Circum/Stances -- Adrienne Rich

In honor of the life and death of Adrienne Rich -- a great poet, whom I have come to love more dearly in the last year or so -- I'd like to share with you my favorite poem of hers, at this juncture. She wrote it in 2008, which is kind of amazing, as she was 78 years old. She's unlike any other poet I've known.

Circum/Stances

A crime of nostalgia

--is it--to say

the objective conditions

seemed a favoring wind

and we younger then

                                                            --objective fact--

also a kind of subjectivity

Sails unwrapped to the breeze

no chart

*

Slowly repetitiously to prise

up the leaden lid where the forensic

evidence was sealed

cross-section of a slave ship

diagram of a humiliated

mind    high resolution image

of a shredded lung

color slides of refugee camps

Elsewhere

                                                          (in some calm room far from pain)

bedsprings    a trunk empty

but for a scorched

                                                                    length of electrical cord

how these got here from where

what would have beheld

Migrant assemblage:    in its aura

immense details writhe, uprise

*

To imagine what    Become

present then

within the monster

nerveless and giggling

(our familiar    our kin)

who did the scutwork

To differentiate

the common hell

the coils inside the brain

*

Scratchy cassette ribbon

history's lamentation song:

Gone, friend I tore at

time after time

in anger

gone, love I could

time upon time

nor live nor leave

gone, city

of spies and squatters

tongues and genitals

All violence is not equal

(I write this with a clawed hand)

How then can we ever argue?

Having lunch in a field one day, I troubled an ant with a

question. I asked of him humbly, 

"Have you ever been to Paris?"

And he replied, "No, but I wouldn't mind going." And then he asked me if I had ever been to a famous ant city. And I regretted that I hadn't, and was quick to add, "I wouldn't mind, too!"

This led to a conclusion: There is life that we do not know of. 

How aware are we of all consciousness

in this universe?

What percent of space is this earth in the infinite realm?

What percent of time is one second

in eternity?

Less than that is our 

knowledge of 

God.

How then can we ever

argue about

Him?

Meister Eckhart, 14th century German mystic

[The book I pulled this from says that his theological writings were so eloquent that they helped evolve the German language, and are, perhaps, even divine revelation.]

The "Proverbs 31" Woman

You may have heard of her.

I usually don't pay any mind to this cultural phenomenon because Steed Davidson's Old Testament class taught me a completely different way to read Proverbs 31. You may ask, then, why I am writing this, if I do not care about the Proverbs 31 woman.

It's because in the last week or so, I've seen more references to her than usual, and even one by a friend who does not usually blog about religion, but came across the Proverbs 31 woman some other way.

I'm writing this because the women I've seen aspiring to be what they read as an ideal woman are very smart and wonderful and I think they deserve better than what they've been taught about Proverbs 31.

You see, the author of Proverbs 31 did not write it about his wife. Or about his ideal wife. Or about his daughter. Or about his neighbor's wife. Or about his favorite female celebrity. He wrote it about the people Israel.

There are many metaphors for the nation of Israel, and Israel as a woman is often a major theme. Israel is often referred to as a whore, prostitute, wayward wife, adulteress, etc., because "she" has strayed from God, her "husband."

This is one of those realities of the Old Testament that we wish we could shove under the rug. We forget that most hearers/readers of these early scripture were men, and that they did not value the women in their lives the way we value women in our lives, today. [Even though sometimes we suck at that, too.] This piece of scripture is not a prescription for an ideal woman. Your Bible's editors may even have entered a heading for this section, "A Woman of Noble Character" or "The Good Wife" or something like that.

That's okay, if you can remember that it's a metaphor for the nation of Israel.

If it helps you to be a better human being to aspire to be as many of the things Proverbs 31 prescribes, more power to you. But I worry about you if you think [even ever so subconsciously] that your husband will not love you or your God will not love you if you are not immediately and perfectly all of these things.

You can aspire to be whichever woman of the Bible you choose. [I'd go Mary Magdalene on this one, if you're asking. She was Jesus' BFF and (probably) wife. That sounds pretty fun, to me.] But please, when you read words like this, if they ever stop making you feel loved for who you are, and start making you feel worried that you're not good enough, they're ceasing to be the word of God, to you. I really believe that.

There are A LOT of women who are in relationships that are hurtful because they do not believe they can ever be good enough to please their husbands; many of these women also believe their highest and best purpose is to please their husbands. These relationships cannot be sustained. These relationships weigh heavily on fear.

Please, keep reading your Bible, if that's a thing you do. And please, keep aspiring to be of noble character. But please, do not let the Bible or your husband define who you should become as a way to put down who you presently are.

Okay? Good talk.