Don't date someone who doesn't get this :)

Peter should have started his admonition to husbands (and to Bible translators) in 1 Peter 3:7 this way: HUSBANDS, I'M ABOUT TO USE A METAPHOR. He uses the phrase "weaker vessel" to refer to a woman in a marriage relationship. This phrase has caused so much confusion and hurt!!

A vessel is a piece of pottery. A woman is not pottery. So Peter is employing the literary device known as metaphor in order to tell us something of the interaction of men and women, and how a woman is to be treated. 

The word that is translated "weak" is translated other places in the Bible as "sick" or "helpless." I've never really seen a helpless or sick pitcher or vase. Maybe that's why translators chose the word "weak." Even that's a stretch. Maybe that's why most versions also drop the metaphor altogether and say "weaker partner," or "someone weaker." I realize that Koine Greek differs from Attic Greek, but doesn't it make sense to look outside biblical literature for other possibilities when the alternative is to stretch the meaning this far and to risk gross misunderstanding of womanhood and male/female interaction?

When Aristophanes and other classical authors use this word, it gets translated as "fragile" or, more often "delicate." I've seen delicate pottery. I'm thinking of a porcelain jar. A skilled potter can use porcelain to create a piece that is paper thin - a paradox: the result is delicate but it attests to the inherent strength of the material. Porcelain is glazed or decorated to display its lightness and translucency, and to hint at whatever precious thing it may contain. It is honored and handled differently than a more crude earthenware jug that carries water or grain. 

Though most feminists would still hate this, here's my paraphrase of 1 Peter 1-7: Wives, you are precious, subtle and strong. You hold infinite worth. Don't send mixed signals about Whose you are or who you're with. Present externally whatever matches internally. God sees who you are and hears what you need. Allow your husband to transport you physically, spiritually and emotionally - trusting he will hold you and care for you in a sensitive way. Husbands, if you don't, God won't hear you!!

Anti-Dualism 2: Variegated Yarn

Ok, here's another analogy to deepen the discussion a bit: yarn made of different colors. It can go from blue to purple to fuchsia to lime green. While every color is distinct, each color is spun seamlessly into the next and it's hard to tell exactly where one color stops and one starts.

It's definitely true that we have a body and that we have a soul. But imagine yourself as a long, long piece of yarn with "body" color on one end and "soul" color on the other. In between is an entire spectrum of other colors, such as "mind," "intellect." "emotion," "spirit." These are all knit together with body and soul into one whole person. And each of them has its own sub-stratum of hues and tones.

Why do I get a rash if I stay anxious for a long time? What part of my being contains courage? Why can music draw me closer to God and make me dance? Are words formed in my brain, my mind, my heart, my soul, or my tongue? Can I exhibit faith without my body? Isn't it true, at least here on earth, that all of these constituent parts are so tightly knit together that if you access one of them, somehow, to some degree, you access all of them?

And that's just one person. Think about marriage. Every part of you has the potential to connect and grow intimately with every part of another human being - to be a distinct individual but a true counterpart through these connections. Truly, here, we are more than the sum of our parts. (Meditate on the beauty of this and the injunction not to marry an unbeliever - the union of someone whose complete being has been transformed by the radiance of the Holy Spirit to someone whose complete being is a slave to sin!) Think about community in these ways too. A part of your mind or body or spirit that is lacking can be at once made up for and strengthened through relationships. That is a miracle.

So why, when we think of ourselves in relation to Christ, do we think so rigidly in terms of body and soul? This goes deep. I think I want to write a few ideas about abiding in him and also the resurrection in regards to this.

1211 North Lovegrove Street

(I'll get back to by dualism post soon.)

North Lovegrove Street isn't really a street. It's an alleyway lined with back entrances to buildings and boxy-looking apartments that put into relief the barred windows and laddered rears of taller, more "stately" buildings. At least that's how it was in the late 90's.

My apartment was the first floor of one of the boxy looking buildings, which was actually a converted carriage house where horses stayed during Baltimore's more glorious industrial period. The inside was boxy too -an open space with fifteen foot ceilings, wooden floors, a tiny kitchenette, a tinier bathroom and a loft bed. I chopped one side of the space in half by hanging a huge, old window from the ceiling to create a fake wall. Although I didn't own any furniture when I moved in, I eventually turned these make-shift rooms into a dining area and living room.  I left the other half open so I could have access to the giant easel that was built into the wall.

Painting was actually a stipulation of my lease. The landlord was the graduate dean of MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art). He generally reserved the space for art students but made an exception because I showed him a series of paintings I did on cardboard. They were abstractions of an Ethiopian girl's face who I met on the 20 hour bus ride from Cincinnati. I  also may have lied, or strongly implied, that I had studied art - at the time I had taken some classes at The New School, none of them art. He was a bit senile and his own work was totally avant-garde, so he took me seriously. Allowing me to move in, he stipulated that I keep painting to create a portfolio for grad school. Um, yea.

My upstairs neighbor had skeletons hanging all around the entrance to her apartment and some of the craziest sounds came from up there. I'm pretty sure she was a heroin addict, or vampire, or both. The odd thing is, I had randomly stayed in her apartment a year earlier. A friend from Long Island knew her and suggested I hang out with her. So I did. I sat in on live drawing classes with her at MICA and helped with her final project for the semester - which was sewing used teabags into a quilt - to pretty cool effect. The only other thing I remember about the visit was how she and her friends sat in the dark listening to punk and drinking Jagermeister. It wasn't really my scene. So I left. ......I think she thought I had stalked her by moving to Baltimore and living in the same building. So I never said a word to her, ever. 


This is how a very strange 9 months of living in Baltimore started. 

Anti-dualism 1: Scotch Tape

The problem in discussing corporeality and incorporeality of a human being is that in doing so we mentally dissect a person into constituent parts and create categories for those parts, ie soul and body. The problem with categorizing those parts is that you begin to abstract one part of yourself from the whole. In theology we hear a lot about our dual nature - some argue for three parts, adding mind to soul and body. While this system may make certain discussions more manageable, I think it is more scientific and rational than biblical. I think that it is an analogy pushed too far and that we haven't realised it has broken down and is causing damage to our understanding of who we are in God.

Let's create some new analogies. If you put a long strip of Scotch tape on a piece of paper, what happens? It sticks. You can look at it and say "There's Scotch tape and there's paper; here are the qualities of both." But if you take the tape off the paper - you tend to tear the paper. Now you still have bits of paper and tape, but no pure tape. Describing the differences of the parts only helps you insofar as those parts are actually separate. But when they are not separate, it follows that at least as much study should be made on the points of unity and how to describe the entirety of whatever that new substance is - ie laminate?

Paper is no longer paper. Tape is no longer tape. The adhesive has bonded them together in such a way that the new product must be dealt with as a whole.

Even if it were true that we were dual in nature - body and soul, material and immaterial - it would remain less helpful to theorize about the constituent parts than to examine intersections and convergences. When Jesus asked, "Which is easier to say, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or 'Take up your bed and walk.'?" his primary objective was to show his deity and authority over sin. But secondarily he drew out one place where body and soul meet. Both had been affected by sin in the world. By making the man's body whole, he demonstrated his ability to make his soul whole. This was not in order to create a dualistic paradigm, but to show that the two are inextricably interwoven.

Continued tomorrow:)

Golden Rule Revisited

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

It's become a fairly trite way of checking people in social situations - from the elementary school classroom to corporations and beyond. The phrase creates an even playing ground for humanity and is seen by many as the common denominator of the world's major religions. Even Jesus said that on it hang all the law and the prophets - we'll get back to that.

Besides being so reductionist, tritely moralistic and pedantic, doesn't it often infer some degree of socialism or karma? If everyone treats everyone nicely, we'll all get along....If you put positive energy and effort into the world, it will come back. Or maybe a little pious fatalism? If you are as nice as you can be, at least you can rest knowing you've done your part no matter how someone else chooses to act.

The "Golden Rule" is found twice in the New Testament. It's more radical than the best of these. First look at Luke 6:31. The verse is at the center of the beatitudes which escalate in intense demand for self-emptying on behalf of God and others. Directly preceding our verse, it says "Whoever takes away what is yours, do not demand it back." Directly after verse 31 it says "If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them."

So much for piety and karma. The way I picture it is literally turning your heart inside out. Everything that you would hope for from other people, give it freely - especially to the "ungrateful and evil."  Give affirmation, affection, love, recognition, worth, gifts, tenderness, companionship, hugs, understanding, acceptance - let alone food, clothes, shelter. All the things you (I) would beg for and grope for to stuff into your heart - fling into the empty spaces in the world. Turn your heart inside out - let it be empty while you fill the ugly and undeserving world with love.

But what about me?? Will my heart always be empty? Not a bad question. look at the other occurrence of the Golden Rule in Matthew 7:12. It's at the end of a passage where Jesus is calling his disciples to pray, and he promises that the Heavenly Father will give every good gift - "Therefore, how ever you want people to treat you, treat them, for this is the law and the prophets." Turn your heart inside out because God will fill it. You can tell him you feel empty - ask!, seek!, knock! - wait on the Lord to fill it with the things you desire, but don't wait to give them! Contrast this to the quasi-socialist zen that the Golden Rule has become.

Side note: Jesus also said that the culmination of the law and the prophets is to "love the Lord your God with all your soul, heart, mind and strength; and to love your neighbor as yourself." This must be synonymous with the Golden Rule - why don't we teach this to elementary school students and corporate executives?