Eve

Last month I visited the Rodin Museum in Philadelphia while honeymooning with my new husband. For those unfamiliar with his work, Rodin is probably best known for his sculpture titled “The Thinker”. He was a very talented and famous French sculptor who has been called the father of modern sculpture. As we walked around the beautiful gardens, there were two sculptures prominently displayed on the front of the building. One of them was titled “Eve.” As I looked up at the sculpture (shown in the photo I snapped above), my brain reconciled the title and the image. I felt the weight of the artwork in front of me. Staring at this portrayal of the first woman God created broke my heart. The way the MET website describes the sculpture is: “Eve is a physical manifesto of remorse; her body twisted in suffering, her face imprisoned within a gesture of anguish.” And as I stared at her, I felt the weight that women have carried as “daughters of Eve” for all of time. I was struck by how Eve is shown as shameful and hiding, but Adam got to show his face in the opposing sculpture. Eve has been imagined for centuries as the biggest failure ever to walk the face of the earth. She is responsible for the fall of man according to many religious groups. And because a woman ate of the fruit, all women are marked forever by this momentary indiscretion. Eve ate a piece of fruit. She was hungry. She was lied to. And she believed the lie. So, she ate. Adam, by the way, was guilty of the same indiscretion in this story. But, because Eve ate first, she is held responsible. Regardless of if you believe the story of Adam and Eve is literal (btw, you can believe that some of the stories in the Bible are not literal and still love God and value the Bible!), it is important to look at how it has shaped us as a culture and society.

When I looked at that sculpture, I realized how much of my life I had lived in a similar posture. I felt like I was less in the eyes of God because I was a woman. I felt that it was my job to carry the shame and the weight and the responsibility for myself and everyone around me. And, especially, I had to carry the weight and shame of the men. To be submissive and respectful meant to allow things to happen to me that should never have happened. It meant to quiet your voice and suck it up and accept your role. It meant that you could be everything to everyone, but you couldn’t expect anything in return. It was the loneliest station. And so many women live in this station. I don’t think it is all that helpful to find somewhere to place blame for the tragedies we experience in life. Often, there is no blame to place, and that feels maddening. And even when there is, blame won’t change the outcome or alter the pain. And blame may just leave you bitter and a victim once again because you can’t live your life fully and freely in your bitterness. But, when I trace back the most damaging things I have believed about myself as a woman throughout much of my life, I think I can find a source – EVE. Now, incidentally, I’m not blaming Eve. When I say that it traces back to Eve, what I mean is that I was so heavily influenced by a religious system that believed that women were responsible for the fall and therefore more shameful and less valuable than men that I hid my face. I stepped back when I should have stepped forward. I sat still when I should have fled. I choked back words and tears when I should have let them flow. I was sorry for how imperfect I was and thought that meant that I deserved whatever I got. And somewhere deep inside myself, a voice cried out that this wasn’t okay. But I couldn’t listen to it. Because listening to it meant that I had to question the whole system. And the system was my life. And after all, who was I but a sinful woman who couldn’t trust herself? When you are so deeply intertwined in a system, it is nearly impossible to see through its walls. But something happened to me slowly. The walls of that building started to crack. At first, I tried to fill the cracks with mortar (or denial) because it was too scary to see cracks in those walls. But the cracks kept coming. And for a long time I stood inside the building and tried to explain the cracks to the people who could make the changes and fix the building. But they couldn’t see the cracks, or maybe they didn’t want to, so they just looked at each other instead and assured one another that there weren’t any cracks. But the more I saw the light stream through the cracks, the more I realized it was just a structure built by man, and I could walk out of it. There was a door! And outside of that building, there were trees and light and air! And I could run and sing and laugh. And there weren’t any rules about when I was allowed to do that or who I could be in front of when I was doing it. And I found my voice, and I uncovered my face. And I am still flawed, just like Eve. But I am also loved and accepted exactly as I am by the God who created me to thrive. I am living into my creation instead of living into “the fall.” What would the world look like if we all lived into our creation instead of living into “the fall”?

When we put the weight of Eve on women, we disgrace the image of God within them. When we put the weight of Eve on women, we pile bricks on their shoulders and tell them to jump. We expect them to keep the whole world going, and we don’t even give them the freedom to run. There are countless women today who carry the weight of Eve. Some of them live in countries where they aren’t allowed to attend school because they are girls. Some of them live in countries where they are forced to be child brides or worse. Some of them sit next to you in church and go home to "Christian" husbands who abuse them. Some of them work in your churches but aren’t allowed to speak from the front. Some of them are raising children alone and feeling ashamed for being single mothers. Maybe you are carrying the weight of Eve. I certainly still feel it creep in some days. The weight of Eve says you must be in anguish. You must be ashamed. You will never be enough. You will never get it right. You need to hide your body and your face. You will never be beautiful and lovable. You have to carry the weight of his decisions. You have to be perfect to be loved. The weight of Eve feels like chains around your ankles and a cloud over your head. But it’s a myth. A very widely believed and distributed myth, but maybe it’s one we can start to dismantle. Because even Eve should be able to show her face. God created her and loves her too. Every good parent loves their children and wants to see them thrive.