Unitarian Universalist Meeting of
“Women’s
Stories from Around the World”
Rev. Kathy Duhon
Grace Note: “Women’s
Advice to Women”
I was waiting for my haircut this week and flipping through magazines, when an article in the current Women’s Day caught my eye. The cover had proclaimed that these were “Words to Live By”, which I’m always on the lookout for, words that can ground my life. It called them “23 Pick-Me-Ups”, ways to “Get Inspired”.
These pieces of wisdom were from women all over the country. When these women feel challenged and need to psych themselves up, they turn to a piece of wisdom that works, which they are now sharing with others. The women described an internal dialogue – one called it “positive self-talk” – which some folks would describe as a form of prayer or spiritual practice.
Carol
Pearson from
Sometimes the women gave credit to other women for their wisdom saying, as Colleen Wilber did. She follows these words of Eleanor Roosevelt: “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” She always finds a use for that wisdom in both her personal and her professional life.
I
picked up some wisdom from a woman among us some years back, which I do use
regularly. I don’t even have to say all
the words; I can just say
What wisdom helps us with our challenges? Having a phrase, an acronym, an image, a song to turn to in the tough times can be transformational. And if we have something that works for us, why not share it with others?
“Women’s
Stories from Around the World”
Sometimes women’s stories are told and they inspire us. Sometimes, they are more of a footnote in his story – history. I started thinking about the women who are in stories of all kinds, including religious stories, whom we just see in glimpses. They often do not speak, but their presence is important. So this week, I decided to do some midrash. In Judaism, and sometimes Christianity, midrash is used to imaginatively explore a scriptural text further, to add details, consider what might have come before or after, in order to more fully understand the meaning for us, often going beyond the intent of the original passage.
I begin with a Zen story. “Two monks journeying home came to the banks of a fast-flowing river, where they met a young woman unable to cross the current alone. One of the monks picked her up in his arms and set her safely on her feet on the other side and the two monks continued on their travels. The monk who had crossed the river alone could restrain himself no longer and began to rebuke his brother, ‘Do you not know it is against our rules to touch a young woman? You have broken the holy vows.’
The other monk answered, ‘Brother, I left the young woman on the banks of the river. Are you still carrying her?’”
In my midrash, the story really begins when a young woman is sent to the riverside to fetch water, again. She feels her life is being trickled away in backaches and baking, basket-weaving and ‘behaving as one should’. She does not want to serve tea one more time. If only she could lie down in the fields and dream. If only her father would allow her to sit with the tutor of her brothers and learn to read and write. If only… She put the pail down and sat by the river to enjoy it for just a little while before they would miss her and scold. How beautiful. She took off her shoes and stepped into the edge of the swift flowing river, enjoying the coolness and the swirl. Oops – her skirt got a bit wet and muddy – her mother would be angry, and a look of consternation replaced her smile.
Just then a couple of monks came to the river crossing, strangers she had not seen before. She wondered where they were going, but of course, she knew better than to speak to either strangers or monks. The young one looked at her with stern eyes. ‘Oh dear, what have I done to offend him?’ she thought. The old one motioned to the water and looked at her with questioning eyes that held great kindness, that seemed to wash away her bewilderment and consternation. She thought he was asking if she liked the flowing river, and she nodded her head yes.
What a surprise when the old monk lifted her up in his arms! She was suddenly crossing the river – what excitement! On the other side, the monks left her and soon engaged in their own conversation. ‘They didn’t notice me at all’ she thought. She sat down to consider her situation. Should she go forward on her own to the wide world of independence? Should she wait for another man’s misperception of her to bring her home across the river? She remembered her grandmother’s wisdom, “We are defined not by a situation, but rather by how we react to it.”
She decided to break with the rules and call out to the monks. She hated to interrupt their religious discussion, but she asked if they could bring her to a monastery for women where she could learn, and be herself. The older one agreed, and off they all went together. She carried hope instead of water. The young monk quit carrying his rules so much, and the old monk carried a new understanding.
We travel to the
other side of the world now. In the book
of Exodus in the Hebrew scriptures, Moses’ family is
described. His sister Miriam and his
brother Aaron are both spoken of at length.
His father Amram, and his mother, Jochebed, are barely mentioned. His mother was the sister of his father’s
father, so she was probably an older Mom when she gave birth to a male son
during the time of persecution in
In Exodus, chapter 2, the text reads, “The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw that he was a fine baby, she hid him three months. When she could hide him no longer she got a papyrus basket for him, and plastered it with bitumen and pitch; she put the child in it and placed it among the reeds on the bank of the river. His sister stood at a distance, to see what would happen.
The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, when her attendants walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid to bring it. When she opened it, she saw the child. He was crying, and she took pity on him, ‘This must be one of the Hebrews’ children,’ she said. Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, ‘Shall I go and get you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?’ Pharaoh’s daughter said to her [the nurse/mother], ‘Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give you your wages.’ So the woman took the child and nursed it. When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and she took him as her son. She named him Moses, ‘because,’ she said, ‘I drew him out of the water.’”
Again, this story begins by the riverside in my midrash. Jochebed is there with her daughter Miriam, a young girl, and they are doing the washing. She has hidden the baby in the rushes on a blanket, but he is trying to roll over, and he makes more noise each day. She is afraid that someone will come by and notice her baby boy and then toss him into the river. She will not give up this child, though, for she is the most strong-headed woman you will meet.
She finishes the washing in time to leave before the Pharaoh’s daughter, with her entourage, comes down for her morning bathing – it is understood that their paths will never cross. Jochebed is angry with everything that day, first and foremost with the Pharaoh. ‘I wish we could change the whole system,’ she fumes to herself, ‘and first we’d choose for ourselves who the head of state will be. Then, we will make sure everyone has the necessities of life, so some are not being hand-fed dates and fanned on the riverbank while others die of exposure and starvation at the construction site . . . and doing what? – building tombs? And then I’d get rid of arranged marriages, so my daughter will be able to marry the man she loves, not the one who pays the best for her services.’ But then Jochebed caught herself and thought, “Ease up, girl. You don’t have to chew the whole elephant today. Just choose a little bite and work on getting that done.”
The elephant carrying the Pharaoh’s daughter was in the distance. ‘What if I just talk to this daughter, woman to woman, and try to influence Pharaoh’s policy that way?’ she thought. She gives her baby to his sister Miriam and has her take him away with the washing, while she hides in the reeds.
First, she figures she should listen to Pharaoh’s daughter, surreptitiously, and decide whether it is worth the risk of breaking the rules to talk to this young woman. ‘What if she’s fluffy-headed or mean-spirited?’ she thinks. But she hears the Pharaoh’s daughter speak to her maids in a gentle voice. She listens carefully to hear the conversation, which includes the usual complaint about “father’s rules” – ‘All teenagers are alike,’ Jochebed thinks. But then she realizes it’s not just the curfew or some such that the girl is talking about, but the treatment of the Hebrew people. Jochebed is hopeful, but decides it would be too risky to talk to her anyway. Just as she turns to go home, she hears the Pharaoh’s daughter speak to her maid in a more confidential voice. Straining to hear, Jochebed realizes that this young woman is expressing her desire to be a mother, to have the joy of holding a little baby.
‘Well I am a mother and it ain’t that easy,’ she thinks to herself as she heads back to her children. ‘But, what if this young woman, who wants a baby and doesn’t like what her father does to the Hebrews, was to find a Hebrew baby boy when she comes to bathe tomorrow?’
So the next morning Jochebed sets up her baby in a basket, with his sister on the lookout, and the instructions to get Mom if anything went wrong, if the baby was hurt or thrown into the river. She would do anything to save her children. She told Miriam, “If the Pharaoh’s daughter seems interested in being good to the baby, then you suggest that you can bring a wet nurse for the baby.” And so it came to pass. For as long as she could, Jochebed took care of Moses, feeling clever for receiving pay to be the mother she wanted to be. When the Pharaoh’s daughter took Moses, they still stayed in touch.
Although Jochebed never managed to change the policies of the Pharaoh, or invent elections, or get rid of hunger, she did instill a sense of righteousness in her children, Aaron, Miriam, and Moses, and she gave them the gift of wisdom that lived beyond her own life, and contributed to the liberation of many.
May the wisdom of women, whose voices have been silenced or forgotten, speak to us, and inspire us, from all ages and from around the world. Blessed Be.