Even a hell-bound heretic like me has a few favorite yarns from the Big Book of Contradictions. It’s so rich with allegorical content you can commandeer a parable or more “historical” tale to illustrate almost anything you want. Once in a while you may even find a shining nugget of universal truth buried amid all the detritus of tribal wars and divine micromanagement. This story is one such nugget. This story is an appropriate follow-up, I think, to “Fascinating Womanhood.”
You will probably hear me say more than once that I may not know my hiney from a hole in the ground — but (like Judge Stewart and pornography) I know the real thing when I see it. Or when I experience it myself.
How do I know? Well, grab a stale generic cookie out of the snack canister and put your mats in a circle, kids, cuz it’s time to hearken unto the Word of the Lord! (I have to cite the King James Version for this, because the prose is just so wonderfully roundabout, redundant, and purple.)
I Kings III, 16-27
16 Then came there two women, that were harlots, unto the king, and stood before him.
17 And the one woman said, O my lord, I and this woman dwell in one house; and I was delivered of a child with her in the house.
18 And it came to pass the third day after that I was delivered, that this woman was delivered also: and we were together; there was no stranger with us in the house, save we two in the house.
19 And this woman’s child died in the night; because she overlaid it.
20 And she arose at midnight, and took my son from beside me, while thine handmaid slept, and laid it in her bosom, and laid her dead child in my bosom.
21 And when I rose in the morning to give my child suck, behold, it was dead: but when I had considered it in the morning, behold, it was not my son, which I did bear.
22 And the other woman said, Nay; but the living is my son, and the dead is thy son. And this said, No; but the dead is thy son, and the living is my son. Thus they spake before the king.
23 Then said the king, The one saith, This is my son that liveth, and thy son is the dead: and the other saith, Nay; but thy son is the dead, and my son is the living.
24 And the king said, Bring me a sword. And they brought a sword before the king.
25 And the king said, Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one, and half to the other.
26 Then spake the woman whose the living child was unto the king, for her bowels yearned upon her son, and she said, O my lord, give her the living child, and in no wise slay it. But the other said, Let it be neither mine nor thine, but divide it.
27 Then the king answered and said, Give her the living child, and in no wise slay it: she is the mother thereof.
You gotta love a phrase like her bowels yearned upon her son. We just don’t talk like that anymore. And yet doesn’t it say volumes more, and with more accuracy, than the more modern, paler, less visceral translation “she yearned with compassion for her son?” Where’s the last place in your own body you felt overwhelming emotion? Why does terror or excitement make some people spontaneously eject their breakfast, while others find they desperately need to expel it from the other end? Her bowels yearned upon her son. That is literally where it’s at.
OK, where was I…so did you notice the attitude of the maternal pretender? “Let it be neither mine nor thine, but divide it,” she says. She’s completely consumed with the desire to have her own way, and would rather destroy the object of her so-called love — out of what appears to be nothing more than vindictive spite — than give up her own “satisfaction.” The other woman has already forfeited her claim! If both women get only half a child, neither has the child any longer (obviously), because his wholeness, and thus his life, has been sacrificed. Perhaps fake mommy sees an opportunity to use the child as a fuck-you to her current rival. This way, nobody wins the “prize.” As if he were an inanimate object.
Consider for a minute how much overwhelming cultural encouragement is given, whether in our books or our celluloid dramas or our media, to grievance and demand in relationships, to insistent exactions about what I feel is “fair” to me, what I am owed. Give me what is rightfully mine, we might as well be saying, let me have my way, or I will withhold from you, hurt you, vilify you, reject you, even leave you. The other person, the ostensibly loved one, is no longer even seen; he is the forest that was lost for the trees.
When other people become no more than the means to an end, as the supplier, instrument, or even merely the symbol of what one wants and needs, what room is there for genuine, much less selfless, concern about their integrity and well-being? Yet this is so often the scenario that receives the dubious appellation of “love.”
Now look at the real mother in this story. When the threat of disintegration hangs over the being she loves most in the world, suddenly nothing else is more important than her boy, not even her “rightful” claim to him. Her bowels yearn. She is willing to let an impostor take him home; she is willing to surrender him for the sake of his own life and wholeness, even if it means her own heartbreak. She is definitely not focused on what she can get, achieve, or “win.”
Solomon makes the right call. He can tell who has her priorities straight, and where the child belongs. We should all be so wise, eh.
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Solomon’s Sword: a Love Story March 26, 2008
Tags: Bible, love, relationships, social commentary
Even a hell-bound heretic like me has a few favorite yarns from the Big Book of Contradictions. It’s so rich with allegorical content you can commandeer a parable or more “historical” tale to illustrate almost anything you want. Once in a while you may even find a shining nugget of universal truth buried amid all the detritus of tribal wars and divine micromanagement. This story is one such nugget. This story is an appropriate follow-up, I think, to “Fascinating Womanhood.”
You will probably hear me say more than once that I may not know my hiney from a hole in the ground — but (like Judge Stewart and pornography) I know the real thing when I see it. Or when I experience it myself.
How do I know? Well, grab a stale generic cookie out of the snack canister and put your mats in a circle, kids, cuz it’s time to hearken unto the Word of the Lord! (I have to cite the King James Version for this, because the prose is just so wonderfully roundabout, redundant, and purple.)
I Kings III, 16-27
16 Then came there two women, that were harlots, unto the king, and stood before him.
17 And the one woman said, O my lord, I and this woman dwell in one house; and I was delivered of a child with her in the house.
18 And it came to pass the third day after that I was delivered, that this woman was delivered also: and we were together; there was no stranger with us in the house, save we two in the house.
19 And this woman’s child died in the night; because she overlaid it.
20 And she arose at midnight, and took my son from beside me, while thine handmaid slept, and laid it in her bosom, and laid her dead child in my bosom.
21 And when I rose in the morning to give my child suck, behold, it was dead: but when I had considered it in the morning, behold, it was not my son, which I did bear.
22 And the other woman said, Nay; but the living is my son, and the dead is thy son. And this said, No; but the dead is thy son, and the living is my son. Thus they spake before the king.
23 Then said the king, The one saith, This is my son that liveth, and thy son is the dead: and the other saith, Nay; but thy son is the dead, and my son is the living.
24 And the king said, Bring me a sword. And they brought a sword before the king.
25 And the king said, Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one, and half to the other.
26 Then spake the woman whose the living child was unto the king, for her bowels yearned upon her son, and she said, O my lord, give her the living child, and in no wise slay it. But the other said, Let it be neither mine nor thine, but divide it.
27 Then the king answered and said, Give her the living child, and in no wise slay it: she is the mother thereof.
You gotta love a phrase like her bowels yearned upon her son. We just don’t talk like that anymore. And yet doesn’t it say volumes more, and with more accuracy, than the more modern, paler, less visceral translation “she yearned with compassion for her son?” Where’s the last place in your own body you felt overwhelming emotion? Why does terror or excitement make some people spontaneously eject their breakfast, while others find they desperately need to expel it from the other end? Her bowels yearned upon her son. That is literally where it’s at.
OK, where was I…so did you notice the attitude of the maternal pretender? “Let it be neither mine nor thine, but divide it,” she says. She’s completely consumed with the desire to have her own way, and would rather destroy the object of her so-called love — out of what appears to be nothing more than vindictive spite — than give up her own “satisfaction.” The other woman has already forfeited her claim! If both women get only half a child, neither has the child any longer (obviously), because his wholeness, and thus his life, has been sacrificed. Perhaps fake mommy sees an opportunity to use the child as a fuck-you to her current rival. This way, nobody wins the “prize.” As if he were an inanimate object.
Consider for a minute how much overwhelming cultural encouragement is given, whether in our books or our celluloid dramas or our media, to grievance and demand in relationships, to insistent exactions about what I feel is “fair” to me, what I am owed. Give me what is rightfully mine, we might as well be saying, let me have my way, or I will withhold from you, hurt you, vilify you, reject you, even leave you. The other person, the ostensibly loved one, is no longer even seen; he is the forest that was lost for the trees.
When other people become no more than the means to an end, as the supplier, instrument, or even merely the symbol of what one wants and needs, what room is there for genuine, much less selfless, concern about their integrity and well-being? Yet this is so often the scenario that receives the dubious appellation of “love.”
Now look at the real mother in this story. When the threat of disintegration hangs over the being she loves most in the world, suddenly nothing else is more important than her boy, not even her “rightful” claim to him. Her bowels yearn. She is willing to let an impostor take him home; she is willing to surrender him for the sake of his own life and wholeness, even if it means her own heartbreak. She is definitely not focused on what she can get, achieve, or “win.”
Solomon makes the right call. He can tell who has her priorities straight, and where the child belongs. We should all be so wise, eh.
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