Vashti: Museum Piece

Esther 1

What is a wife?
An ornament?
A pretty vase
to look at,
polish,
play with,
and then put away
till another day?
What am I to you?
A decoration?
I don't exist
until you want me
or want to show me off
like a rare artefact,
a prized possession.

Why can't you see me?
Why can't you see
that I don't want admiration
but love?
I don't want to be
your museum piece,
don't want to be
a picture on your wall
or a statue
to grace your halls.

I want to be
etched into your heart,
a part of you
you can't live without.
I want to be more
than my lovely face,
for when my beauty fades,
what will I be then?
A moth-eaten garment,
a crumbling masterpiece,
a faded painting
worth nothing to you.
Why can't you see me?

So tonight
I'll put my foot down
and stand up for myself
and for women everywhere.
Disobedience? Who cares -
it has to be said,
it has to be done.
We are not your ornaments,
your pretty little things,
collectors' items,
fine rare gems.
We are people
with hearts and souls,
with needs and wishes.
We want more.

Treat me like a human being.
Love me,
see me,
hear me.
Rather than be called a beauty
I would have you look
when I'm my ugliest
and say you love me
for me.

I put my foot down.
I disobey.
I'm your museum piece
no more.

______________________________________________________

 [January 2012]

Vashti was the wife of King Xerxes before Esther became queen to replace her. The king called her to show her off to guests at a feast - and she refused to come. It's interesting how some interpreters admire her for it, while others see her actions as wrong, an act of disobedience. Here's my take on the story.

The whole idea of wives being treated like ornaments or pretty vases comes very much from the influence of my very feminist best friend, who I am certain used those exact words once. Also, the "masterpiece" idea came from A Room with a View, where Cecil (a rather unlikeable guy haha) likes to call Lucy (the main character) "my Leonardo". If I remember right she also stands up to him about that once.

It is nice to be called pretty, but in the end we are more than that. If someone likes you for your looks, they won't like you for very long. Because unless we die early we all end up wrinkled and crinkled (which I find really beautiful and cute btw). We're all more than our looks - men and women both. We can't prevent attraction to looks (I think that's quite natural), but it shouldn't be all.

And I think an important verse for this poem is Ephesians 5:25. "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her." It's not right to place a wrong emphasis on the part about wives submitting to their husbands while ignoring this second, equally important part!

Picture by Gustave Doré

Mahalath: Seventy-Seven Times

2. Chronicles 11:18-23

I was the first,
and in daydreams I thought
that I'd be your Only One.
(Stupid daydreams
of a foolish girl.)
Maybe it meant nothing
to you,
those first kisses,
those times you came to me
and murmured sweet words
as we fell asleep.
Maybe it was too much
to expect you to love me,
when love was not
what you married me for.

You have replaced me
seventy-seven times.
Now when you come
I wonder why you do.
I want you to leave,
take your dirty hands off me,
hands that have touched
too many others
who lie awake now
like I have done,
crying bitter tears
because
you have betrayed us
seventy-seven times
and being loved by a poor man
is better than this.

He was your first,
and in daydreams I thought
that he would be king.
(Stupid daydreams
of a foolish girl.)
For you chose another:
you loved her more than me,
and her son more than mine.
Maybe it is too much
to expect you to love me,
but wasn't he
what you married me for?

You have replaced me
seventy-seven times;
now you replace
your first-born son.
I don't want your love -
it is worth nothing now,
when your son suffers
because you can't love me.
You have betrayed me
seventy-seven times;
now you betray him,
and being a poor man's son
is better than this.
_____________________________________________________________

[23. August 2015]

I did not know Mahalath until this morning... she was the first wife of Rehoboam, son of Solomon, the king under whom the kingdoms of Israel and Judah divided. Reading 2. Chronicles 11, I noticed that although one of Mahalath's sons would have been the fist-born son, Rehoboam chose another to follow him as king - Abijah, the son of his favourite wife, Maacah (V. 21-22). I can imagine that this could have caused considerable conflict and jealousy between the wives. That's how this emerged... this is on the one hand about the consequences of polygamy (jealousy, feeling betrayed), on the other hand about the "replacement" of the firstborn with a later-born son of a preferred wife.

Rehoboam had 18 wives and 60 concubines - in total, 78. That's where the "seventy-seven" comes from: 77 other wives after Mahalath. Mahalath's first son was Jeush; he probably was the first-born.

Picture by Michelangelo.

Adah: The Curse

Genesis 4:19-24

"Your desire shall be for your husband,
and he shall rule over you." (Genesis 3:16b)

Why do I keep coming back to you?
Why do I seek what causes me pain?
Why do I rush into the arms of my prison?
Why do I repeat the same mistakes?

So many times I could have left -
what made me stay?
So many times I had had enough,
enough of your violence,
your senseless cruelty.
What drew me back?

What keeps me here
with a vengeful man,
a cruel man,
who repays manifold
the smallest injury,
who sows anger
and reaps hate,
perpetuates this darkness
we're already living in?

Why do I not
take my children by the hand,
turn my back,
run far away?
What keeps me here
under your thumb,
dirt beneath your feet,
flesh to be used and cast aside,
the brunt of your fury?

Is it hope that you'll change,
or that I might change you?
Is it desire for the father of my sons?
Is it pure stupidity,
or fear, paralysing me?
Or is this a curse,
running through my veins,
binding me to my pain?

I want to love you,
but loving you is pain.
I want to leave you,
but find myself trapped
in a web of dependence,
of responsibility.
I want to be your helper,
surrounding you with love -
but love is not enough
and it's destroying me.

_____________________________________________

[July/August 2015]

I have been wanting to write a poem about Gen 3:16b for years. Mainly because it's the verse that comes to my mind every time I allow a man to hurt me and get away with it. Of course not as an excuse for not standing up against him, but as a description of the tendency to pretend whatever upsets you about him is "not so bad" because of your feelings for him. Caring for someone can blind against his faults, sometimes to the extent that one even accepts some pretty bad treatment before realising it doesn't have to be that way.

Anyway, I put myself in Adah and Zillah's shoes a bit... (whose situation is way more extreme than anything I experienced.) Lamech is described as a violent man, swearing vengeance on anyone who causes him the smallest hurt, so I imagine he would not have been the kindest of husbands either. Since he proclaims his "oath" before his wives, I suppose it's a warning to them too, not to come against him. So this is basically about how despite suffering under her husband, Adah finds herself unable to leave...

I do believe it would be better for her to leave. Also, I don't think Gen 3:16b "binds" anyone to an abusive relationship. But leaving is not easy - and those days it was even harder, since women were so dependent on men for protection. Sometimes it's clear what one should do (e.g. in this case: leaving an abusive husband), but other things like fear, dependence, responsibility etc. get in the way or make decisive action harder!

(Often for lesser-known Bible women I write a "shared poem", since writing two points of view on the same thing - especially if it takes a lot of imagination to figure out the story behind women who are mentioned only by name, with little or no additional info - doesn't always work out. This time, though, I'm splitting the pair because I had two ideas. Zillah's poem might follow soon.)

Picture by Jan Sadeler.

Mary: Profane Temple

Solomon brought Pharaoh’s daughter from the city of David to the house that he had built for her, for he said, "My wife shall not live in the house of King David of Israel, for the places to which the ark of the Lord has come are holy." (2. Chronicles 8:11)

And the Word became flesh. (John 1:14a)

I am darkness.
I am earth.
I am body
giving birth.
Life and death
bleed out from me.
I am chaos,
liminality.

This far, no further -
no nearer to God.
For what has body
to do with spirit?
What has earth
to do with sky?
What has the profane
to do with the holy?
What has darkness
to do with light?

I am darkness.
I am earth.
Unclean, unholy,
separated by a wall
from the presence of God.
This far, no further
than the boundary line.

What has light
to do with darkness?
What has the holy
to do with the profane?
What has spirit
to do with body?
What has the Word
to do with flesh?

And yet
You
became flesh.

And yet
You
chose woman
to be your temple.

You chose darkness.
You chose earth.
You chose body.
You chose birth.
You chose this lowly maiden,
my earth-bound body;
You filled this profane vessel
with You.

From now on all
will call me blessed,
and all will be blessed
through me.

_________________________________________________________________

[15. August 2015]

A few things flowed into this...

• Upon reading 2. Chron 8, I got stuck on v.11: Solomon removing his wife from the palace because that would be too near the temple, and a woman shouldn't be so near. In the time of Jesus, the temple was in fact split in different sections, and women could only go as far as the women's court (hence "separated by a wall"). This has to do with menstruation (during which a woman would be "unclean") - alluded to with the line "Life and death / bleed out from me".
• (Unbelievably) I still remember something from a religious studies class 4+ years ago, when we were looking at Mary Douglas' Purity and Danger. Mary Douglas studied concepts of ritual purity, and the idea of "liminality" (being on the borderline, neither "out" nor "in") was quite important there. If I remember correctly, menstruation is a liminal phase, which is why it is seen as "unclean" in the Old Testament (and other cultures even today!) and possibly why women were kept at a distance from holy things.
• In Chinese philosophy there is the dualist concept of yin 陰 and yang 陽 which you might have heard of. Yin is the feminine principle, yang the masculine. Yin is associated with the dark, cold, wet, negative, passive, female, earth, and things hidden. I decided to pick that up ("I am darkness" etc.), since it fits to the idea of the feminine belonging to an "unholy" or liminal sphere. Originally, yin and yang were meant to be complementary and equally important - still, the masculine (yang) elements are generally seen as more "positive" and valued higher. Interesting: the whole yin/yang division is not just Chinese, but occurs in Western thought too, where the spiritual was often given more worth than the physical, and where women were looked upon as less worthy to concern themselves with religious things due to their being more "physical" (Greek philosophy and medieval thinking goes in that direction).
• I have referred a bit to "chaos" and "this far, no further"... In Ancient Near Eastern religion, the world was divided into "cosmos" and "chaos". Symbol for chaos was the sea. Some of this thinking is visible in the OT where it speaks of God setting boundaries for the sea, conquering ancient chaos monsters like Leviathan and Rahab (e.g. in Job, Psalms). I decided to sprinkle in these references too, since the feminine is sometimes also associated with uncontrollable nature and stuff like that.

Seeing how the feminine sphere had a rather vague connection to the holy and to God, what God did in the incarnation (= becoming flesh) is pretty astounding. Also considering how "flesh" and body were looked down upon in Greek thought around the time of Jesus (and long afterwards).

God became flesh. And God was born from a woman. In fact He spent 9 months in a womb. Pretty extreme stuff! And I think: what privilege! For Mary, who became God's temple, the house within which God's presence dwelt, during the time of her pregnancy. But also for all of us, because every Christian is given the immense honour of becoming a temple of the Holy Spirit. When I read Old Testament texts about the temple, I can only marvel at the privilege God has given us. Because direct access to the holy used to be pretty complicated, especially for women, what with all the rules about clean/unclean.

We women no longer have to be kept at a distance from the holy. We can go to church normally. We can partake of Communion / the Eucharist (the real presence of Jesus!) and no one asks us whether we're having our period. God pours out His Spirit upon men and women (Joel 2). Because God showed us in Mary that the female body can be a temple too.

Sulamith: Desiring You

Song of Songs

I want to get drunk
with you,
with the sweet, heady wine of your love.
I am starving for you;
my whole body aches
with desire like a fire
consuming me until
I am satisfied in you.
Intoxicate me,
let this love go to my head;
take me now
and fill me up with you.

I want to drown
in you,
in the endless depths of your love.
Parched in the desert I cry for you;
all of my being needs you.
How can I exist
apart from you?
I want to spill myself out
and be consumed by you.
Surround me,
drag me down into the floods;
take me now
and make me part of you.

I want to hide
in you,
in the cool, quiet shade of your love.
Let me lie in your arms
entranced by your presence,
dreaming in the comfort
of your warm embrace.
Cover me with your mantle,
hide me beneath your wing,
take me,
marry me,
make me your own.
Take me now
and make me one with you.

_____________________________________________________

[22. June 2015]

In case you didn't notice, this is about God. ;-)
I got inspired to write this while reading Everything Belongs by Richard Rohr (really good and thought-provoking book!). In one chapter, he speaks of the connection between divine love and human love. In that chapter, Rohr says on prayer: "Often the imagery becomes sexual, because it is the only adequate language to describe this contemplative experience." - "Religious images were once 'sexual': passionate, suffering, naked, bleeding, familial, and relational."

So if you're thinking I was "pushing boundaries" with the imagery here: it was intentional (sorry, not sorry). If you have a problem, go read Song of Songs.

In general, Song of Songs gets interpreted in these 2 ways:

1. It is about the love of a couple.
2. It is a parable of God's love.

I find it interesting to consider how we can actually speak of our relationship with God like we speak of a human relationship... not just in the "best friend" sense but even, as in Song of Songs, with (pretty strongly) sexual imagery. Of course, in religious circles we have become so used to hushing up sex or speaking of it only in connection to sin, that this can be difficult to accept. We tend to relativise or "soften" certain images that pop up all over the place in the Bible, e.g. the marriage imagery that appears really often to describe God's relationship to His people. Maybe we need to let these images challenge us anew, instead of making them "child-safe" and palatable for our feeble constitutions.

Some references in this poem: Psalm 42 and 63 (thirsting for God), and the "mantle" and "wings" imagery from Ezekiel 16 and the Book of Ruth. Covering with a mantle is a symbol for engagement.


Picture by Gustav Klimt.

Asenath: Stranger

Genesis 41:45

He burst into my life,
a stranger
with strange ways
and strange dreams,
a strange story
of a god who led him
through shame into glory -
and I loved him.

He burst into my life,
and brought into question
all the things I held on to,
everything I believed.
He opened the door
to a world I never knew,
frightening and new -
and I loved him.

He broadened my horizons,
stretched my imagination;
he was my piece of foreign land,
here to see,
here to touch,
my very own glimpse
beyond my borders
into the wider world.
And I'll never be the same,
because, with him,

You burst into my life
and turned it upside-down.
You challenged my beliefs,
and drew my love on you -
on you, the strange God,
whom I saw in all he did,
whom I heard in all he said,
whom I loved in loving him.
I love him
but what I love was made by you -
so how could I not love you too?

______________________________________________________________

[15. May 2015]

Asenath was Joseph's wife and daughter of an Egyptian priest (Gen 41:45).

There is an intertestamental / apocryphal book (what I like to call "ancient biblical fan-fiction", because in a sense it is) about Joseph and Asenath, and in particular about her conversion to Judaism (of which we don't read in the Bible). I read it last year - for fun, further study and in preparation of this poem (which has taken me half a year to write...). It's very interesting (the inter-testamental apocryphs all are, if you take them as fan-fiction and not as authoritative like the Bible); you can read it [here] if you like.

What struck me about the apocryphal story - and ended up flowing into this poem - is how it is about someone coming to faith through seeing the life of her husband. The Bible does not mention Asenath ever accepting Joseph's beliefs, but she would have been faced by them. So in this poem I focused on the one hand on the "meeting of cultures" in what was a cross-cultural marriage, and on the other hand on how through knowing Joseph, Asenath may have come to know God.

Jael: I Am No Man

Judges 4-5

And [Deborah] said [to Barak], “I will surely go with you; nevertheless, the road on which you are going will not lead to your glory, for the Lord will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.” (Judges 4:9)

I am no man,

I am no soldier,

but today I won your war.

Not with the sword,

nor the strength of horses -

today I won your war.

With a sip of milk

and a comfortable bed

I brought your foe to his knees.

There he lies dead -

a tent peg through his head.

Today I won your war.

Who says a housewife

cannot be an assassin?

Who says hospitality

can't be battle strategy?

Who says household items

cannot become weapons?

Who says a great man

cannot die at woman's hands?

I am no man,

I have no sword,

but today God won your war.

Through the hands of a woman

and the weapons of a housewife

today God won your war.

What is low in your eyes,

what you would have ignored,

the Lord has made high

and used for his work.

The mighty are shamed

at the hands of the weak,

as God shows forth his glory

in a woman like me.

___________________________________________________

[18. May 2015]

And yes, the Éowyn references are deliberate. ;-) "I am no man!"

What I find really interesting about the Deborah/Barak/Sisera/Jael story is that all the men in the story get away rather badly and appear pretty weak, while the women are the ones keeping a clear head and being in charge. Though that happens way more often in the Bible than certain people like to admit (just some examples: Tamar, Rebecca, Rahab, Ruth)!

Quick sum-up of the story: the Israelites are being oppressed by the Canaanites, so through the leading of the prophetess Deborah they fight back. While Barak's army fights the Canaanites, Sisera (the Canaanites' commander) runs away and Jael (who by the way is not an Israelite but a foreigner) invites him into her tent, gives him milk when he asks for water (i.e. very hospitable) and covers him with a blanket. When he goes to sleep, she takes a tent peg and hammer and WHAM.

What fascinates me about Jael's story is her hospitality - and how she ended up using hospitality as her "secret weapon". Which shows to me that God can work through anyone, through any means - women don't have to "act like men"; we can use our own gifts, our own ways of doing things. Or rather: let God work through them.

As I was writing this poem (dwelling in particular on Judges 4:9), I had to think of all those instances where God uses what society would think "weak" or inconsequential to bring about his victory. His glory is shown all the stronger in those "unexpected" places which put our all-too-human expectations to shame.

A few texts were at the back of my mind while writing:

• Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts. (Zechariah 4:6)
• The song of Hannah (1. Sam 2:1-10): The bows of the mighty are broken, but the feeble gird on strength. (v.4)
• The Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55): He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly. (v.52)

 Picture by Jan de Bray