Perceived Righteousness

Watching Annual Conference was an interesting experience yesterday, quite challenging too. We don’t have the BYU channel here at the beach, but “no problem,” I thought. I had my trusty pink Dell laptop and was confident that we could all watch it online. And actually, I was right; we could watch it, but we really couldn’t hear it very well. Despite our efforts to change it, the volume stayed low. Plus, there was the constant background noise of four active little children, one of whom is still a demanding infant. Adorable beyond description, Colton just couldn’t understand why all the grown-ups had rather look at a computer screen than at him.

That said, I did get a few nuggets to ponder from yesterday’s experience. I was reminded of the importance of loving and serving one another. Despite a person’s skin color, country of origin, or bank account, he or she is still a child of a loving Heavenly Father. According to Elder Uchtdorf, sometimes people hold themselves in high esteem because of wealth, prestige, or perceived righteousness. I loved that he said that. Why?? Because it’s so true. For some reason, the wealth and prestige part doesn’t bother me nearly as much as the perceived righteousness.

The “holier than thou” aspect really bugs me. I’ve heard a woman hiss hatefully at her husband when he asked her a question during Sunday school, a woman who purports to be the perfect wife and mother. I’ve heard innumerable (yes, that many) accounts of people judging others (Did you see than short dress???) from people who darken the church doorways whenever they’re open. I’ve been in homes too cluttered and dirty to feel the spirit and been judged by its owners for drinking caffeine. When I was a younger mother, I was hurt many times by “well meaning Christians” who took it upon themselves to remind me that my place was in the home with my children, not in the workplace. I know people who wouldn’t watch a television program on Sunday who are so “righteous” that being around them is scary. Really.

I’m a roll this morning and could go on and on. But then, I’d be guilty of doing the very thing I’m preaching against: being judgmental and hypocritical. I’ll quit while I’m ahead. I hope we can embrace all of God’s children and remember that love is the word.

Fact or Interpretation?

Here’s the quote of the day that popped up on the computer this morning, one that perfectly sums up some thoughts I had earlier in the day: “There are no facts, only interpretations.” Friedrich Nietzsche

I’ve been reading a book about flawed families in the Bible, and after reading a chapter about Dinah’s “rape” this morning, I started thinking, “Who really knows what happened?” Really, who does? Who knows whether Jacob and Leah’s daughter was raped or whether she willingly submitted to Shechem? Who knows whether she should have stayed home instead of going into the city? Who knows whether she was dressed in a provocative manner, or whether Shechem, accustomed to having his way as a princely sort of guy, just liked what he saw and “took” her?

The book I read this morning made it seem that while Dinah probably deserves our compassion, she should have stayed in the family compound where it was safe. Plus, the author makes Jacob appear uncaring, conniving, and self-centered. Perhaps he was all of those things. I don’t know. When I read The Red Tent a few years ago, I was convinced that Dinah and Shechem were madly in love with each other. Some well-meaning friends and fellow bloggers might direct me to the source: the Bible. Yet, how many times has that sacred text been interpreted and re-interpreted? How many things have been left out? How likely is it that words in good old English mean the same as those in Hebrew?

I have no answers, only questions…and a basic curiosity. I’m inclined to agree with Nietzsche that there are more interpretations than there are facts. What about you?

Only Daughter

This is it, I promise...the last post about the five women in Diamant's The Red Tent. I can't leave Jacob's womenfolk without discussing his daughter Dinah, the heroine in the novel.

When you read the account in Genesis, you'll see that Jacob and Leah's daughter was "defiled" by a young man named Shechem and that his father Hamor made a generous offer to Jacob in return for his daughter. Shechem apparently loved Dinah and wanted to marry her. Her brothers, however, were angered at her treatment and demanded that all the men of Shechem's city submit to being circumcised. They do so. Surely now Jacob will agree to Hamor's offer.

However, as the men in Hamor and Shechem's city were healing, two of Jacob's sons, Simeon and Levi, killed most (maybe all) of the men in the city, including Shechem and his father. Then they took their sister Dinah and left...along with livestock and the women and children of the area. That's the last we hear of Dinah.

What happened to her? What were her true feelings about the situation and about Shechem? Was she heartbroken over the murder of the man who loved her? The fact that she was still in his house instead of waiting with her family for the proposal to be accepted or not is telling. She was with Shechem, not them. It could have been by choice. Then again, she could have been held against her wishes and consequently felt a degree of vindication when her brothers went on their plundering, murdering campaign. We don't know.

Though her account is fictional, Ms. Diamant helps the reader see that perhaps Dinah truly loved Shechem and that she stayed with him of her own will...and that she grieved deeply at his death. In the novel, she left the house of Jacob never to return and later gave birth to Shechem's son in Egypt. In Egypt, Dinah lived a lowly and lowkey life in another's household, and as time went by, she again found love. By a twist of fate, she was the midwife who helped deliver her cousin Joseph's child.

I don't know the real story. I just know that reading this novel made all of these women become more real to me. They were human like the rest of us mortals, and they felt resentment, envy, heartache, loss, love, and grief. They aren't just names in a book; they lived. And their lives contain lessons for all of us. I'm just not sure what Dinah's lesson for us is. Do you have any ideas?