Had Eve Come First and Jonah Been a Woman. Nancy Werking Poling
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over the devastation she had wrought, Nochat lamenting the loss of the people and animals she had loved.
One afternoon God hiccoughed and stood. “My mourning will never cease, but it is time for me to set about recreating. First, though, I will make a promise, Nochet. I promise you and your descendents and every living creature that has come to this place on the ark—I promise that I will never again release the waters to destroy the earth by flood.”
As God spoke, she spread an immense arc of colors across the sky. Lavender, red, blue, and yellow, it was, with a span so wide that its ends could not be seen. “This is a sign of my covenant. You will never again need to fear my wrath.”
With heavy heart Nochat went to get the family’s mildewed garments out of the ark so that she might spread them in the sun.
With heavy heart God set about rebuilding the earth.
Confused
Genesis 11:1–9
Humankind shares a common language—until a group decides to build a great city and a great tower, an action God views as arrogant. God decides to confuse their communication. The story of the Tower of Babel has sometimes been used to explain why the earth is inhabited by people who speak different languages.
Women, too, once spoke a common language.
There was a time when women understood each other, for sorrow was the language that connected them. Some held the hands of sisters and friends as they died at childbirth. Many wept at the graves of their children taken by disease or hunger. Those who did not lose sisters or friends or children still grasped the horror and mourned with women who did.
Wars claimed the lives of husbands, brothers, sons. Women’s homes were invaded, their bodies raped. Those who did not witness war still grasped its horror and mourned with women who did.
Yes, it used to be that women everywhere understood the language of sorrow.
Then some migrated, found a place to the west. There they said to one another, “Come, let us build ourselves a great city, and towers that extend to the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves so that our wealth will be recognized over all the earth.”
When they had built the city and the towers, the women said among themselves, “See what great feats we are able to do.”
But God looked down upon the city and its towers and said, “Look, those women have built this grand city and think they have made a name for themselves. But they have forgotten the language of sorrow that used to connect them to others. They are too intent upon accumulating wealth to recognize the suffering of those in distant lands who lose sisters and friends at childbirth. They are too busy to pay attention to the agony of women in distant lands who weep at the graves of children who have died of disease or hunger. They no longer listen to the voices of women whose homes are invaded, their bodies raped when war spreads over their land.”
So God turned from the women who had built a city and towers that reached the heavens, choosing instead to accompany those who lived with sadness and oppression. God named the city with the tall towers Babel, which means confused. Because the women who lived there no longer understood what mattered in God’s sight.
Not All Who Wander are Lost
Genesis 12–22
“Leave your country,” God tells Abraham, “and go to the land I will show you.” God promises to bless Abraham and “make of you a great nation.” Accompanied by Sarah, his wife, and Lot, his nephew, Abraham heads for Canaan. Herdsmen, he and Lot move their flocks from place to place, even traveling as far as Egypt during a time of famine. Eventually, because the size of their herds has increased and their shepherds compete for grazing space, the two men part ways.
Female Abrahams, too, follow God’s call to leave the familiar and head for a far-away destination. The journey is not without hardship and loneliness, times when these daring women consider turning back. Yet God’s presence gives them courage.
Muslims, Jews, and Christians trace their ancestry back to Abraham.
Even as a child I was restless, often escaping the light around the evening fire to venture into the darkness. Farther and farther I wandered, during the day and after dark, until I was familiar with every knoll and dip in the surrounding landscape. With my eyes closed I could see what the sun looked like as it rose over the lands to the east and set behind the hills to the west.
What was on the other side of the river, I wondered. Beyond the distant hills? I also entertained questions about God Most High. Did she reside beyond the mountains? In the cities? I dreamed of exploring faraway places.
My father assured me that I would find nothing different or interesting beyond the river. Besides, it was not appropriate for a young woman to journey forth, he insisted. Or to search for God Most High. Whether God Most High could be found beyond the mountains or in the city was not important; what mattered was that she dwelt with us.
His simple answers made me even more impatient to journey afar. I became convinced that my homeland was no place for one like me. A curious woman. A woman who sought adventure.
For generations the God of my people has been God Most High, the one who stirs the heavens and earth, who destroys and rescues. Like others, my husband and I made sacrifices to her out of fear. Yet questions kept coming to me: If she was to be feared, why did her creation fill me with so much pleasure? The peaceful stream I took clear water from. The soft fox kit I held.
It is as if it happened in another lifetime, that day long ago when she first came to me. I had just started to explore a shallow cave when I heard a voice: “We are alike, you know.” Instinctively I knew it was the voice of God Most High. “Who but an adventuresome God would have created contradiction?” she asked. “Henna and thistle, for example. The poisonous berry and sweet date. The booming shout of a man and the gentle song of a mother with her infant.”
“I have often considered the rose and the thorn,” I said. “The playful cub that becomes a fierce lion. Why did you create animals so that they must eat each other to survive? Why did you create a world with the serene beauty of a meadow, yet also the storm and earthquake?” I had scores of questions.
After we’d engaged in a lengthy discussion, God Most High told me, “You do not belong among people who have answers but no questions. I have a better place for you, a place where you can flourish, where your intelligence will serve you well.”
My intelligence? No one else had ever said I was intelligent.
“In that place I will make of your offspring a great nation, so that you will be a blessing to all.”
A new land, a place where I could flourish, she promised. A place where I would not be considered a nuisance, a woman with too many questions. A new role: mother, grandmother, ancestor.
As exciting as her invitation sounded, as much as I wanted to follow the path she had prepared for me, I could not easily separate myself from my people. Voices within said I should stay with them, try to be the woman my parents and husband wanted me to be: committed to kin, contented with the life I had. To embark on a journey would be leaving familiar customs and language. Memories, too, many of them pleasant.
Leaving all to follow the God I knew mainly through tradition. What if after forsaking all security I ended up in a faraway land and did not flourish, did not become a blessing to all? But if I stayed my spirit would surely die. I decided to go.
“Why do you want to go away,” my husband asked, “when everything you need is right here?”
“It will be dangerous,” my mother and aunts said.
Cousins tried to convince me that beyond my familiar homeland there was nothing better than what I already had. I heard whispers, barely within earshot, predicting that as soon as hardship came I’d be back. Only my oldest sister remained quiet.
At night everyone’s warnings invaded my dreams. I was lost; strangers