Remember Lot's wife
Don't look back Ashley, don't look back. It'll drag at your heart until you can't do anything but look back.--Scarlett O'Hara, Gone With the Wind
For the first time ever, I picked up a book that is essentially a Bible study because it looked interesting. It's called Bad Girls of the Bible, by Liz Curtis Higgs, and it profiles Eve, Lot's wife, Delilah, Jezebel, the woman at the well, and several others that I'm not even familiar with. Each chapter retells the story in a modern context, then goes into the Bible story and the possible interpretations. Eve is a spoiled, innocent debutante caught in a compromising situation by her father; Delilah is a Texas hairdresser having a secret affair with the town's most powerful judge. The book isn't perfect, by any means, some parts have made me grit my teeth as the author implies women should know their proper place. But it's given me some food for thought.
The chapter on Lot's wife really made me think. Her great sin, what caused her to turn into salt and be labelled a "bad girl" for all eternity, is merely that she looked back. How could she not look back, fleeing from her home and all its comforts, material and otherwise? Maybe she heard a sound, a cry for help perhaps, and looked back instinctively. Maybe she just wanted to make sure her daughters were behind her.
Lee was very quick to remind me that she was specifically told not to look back. But who's to say that she heard the command, or that she remembered it in the midst of chaos and mass destruction? Or that she even trusted her husband's god? In a patriarchal, Biblical society, she wouldn't have had any other choice but to follow her husband's commands in regards to worship, but that doesn't mean she believed he was right. And if her husband's god was causing their home, along with all their friends and family, to go up in flames, maybe she didn't want to be aligned with that particular deity. Maybe she looked back because she was questioning. Like a child, who does what they've just been warned not to, because they want to test authority and see how much trouble they'll get in. I remember consciously doing that more than once in my own childhood.
It also calls to mind the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, another story in which looking back was punishable by death. Although, in that case, it was the husband who looked back, and lost his wife for the second time. I remember watching a film strip of that myth in fourth grade, and the film strip's narrator asked the viewers "what do you think this tale means?" My teacher said she thought it meant that there was no coming back from death.
In most interpretations, Orpheus had already reached the upper world, and instinctively turned to rejoice with his wife, not realizing that she hadn't made it out of the underworld yet. It's always struck me as unfair.
From the Wikipedia article: The descent to the Underworld of Orpheus is paralleled in other versions of a worldwide theme: the Japanese myth of Izanagi and Izanami, the Akkadian/Sumerian myth of Inanna's Descent to the Underworld, and Mayan myth of Ix Chel and Itzamna. The Nez Perce tell a story about the trickster figure, Coyote, that shares many similarities with the story of Orpheus and Eurydice.[10] The mytheme of not looking back, an essential precaution in Jason's raising of chthonic Brimo Hekate under Medea's guidance,[11] is reflected in the story of Lot's wife when escaping from Sodom. The warning of not looking back is also found in the Grimms' folk tale "Hansel and Gretel."
Why so many warnings, stretched across multiple mythologies, not to look back? What do we lose by looking back? Isn't it human nature to cling to our memories, and the material possessions that tie us to them? Perhaps Scarlett is right (she is, after all, another wealthy woman losing everything to war and mass destruction, like Lot's wife), and looking back simply drags you down and keeps you from moving forward. Like Dumbledore told Harry (hey, it's mythology too, albeit a newer variety) "it does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live."
Despite my strong penchant for sentimentality and dreams, I'm pretty sure Dumbledore is right. Memories, good and bad, are important, but what's more important are the lessons you've learned from them. The things you take should help you carry on, rather than keep you from it.
Liz Curtis Higgs portrays the modern Lot's wife (poor woman's name isn't even known) as a wealthy housewife in a spectacular mountain home with every luxury money could buy who refuses to evacuate in the face of volcanic eruption, and ultimately meets her demise. By refusing to give up her material comforts, she lost her life. Still, that seems unfair to the woman in the Bible, who didn't refuse to evacuate. She followed her husband, which is what was expected of a good girl in that time and place, but she looked back.
If disaster were to strike in my hometown, I hope I would have the strength to walk away with just the clothes on my back and the knowledge that the people (and animals) I cared about would be safe. It'd be hard to walk away from my Kermit doll, my books, my journals, the quilts my mom has made me, and the knick-knacks I saved from my grandmother's house, but in a life-threatening emergency, I'm pretty sure I could do it. However, could I do it and not look back? That's a much more difficult question.
For the first time ever, I picked up a book that is essentially a Bible study because it looked interesting. It's called Bad Girls of the Bible, by Liz Curtis Higgs, and it profiles Eve, Lot's wife, Delilah, Jezebel, the woman at the well, and several others that I'm not even familiar with. Each chapter retells the story in a modern context, then goes into the Bible story and the possible interpretations. Eve is a spoiled, innocent debutante caught in a compromising situation by her father; Delilah is a Texas hairdresser having a secret affair with the town's most powerful judge. The book isn't perfect, by any means, some parts have made me grit my teeth as the author implies women should know their proper place. But it's given me some food for thought.
The chapter on Lot's wife really made me think. Her great sin, what caused her to turn into salt and be labelled a "bad girl" for all eternity, is merely that she looked back. How could she not look back, fleeing from her home and all its comforts, material and otherwise? Maybe she heard a sound, a cry for help perhaps, and looked back instinctively. Maybe she just wanted to make sure her daughters were behind her.
Lee was very quick to remind me that she was specifically told not to look back. But who's to say that she heard the command, or that she remembered it in the midst of chaos and mass destruction? Or that she even trusted her husband's god? In a patriarchal, Biblical society, she wouldn't have had any other choice but to follow her husband's commands in regards to worship, but that doesn't mean she believed he was right. And if her husband's god was causing their home, along with all their friends and family, to go up in flames, maybe she didn't want to be aligned with that particular deity. Maybe she looked back because she was questioning. Like a child, who does what they've just been warned not to, because they want to test authority and see how much trouble they'll get in. I remember consciously doing that more than once in my own childhood.
It also calls to mind the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, another story in which looking back was punishable by death. Although, in that case, it was the husband who looked back, and lost his wife for the second time. I remember watching a film strip of that myth in fourth grade, and the film strip's narrator asked the viewers "what do you think this tale means?" My teacher said she thought it meant that there was no coming back from death.
In most interpretations, Orpheus had already reached the upper world, and instinctively turned to rejoice with his wife, not realizing that she hadn't made it out of the underworld yet. It's always struck me as unfair.
From the Wikipedia article: The descent to the Underworld of Orpheus is paralleled in other versions of a worldwide theme: the Japanese myth of Izanagi and Izanami, the Akkadian/Sumerian myth of Inanna's Descent to the Underworld, and Mayan myth of Ix Chel and Itzamna. The Nez Perce tell a story about the trickster figure, Coyote, that shares many similarities with the story of Orpheus and Eurydice.[10] The mytheme of not looking back, an essential precaution in Jason's raising of chthonic Brimo Hekate under Medea's guidance,[11] is reflected in the story of Lot's wife when escaping from Sodom. The warning of not looking back is also found in the Grimms' folk tale "Hansel and Gretel."
Why so many warnings, stretched across multiple mythologies, not to look back? What do we lose by looking back? Isn't it human nature to cling to our memories, and the material possessions that tie us to them? Perhaps Scarlett is right (she is, after all, another wealthy woman losing everything to war and mass destruction, like Lot's wife), and looking back simply drags you down and keeps you from moving forward. Like Dumbledore told Harry (hey, it's mythology too, albeit a newer variety) "it does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live."
Despite my strong penchant for sentimentality and dreams, I'm pretty sure Dumbledore is right. Memories, good and bad, are important, but what's more important are the lessons you've learned from them. The things you take should help you carry on, rather than keep you from it.
Liz Curtis Higgs portrays the modern Lot's wife (poor woman's name isn't even known) as a wealthy housewife in a spectacular mountain home with every luxury money could buy who refuses to evacuate in the face of volcanic eruption, and ultimately meets her demise. By refusing to give up her material comforts, she lost her life. Still, that seems unfair to the woman in the Bible, who didn't refuse to evacuate. She followed her husband, which is what was expected of a good girl in that time and place, but she looked back.
If disaster were to strike in my hometown, I hope I would have the strength to walk away with just the clothes on my back and the knowledge that the people (and animals) I cared about would be safe. It'd be hard to walk away from my Kermit doll, my books, my journals, the quilts my mom has made me, and the knick-knacks I saved from my grandmother's house, but in a life-threatening emergency, I'm pretty sure I could do it. However, could I do it and not look back? That's a much more difficult question.