Learning From Eve, By Kate Blackwell
written at Wednesday, June 23, 2010
I think Eve must have slept very well at night. I imagine her waking each morning to the song of exotic birds as the sun is just folding over the crust of the Earth. She stretches, yawns and blinks until everything comes into focus: lush trees, crystal clear waters, sleeping Adam. And her day would begin just like that. No flat-iron. No coffee. No mascara.
Eve never had to decide if she would put her kids in daycare or stay home to teach them their ABCs. She had a perfect body because there was no one to tell her that her hips were too big and her breasts too small. She didn’t feel sexualized, marginalized, or inferior. She didn’t feel pressure to be someone and do something. She just was. Simple. Beautiful. Fulfilled. Naked.
In my head I have a running list of all the thank you notes I never wrote. To the Johnsons for that wedding gift–I couldn’t find their address. And to my aunt and uncle who got me tickets to that thing–that was months ago. I will never write these notes, but I keep track up them to torment myself, to punish myself so next time I won’t forget.
Doesn’t it seem that life is crowded with meaningless things? We get worked up over not responding to an email. We stress about what kind of car we are driving. We obsess about our hair or lack thereof, and we are relentlessly trying to prove to the world that we are valuable, that we belong here.
Donald Miller writes about this lifeboat theory he has; I think it was in “Searching for God Knows What.” He says that we all live as if we are in a lifeboat trying to prove to everyone that we belong there. We tie our value to our survival. We want to prove that we deserve the space we occupy.
But not Eve. She had no concept of the lifeboat. She didn’t need to prove to anyone that she was valuable or pretty or industrius or domestic.
Thinking about Eve makes me realize how I have perverted really good ambitions that God gave me. I hold on to things that are temporary, plastic, synthetic, false and sometimes I love these things. My job title. My degree. My hair color. I revel in these fleeting accomplishments because they make me feel so worthy. I think Eve was confident because she knew the creator and her role in the creation. I believe that is what communion with Christ can do. I’ll never walk around naked, but hopefuly I can grasp enough wisdom to realize the difference between the things that last and the things that fade – the difference between what makes me worthy and what makes me feel worthy.
Learning From Eve, By Kate Blackwell
written at Wednesday, June 23, 2010
I think Eve must have slept very well at night. I imagine her waking each morning to the song of exotic birds as the sun is just folding over the crust of the Earth. She stretches, yawns and blinks until everything comes into focus: lush trees, crystal clear waters, sleeping Adam. And her day would begin just like that. No flat-iron. No coffee. No mascara.
Eve never had to decide if she would put her kids in daycare or stay home to teach them their ABCs. She had a perfect body because there was no one to tell her that her hips were too big and her breasts too small. She didn’t feel sexualized, marginalized, or inferior. She didn’t feel pressure to be someone and do something. She just was. Simple. Beautiful. Fulfilled. Naked.
In my head I have a running list of all the thank you notes I never wrote. To the Johnsons for that wedding gift–I couldn’t find their address. And to my aunt and uncle who got me tickets to that thing–that was months ago. I will never write these notes, but I keep track up them to torment myself, to punish myself so next time I won’t forget.
Doesn’t it seem that life is crowded with meaningless things? We get worked up over not responding to an email. We stress about what kind of car we are driving. We obsess about our hair or lack thereof, and we are relentlessly trying to prove to the world that we are valuable, that we belong here.
Donald Miller writes about this lifeboat theory he has; I think it was in “Searching for God Knows What.” He says that we all live as if we are in a lifeboat trying to prove to everyone that we belong there. We tie our value to our survival. We want to prove that we deserve the space we occupy.
But not Eve. She had no concept of the lifeboat. She didn’t need to prove to anyone that she was valuable or pretty or industrius or domestic.
Thinking about Eve makes me realize how I have perverted really good ambitions that God gave me. I hold on to things that are temporary, plastic, synthetic, false and sometimes I love these things. My job title. My degree. My hair color. I revel in these fleeting accomplishments because they make me feel so worthy. I think Eve was confident because she knew the creator and her role in the creation. I believe that is what communion with Christ can do. I’ll never walk around naked, but hopefuly I can grasp enough wisdom to realize the difference between the things that last and the things that fade – the difference between what makes me worthy and what makes me feel worthy.
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Knowing
What matters supremely, therefore, is not
in the last analysis, the fact that I know God,
but the larger fact which underlies it --
the fact that He knows me.
J. I. Packer
