This is for Sarah.

My favorite paragraph so far this semester:

From Gender and Difference in Ancient Israel, from the essay Woman and the Discourse of Patriarchal Wisdom: A Study of Proverbs 1-9 by Dr Carol Newsom:

“Where [the movie Fatal Attraction] skillfully attempts to naturalize its discourse, to conceal its speaking subject, and mask its interpellation of the viewer, Proverbs 1-9 emphasizes precisely those features. Certainly Proverbs 1-9 also makes its own claims to universality and transcendent authority, but its explicit self-consciousness about the central role of discourses in competition provides an internal basis for questioning its own claims. Having learned from the father how to resist interpellation by hearing the internal contradictions in discourse, one is prepared to resist the patriarchal interpellation of the father as well. For the reader who does not take up the subject position offered by the text, Proverbs 1-9 ceases to be a simple text of initiation and becomes a text about the problematic nature of discourse itself. Not only the dazzling (and defensive) rhetoric of the father but also the pregnant silence of the son and the dissidence that pseaks from the margin in the person of the strange women become matters of significance. Israel’s wisdom tradition never examined its patriarchal assumptions. But its commitment to the centrality of discourse as such and its fascination with the dissident voice in Job and Qoholet made it the locus within Israel for radical challenges to the complacency of the dominant symbolic order.” (159)




Precisely. Best thing ever. I am feeling slightly better today. I am doing good work. I ate proper food. It will all get done. I am not lost. As the secretary to the office of the PB asked me when I was communicating my stress, "WHO'S IN CHARGE?" And I said, of course, "God." I know.


(Not that I believe in an interventionist God like that. I believe in an always accessible, always attractive/attracting, always calling, always urging, always loving, always challenging, always comforting Creator/Redeemer/Sustainer. Who is, in all those accessibilities, in charge, if we ally our hands and hearts with Their Good News.)