The news lately has been of one disaster after another. It seems Mother Nature isn't letting Lent get in the way of boogyin' down and havin' a whole lotta shakin' goin' on. Lying in my nice warm bed at night after a nice hot supper and a bit of TV and computer stuff to keep me occupied, it's very easy to feel relief that the disasters haven't hit us here. It's also very easy to say a prayer or two that those who have been hurt, harmed and made homeless, jobless, power-less and hungry may soon find rest, respite and reconstruction. It makes it easier to put things in a bit more of a perspective, realizing that no matter what my struggles are (and even though they are the worst in the world becuase they're all mine) there are probably a billion or two who are immensely worse off than I am.
Sandwiched in with the disasters was a news piece on the reaction of some Christians to the new 2011 version of the New International Version of the Bible. In the course of retranslation it seems to have gone too far in the direction of inclusive language for some, not far enough for others. One point of argument is that it goes too far theologically simply by changing "brothers" to "brothers and sisters" if the word in the original language is one that indicates an inclusive reading. Compared to the death, destruction and dis-ease around the world right now, for me it isn't really a blip on the radar, but it seems to be for some.
The book I've been reading this week made the article about the squabble over "brothers" vs. "brothers and sisters" particularly irritating. Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunty for Women Worldwide by Kristof and Wudunn is about women -- women who face real discrimination and often death from those to whom the words "brothers and sisters" simply don't apply; only "brothers" count. These women live in worlds where their beatings are common, rapes a fact of life, sexual slaveries rampant and deaths from preventative causes almost normal . It is normal -- for them; they have almost no way to escape and no place to go if they did. Men rule and women are only pawns to be used, abused and tossed aside on a whim. It was a tough book to read, even if I had heard some of these stories before. It battered me with its presentation of lives of women and sometimes mere girls who face what to me is almost unimaginable.
Now I grant you that I read the Bible in translation; I'm not nearly clever enough to learn to read Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek. The translation I use is probably flawed in some ways, 100% faithful in others. I don't think there's one out there that isn't. I notice Jesus healed women, though, and I don't think that is something that could be changed to make it more PC (pardon the term). I don't remember Jesus saying anything about "I can't do anything for you because you're a woman or even a member of the right club or tribe." I don't remember him saying he came for the men of Israel, not women of Israel, even though he did tell one woman he came for Israel only. She put up a persuasive argument and, like God the Father in the Old Testament, Jesus changed his mind and did something he hadn't really planned to do.
Some of the problems of the Majority World (the world outside the West) are the same as some women face here today. Some men will take most or all of the paycheck the family depends on for food and shelter and head for the nearest bar, casino, drug dealer or prostitute. Some women are beaten almost daily and almost to death. Some women can't afford prenatal care and so have complications that could easily have been dealt with with earlier intervention or have babies that are smaller, sicker and with problems that could cripple them for life. Some women here work menial jobs (or several of them) to try to feed and house their children, and for whom dreams just aren't on the program. There are women who yearn for educations that could mean better lives for them and their families but there's no money, no one to help with the children and they know of no network to help them achieve it.
For most of the world, education of women is a major contributor to the problems they face. Imagine not having $7 - 21 A YEAR to send a child to school with proper clothes much less money for books, slates, paper, pencils and the basics. Imagine being a woman who burns to learn but who cannot attend school because (a) she's a woman and (b) brothers are more valuable and so are sent to school, whether or not they want to go. Imagine being a girl in her very early teens, married to a much older man, made pregnant and then left alone in a dirt-floored shack to deliver a baby from a body not mature enough to handle the delivery and with no doctor, no nurse, not even an older woman to help her. The damage is often a fistula which leaks urine and feces constantly and the girl, maimed for life and often with a dead baby, is sentenced to living alone in a shack far from the main house where her stench can't reach or upset anyone. These are women, women who are children of God regardless of where they live, their ages or what (if any) faith they practice.
For too long, reading "brothers" instead of "brothers and sisters" has been a way of tossing a small bone to a hungry dog, intimating that yes, the dog matters but not very much. It's being given a bone to sop the conscience of the one who eats the whole meal.
I think if God had wanted a one-gender world, he'd have fixed it so that reproduction would rely on beings that were capable of self-fertilization. If God wrote the Bible (or did a divine dictation to scribes) in and for a brothers-only world, tales like that of Sarah, Hannah, Miriam, Tamar (both of them), Rahab (think there were two of them too), Mary (lots of them), Martha, the woman with the hemorrhage, the Syrophonecian woman, etc., would be unnecessary. There would be no need for images of God as hen with chicks or any of a dozen feminine-related word pictures.
This Lent I must think more of my sisters around the world who face unimaginable hardship every single day. I must do more than just pray for them and their release from the situations that imprison them, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. I must do more than just intend to do something constructive to help. I must, for they are my sisters and, inclusive translation of "brothers and sisters" or not.
No comments:
Post a Comment