Fiction is True

I want to write a fiction about a woman who gets a divorce in her 40’s and moves to NYC where she becomes a dog walker for the elderly (on accident) LOL. Some would side eye this and call it a fantasy, as if I fantasize leaving a marriage we’ve worked so hard to make thrive. I only want to write about this because it’s a reality, not a fantasy. My creative writing teacher told us to, “Write what you know. You’ll get into a lot of bad writing if you’re writing from something you don’t know.” All fiction comes from some place of knowing. It is that suffering in my marriage has made me think about such things, an alternate story that could have happened had we not gotten back together.

I think about the Bible like this. There are 2 alternate realities going on at the same time: the story of how humanity was meant to be and the story of the reality we live in. The story of us all finding our way back to ourselves and to God. That’s the fiction book I was talking about earlier. Her life just doesn’t go the way she planned but in the end, the loss is worked out to be the way. She rediscovers who she is and finds love again. Yes the story is about what went off the rails, but it’s mostly about the ending. Despite it all, she’s going to thrive.

The main way that I read the stories of the Bible is through pattern recognition. Nature has a pattern, people have a pattern and God has one too. But first look at nature because this seems like the most uncorrupted road map to what God is like. Theologian Esther Meek says the earth is just God with his stuff. And when I garden I see the pattern, theology is simplified. It tells a little about how the world is supposed to be and then why it doesn’t work sometimes.

I got into a debate with a gal about how masculine and feminine are telling us something about God. She said the women’s essence is imminent(inside) and the males essence is transcendent (outside). Sole focus being on private parts essentially? I hope I am not doing injustice to her point but then she inferred that Jesus is the groom and the church is the bride, thus God is transcendent longing to have presence in our bodies (men are included in the bride label). And I argued that this is another iteration that men are givers and women are receivers, that this distinction and over emphasis (obsession) on this idea takes away from what God is really after in gender distinction, which is relational interdependence. We go into how giver/receiver theology goes off the rails fast in Theology of the Penis Home.

The Trinity is a built in framework that tells us about the relational interdependence of God. Who is doing the giving and taking at any given moment there? Only an arrogant theology pretends to understand this mystery. Jesus became human to be dependent on humans even though he didn’t have to. Creating male and female, who are equally God’s image, tells us about relational interdependence, not necessarily gender. But since we’re obsessed with gender, we can’t see past that. If this story of Gen 1-3 is about gender then humans will do what they know best and create a hierarchy where one gets to lord over the other. That’s bad, not good news. We will over emphasize body parts. We will over sexualize each other. We will then make markers for purity of those very important body parts. You can see how the religious have always done this are doing all this now. HENCE, the pattern of the people.

There’s a story in Judges where Deborah is saying that God is not pleased with the tribes who did not come to his Ezra (root Ezer) in military battle.1 We all know by now that Eve is called Ezer, a military helper, standing opposite, facing, Adam. Built from his entire side, not a tiny rib. Why would God be annoyed that the tribes didn’t come to his ezer? Could he not do any of this himself? Of course he can. But he invites people to work with him. He invites relational interdependence because his very nature as Father, Son, Holy Spirit IS invitation and relationship. Reciprocal.

This gal argued that men have the seed and women have the womb. I said that women already have the seed, 2 million of them, but they are interdependent on the male to contribute to the fruiting process. Pollination, fertilization are necessary. I know this because I watch bees and flowers and fruit. I know this because nature works entirely independent of me sometimes and a lot of times is also dependent on me paying attention, giving water, moving to different parts of the yard. This is God with his stuff inviting me in to participate in stewardship.

A tomato splits open the season before and burrows into the dirt on its own. rain comes without my help and sun shows up on time everyday. In the right season, the conditions are just perfect and here comes a whole new tomato plant. We call these volunteers. Without my direction, the bees come and pollinate and by none of my doing, I get to eat the fruit when it’s time. Nature does this over and over all over the world billions x trillions of times a day. And then there are the ways I plant certain plants, seeds, manually water, even manually pollinate with q tips! There are 2 different realities going on at the same time.

Now and Not yet.

There are the ways the kingdom of heaven has broken in and. We do get to see bits of perfection in a sunset, a garden, a beach, a concert, a friendship, a lover, a garden, a miracle. And there are ways we are still in a different reality that makes us weep. It is the broken relationship, the divorce, death, sickness, and persistent suffering that makes us wonder where God is. Where we beg for outside intervention. God intervenes all the time, more than we even know. Yet still, bad things happen. In my garden, in God’s garden. But this is where pattern recognition is helpful (thank you ADHD). The pattern of God is that He keeps breaking into our lives with mercy, compassion, and invitation to himself even when we are in the wilderness. Even as exiles, we know the kingdom has broken in, we see some glimmers, shadows and we know this is not the end of the story.

Thank God there is an alternate reality headed our way. Nonetheless, when we resolve to be interdependent on one another, male and female, we get a glimmer of the new heavens and new earth. So you will find me building ministry as if the new kingdom has broken in and you’ll find me using that framework for my life. I hope you will consider it in yours. However that looks!

Jami

P.S. We talk about frameworks for studying the Bible in Seminary Lite which will help you be able to make sense of texts you come across which seem to downplay or even oppose the idea of interdependence. This often happens because you get a very heavily male lens of the text, male interpretations, when it would have been better that both men and women studied the text together. We are interdependent for a reason! You can sign up here and if you can’t afford it, just send me a DM and we’ll throw you in there for free!

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