over-criticize her for falling for a deception.  Instead, we should take precautions ourselves to be awake and alert, ever following Christ, our Master, so as to avoid falling into the traps of the Enemy.”

Jasmine had heard many such messages.  At least this preacher was not the all-blame or Eve-is-all-black type, recognizing in her some understandably human traits and giving her the benefit of the doubt as one who was, at heart, neither “disobedient,” nor “a temptress,” but “deceived.”

Then, in order to warn against the “cunning” ways the “Enemy” might deceive today, the preacher added another precaution that caught Jasmine’s attention: over-trusting one’s perception of seemingly divine guidance that is, in fact, deceptive.  He gave examples of visions, dreams, and messages that could appear to be from the Holy Spirit, but, could in fact be from the darker side of the heavenly realms. 

Would this include her “whispers of mystery”?  How could she be sure these messages were not from the dark, but from the Light?  She prayed the Spirit would help her to answer this question, and, in the meantime, she would be cautious, not taking them fully at face value, until she was sure they were from the Light.

The preacher moved to conclude his sermon, having never quite touched on Eve’s curse.  And it was quite a curious one.  Though he had skipped around the passage and not read it, BE Bible-trained Jasmine had, of course, opened to the passage in her Bible.  To her astonishment, Eve was cursed with more than just pain in childbirth: 

“To the woman, He said,

‘I will greatly multiply

your pain in childbirth.

In pain you shall bring forth children.

Yet your desire will be for your husband,

And he shall rule over you’”

(Genesis 3:16, NAS)

Jasmine marveled over the final statement.  The Bible really says that?     
                   

 © 2018 by karina.  All rights reserved.  Please use with permission or a citation that links to this blog.

Continue to You Complete Me
Return to Always the Thorn?

Always the Thorn?

 “Now flee from youthful lusts

and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace,

with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart”

(2 Timothy 2:22) 

Jasmine's Home, Sunday, March 4, 2012

            “Is it an insult?”  Until now, Jasmine had forgotten the surprising whisper.  “It is, My Child.”  “Why?” she asked.  “Centuries of misunderstanding.”  Jasmine recalls what prompted the whisper that came to her twenty two years earlier . . . 

March, 1990

            Sitting on her bed after the Sunday school lesson when Abraham stood up to God, eleven year old Jasmine wondered what it meant that Mr. C thought she was “just like Eve.”  To herself, she thought, she asked if the comparison was an insult.  At that time, she should not have been too surprised.  In childhood, whispers of mystery came to her from time to time, but by the time she was eleven, they were quite rare, and by her teens, they had disappeared completely.  In adulthood, Jasmine could think of only one: when a whisper nudged her out of her position as a high school English and drama teacher.  It wasn’t until then that Jasmine even remembered she had received any such whispers in childhood.  Now, she had merely a faint memory that they had come, but she couldn’t recall more than one or two, nor was she sure whether any were to be trusted.  Mysteriously, the memory of this one had just suddenly returned.

            When she had received the whisper as an eleven year old, the only part Jasmine took seriously was the affirmation of the insult. Much of Jasmine’s fifth grade year was a battle between the numerous questions overtaking her mind and her commitment to prove the insult wrong.  Today, Jasmine muddled over the “centuries of misunderstanding” part.  At eleven, Jasmine wished to disprove the comparison.  Now, at thirty-one, she wondered whether she should disprove the insult itself.

Racing through Jasmine’s head now was Head Elder John Prager’s “prayer.”  It sounded so biblical, but felt so wrong, and repeated in her mind like an ad jingle refusing to go away.

“Our Father in Heaven, thank You for bringing this young lady to us.

We pray You will forgive her.  In the Name of Your Son, cleanse her heart, purify her mind, transform her by the renewing of her mind, and help her to flee youthful lusts.  Thank You for your great mercy upon this repentant sinner, Lord.  Amen.”

The biblical references were clear: “cleanse her heart,” “transform her by the renewing of her mind,” flee youthful lusts.”  One at a time, she entered each of them into her Bible reference software.  Psalm 51:10 popped up: “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.”  Jasmine prayed the verse, repeated it, and prayed it again.  Next, the program presented Romans 12:2: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”  Jasmine prayed and repeated that one too, and sighed.  Hadn’t she already been trying to do that? 

The complete verse for the next reference stopped her in her tracks: “Now flee from youthful lusts and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart” (2 Timothy 2:22).  Jasmine stared at the scripture, astonished.  Could the full verse really say that?  Jasmine had heard the first part of 2 Timothy 2:22 many times, but she didn’t know the scripture had a second part.  Shaking her head, stunned, she pulled out her own Bible, looked it up, and confirmed the full verse said exactly that.  Nothing could describe better what she had been trying to do than “flee from youthful lusts and pursue righteousness . . . with those who call on the Lord with a pure heart.” 
            The elder’s order was the opposite.  It forbid contact between those who call on the Lord with a pure heart.  Jasmine wondered whether the elders had ever seen the full verse.  Were they, like her, only familiar with the first part?  Or, if they did know the full version, did they think she and Davie were not calling on the Lord with a pure heart?  They must not have, she reasoned, as they had ordered no contact between them, the opposite of the scripture’s command.

Then the elder’s final words to her also re-emerged: “Women.  Always the thorn.  Always the tempters.”  Always.  Jasmine’s heart stopped with the revelation: the church elders trusted Davie was calling on the Lord with a pure heart, but they did not trust the she was.  They had not paused to hear her story.  They had asked no questions.  They had never fact checked their assumptions.

“Always.”  Definitively black and white.  Eve.  Also definitively black and white.  Or, more to the point, black.  But why?  The elders were not alone in seeing Eve as black.  Even her beloved teacher, Mr. C., had perceived Eve as black.  She liked him so much that it pierced her heart and troubled her deeply when she let him down, which, given her persistent questions, was often.  Still, Jasmine reflected, she had had the courage to ask Mr. Casey her questions.  If her question was pressing upon her too doggedly, she asked him in spite of his likely reproach.  And she was only eleven.  What happened?  Where had her courage gone?  Why was she now such a wimp that she lacked the courage to ask the elder her questions.  The list was growing:  Does a beer do anything to tempt a guy?  Did the elders know the second part of 2 Tim 2:22?  If so, why not find out if she’s living it?  Do they not wish to hear her story? 

Then, of course, she still had her biblical questions.  Even now, two decades later, Jasmine still wanted to know why Noah let God drown the world, why God commanded Joshua to commit genocide, and why God would harden a king’s heart and then punish the king’s people for what was between the king and God.  And now, she added another truly personal question: Who, really, is Eve?  What does it mean to be just like her?

Suddenly the second whisper of mystery of Jasmine’s adulthood’s arrived: Find out.   Who is Eve?  What does it mean to be just like Eve?  Search out your questions, and I’ll guide you.”  

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