A Burdened Daughter of Eve

"As I bent down to look, just opposite
A shape within the watery gleam appeared,
Bending to look on me: I started back,
It started back; but pleased I soon returned,
Pleased it returned as soon with answering looks
Of sympathy and love: There I had fixed
Mine eyes till now, and pined with vain desire,
Had not a voice thus warned me; 'What thou seest,
'What there thou seest, fair Creature, is thyself;
'With thee it came and goes: but follow me,
'And I will bring thee where no shadow stays
'Thy coming..." Milton, Paradise Lost Book IV: Lines 460-471

The sunlight was playing heavily in the trees and I must have made a face I have made my whole life, for the woman I was talking with paused, "your eyes are remarkable. It seems like you hold the whole world in them!" I smiled having recently become accustomed to this statement. Last year I was told they seemed heavy, like I was sitting alone gazing at a pool of water.




This look of true reverie, one of my earliest memories included it. I can name what it is now, being more conscious of my thoughts when it becomes present. The reflection I find in that pool is not unpleasant, I am and have almost always been, confidently satisfied in my appearance. I have perhaps been a little too satisfied, in full belief of being captivating, but a question still filled my mind and brought on my melancholy.



"Can anyone love me after all?"



It is the first question I remember asking, it is the question I continue asking still. Although time and time again the same voice that spoke to Eve speaks to me, "I love you, dear-heart, follow me."



These two large green orbs have always betrayed my inner thoughts. They forever refuse to lie. As I looked up this summer to my friend's face and she was surprised, knowing something weighed within me but could not name it. I was thinking of months ago, sitting with a silent one as I chattered nervously knowing all along he meant the end. The question was growing louder, louder with his prolonged silence. At last it was so loud I could no longer speak, and I too fell silent.



In three minutes all was ended. I thanked him, I walked away.


My eyes were growing mutinous. I sought to hide them away, somehow believing they had not already betrayed me during those minutes. I am sure now they did. Nothing is hidden in them.



That First voice was softly speaking, "Follow me, dear-one, trust me to lead you on," but I stayed, I stared into the pool, lonesome and willful. I demanded that G-d give an explanation, and I gleaned all the wisdom I could. I stayed a while too long, trying to drown my heart or else wallow in pity. The L-rd is wiser than I am, He knew how to challenge me, "Brave-one, gird up your loins!"



I stood up, and although at moments my heart does falter, I proved neither an Ophelia nor Elaine drowning myself because of unreturned love was, even in the Miss Haversham kind of drowning through bitterness and hate. I found I loved more than I anticipated, that the rules I had placed for myself in my youth-group years maintained a nobility to them, and a war began between loneliness and peace. The growing seeds of contentment, not in singleness, but in a season of something decidedly more dependent and more sacred.



Of course to say the war began at that point is to be willfully ignorant. This war has been present in the whole of human history, my knowing it so starkly was by experiencing my own Austerlitz. Like Prince Andre of War and Peace I was ready to lose myself in battle, not to love, but to some kind of madness unhindered and unafraid of enemy fire. The man did not put me into Austerlitz, he was just not interested in fighting there. Which was wise, it was a hellish fight. One that humbles its warriors, and leaves them for dead looking up at the sky. Eternity becoming the only sight before my eyes that brought any comfort. That vast expanse beyond the clouds and the smoke of war. A longing, somewhere between desire and despair takes root, the poet calls it "forlorn."

"Forlorn, the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self..." -- J. Keats


Forlorn longing had a truer name in my mind, awake to the voice that disturbed the reflections of Eve: "Homeward -Gazing" I called it because it came about when I most thought of going Home. "What do I have in Heaven or Earth but You?" and a heavy sigh, "L-rd, take me Home, to the place Your glory dwells."



I did not stay on the surface of this new occupation, gazing-homeward took up most of my day and my working nights. It grounded me even as it raised me. "I will bring thee where no shadow stays thy coming..." says the Creator to Milton's Eve, and reading this I feel His voice echo through all He has spoken to me these last nine months. "Walk on Miss, you can lean on my arm. I know the way because I made it," walking proved the necessity of Austerlitz, my participation.


When we participate in a battle, we are at risk for the occupational hazards that come with it. A mighty king goes with his troops, the way David did in the early years of his anointing. It was on the battle field that he should have been "in the spring when the kings went to war," but instead he stayed home and gazed on at Bathsheba.


David's downfall was his staying at the reflection pool too long. There is a point where G-d calls us into reflection, to take note and repent of all that muck on the inside, all our sins and deviations from His image that we carve into ourselves. Another point recalls us to the outside, with responsibilities to our fellow man, to get out and participate in active love and obedience.



Alienation, misery, bitterness, degradation, these are things we cannot control, but virtue will often sustain us through them when they are imposed on us by others. When he breaks your heart and yet continues in a miserable state as if you had broken his, be gentle and not cold, be wise and commend him to G-d Who is close to the brokenhearted. I am sure we discover Hell is our own making. We know this in a friend or lover who breaks off or breaks up with us, for the sake of fear he has entered a make-shift Hell. What is worse is he might like to take you with him into it, not with him in any dear sort of way, but by imposing guilt and by neglecting to treat you with any kindness unmixed with pain.

By the screaming isolation that suddenly followed his binding affections he has bought and sent you a ticket to his miniaturized Hell. That was his own foolish expense, you are not required to oblige him in accepting it-- cut out your heart rather than follow. The small circle of man-made hells prove to be highways, smooth and oppressive, I urge you to take the stairs instead. Weep if you must at the loss of your friend, but for the sincere love of G-d, ascend. Joy invades the tormented soul when her face is lifted up. And your friend has a better chance of leaving his hell when he sees that there are stair to climb and you have proven climbable.


Forget your reflection, move away from the pool. Turning inside of yourself is the same sort of highway when reflection becomes madness. Heartache is dreadful, but there is nothing you could possibly endure in this life that you have to shoulder alone. That is the nature of bearing Messiah's burden and walking along side Him in His yoke. It's light because He is bearing the full weight of it, it is easy because He is guiding you through it having been through the same grief.


"Ere she comes curst and sad.
Cupid is a knavish lad;
Thus to make poor females mad." --William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream


There is difference in "dying to self daily" and committing suicide. Obviously, but that is important to make clear to people who are constantly called upon to take their life into their own hands, when reality teaches us that there are things such as events and people that we cannot control, in many ways we cannot even control the influence they have on our lives. The very debated nature of love is a testament against our control, it is like a tempest sometimes and you cannot answer why you love someone anymore than turn the wind. You might later-- being carried by love --find parts, moments, and elements of the beloved's person and character that are worth merit, but loving them remains a miraculous storm of your own relinquished will.


Disappointment also challenges the control of circumstances that we like to call "our lives," but you never were commanded to control your life, only to practice self-control, which is your response to the uncontrollable and a basic building block to what sort of character you are becoming.


There is a moral law that drives the outcome in Shakespeare's plays to be either tragedy or comedy. This is how the characters respond to what happens to them. Tragedy courts fear and despair, it sees the current trick of fate on their fortune as an insurmountable evil done to them. Romeo on first hearing that he has been banished and not sentenced to death for the revenge killing of the violent Tybalt pulls out his knife to "carve out his name" he and Juliet are always responding in this suicidal manner, which is their end, suicide in one another's arms. This was not only the response of the two lovers, their prominent mentors also responded with fear and despair leading to their example of no transparency with authority.


In contrast the comedy Much Ado About Nothing Benedict and Beatrice respond with hope and courage, they are not dramatically swayed by the opinions and notions of others, they are both very strong willed. When told she must marry Beatrice laughs and tells her father that she has not met with a man worthy and completely rules out the whole sex. Hero is acknowledged to be a gentler maid more likely to accept marriage as her duty. When Hero's betrothed forsakes her at the altar her family fake her death to make him regret leaving her. The difference here between Hero and Juliet is the proper authorities were aware of this and were working on eliminating the source of the rumors her Fiance heard concerning her. Hope to resolve, courage to do the work required in resolving.




when I consider so much of what lies ahead of me; the dreams and hopes I have nursed for a long age, my heart sometimes leans toward despair. They are simple dreams and might underwhelm people who expect more of me. But as a daughter of Eve what comes more naturally than motherhood? Why are women encouraged to engage that dream with shame?




I might very well see the hesitance in addressing it given my current circumstances, a single woman with shifting prospects, however I hate the feigned comfort given that I should do more with my life before I settle down. To gaze longer in the mirror while I'm thin and un-invaded by another life, not to settle for this guy or that guy. But they forget that I am following. that my life and its trajectory are not driven by my dreams. When I express a wish of motherhood it is not because I am in danger of throwing away all my responsibilities to pursue what I want. There is a lot of work for me to do, there is much that has been pressed on me to follow G-d in and trust Him although I am weary. But unlike the popular advice to abort an unwanted reality in pursuit of my dreams, I have chosen to serve my G-d above myself.

It is a hard won choice, the relinquished will has a habit of haunting us. The nature of time has a pleasure in taunting us, all sorts of mean theories on what might have been. Yet rest a moment. Be content. What never was cannot be known, what may happen next is a fog. If you bend your character toward hope and courage friend, follow diligently because there are many wonders and delights that the Father of Lights has for you to see. Turn your eyes away from your reflection, learn to walker where "no shadow stays your coming."

“Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be,
 the last of life, for which the first was made.
 Our times are in his hand who saith,
 'A whole I planned, youth shows but half;
Trust God: See all, nor be afraid!”  Robert Browning