Feminism and the Fall

Hello, little friends! I'm back in Bristol between holidays and this is my first post about feminism in the Bible. 

Before I start I’d like you to know that I’m totally aware of the amount of baggage feminism carries with it, so there won’t be any bra-burning or man-hating on this blog. Feminism promotes gender equality not domination, and although it focuses on the empowerment of women much of the time there are also areas where men need to be empowered (for example suicide rates among men are 4 times higher than among women). So I hope I can write this in a way that doesn't alienate anyone, if I do please give me a heads up.

Where better to start than at the beginning? Genesis. The creation story. You’ve probably know it but it may be helpful to refresh yourself (Genesis 2:4 – 25 and 3: 1 – 24, you can search it on the internet if you don’t have a Bible handy).

A lot of elements in this story have been interpreted to show mans natural dominance over woman so let’s explore the main ones.

When Adam and Eve are made it seems pretty clear who’s boss: Adam is made first, Eve is a sort of afterthought, a playmate to keep Adam company, and she’s described as a ‘helper’ in verse 18.

But let’s look at it in more detail. First off, Adam translates as ‘human’, not ‘man’ so it’s been suggested that the act of removing his rib to create Eve was more an act of splitting the first human in two to separate it into male and female. (The Hebrew word for rib is more often translated into the word ‘side’ i.e. half of Adam).

And whether or not you agree with the amoeba theory (as I like to call it) God makes it clear that “it is not good for man to be alone.” In creating the first human alone God shows us that we are incomplete on our own, men and women are equal, complementary and integral to one another.

As for the Hebrew word used to describe Eve (translated as ‘helper’) it doesn’t mean helper like an ‘assistant’ or ‘subordinate’. The word azer k’negdo refers to powerful and vital aid and support. It is used throughout the Bible to describe the role of God himself, notably in 1 John 2:1.

Finally, the relationship between man and woman is really important: it illustrates the relationship between us and Jesus. We need Jesus’ aid and support, he brings life to us as life was brought to Adam through Eve (Eve means ‘life’). Only Jesus can complete us.

The second part I want to address is when Adam and Eve eat the fruit of knowledge. When I was younger I sort of got the impression that Eve (the temptress) was skulking about by herself when the snake shows up. The snake's all like “God’s a bit of an old fart isn’t he? Go on, eat a bit of this fruit.” And Eve says, “yeah I guess you’re right.” She eats the fruit and, having poisoned her own mind, runs off to find her hubby to trick him into eating some too. “hey Adam, fancy a nice apple?” “Have you licked this?” “Nah, I just had a tiny bite to check it wasn’t mouldy (heh, heh, heh).”

This story is wildly inaccurate. First off Adam and Eve were both there when the snake rocks up. Eve is discussing the tree of good and evil with it whilst Adam listens (could this be the first example of a women in leadership?). Genesis 3:6 says “she also gave some of the fruit to her husband who was with her.”

At no point does Adam pipe up “er, babe, maybe this isn’t such a good idea.” He eats the fruit when she passes it to him, so both of them sinned equally.

After this, one of their punishments meant that Adam would rule over Eve from that point onwards. And I don’t think this punishment exclusively affects women, the repression of women in many cultures has caused problems which affect both genders: they are no longer equals and no longer complete one another in the same way.

The creation story shows us that men and women are equal yet display contrasting and complementary aspects of Gods character. God made both genders in his own image so that means that all of us embody God, regardless of our gender, ethnicity, impairments, sexuality, dress sense etc etc.

“When God created human beings, he made them in his own likeness. He created them male and female and on that day he blessed them.” Genesis 5: 1-2

The next post will probably look at Jesus' and how he treated men and women equally (catchy title, I know). Also I’d like to thank the people who’ve told me that they enjoy reading this blog. I really appreciate it!

And the painting at the top of this post was done by a nun at our Lady of the Mississippi Abbey in Iowa, my mum found it on the internet somewhere.

How to begin the rest of your life

I can tell that everybody has missed my lengthy rambles. I’ve been on holiday for two weeks, first on a young adults Christian thing (Hill House) and then in Cornwall with some friends from school (affectionately known, in other circles, as my ‘hipster friends’). I’ve learned a lot. About God, about his plans for me, about myself, the people that love me and life in general. And I’d like to share a few things I’ve learned with you. Just in case any of it happens to be useful.

At Hill House a couple of guys really challenged us all. They’d been reading about the early church, the people that got together to try and live like Jesus said they should after Jesus had left and the Holy Spirit had arrived. And ohhhh boy, were they alternative! They ate together and shared food, met every day to praise God in the temple, and they sold land and possessions and gave the money to people who needed it, or put it into a big communal pot for anyone in the church to use.

I’d like to point out that these guys were not nuns or monks. And they weren’t beggars with nothing to lose, or crazy rich. They had day jobs, families to support, reputations to uphold. They were just like us and they completely changed their way of life to match up with what they believed in. They wanted to live in community, placing the needs of others alongside their own needs, and as a result they were ‘liked by all the people’. (How often is the church today described as ‘liked by all the people’?)

I digress. The main point I would like to make is that there is no ‘correct’ way of living, even if the world around us often insists that there is (and this way tends to place importance on annual salary, good grades, mortgage repayments, the launch of the iPhone 7, etc, etc). So we might as well live in a way which prioritises what we think is important, rather than what we’re told is important.

That will look different to all of us I expect: some people live in community houses because they want to share their home, time and meals, my parents buy their meat from the farmers market because they want to support local farmers, other people cycle to work for environmental and health reasons. 

For those of us just starting out in life, now is the ideal time to decide how we want to live, and for those who’ve already started it’s never too late. Don’t compromise your values, live ‘em.

We couldn’t help occasionally talking about employment (or unemployment!) in Cornwall. And someone said to me that if you aren’t doing something related to what you’re interested in then you’re just working for the sake of working, or living for the sake of living. He, like many of us, learned this the hard way: by spending a year in a job which he doesn’t really care about.

And alright, we aren’t going to get our dream jobs for a while yet, I expect many of us will never get our dream job (if we even have one that is). But if we’re just working for the money, to buy a flat, car, x-box (do people still play x-box?) is that really a good enough use of our time? How many people do you think lie on their death bed and regret not earning more disposable income in their life?

We all gotta eat. We can’t be so picky that we bypass every opportunity that comes our way, but many of us are very privileged in this country in that there are support networks available whilst we’re looking for work, and a range of jobs on offer. So, if I’m going to spend my days answering phone calls I could at least do it for a renewable energy company rather than for Texaco.

So there you go. Some stuff I’ve learned. I don’t know if it was helpful to you but it’s certainly shaped my perspective in regards to what I’m going to do next.

In other news: I don't know if you remember the fairytale I wrote a little while back (the Ash, the Oak and Yew) but here's the cover illustration for it. Butterfly wing cloaks are all the rage right now.

In my next few posts I’m hoping to tackle feminism (and misogyny) in the Bible. So if there’s any bits that people find difficult or confusing or just plain annoying please get in touch and I’ll look into them. Have a good week and I’ll see you on the other side of Soul Survivor Week B!

The Story of Farmer Harry

I've been on holiday for two weeks as you may know so, since I haven't had a chance to write a serious post yet, I thought I'd get back on the blogging-horse as soon as possible and post this fairytale that I wrote last October, along with a few illustrations I drew for it. I'm not an expert on farming so some parts are probably a bit questionable, but I hope you can forgive those bits and enjoy the story. And appreciate the moral of course.

The Story of Farmer Harry

Once there was a young man called Harry. He was from a poor farming family so as soon as he could he set out to seek his fortune. He travelled the country for a number of years, never getting any richer, until one night he got so drunk that he fell into a deep sleep. While he slept another man came and stole the little he had left. So Harry had no choice but to return to the village where he was born and try to make a living from farming.

   Harry’s father was old and had divided up his land between his sons while Harry was away so upon his return the son found that he had been left the worst field full of poor, sandy soil that hardly yielded any crops. But the young man was determined, because he couldn’t ask Emily to marry him without an income, so he ploughed the field and sewed it with wheat.

   When the time for reaping came the wheat grew short and sparse with small, scrawny ears and the soil beneath was even poorer and sandier than before. Still, Harry wasn’t one to give up easily so he went to visit the West Wind, because he’d noticed that when the soil got dry the wind would blow it away.

   The West Wind lived at the top of the highest hill with the steepest sides. When the young man got there the Wind was howling and billowing around the hilltop. Harry shouted: “West Wind! How can I stop you and your brothers blowing the soil of my field away?”

   Suddenly, all was still and quiet and the man heard the Wind murmur in his ear, “What will you do if I tell you the secret?”

   “Anything!” said the young man, “I’ll do anything.”

   “If I tell you the secret you must promise me to use it wisely and treat it like the wind would. Otherwise everything you grow will be taken from you.”

   Harry didn’t understand what the wind meant about using the secret wisely but he agreed hurriedly and the West Wind told him what he had to do.

   Next, Harry went to the forest to find the Queen of the bees because he’d also noticed that insects had been eating his crops. The wild bees lived in a bright clearing which was full of late summer flowers and the humming of a thousand insects.

   He called out: “Queen Bee! How can I stop your cousins from eating my crops?”

   All the bees went very quiet and the man heard the Queen of the Bees whisper in his ear, “what will you do if I tell you the secret?”

   “I’ll do anything!” he said.

   “If I tell you the secret you must promise me to use it wisely and treat it like the bees would. Otherwise everything you grow will be taken from you.”

   Again, Harry didn’t quite understand but he agreed eagerly and the Queen of the Bees told him what he had to do.

   Finally, the young man went to see the Wise Woman because he’d noticed that his field was on a slope over which the rain ran quickly making the soil dryer and sandier than ever. She lived in a tiny dark cottage on the edge of the village and people went to her in secret when they had a problem that they couldn’t find a solution to. They didn’t do so casually; it was said that she had the power to predict the future and even weave magic spells.

   He knocked on the door and went inside, the Wise Woman was hunched up in a chair and wrapped tightly in blankets. Harry asked: “Wise Woman, how can I stop the rain running over the tops of my field instead of soaking into the soil?”

   The old woman closer her eyes and said in a creaky voice, “what will you do if I give you the secret?”

   “I’ll do anything,” replied the young man.

   “If I tell you the secret you must promise to use it wisely and treat it like an old person would. Otherwise everything you grow will be taken from you.”

   Again, Harry didn’t completely understand but he agreed earnestly and the Wise Woman told him what he had to do.

The next spring when he ploughed his field he followed the West Winds advice and planted beans and clover between the rows of wheat so that the wind couldn’t get at the soil. Then, as the Queen of the Bees told him, he planted chamomile and marigolds around the edge of the field to keep the insects away. Finally he followed the Wise Womans instructions and dug a deep ditch along the top of the field and put sand and stones in the bottom of it so that when it rained heavily the ditch caught the water and allowed it to flow through the soil instead of over the top.

   By harvest time Harry had so much wheat that he had to build a larger barn to store it in! People from the village wondered at the young man’s good fortune. His brothers had all suffered hard years, losing portions of their crops to insects and bad weather, and they asked Harry what he had done to grow so much wheat. But he remembered what the Wind, the bees and the Wise Woman had told him about using the secrets wisely and refused to tell anyone.

   That autumn a strong wind came blowing down from the hills and when Harry went to his barn he found that the wind had forced the door open and blown a large part of his crops away! He was disappointed but locked the doors firmly, telling himself that there was well over half left.

   Not long afterwards a great swarm of insects was seen flying over the fields. All the farmers rushed to check their harvests but the only person to find any food missing was Harry who had lost half of his remaining crop to the ravenous insects.

   A few days later black storm clouds came marching inland from the sea and the heavy rain that they brought lasted a whole week. When the downpour finally stopped Harry found that it had washed the last of his crop away.

   Downcast and ashamed he went to Emily to tell her that they couldn’t marry. And he explained to her everything that had happened, beginning with asking the West Winds advice to losing everything he had worked for all year.

   At first she was sad too but then she began to think and she finally asked, “what exactly did the Wind say to do with the secret?”

   “To use it wisely and treat it like the wind would,” replied Harry.

   “Then you should have spread the secret!” she cried, “because the wind spreads everything it can pick up. What did the Queen of the Bees tell you to do?”

   “To use it wisely and treat it like the bees would.”

   “Then you should have told your brothers about it when they asked!” she said, “because bees work together and share everything among themselves. And what about the Wise Woman? What did she say?”

   “To use the secret wisely and treat it like an old person would,” replied Harry.

   “Then you should have passed it on,” laughed Emily, “because the elderly pass on their knowledge to the next generation.”

   “Of course!” said Harry, “but what can I do now? I don’t have any money or food to last the winter.”

   “You still have the secrets,” she replied, “tell them to your brothers in exchange for food for this winter, then next year everyone will have good harvests. We can marry in the autumn.”

   So that’s exactly what Harry did, and his father gave the couple his most sincere blessing.

Moral: community is better than competition. Things are better when we work together than when we try to beat one another and act selfishly.

This story is dedicated to Richard Spalding and Alan (really sorry can't remember his surname!), two of my lecturers who are genuinely questioning a lot of the practices in agriculture and development which we take for granted, and who taught me to question them too.

How to be a good ruler of the earth

I brought you to a fertile land so that you could eat its fruits and produce, but you came and made my land unclean; you made it a hateful place. Jeremiah 2:7

My friends and family probably all know that I’m a bit of an eco-warrior. And for those who didn’t know consider this your warning. Cardboard in the general waste makes me twitchy, I’m an avid follower of George Monbiot’s blog and never, ever get me started on the topic of farming.

But I understand that in this globally connected age there are so many worthy causes vying for our attention that the environment isn’t always the first thing on our minds. There are also so many conflicting views on any one issue that it can be almost impossible to know what to believe. Take climate change. Most scientists agree that it’s happening, but what about those who don’t? And even among those who do no one can seem to agree on how bad it’s going to be or what we should do about it. But this post isn’t about arguing for or against climate change, it’s about our attitude to the environment.

It always makes me sad when people who genuinely want to dedicate their time or money to a good cause disregard the environment and how we treat it because, they reason, people are more important that plants. We all know that a person is more important than a plant, but what this attitude really shows is that we think of the natural world as separate from our society, as something that we can live without. How often do we consider that without plants our lives would fall apart?

Vandana Shiva recently wrote an article exploring why our attitude towards our natural environment needs to change. Shiva suggests that if we treated the land and its ecosystems with respect and love, rather than as property that we have the right to use how we like, then many of the problems that we face wouldn’t exist. Species loss, soil and water pollution, land grabbing - all of which have a huge negative effects on people by the way - are caused by someone acting on the idea that they have the right to get as much out of the land as they like and to hell with the consequences.

If land is understood to have more than a monetary value, and treated as more than a buy-and-sell commodity, then maybe some of the people who need food aid could still be making their own living by farming. Instead they are bought out or exploited by global corporations with more money and power than sense.

If the land and its produce were treated as if they were valuable then perhaps food wouldn’t be wasted on such a vast scale. And maybe the soil wouldn’t be degraded by agrochemicals and its fertility would be preserved.

In a way this attitude has some roots in the Bible. God blessed them and said: “have many children and grow in number. Fill the earth and be its master. Rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds in the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Genesis 1:28

But it depends on how you interpret this. I take it to mean that, whether we like it or not, every one of us (you, me, everybody) is a master of the earth. That's a pretty big deal. The question you have to ask yourself now is: what sort of master are you?

There are the kinds of rulers who treat their subjects however they like, who use their power for their own gain, to increase their own comfort, even if it means running the kingdom into the ground. There are the kinds of rulers who take no responsibility, no interest in their kingdom and let it be attacked and destroyed, so long as they are alright. These two views are, sadly, widely held.

Or there are the kinds of rulers who think of their subjects before themselves. Who protect them and ensure their safety however they can. They go out of their way to understand how the kingdom works so that they can rule it even better. That’s the kind of masters we ought to be. We have the responsibility to treat, not only every person, but also every animal, plant, river, forest, ocean, resource, etc etc, as if they are important. Because they are. And we need to understand their importance and how to best look after them.

This is not very hard to do. We can be good masters in every area of our lives. Instead of playing Candy Crush we can spend five minutes researching where some of our food is grown, we can choose not to buy from clothes shops that we know don’t source their clothes ethically, we can pay attention to the plants and animals on our own doorstep.

This particularly applies to those of us who answer first and foremost to the Big Boss, God. After all the Earth belongs to the Lord and everything in it – the world and all its people. Psalm 24:1

Fin.

I know that I come across as a total hippy in this post but I'd like to reassure you all that I still wear shoes, that I have not become a vegetarian and that I'm not judging anyone for buying from MacDonalds or Primark since I still buy stuff from those places when money or hunger or sunglasses get the better of me. But I'm not condoning them either and I wish it was easier (and that we knew enough) to make the right decisions.

As always, your thoughts and ideas are very welcome :)

Why was Jesus white?

It’s a question I have often pondered. In a Middle-Eastern country, wouldn’t a guy with white skin, fair Loriel hair and glistening blue eyes have stuck out like a sore thumb?

The thing is, the Bible tells us that Jesus looked totally ordinary, that he had ‘no beauty that we might desire him’. And as well as this, he often slipped away into the crowd when he was tired or in a tight corner, suggesting that he wasn’t instantly recognisable. He was an average Joe, of the Standard Jewish Carpenter Model. You wouldn’t have known he was the Son of God just by looking at him.

And so my friends, I decided to research this topic to discover for myself what ordinary people in Galilee, like Jesus, might have looked like, as well as working out why the Son of God is portrayed as he is and how exactly this weird state of affairs came about. Here are my discoveries.

How about we start with a nice easy question: would Jesus have had long hair?

Er no. I have it on good authority from Jack Wellman that Jews in Jesus’ time never wore their hair long. And it would have got in the way when Jesus was carpentering, which he did for most of his life since he didn’t start teaching publicly until he was 30.

OK question 2. What was his face like?

It might have been a bit like this. Richard Neave (a medical artist) and his team used examples of Galilean Semites’ skulls to recreate the facial shape of Jesus in this image, and they used drawings found at archaeological sites to determine that he would have had dark eyes and a beard. It’s also likely that Hebrews in Jesus’ day had olive-coloured skin.

What was the rest of him like?

Carpenters didn’t have power tools back then (again, Jack Wellman said so). They worked with huge bits of trees and stone, so it would have been an extremely labour intensive job. Jesus, therefore, was not the slender elfin figure he is often portrayed as; he would have been pretty muscley and hulking. But apart from the time when he flips out in the temple I can’t think of a single example of Jesus showing any sort of display of strength, and the fact that he had great strength but didn’t use it for anything other than his work tells us a bit about his character too. Jesus was self-controlled and gentle.

Neave and his team found that Galilean Semites stood at an average height of 5 ft. 1. So, interestingly, I would be half a foot taller than Jesus. Also, they reckoned that he would have looked older than his years from working hard and outside all his life.

That's what I've found out about his appearance and at this point I’m sure a lot of you smart cookies could probably guess, at least in part, why Jesus is portrayed as white. I mean, Jesus is often shown as reflecting the appearance of the part of the world he is portrayed in, he’s been African, Arab, Hispanic, etc.

However, his Westernness can seem like an overwhelming image in today’s global culture and this is because of Christianity’s roots in Europe. And, the power of art. Particularly during the Renaissance (a cultural movement which started in the 14^th century) European artists were inspired to paint the son of God, and probably in a way which reflected their own society. It’s likely that they associated light with righteousness and darkness with sin and evil. Thus white Jesus became the face of God.

Perhaps what we should be asking now is: why does this image persist? Anyone, with a few minutes thought, can work out that the usual interpretation is not accurate. Yet even works as beautiful and Biblically accurate as ‘the Passion of the Christ’ get it wrong.

I can only put in down to lazyness and lack of imagination. And probably the influence of Hollywood in the case of films and TV.

I know perfectly well that at the end of the day it doesn’t matter what Jesus looked like; he’s still made the ultimate sacrifice for you and me in the hope that we can know him and love him. But I hope that the next interpretation of Jesus Christ (whether it’s on the TV, in the cinema or in a children’s book) will be a bit more accurate. Not only because Jesus’ appearance tells us something about his life and personality, but also because art and stories are not believable or relatable if they are based on such fundamental errors.

And the Christian faith is the best, most complex, layered, challenging and dangerous story ever told. I want to know every detail, and I'd quite like it to be the truth as well.

Fin.

If you'd like to follow up any of my sources here they are ---> 

Richard Neave and the gang using forensics

Jack Wellman talking about the colour of Jesus

Jack Wellman talking about what Jesus looked like

Jesus' portrayal in the Renaissance and now

Yeah, I basically just found them by doing Google searches so it's hardly academic standard. But there's some interesting reading material if you're interested.

Oh and if anyone finds the picture at the beginning of this article disrespectful, I'd like to apologise; I thought it was funny though.

Mermaid Song

Somehow I forgot to finish my post last week, but never fear I am working on it! It will be done in the next few days.
   In the mean time here's a poem that I wrote for my mermaid story, I don't know how easy it is to understand without reading the story so here's a quick explanation: Calyso, Luan and Dandé are the three most commonly recognised deities in the civilised ocean. This poem describes a little bit of each of their personalities and associations but I don't want to give too much away here. The rest of it is up to your imagination.
   The poem has a tune so in my head the rhythm makes sense, however I don't know what it's like to read with fresh eyes so if there's any rubbishy bits or bits that don't work please let me know.

In other news, I have finished my Jabberwocky illustrations. You can see all seven in order here. Wow, can't believe I actually finished something! Very grateful to my pals on deviantArt (Flying-Glove and Oly in particular) for all their encouragement and advise.

Mermaid Song

Before I set sail on the merciless sea

A mermaid swam up and she whispered to me

A crown of red coral she wore on her head

She beckoned me close and here's what she said.

Calypso has shown me a thousand gold fishes

And giant octopi with eyes large as dishes

In houses where naught's left of hopes, dreams or wishes

A city abandoned by all but the dead.

Before I set sail on the infinite sea

A mermaid swam up and she whispered to me

Like a wave on the beach she didn't stay long

She beckoned me close and this was her song.

Luan, the sweet one, has shown me her kin

The bright in the sky ones and those with grey fin

All through the green forests she taught me to swim

And showed me the places I ought to belong.

Before I set sail on the fathomless sea

A mermaid swam up and she whispered to me

I'd follow wherever she told me to go

She beckoned me close and spoke soft and slow.

Dandé took my hand and we swam so deep

We came to the place where the oldest things creep

Where people spoke strangely and didn't need sleep

Part of me still dwells there so far below.

My next post will explore why Jesus was white. Dw it will be pretty chilled, just some research into what he would have looked like, which might surprise you (it surprised me!). Have a good week :)

Gods justice and judgement

Hellooo! I'm pretty excited because I've had a response to my previous post, a friend has directed me to this blog post.

It boldly teaches about the side to God which I struggle to write about: his justice and judgement. It explains Gods apparent violence and vengefulness in the Old Testament and links this with his grace and mercy and with the New Testament. Worth reading all the way through (the end is the best part) since it tells us why God has the right to act as he does.

Thanks Joshua and Robbie :)