Friday, July 6, 2007 at 2:02am
Parody by the fireplace
Column: Interesting Times
I would like to live in a spiritually perfect universe. Instead I am at a dinner in the shadow of Los Alamos outside Santa Fe. There are 12 of us in the room. Two men are sitting by the fireplace. They are in the middle of a seven-day fast and prefer not to sit at the table with the rest of us. A woman who has just begun a sexual liaison with one of them pulls her chair between the men.
Loud enough for all of us to hear, she says, "You know, there are secret manuscripts in a monastery in Lhasa that tell how Jesus really treated women."
"And how is that?" I ask.
She stares at me as if she didn't understand.
Thinking perhaps she really doesn't know how Jesus treated women, I say, "You don't have to go all the way to Tibet to find that out. It's in the Bible. I've got one here, in my purse, if you want to take a look."
She looks at me, forehead crinkled, as if to say, "The Bible? Don't you know better?"
I am surprised. The woman is not interested in information that might be within reach. It is written all over her body, in the darkening of her eyes, the flush rising on her cheeks, the way her shoulders shift and arms wave off a suggestion that knowledge of how Jesus treated women might be at hand.
What does interest her is the gap between how her new love is viewing her and how she wants to be seen. What obsesses her is her current self. She is draped over a chair crying out for attention and respect that she somehow senses is not really here for her tonight but that she hopes exists in hidden documents in a far-off place guarded by strange men from another culture and distant past.
If I told her that I was a Celtic princess descended from the Valkyrie and that my sisters, the trees, talked to me about the healing of men and nations, she would believe me. But if I told her the Bible was about her life today, she would think I was selling a doctrine.
I want to tell her to take a pass on this parody by the fireplace, leave the men alone, go to bed, relax, find refuge in the Everlasting Arms, let the wings of God nourish her in sleep. But as a guest I remain silent and ponder. How the Word treats women is one of the best-kept secrets of all time. Perhaps she believes the heartbreaking lie of the ages — that the Bible is a book about an absent and sexist God who lets men treat women badly with His approval.
Yet, within its pages rests securely a narrative of spiritual power for women. From Genesis to Revelation, from the fatal attraction between Adam and Eve to the bliss of the new heaven and new earth, the Bible is a sea of glass in which to view the sacred female self.
The woman renting the estate where the meal is being served refers to herself as the steward of the property. She informs me that she is "channeling the Magdalene."
In just three words my hostess has made a surreal connection between a cultural phenomenon and one of the most far-sighted and least understood women in the Judeo-Christian culture. The candles flicker and the glow from their flame spreads across the table. The breeze from the mountains, full of juniper and pinon, enters the room like a waving flag. My hostess claims to know what the first person to see the risen Christ saw, heard, felt, knew. I ask her if she is writing down the messages that are coming from the only person understood by all four gospels to have been an eyewitness to the Resurrection.
"I don't have to," she says. "I have money. I'm spending my time developing television shows on socially conscious investments. But those manuscripts in Ladakh are something I want to read."
Ladakh? Lhasa? Each to her own.
— — —
Lynne Bundesen is the author of five books on religion and was adjunct professor at the Boston Theological Institute under a Templeton Science and Religion Grant. She is a three-time winner of the Religion in Media Award for her syndicated column on religion and is currently the spiritual expert for the physical and spiritual health website of Dr. Andrew Weil. Her email address is {email lynnebundesen@hotmail.com}lynnebundesen@hotmail.com{/email}. © copyright 2007 by Lynne Bundesen.
Loud enough for all of us to hear, she says, "You know, there are secret manuscripts in a monastery in Lhasa that tell how Jesus really treated women."
"And how is that?" I ask.
She stares at me as if she didn't understand.
Thinking perhaps she really doesn't know how Jesus treated women, I say, "You don't have to go all the way to Tibet to find that out. It's in the Bible. I've got one here, in my purse, if you want to take a look."
She looks at me, forehead crinkled, as if to say, "The Bible? Don't you know better?"
I am surprised. The woman is not interested in information that might be within reach. It is written all over her body, in the darkening of her eyes, the flush rising on her cheeks, the way her shoulders shift and arms wave off a suggestion that knowledge of how Jesus treated women might be at hand.
What does interest her is the gap between how her new love is viewing her and how she wants to be seen. What obsesses her is her current self. She is draped over a chair crying out for attention and respect that she somehow senses is not really here for her tonight but that she hopes exists in hidden documents in a far-off place guarded by strange men from another culture and distant past.
If I told her that I was a Celtic princess descended from the Valkyrie and that my sisters, the trees, talked to me about the healing of men and nations, she would believe me. But if I told her the Bible was about her life today, she would think I was selling a doctrine.
I want to tell her to take a pass on this parody by the fireplace, leave the men alone, go to bed, relax, find refuge in the Everlasting Arms, let the wings of God nourish her in sleep. But as a guest I remain silent and ponder. How the Word treats women is one of the best-kept secrets of all time. Perhaps she believes the heartbreaking lie of the ages — that the Bible is a book about an absent and sexist God who lets men treat women badly with His approval.
Yet, within its pages rests securely a narrative of spiritual power for women. From Genesis to Revelation, from the fatal attraction between Adam and Eve to the bliss of the new heaven and new earth, the Bible is a sea of glass in which to view the sacred female self.
The woman renting the estate where the meal is being served refers to herself as the steward of the property. She informs me that she is "channeling the Magdalene."
In just three words my hostess has made a surreal connection between a cultural phenomenon and one of the most far-sighted and least understood women in the Judeo-Christian culture. The candles flicker and the glow from their flame spreads across the table. The breeze from the mountains, full of juniper and pinon, enters the room like a waving flag. My hostess claims to know what the first person to see the risen Christ saw, heard, felt, knew. I ask her if she is writing down the messages that are coming from the only person understood by all four gospels to have been an eyewitness to the Resurrection.
"I don't have to," she says. "I have money. I'm spending my time developing television shows on socially conscious investments. But those manuscripts in Ladakh are something I want to read."
Ladakh? Lhasa? Each to her own.
— — —
Lynne Bundesen is the author of five books on religion and was adjunct professor at the Boston Theological Institute under a Templeton Science and Religion Grant. She is a three-time winner of the Religion in Media Award for her syndicated column on religion and is currently the spiritual expert for the physical and spiritual health website of Dr. Andrew Weil. Her email address is {email lynnebundesen@hotmail.com}lynnebundesen@hotmail.com{/email}. © copyright 2007 by Lynne Bundesen.