idelette

A poem by Nguyen Quang Thieu, edited and translated from the Vietnamese by Martha Collins and the author.

The Women Carry River Water

Their toes are bony, with long black nails;
They spread like chicken feet.
For five, fifteen, thirty years, I’ve watched
The women go down to the river for water.

Their hair knots break in torrents
Down the backs of their soft wet shirts.
They grip their shoulder poles with one hand;
The other holds white clouds.

As the river presses against its banks to turn,
The men bring fishing poles and dreams of the sea.
The magic fish turn away and cry;
Bobbers lie still on the surface of the water.
The men, angry and sad, go far away.

For five, fifteen, thirty years, I’ve watched
The women come back from the river with water,
Crowds of naked children running behind and growing up.
The girls put poles on their shoulders and go to the river,
The boys carry fishing poles and dreams of the sea,
While the magic fish turn away and cry
Because they’ve seen the hook in the dazed bait.

I’m working on some thoughts for this week’s Gathering Eve segment at LifeWomen. We’re talking about Deborah and the question she raises in us: What will you allow? There is much here to unpack, and if you’re in the area, please join us Tuesday mornings at 9:30am. There are few things better at the moment than the girls gathering …

Meanwhile, I am sitting with the word “entitlement.” I came home yesterday from a five-day trip to Arizona. I participated in a conference/seminar by Mending the Soul Ministries and met some great people in Tucson. I hiked through the Catalina State Park with inappropriate shoes and embraced every particle of desert and heated air I could possibly take in. I got to drive on US freeways. A lot. And I saw my reaction to the unbelievable number of big box stores planted next to those same freeways. The size and the number tapped at some of my strength. I actually wished I could go to Italy for a moment, or France, and just get away from the ugly of consumerism.

Every big box seemed so devoid of beauty and grace and character and finesse. Every chain store restaurant reminded me of our willingness to settle for less, while feeding our hunger for more.

I found myself a sad, horrified spectator to a hollow pursuit of bigger and more.

I had a gut reaction to the greed. But I couldn’t deny that the same spirit exists within me. I, too, struggle with reaching in and grabbing more than is mine.

As I am working through and writing on this project of Gathering Eve, I probably shouldn’t be surprised. Eve’s core struggle came from reaching in and taking what was not hers to take.

It applies to many areas of our femininity.

It is at once a core weakness and a profound strength. It is at once our saving and our falling.

I believe it is a challenge we have to come to grips with. We have to face the ugliness of our weakness so we may turn it into the great good it is meant to produce out of us.

I keep telling the girls on Tuesdays: That same desire in Eve to reach out and take what was not hers, is what propels us to reach out and shape a different status quo. We are meant to move into unknown, unconquered territory on the earth. We are meant to reach for and shape what does not yet exist. We are meant to reach beyond our grasp.

But not when it doesn’t belong to us. Not when it’s not ours to have.

And that’s when I came up against this word “entitlement.” This idea that we can take, just because we want it. Or it seems good, or beautiful.

Merriam-Webster’s dictionary says it is a “belief that one is deserving of or entitled to certain privileges.”

(Privileged. That’s another word we can park right next to entitlement.)

I am not finding the answers my soul is looking for today in a dictionary or on google, however. Instead, I have to look for it in my own heart. In my own journey. During private tête-à-têtes with my God. We are still talking, even as we speak. Thankfully, God is patient with me.

Just a sidenote: The music that keeps playing in my head as I am walking this out, is the U2 Song “One” and specifically the line: “What you don’t have, you don’t need it now, don’t need it now …”

I came home yesterday to find my five-year-old’s wallet bursting at the seams. She had gone into my office and taken from a coin jar what was not hers to take. Her desire for more is so great, she honestly believes she is entitled to the money. She is my Christiane Amanpour daughter. My made for war zones daughter. She is meant to bust beyond boundaries. But we have to find our balance between this entitlement to take and a divine authority to create change.

It is her struggle; it is my struggle.
I am wondering: is it yours too?
Is it uniquely feminine? Or not?

The word “entitlement” only came yesterday, so I am still unpacking it on so many levels. I would love to hear what you think.