Lot's Wife

A reflection on religion and spirituality after having passed through some of life's muck.

I have been Lot’s Wife.
Remember her?  Turned into a pillar of salt for gazing upon the destruction by the LORD?
As a child, I asked myself (because I thought no one would listen) “Why is this holy?  Why worship a god who is without forgiveness?”
And I decided that the LORD had nothing for me.
As a budding feminist, I told myself (because this is what everyone said around me) “This was backward, misogynist propaganda designed and propagated to support a patriarchal hegemony.”
And I decided that God had nothing for me.
As a student, I deduced for myself (because I felt it fit the scholastic halls) “This is a construction of a different age, a teleological explanation for a feature flavored by the prevailing sentiments of those who first told the myth.”
And I decided that gods had nothing for me.
But I have since been Lot’s Wife.
Turned hard, and unyielding.  Made rigid and fragile.  Rendered alien, mute, inconceivable.
An image.  A caricature.  A vestige.
That which I had seen as my humanity crystalized and blown away with the wind.
The destiny I had envisioned frozen and impossible from my transfiguration.
The role I had filled, I no longer could do.  With no role, my purpose was gone.
I dreamed of any means to end an existence without humanity, destiny, or purpose.
And it seemed doubly cruel, for as Lot’s Wife, I had acted with the best intentions.
Why be punished for looking back in compassion?  she would have cried.
Why be punished for looking for compassion? I did cry.
I cried.  And a bit of my newly saline nature showed.
But I have been Lot’s Wife.
And a pillar of salt can be quite useful.
A salt lick, a source of seasoning, a measure of worth, I became them all.
Animals sought me out, asked of me to augment nature.  I complied.
Men sought of me a preserver, a boon through the winter.  I granted.
The world weighed mankind by me, worth their salt.  I accepted.
I had found the humanity, destiny, and purpose in Lot’s Wife.
And in doing so, I had found God.
Now I call together the child, the feminist, the scholar, and I whisper to them a new story.  
They had all seen pieces of the truth:
an unforgiving God ought not be worshiped,
the patriarchy had abused the words of God for its own ends,
the stories humanity tells itself about God are their own creations, not God’s.  
But with the distilled clarity of salt, I have seen what they missed, looked deeper, for the substance that makes all of them true.
Mayhap the nature of forgiveness is different from a child’s view.
Mayhap a patriarchy is not solely the abuser, but also the terrified, the pathetic.
Mayhap every story is a Tower of Babel, an attempt to reach God that is doomed due to mankind.
And yet we still tell stories.  
So I, having been Lot’s Wife, pull my pasts close and whisper to them a new story, seeking the God within us all.

Reviews

[Sweet Brevity]

Whoa... That was very cool! And I might add, as the bible also mentions, we are the salt of the earth ;)