Had Eve Come First and Jonah Been a Woman. Nancy Werking Poling
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assurance than I’d had the night before, I would again trust God Most High’s promise to remain with me. To bless me.
There were of course arguments with my husband. If the husband said stay, the wife should stay, he lectured. It was a woman’s duty to obey. I insisted that a woman must follow the call of God Most High. Finally, reluctantly, my husband agreed to accompany me. My favorite niece too, my middle sister’s oldest daughter, who had started to dream about her own future.
We had no trouble deciding what to take, what to leave behind, for our possessions were few. Nearly everything we planned to carry was essential for survival: foodstuffs, utensils, medicinal herbs, several goats and sheep.
The evening before we were to leave, my oldest sister drew me aside and handed me what I recognized as her favorite bracelet. “Take this with you,” she said, tears in her eyes, “so that a part of me ventures out too.”
It had not occurred to me that she might also want to make the journey. Her foot had been crushed by a ewe when she’d been but a baby, and as the oldest daughter she was expected to care for our parents. I had assumed she was content to stay.
As I put the bracelet on my arm, I recognized that my journey would be for her as well.
Ah, I remember the day of departure as if it were yesterday. Of course I cried—from fear or relief or sorrow, I do not know—as our small caravan set out in the faint light of early morning. I led the way, on foot, my head held high, my gaze fixed on the distant horizon.
Since God Most High had promised to bless me, I assumed our travels would be without hardship and danger. And indeed the journey was easy at first. Each new vista delighted me and inspired me to keep moving forward.
But I discovered that while I sometimes journeyed in the protective shadow of God Most High, at other times she remained beyond my reach. Each time, upon her reappearance I built an altar, partly to honor and thank her for returning, partly to serve as a future meeting place for the two of us.
Many nights I would throw a blanket over my shoulders and step out of the tent. The nights were cold and clear, with stars so brilliant I felt as if I could reach up and pluck some from the sky. Only my husband’s snores and the faint sounds of restless animals broke the stark mantel of silence. Seated upon a large rock or on the ground, I spoke with God Most High. Rather she spoke to me, reminding me over and over that I was intelligent and capable and lovely, for I still did not always believe her affirming words.
Gradually, as I began to accept my worthiness, our encounters changed. God Most High asked what I had been thinking, laughed at my jokes, praised my ingenuity. I too listened as she spoke of loneliness, for many had forsaken my dear friend and turned to other gods. In those moments of honesty I discovered what a true companion I had gained. Not only one who accompanied me on the arduous journey, inspiring me to go forward and not be afraid, but one who understood me better than I understood myself.
There were times too, when for hours the two of us argued, each defending a position, neither willing to acquiesce. Whether evil should be punished, for example. They were pleasurable too, the disagreements, for my friend valued a woman who spoke her mind, and I enjoyed the mental challenges.
“How can I truly know you?” I asked one night.
“Knowing me,” she said, “will take a lifetime.”
I was disappointed, but as our caravan journeyed the following day, I considered her response. Ah, I finally saw: her nature was not a mystery to be solved; on the contrary it opened to questions without answers. Then to more questions. The quest to fathom her nature was for a mind that relished searching but was content not to find. A mind like mine, for I had no wish to build a prison of knowledge around her.
To find the place where she belongs, where she will flourish, a woman sometimes has to change directions several times. Meanwhile, God Most High is attending to other business. More than once I found myself in rugged terrain, making slow and laborious progress.
There was a period when many days passed without any sign of God Most High. One day our caravan would be battered by the harshness of the sun, the next by the ferocity of the wind.
“I should have known better than to follow a woman,” my husband complained.
I had assumed I could handle hardship. After all, I had planned well. Besides, God Most High had said I was an intelligent woman. But now the dry earth I trod became the parched soil of my soul, and I knew that nothing could grow there. It was unexpected, this sense of desolation. Scanning the landscape, I saw nothing that made me hopeful. I questioned the wisdom of having left security behind and began to doubt God Most High’s lofty promises.
When would I find the place where I could flourish? How would a great nation come of me if I had no children? A blessing to all? Hardly.
At those times of hopelessness, I often glanced down and saw my sister’s bracelet on my wrist. I reminded myself that she would rejoice if she had legs strong enough to be making this journey. Her ongoing determination to survive sustained me. She, more than anyone, would be disappointed if I returned home.
It’s part of the journey, I discovered: enduring times of emptiness and discouragement as well as those of satisfaction.
“But you have brought us back to Bethel,” I complained to God Most High. We had traveled in a circle.
“This is the in-between place, not the final destination,” she assured me.
At Bethel my niece and I prospered, accumulating gold and silver, numerous flocks and herds, too. As we discussed our achievements one evening, arrogantly asserting as we often did that success comes to those who risk, I noticed that I was sliding my sister’s bracelet up and down my arm. It occurred to me that she did not have the freedom to risk. Her injured body and loyalty to our parents bound her to one place so that she would never have my wealth.
Until that moment I had simply accepted God Most High’s explanations for why I was chosen, her words about my intellect and adventuresome spirit pleasing to my ear. Yet my equally intelligent sister yearned for adventure and success too. How, I wondered, can a woman feel blessed if her sister has no similar opportunities?
I had been assuming that my wealth was the blessing God Most High had spoken of. That night in the tent, next to my husband, I lay awake considering the rest of God Most High’s promise: “So that you will be a blessing to all.” Instead of being a blessing to all, I was putting my energy into gaining wealth and guarding my possessions. I was using my riches to gain stature and power. I had ceased marveling over the earth’s glories and lost my curiosity.
In the days that followed, the restlessness returned. What was beyond the mountains? The prospect of newness again excited me. New people, new landscapes. New opportunities to become a blessing for others rather than a woman whose primary goal was to accumulate.
My husband whined that life was good in Bethel; it made no sense to leave. My niece said she was ready to move on too. We decided to go in separate directions, though. She chose the plain; my husband and I headed toward the mountains.
I awoke from a deep sleep, seized by terror. I had no idea what the source of my anxiety was, only a feeling of deep, deep dread.
I called out to God Most High.
An abyss of silence came back to me. Dark, empty silence.
I sensed her approach. Yet she said nothing.
“Speak to me,” I shouted. “Tell me, why do I feel this way?”
I was trembling by now. Though awake, I began to picture, as in a dream, a most wretched scene. Rows and rows of people, their heads lowered as they walked, walked, into a powerful wind. I could not see their faces, yet I recognized in the slump of their shoulders, the slow plodding, their sense of desolation, their lack of hope.
Overcome by sorrow, I began to weep. “What does it mean? What does it mean?” I begged to know.
In her answer I heard a sadness yet greater than my own, one