August 17, 2010
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A poem (a cheap filler post because it’s way late and I’m way tired)
A few years ago, I attended a conference put on by the CCEF on the topic of Fear. It was a brilliant and wonderful conference, and I came away learning a lot about myself and the topic. But that is another story for another time.
During the conference, I attended one lecture entitled Looking for God at Ground Zero (I paraphrased, because I can’t remember the exact title) by Carolyn Custis James. She talked about what life is like after our disaster strikes and our worst fears are realized. How do we respond? Where is God in all of this? She based her talk, in part, on her book The Gospel of Ruth: Loving God Enough to Break the Rules. In this book, she takes a look at Naomi from the perspective of a female Job. She is a woman who has lost everything in life; Her husband is dead, her sons are dead, and she is too old to bear anymore children. She is a woman who does not own any land while living in a foreign land. She is considered to be a parasite to society. She has nothing. It was an eye opening talk for me to listen to. In part, because I learned a lot about looking for God in the midst of disaster, pain and suffering. In part, because I learned a lot about seeing things from the perspective of a woman in Israel during Biblical times.
A few months ago, I led a discussion on the same topic in my small group. In preparation, I asked my members to think long and hard about what life would be like to live as a widow in ancient Israel. For fun, I asked them to write a poem about it and present it to the group. Here is mine, a haiku.
What am I to do?
Being a woman is hard.
Life sucks; then you die.
Tongue in cheek, of course.
Go read the book. I’m sure you’ll glean more from that than this cheap filler post today.
I hope to put up a real post tomorrow or the day after. Life has been busy after all. And will be busier in the days to come. The quality of this blog may drop significantly.
Comments (6)
I find that, when life gets so busy that I can’t sit and write a blog, that I am too busy, and need to be better with my time so that I can spend time with myself. Which I’ve been trying to do. I don’t think I’ve ‘perfected’ it yet though. haha
in regards to Naomi, I never thought of it that way. I mean, I knew she had it had, but I never equated her to a female Job. Interesting thought.
I think being a widow still bites, but obviously not (hopefully!) as much of a devastation economically in modern Western society. I’ve been in contact with two people widowed recently, one completely unexpectedly. It does give one pause. Also scary to think that most women are destined to be widows, just the timescale that varies. The alien, fatherless and the widow… I have also been told that divorcées are a sort of modern equivalent to widowhood in terms of economic crunch and society’s perception, which has been food for thought as well.
@withabandon - Wow. Lots of good thoughts. Definitely, I have to agree that being widowed isn’t nearly as bad as it was before, when a woman couldn’t own land, vote, work a job, or provide for herself. But the loss is still great. That can never be understated.
Your comment about how most women are destined to be widows also brings two thoughts to mind, one humorous, the other one not. 1) What are you women doing to us that is causing us to die sooner? and 2) Even in death, we men must have enough forethought to provide for our wives and family through savings, insurance, etc. We have many responsibilities to hold. Maybe (2) partially answers (1).
The alien, the fatherless, and the widow… these things have not changed. Not much, anyways. Definitely something to think about. Not sure if I agree about the divorcees tho. These people are free to remarry without stigma. There’s plenty of room for second chances (and 3rd and 4th and so on.)
@Bokgwai -
In the terms of vulnerability a divorced woman isn’t too far off- I suppose I call to mind all the women who were divorced and never remarried (the husbands did remarry, true to study findings) and the hardships associated with being past your ‘best years’ physically (and generally career-wise) and suddenly cut out of the financial security those best career years were traded for/dedicated to raising the children, etc. It’s a type of widowhood without the sympathy of a true death. At the bare minimum, a fundamental financial agreement is breeched- i.e. the years she could’ve spent securing her own livelihood were instead spent raising the joint children in the understanding that the husband would use that freedom to secure a financial future for both of them. Reentering the job market after a 10 year hiatus is difficult under the best of circumstances.
This in no way sums up all situations and isn’t really meant to be a point-by-point argument, but rather more of an example for the thinking behind the divorcee/widowhood connexion. For some reason men are more likely to remarry post-divorce, possibly because they have a larger socially acceptable selection pool of candidates for 2nd spouses?
@withabandon - All good points. I’ll definitely give it some more thought. In addition to have a larger pool of candidates for 2nd spouses, it’s easier for men to marry/remarry even when older. Not true for older women.
@Bokgwai -
Yes, unfortunately. Oh well. Such is life!