“I wished to show, in little Oliver, the principle of Good surviving through every adverse circumstance, and triumphing at last.”~ preface to Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
Archive for the ‘ESSAYS’ Category
Oliver Twist, Divine Child: A Jungian Interpretation
Posted in ESSAYS, tagged Divine Child, Faith, Oliver Twist, orphan, random, Stanley Wilkin, writing on June 30, 2015| 1 Comment »
Fitzgerald and Didion on “Cracking Up”
Posted in BOOKS, ESSAYS, tagged critical essay, didion, fitzgerald, graduate school, random, writing on June 15, 2014| Leave a Comment »
The subject of mental dysfunction and depression is addressed by Joan Didion in “The White Album” and F. Scott Fitzgerald in “The Crack-Up”. Their treatment of this subject is similar and distinctive in several ways. Fitzgerald and Didion both reflect back to the time when they first realized that something was going awry in their minds, but Fitzgerald writes in a more straightforward and analytical manner about himself. He uses metaphor and humor more often, and Didion uses more physical description of objects and people to depict what is going on inside her mind.
In Fitzgerald’s essay, he writes about a nervous breakdown with an expository style, comparing his mental state to a broken plate. He tells the reader with startling honesty: “-And then, ten years this side of forty-nine, I suddenly realized that I had prematurely cracked” (140). Then he gradually reveals the details of his mental state:
I saw that for a long time I had not liked people and things, but only followed the rickety old pretense of liking. I saw that even my love for those closest to me was only an attempt to love….in the same month, I became bitter about such things as the sound of the radio, the advertisements in magazines, the screech of tracks, the dead silence of the country…hating the night when I couldn’t sleep and hating the day because it went toward night. (142)
He looks back at the warning signs that he did not recognize at the time, very clearly portraying the torments that he was experiencing, with such clarity that it almost makes the reader want to draw back, and examine whether they are familiar with such feelings. Then he describes how he began to feel a sense of worthlessness, and again uses the plate metaphor in a poignant fashion:
Sometimes, though, the cracked plate has to be retained in the pantry, has to be kept in service as a household necessity. It can never again be warmed on the stove nor shuffled with the other plates in the dishpan; it will not be brought out for company, but it will do to hold crackers late at night or to go into the ice box under leftovers. (144)
He is amazingly artful in his use of a common household object to depict himself as feeling inadequate for everyday purposes and ambitions, and it makes the reader feel sadness for the broken plate. The plate becomes almost a Disney animated character with feelings similar to “The Brave Little Toaster.”
Fitzgerald describes the middle of the night anxieties that are common to most humans when he writes “But at three o’clock in the morning, a forgotten package has the same tragic importance of the death sentence, and the cure doesn’t work- and in a real dark night of the soul it is always three o’clock in the morning, day after day” (144). This passage actually has shock effect, because the reader is brought to the horrible realization that some people experience the three o’clock a.m. agonies throughout every day. In the same expository style, he informs the reader that “Trouble has no necessary connection with discouragement- discouragement has a germ of its own, as different from trouble as arthritis is different from a stiff joint” (146). He clarifies his own condition so well, making it evident that this species of discouragement is totally irrational and based on anxieties that have no rational basis. Then he says in a humorous tone, “I have the sense of lecturing now, looking at a watch on the desk before me and seeing how many more minutes-” (147). This humor is much needed at this point in his essay, because by now the reader is feeling very labored and distressed, and needs a bit of lightness. The watch also seems to connote an attempt to regain some control of his environment by measuring the time.
Joan Didion also writes as one looking back upon the years when her mental struggles began to manifest themselves. She said that it all started with her beginning to question all of the things that she had held true:
I am talking here about a time when I began to doubt the premises of all the stories I had ever told myself, a common condition but one I found troubling. I suppose this period began around 1966 and continued until 1971. During those five years, I appeared, on the face of it, a competent enough member of some community or another… (421)
The vagueness of her sentences creates a feeling that truth was becoming blurry to her, that nothing is really clear any more. She visits a psychiatrist and supplies the reader with his findings:
Patient’s thematic productions on the Thematic Apperception Test emphasize her fundamentally pessimistic, fatalistic, and depressive view of the world around her. It is as though she feels deeply that all human effort is foredoomed to failure, a conviction which seems to push her further into a dependent, passive withdrawal. (423)
She is expository in a way that is similar to Fitzgerald, but she describes her depression and anxiety without the metaphor or humor. However, she later uses language to present her confusion and growing paranoia in a fashion that engages the reader with dislocated scenes and events. In this segment, she describes a night when The Doors came to her house to practice before cutting an album:
There were three of the Four Doors. There was the bass player borrowed from the Clear Light. There were the producer and engineer and the road manager and a couple of girls and a Siberian husky named Nikki with one gray eye and one gold. There were paper bags half filled with hard-boiled eggs and chicken livers and cheeseburgers and empty bottles of apple juice and California rosé. There was everything and everybody The Doors needed to cut the rest of this third album except one thing, the fourth Door…(428)
The reader is entangled in this twisted collage of mismatched people and foods and the sense of disorder. The two colors of the eyes of the husky, the empty bottles, and the half-filled bags all seem to connote the growing vacuum of confusion and tension in the mind of the author. It also creates a strong sense of the time period and a subliminal feeling of being on mind-altering drugs.
As a reporter, Didion often had to prepare for travel on the spur of the moment. She describes a travel list that she kept on hand during this time, a list of things to collect before she departed on her frequent trips:
It should be clear that this was a list made by someone who prized control, yearned after momentum, someone determined to play her role as if she had the script, heard her cues, knew the narrative. There is on this list one significant omission, one article I needed and never had: a watch….I didn’t know what time it was. This may be a parable, either of my life as a reporter during this period or of the period itself. (438)
Here again is the watch, the symbol of control over one’s environment. This passage bears a resemblance to Fitzgerald, in that it depicts that the author is slipping into instability and a terrifying loss of control. The missing watch is an effective metaphor to recount a restless and chaotic time, and the author’s feeling that she was a victim of this time period in many ways.
The styles of both Didion and Fitzgerald allow the reader to go inside their minds and feel their pain and hopelessness. While Didion writes with an unpredictable style that creates a colorful collage of experiences, Fitzgerald is more analytical and stays on a set course in his writing.
Works Cited
The Best American Essays of the Century. Ed. Joyce Carol Oates. New York: Houghton-Mifflin, 2000. Print.
Ian Parker Portrays a Man of Polarizations
Posted in ESSAYS, tagged atheist, Christopher Hitchens, critical essay, Ian Parker, New Yorker, Opinions, writing on June 13, 2014| Leave a Comment »
I thought my readers might enjoy a series of short critical essays I wrote during graduate school about a variety of writers and subjects. The first one is about the article called “He Knew He was Right” by Ian Parker in which he portrays Christopher Hitchens, the infamous spokesman for atheists who has since passed away.
Be aware that my formatting seems to be lost when I post here, even though I try in various ways to keep everything in order.
I hope that you gain something from the essays, and that all is well with you as you continue your own journeys.
Shalom,
Sister Olive
Ian Parker Portrays a Man of Polarizations
In the New Yorker article He Knew He Was Right, Ian Parker brilliantly portrays the political analyst and writer Christopher Hitchens. The author raises many questions about this man of contradictions who seems to delight in controversy and keeping an air of mystery around himself.
While raising questions about “the Hitchens apostasy, which runs from revolutionary socialism to a kind of neo-conservatism (141)”, Parker artistically and visually brings Hitchens into focus for the reader:
He still writes a great deal, at a speed at which most people read. And, at fifty-seven, he still has an arrest-photograph air about him- looking like someone who, with as much dignity as possible, has smoothed his hair and straightened his collar after knocking the helmet off a policeman (137).
By contrasting the image of a mug shot photo with the man smoothing his hair and straightening his collar, the writer uses physical description to show the reader how confusing this man’s personality can be.
He then shows Hitchens transforming from one character to another, when he describes a disagreement between Hitchens and some women over former presidential candidate Howard Dean:
….His tone tightened, and his mouth shrunk like a sea anemone poked with a stick; the Hitchens face can, at moments of dialectical urgency, or when seen in an unkindly lit Fox News studio, transform from roguish to sour (139).
Parker masterfully shows how Hitchens’s facial expressions can dramatically change in a moment if something brushes up against his current opinion.
He again addresses the matter of opposing attitudes and shifting views when he writes:
…those familiar with Hitchens’s work know that he has always thrived on sectarian battles, and always looked for ‘encouraging signs of polarization,’ a phrase he borrowed from his late friend Israel Shahak, the Israeli activist (141).
He seems to be suggesting here that Hitchens merely enjoys the drama of the battle, and that he is simply a performer, who can switch roles with ease.
At other times, Parker seems to admire Hitchens as a man who simply exercises his right to change his mind or make alterations to his views as he gains more knowledge about a subject. Sometimes, he seems to present Hitchens as someone who knows too much about the inner workings and corruption in government, and is tormented by that knowledge, which causes him to drink constantly and behave in other strange ways. He shows the darker side of his subject when he says:
…I arrived just before midday, and Hitchens said that it was “time for a cocktail”; he poured a large drink. His hair flopped over his forehead, and he pushed it back using the tips of his fingers, his hand as unbending as a mannequin’s (144).
The simile of the mannequin’s hand seems to represent how cold and unyielding Hitchens can be towards people of opposing views on issues.
Parker also shows more of the complexity of Hitchens’s character when he says: “At times, Hitchens can look like a brain trying to pass as a muscle. He reads the world intellectually, but emphasizes his physical responses to it” (155). He points out that often Hitchens tries to demonstrate his masculinity in the way that he reports in physical terms, as if he is a soldier in a real war, and not just a spectator writing about a subject.
Then Parker artistically uses Hitchens’s style of writing to show how he never backs up to make concessions or compromises about his opinions even when his views have radically fluctuated over time:
…He almost never uses the backspace, delete, or cut-and-paste keys. He writes a single draft, at a speed that caused his New Statesman colleagues to place bets on how long it would take him to finish an editorial. What emerges is ready for publication, except for one weakness: he’s not an expert punctuator, which reinforces the notion that he is in the business of transcribing a lecture he can hear himself giving (164).
It is very masterful how the writer uses visual scenes and incidents to show the nuances of Hitchens and his character. By juxtaposing Hitchens’s physical demeanor with his ideological inconsistencies, the author reveals how Hitchens can be such an anomaly to everyone around him. Parker cleverly leaves the reader with no answers but only more questions- the profile ends as an unsolved mystery about a man that knows he is always right.
Works Cited
Parker, Ian. “He Knew He was Right.” Best Magazine Writing 2007. (2007): 137-167.
There’s Something About Mary…
Posted in ESSAYS, Inklings, tagged birth of Christ, Christianity, Christmas, Jesus, Messiah, random, Virgin Mary, writing on December 18, 2013| Leave a Comment »
I have been in Protestant circles for most of my life, and I find it curious that I have never heard a full-length sermon about the Virgin Mary, although her name pops up fleetingly and most often at Christmas. I have often wondered why she is not properly spoken of in the context of Mother’s Day or other occasions considering that she was such a powerful and pure instrument of God. She is an amazing example of how every woman of God and mother should be. Although she was not rich or famous, she demonstrated a noble spirit and character that everyone could learn from. She remained humble even when she was chosen to perform the most amazing work for God’s plan.
Have you ever wondered why Christ didn’t just come down here on a fiery chariot like the one that Elijah departed in, or why He didn’t just walk here like Enoch or float down from Heaven on a cloud heralded by the sound of angelic trumpets?
It seems to me that God wanted Jesus to enter here the same way that we all do, to experience being a helpless innocent child for a season. And God wanted Him to have a mother while He was in this world as a seal of His humanity, and because there is nothing on Earth that compares to the love of a mother.
I did not care for some aspects of the movie “Passion of the Christ.” It was far too graphic for my taste, and it seemed like the director wanted to make Jesus into another Braveheart. But I did find one thing especially moving in the film: the powerful presence of Mary.
I had never stopped to consider what it must have been like to be the mother of Christ, to always be in His shadow observing His ministries, suffering, rejection, and death. As a mother myself, it resonated with me in a mighty way. I realized that God knew exactly what He was doing when He chose Mary. She knew when to stay out of the way and when to be close. She loved Jesus with incredible longsuffering and tenderness, and yet never interfered with God’s business. Even at the cross, her heart was so strong and she too drank from a bitter cup that most of us would have refused.
I don’t write this to steal any glory from Jesus the Messiah, because He is the one who willingly died to deliver us from sin and opened the door to Heaven for every soul. But I don’t think we should be afraid to talk about His earthly mother and learn from her character. She is a Biblical woman to celebrate. Because there’s just something about Mary.
Insect Armageddon
Posted in ESSAYS, tagged ant, bug, C.S.Lewis, Christ, cicada, cockroach, entymology, essay, Faith, Florida, funny, holy mountain, humor, hurricane, Insect, Isaiah, jellyfish, mosquito, naturalist, nature, nature essay, nature writing, pests, Problem of Pain, raccoon, random, scholar, stinkbug, termite, tick, water moccasin, writer on September 26, 2012| 2 Comments »
I’m in Tennessee now and it’s stinkbug season…I used to think I could be a naturalist, but one problem always prevented me: INSECTS.
I wrote an essay about this problem during graduate school. We were discussing nature writing, and I decided I would try my hand at it. My mentor loved this piece entitled “Insect Armageddon.” I hope you enjoy.
Peace, Olive Twist!!
~♥~
C.S. Lewis, the Christian apologist, believed that animals go to Heaven when they die, because Isaiah the prophet speaks of the Holy Mountain being inhabited by more animals than humans. Someone once asked Lewis, “If animals go to Heaven, what will become of the mosquitoes?” Lewis replied that “A heaven for mosquitoes could be combined with a hell for man.”
I can attest to the fact that such a place already exists, where men are tormented for their sins and insects have dominion: the state of Florida. Many northerners have discovered this punishment at the time of their retirement, having thought they were moving south to tropical paradise and Jimmy Buffet songs.
I will not even embark upon issues such as the relentless heat and no seasons, the hurricanes and power outages that follow every storm, the wharf rats, the stinging jellyfish, the rabid raccoons, or the water moccasins that lurk in lakes, awaiting some brazen tourist who might decide to skinny-dip. I will tell only of that which I despise the most: the bugs. I have always despised bugs and regard them with a mixture of contempt and dread. Every autumn, I begin to pray for a winter harsh enough to send them all into early graves.
One summer my sons and I moved to Oregon, because most of our relatives live on the west coast and the weather is milder. After about two months there, I asked my young sons what they missed the most about Florida. My six-year-old quickly replied, “I miss the giant rhinoceros beetles that crawl around the parking lots, and those big locusts that are green and yellow and orange with zebra stripes on them.” His big blue eyes were glowing with purity.
“You miss those?” I asked, trying not to look disgusted. “Not me.” I mumbled a prayer that we would never go back, but we unfortunately did.
As we drove back into Florida, I opened the car window and could hear the cicadas chirping loudly in the trees. They’ve been waiting for me, I thought with horror. They are like giant flies that are naturally attracted to long hair, and nothing is worse than trying to shake one out while it rattles like madness in your ear, and you shriek and do a nerve dance until it falls out.
But the great demon of the south is the roach. Some of them fly, such as the giant palmetto bug. Once I lived in an old two-story house with a group of friends, and a man was cooking spaghetti and garlic bread in the kitchen. He had a neat stack of bread on a corner of the table and we noticed a huge roach on the ceiling several feet away. Its antennae were shaking excitably, and it suddenly did a sky dive with no parachute and landed perfectly on top of that tall bread castle, where it seemed to be quite content with its plunder. I did not eat that night.
Most roaches crawl with wriggling hungry antennae in garbage cans, on kitchen counters, and through windowsills and crevices. In the middle of the night, when you go to the kitchen for a cookie and milk and you turn on the light, they flee like desperate soldiers behind the fortress of the stove. When you open a cupboard in the daytime, one might rustle behind the sugar bag, or you might spy their eggs like tiny white bullets in the corner.
Once I was lying in my bed, and I heard a sound as soft as silk slippers on the venetian blinds over my head. I leapt from my bed and cut on the light, and was amazed that I had even been able to hear it. The roach, I mean. My ears are ultra-sensitive to insects, especially roaches. I wake up everyone in the house for such occasions, and won’t let anyone rest until the skirmish is finished and the culprit has met his demise.
The pest control man can’t stand me. I laugh with victorious delight whenever his Ghostbuster truck pulls into the driveway with its giant canisters of poison and ammunition. I call him any time I see one bug, and I make him spray the whole house again, since it is included in my service agreement. Though most people have switched to annual pest service, I expect my house to be sprayed once per month inside and out. I let him know when I think it’s time for more bait behind the kitchen drawers and under the sinks. I know he gets sick of dealing with me.
I can’t leave out the termites and giant ants. I called the termite man to come and tell me about a tree that looked like it was dissolving to sawdust all by itself. He looked at it and said, “I can’t do anything about that tree, because it is within three feet of your house, and we don’t do indoor service for you.” So I called the pest control man, and he says, “I can’t touch that tree because it’s not part of the house. So the bugs have all figured out where the no-kill zone is, and they continue to prosper there and raise their families. I once thought it would be funny to put up a “roach crossing” sign in front of our house.
Should I embark upon the subject of mosquitoes carrying diseases like malaria, yellow fever, encephalitis? Or have you ever awakened to find a tick burrowing in your flesh? How about those wasps with great stingers and long legs that hover around the eaves looking for a victim?
Once I had a crazy dream that I was looking with curious disdain at a display of insects in some laboratory. As I analyzed one big furry bug with wings pinned to a board resembling an insect Hellraiser, the bug suddenly squirmed and opened its eyes and started talking. I jumped back in horror, as it told me about the injustice and misfortune of its life and how it ended up being nailed by some entomologist. It was like a horror movie scene and I woke up sweating and feverish. I wondered if I was like Hannibal Lechter to the bug world.
As I sat shaking on the edge of my bed, I thought: Perhaps I have misjudged these little creatures. Perhaps they are only innocent civilians. Perhaps they are really cute and cuddly if you get to know them.
One tiny baby roach wriggled on my dresser. I grabbed my hairbrush and smacked it into eternal bliss. No, even my Quaker beliefs must be suspended for this war, this enmity. I cannot love these hellions in paradise.
(See Isaiah Chapter 11 and The Problem of Pain, chapter 9)
Charles Finney (1792-1875): Retained by God
Posted in Divine Doorkeepers, ESSAYS, tagged Bible, Charles Grandison Finney, Christ, critical essay, fallow ground, gardener, George Fox, gospel, nonfiction, random, scholar, Second Great Awakening, seed, Seeker, writer on September 15, 2012| Leave a Comment »
(Excerpt from “Divine Doorkeepers”)
Charles Grandison Finney was born in Warren, Connecticut, and was the youngest of fifteen children. Born to a family of farmers, Finney never attended college, but he apprenticed to become a lawyer. After his conversion, he became an important figure in the Second Great Awakening which swept over the northern states, especially upstate New York. Finney believed that the revivals did not have great impact in the Southern states because of the evil of slavery. He has been called The Father of Modern Revivalism and he was famous for sermons that were preached without notes or memorization, also known as “extemporaneous preaching.” He developed the custom of the “anxious bench” for people who were anxious about their souls and wanted guidance.
Finney was a tireless spiritual leader who worked to bring about revivals in many communities in America and Europe. Having been with a law firm before his conversion, he was well-suited to “plead the case of Christ”. He was often told that his style was like a lawyer at the bar talking to a jury, because he was powerfully direct, searching, and persuasive in his language.
Finney was criticized by other preachers in his time for his straightforward and plain style, and his illustrations that were directed at common people in ordinary occupations. He was told that his sermons were an embarrassment to the ministerial profession. But he replied by saying, “Great sermons lead people to praise the preacher. Good sermons lead people to praise the Savior” (Autobiography 74). He frequently had to defend his style: “Among farmers and mechanics, and other classes of men, I borrowed my illustrations from their various occupations. I tried to use language they would understand… my object was not to cultivate a style of oratory that should soar above the heads of the people, but to make myself understood” (Autobiography 70).
In one of his lectures recorded in the book Revivals of Religion, he uses the analogy of hardened ground to represent the hardness of the human heart that resists the gospel message. Like George Fox, he refers to himself as the divine gardener that has been appointed by God to labor in the field and plant holy seed:
Fallow ground is ground that has once been tilled, but which now lies waste, and needs to be broken up and mellowed, before it is suited to receive grain. I shall show, as it respects a revival in the church…
To break up the fallow ground, is to break up your heart, to prepare your minds to bring forth fruit unto God. The mind of man is often compared in the Bible to ground, and the Word of God to seed sown therein, the fruit representing the actions and affections of those who receive it…
Sometimes your hearts get matted down, hard and dry, till there is no such thing as getting fruit from them till they are broken up…It is that softening of the heart, so as to make it feel the truth, which the prophet calls breaking up your fallow ground (32-33).
Fox previously used the analogy of “thick cloddy earth” in a similar manner. Finney explains that tilling represents self-examination which allows the heart and mind to become tender and receptive. He explains that no preacher can “sow seed” or have any effect until a man prepares his heart on his own first.
Finney also depicts the movement of the Spirit with language pertaining to weaponry. For instance, he spoke of the Word of God as an arrow: “The Word of God had wonderful power…and I was surprised to find that a few words spoken to an individual would stick in his heart like an arrow” (Autobiography 32). He refers to preaching as being like a sword: “I concluded with such pointed remarks as were intended to make the subject go home…The sword of the Lord slew them on the right hand and on the left” (Autobiography 63). The “pointed remarks” and the sword represent the effect of the truth on the minds of people, piercing them with self-awareness and “slaying” their evil natures.
Finney was disillusioned that many ministers in his day had been trained in such a way that diminished their spiritual potency and hindered their growth. He writes of one such minister in his autobiography: “The fact is that Mr. Gale’s education for the ministry had been entirely defective. He had imbibed a set of opinions, both theological and practical, that were a straitjacket to him” (Autobiography 50). The straitjacket is used as a symbol for a condition of being restrained and weakened in faith.
Charles Finney uses simple stories and style in a way that is persuasive and authoritative, and draws readers into a stronger understanding of their own spiritual condition and the workings of God.
“Madmen, Mystics and Monks” Bibliography
Posted in BOOKS, ESSAYS, tagged bibliography, Black Elk, books, Cost of Discipleship, critique, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, essay, Faith, God, graduate, John Neihardt, lecture, Lewis, MFA, spirituality, The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics on July 23, 2012| 2 Comments »
This is the bibliography for my graduation lecture entitled “Madmen, Mystics, and Monks” which is also posted. See “Olive’s Pages” in the sidebar, and look under “Essays” to see the script.
Peace and Grace,
Olive
Bibliography
Augustine, Saint. The Sermons of St. Augustine. New York, NY: Barnes and Noble , 1999. Print.
Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. The Cost of Discipleship. Trans. Chr. Kaiser Verlag Munchen by R.H. Fuller. New York: Simon & Schuster (Touchstone), 1959. Print.
Bunuel, Luis. An Unspeakable Betrayal. Trans. by Garrett White. Los Angeles: U of California P, 2000. Print.
Dubus, Andre. Broken Vessels: Essays by Andre Dubus. Boston, MA: David R. Godine Publisher, Inc, 1991. Print.
Finch, Robert. “When You Wish Upon A Star: On the Evolution of Spiritual and Moral Thought.” Ecotone. Winter 2008: Print.
Lewis, C. S. The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics. New York: Harper One, 2002. Print.
Maharaj, Rabindranath, and Dave Hunt. Death of a Guru: A Remarkable True Story of One Man’s Search for Truth. Eugene, Oregon: Harvest House, 1977. eBook.
Miller, Donald. Blue Like Jazz. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2008. Print.
Neihardt, John. Black Elk Speaks: as told through John Neihardt by Nicholas Black Elk. Lincoln, NE: U of Nebraska P, 2000. Print.
Robinson, Marilynne. Gilead. New York: Picador, 2004. Print.
Sempangi, F. Kefa. A Distant Grief. Glendale, CA: Regal Books, 1979. Print.
Shaw, Luci. “Royalty.” Witnesses to Hope. N.p., 25 Mar 2010. Web. 13 Jun 2011. <http://witnessestohope.wordpress.com/category/poetry/shaw-luci/page/2/>.
Vaswani, Neela. You Have Given Me A Country. Louisville, Ky: Sarabande Books, 2010. Print.
I am the Earth (and I am Bleeding)
Posted in ESSAYS, tagged Christianity, contradiction, Deepwater Horizon, earth, environment, Faith, God, oil spill, random, Seeker, spirituality, writing on April 16, 2012| 2 Comments »
I wrote this essay during the time of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. It was a terribly sad time for the planet Earth, and I still recall watching the news coverage showing the dolphins and birds and turtles drenched in oil.
Many Christians have unfortunately become “so heavenly-minded that they are of no earthly good.” There are many contradictions in western Christianity these days, and one of them is that many believers don’t seem a bit concerned about the beautiful garden that God created for man to live in. It says in Genesis that after each day working upon His creative masterpiece, “He saw that it was good.”
~♥~
I am the Earth (and I am Bleeding)
My children, my children, what have you done? I am bleeding, and there is no one who can help me now. A blood vessel in my heart has broken, and no one can seal it. I have given all that I can. I am old and tired, and my wisest sons cannot find an answer to my sickness.
You are unruly and selfish children, and you have never loved me as you should. You only care what I can do for you. All of your wealth and comfort has sprung from me, and you have glutted yourselves on my generosity and goodness. Now you have wounded me, and I cannot find a healer among you.
Who will give me a transfusion when my blood has clotted and my veins are hardened? My heart is full of sorrow for you…What shall become of you when I am dead? When I become a dry crust of bread with no water, what will you do?
We, your children, watched as your heart chamber erupted with fire and thundering and red smoke, and you began to cough up blood. You gagged and sputtered and eleven of your children died. Your amniotic oceans are bloody and infected with yellow mucus and plasma.
We have violated you, like a cheap harlot. We have thrust tubes and great spikes into your bloodstream so we can draw out your blood and sell it, and we have fought great wars over the ownership of it. We have bludgeoned your bones with great hammers and drills, until it is pulverized into powders and dust. With great fists, we have struck down your hills and mountains until they are flat. We have ripped out your green thickets and vines by the roots, and tattooed you with hot black tar. We have choked you with giant concrete cigarettes puffing arrogantly in our cities. Our greed is like a bottomless pit.
We have become our own enemy, for we have sickened our mother. Is it too late? You have hemorrhaged for over forty days and nights. You cough sputum and blood onto the shores which threaten our homes and crops. Will your infection scab over and dry up, or will it catch fire in the feverish summer heat? We are afraid for you, but mostly for ourselves.
A pelican dives in and gobbles up poisoned fish. A seagull’s wings are heavy with sludge and never fly again. Dead fish rise to the surface, cloaked in your blackened blood.
What have we done, dear Mother? Are you mortally wounded? Now we are afraid. If our mother dies, shall we all perish? Who will sustain us?
Forgive us, Mother, for we don’t know what we are doing.
~♥~
Liberation through Holiness: The Sisterhood of Christ
Posted in ESSAYS, tagged Christ, Christianity, editorial, epistles, Faith, holy, Kathleen Norris, liberation, Mary Magdalene, opinion, oppression, spirituality, women on March 3, 2012| 2 Comments »
“And the twelve were with Him, and certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities—Mary called Magdalene, out of whom had come seven demons, and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others who provided for Him from their substance.” (Luke 8:1-3)
Of all of the women in the New Testament, I most identify with Mary Magdalene, the woman who was about to be stoned for committing adultery. Most of you already know the story of how Jesus rebuked a group of men with stones in their hands and said that whoever was without sin should cast the first one, and they all walked away.
Jesus was not only defending the woman, but acknowledging that a woman cannot commit adultery by herself. “Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.” After everyone had left, Jesus said to her, “Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you? She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.”[1]
After saving her, one might have expected Him to say, “Now go and get married and be a dutiful wife from now on.” But He released her in that moment, and she henceforth became a witness and a disciple in her own right.
After this, the Pharisees came arguing with Christ that He did not have authority to do the things He was doing. He answered them saying, “You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one.”[2] He said that He had the authority to judge, but chose not to exercise it. If Jesus did not hasten to condemn, then why must Christians be so judgmental?
He told the religious leaders “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free…Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. If the Son sets you free, you shall be free indeed…”[3]
After she was liberated by Christ, Mary traveled everywhere that Jesus went and offered financial support for His ministry. She was a very important figure who witnessed His earthly ministry, crucifixion, and burial. She was the first person to see the resurrected Christ.
Consider the story of the woman at the well. She was a Samaritan, and Jesus was a Jew, and by law they were not supposed to interact at all. But Christ chose to interact with her when He humbly asked her for a drink of water. At one point Jesus asked her to call for her husband. She said, “I have no husband” and He replied “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’ for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.”[4]
Again, if one of the religious leaders had been there, he would have ordered her to get married or fulfill her expected role in society. But Christ did not do this, and she also became a disciple. She could not wait to tell everyone she knew that she had met the Messiah. “And many of the Samaritans of that city believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, ‘He told me all that I ever did.’”[5]
Mary the sister of Lazarus was another great woman of God, who loved to listen to Jesus teach. When Martha tried to get Jesus to make Mary work with her in the kitchen instead of spending time with Him, He rebuked Martha saying “Mary has chosen the better part, and that will not be taken from her.” He clearly allowed Mary to fulfill her own heart’s desires, and this Mary also became a powerful disciple.
On one occasion, at a feast in the home of a wealthy man named Simon, Mary came in and washed Jesus feet with her tears, dried them with her hair, and poured expensive perfume on his feet. The men in the room were appalled and made mockery of her, and whispered among themselves that Christ did not know what kind of woman she was. He knew their thoughts and harshly rebuked them. He said that the woman would always be remembered for this act of affection that she bestowed on Him, and told Simon that he could learn a lot from her behavior about how to treat the Lord. Christ had a pattern of showing love and dignity to women, and He could not endure to see them mistreated by anyone.
In the eighth chapter of Luke, Joanna and Susanna are mentioned as women who take care of Christ’s needs “out of their substance.” A friend of mine and I had once discussed the fact that Christ had no house, chariot, money, job, or any comforts that most people enjoy, and we had wondered how His clothes were cleaned and things such as that. Then we found our answer in this passage with the women who cared for Jesus.
Imagine the bravery of Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward, to be helping Jesus after the male babies had been slaughtered and John the Baptist had been beheaded by this same king! In many ways, she showed more courage than the twelve disciples did. But she considered it a privilege and a joy to take care of the Lord. Women were always coming forward to take care of things that the men were unwilling to attend to.
When the rich young ruler came and tried to argue with Christ about the law, I don’t read that he offered to contribute money to help with the ministries of Jesus and the disciples. There are other men who said that they wanted to follow Christ, but after He told them that He was homeless, they lost interest in following Him.
But the women were always there.
After Christ was crucified, the scriptures say that the women were still lingering around the tomb weeping for Jesus when the men had given up and were complaining that Christ had not saved them from the Romans. In John 20 and 21, the disciples didn’t even recognize Christ after He appeared to them several times, and they all went out fishing.
In the early church after the resurrection of Christ, women continued to play an important role in furthering the gospel. The apostle Paul mentions Priscilla and Aquila in his epistles, and scholars say that he mentions Priscilla first because she was recognized as being more gifted in the ministry than her husband. Lydia the purveyor of purple cloth helped support the work of the apostles, and Dorcas was so important in one community that Paul raised her from the dead.
Kathleen Norris writes in her book The Cloister Walks that theologians have never forgiven Christ for coming through the body of a woman. She states in her chapter about virgin martyrs that the men could not bear to kill holy women without raping them first, because they thought of them only as devices for the pleasure of men.
Today we still see this attitude within the context of Christianity, that a married woman is expected first to serve her husband and then God. Women are considered second-rate citizen in the Kingdom of God by many denominations, and leaders take scriptures out of context to support this errant view. As a result, women in some churches are not permitted to speak or to lead, because it is believed that their only suitable roles are child care and baking cookies.
This subject was addressed in an article entitled “The Head of the Epistles,” which appeared in Christianity Today in 1981. The writers explain that the “head” was a metaphor for the enabler of the body, not the ruler:
Paul’s word order also shows he was not thinking of chain of command: Christ, head of man; man, head of woman; God, head of Christ. Those who make it a chain of command must rearrange Paul’s words. In fact, Paul seems to go out of his way to show that he was not imputing authority to males when he said, “For as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God. (1 Cor 11:12)
…As Christ is the enabler (the one who brings to completion) of the church, so the husband is to enable (bring to completion) all that his wife is meant to be. The husband is to nourish and cherish his wife as he does his own body, even as Christ nourishes and cherishes the church. (vs.29)
It is very clear to me from reading scripture and particularly the “Parable of the Talents” that we are expected to use all of our gifts to promote the Kingdom agenda. No one should be hindered in doing their best work for Christ.
OLIVE TWIST ©2012
http://www.godswordtowomen.org/head.htm
The Head of the Epistles was written by Berkeley and Alvera Mickelsen, professors at Bethel Theological Seminary in St. Paul, MN. It originally appeared as an article in Christianity Today, Feb. 20, 1981.
Scripture Passages:
[1] John 8:10-11, ESV
[2] John 8:15, ESV
[3] John 8:32-36, ESV
[4] John 4:17-18, NKJV
[5] John 4:39