The stories we’ve been told.
We’ve grown up on stories: fairytales, bedtime stories, religious stories, history, myth, legend, lore. Not to mention the stories of our family—some reinforced, others rejected, but no less pervasive. And then there are the those of our world, our culture, our socio-political reality, the news, social media, and more.
Every single one of these stories has shaped the way we understand the world and our place in it—our day-to-day life, our work, our relationships, our sense of self, everything. Stories make us who we are. They make you, you.
The stories we’ve not been told (or don’t tell).
These often speak louder than all the others. Stories of harm, loss, pain, grief, disappointment, and anger remain, whether acknowledged or not. Their wounds are still felt and we are held captive to them. They shape us, endlessly and ongoing.
And lest we forget, there are so many stories we’ve not been told nearly enough if at all. Stories that speak of a woman’s strength, tenacity, wisdom, courage, and hope. When they remain untold, it is hard to live a story defined by anything close to the same.
The stories we tell ourselves.
Stories told and stories denied become the incessant and endless voices that chatter within. Cinderella’s story becomes the voice that says you’re not enough unless beautiful, unless something magical occurs, unless you are rescued. Pandora’s story becomes the voice that says you’re too much. The unacknowledged or unhealed story of your past (and those of generations before) becomes the voice that says you should just keep quiet, keep the peace, keep complying and compromising and morphing and towing the line. And as long as there are untold, silenced, and shamed stories of women in our collective, matrilineal line, we hear the voice that tells us there’s no precedent for change, for transformation, for hope. To be clear, all of these voices are wrong!
The world is perfectly content to have us consumed by stories like these. It is determined to keep us from stories of a woman’s agency, courage, wisdom and worthiness. It works to convince us we do not have either the power or the permission to live our story on our own terms. And though there are a million reasons why this is so, I circle right back to one particular story.
. . . whether you’ve heard Eve’s story a thousand times or just this once—it has shaped your life as much as it has mine. It has “served” as the predominant religious ideology, normative cultural template, and overarching social framework for nearly every aspect of the Western world. It is not a stretch to claim its impact and presence within the realities women face, like unequal pay, fewer leadership positions, domestic violence, sexual harassment and trafficking, unraveling abortion rights, and more. All of these are informed and influenced by an inherent understanding of women that, though often unspoken, is no less living and active for the silence around it.
Yet none of this is because of Eve herself, or even her story!
“History isn’t what happened,” says noted women’s historian Sally Roesh Wagner. “It’s who tells the story.”
. . . I sometimes worry that I am overzealous in my unswerving belief that the telling of Eve’s story has and does determine the treatment of women past and present—that perhaps I am taking things too far. But then I . . . am reminded that nearly every example of women’s silencing, shame, and status (or lack thereof) is rooted here, in one singular story. It is tempting to walk away, even from Eve herself—to throw out the whole damn thing. But what I have come to see and experience is that every bit of the endless pain and misunderstanding that has resulted from her story’s telling invites me to healing and deeper understanding, an undoing of the past and a rewriting of the future. When I accept this, the blatant disregard and disdain for Eve (and too many women throughout time) becomes my most profound source of hope, a determined pursuit of all women’s honoring. And the acknowledgment that Eve’s story, as it is most often told, has caused centuries of upset and disruption allows me to dream of what is possible when it is reimagined and retold for good. She has proven her capacity to change everything! Which means she can yet again, which means that you can as well.
[From my forthcoming book, Rewriting Eve: Rescuing Women’s Stories from the Bible and Reclaiming Them as Our Own]
The story we deserve to tell . . . and live.
In the old stories, it is women who make the world; why then shouldn’t we remake it? ~ Sharon Blackie
Eve’s story, one of the oldest stories, is the perfect example of what can happen when a story is reimagined, retold, and redeemed; when what has been seen as shameful is made sovereign; when a world and a woman are remade. She and so many other women beside, our entire matrilineal line, invite us to exactly this again and again—to become the tellers of our own story, our own protagonists, our own heroines, the ones holding the pen and trusting our wisdom and eating the fruit, the ones who change everything.
None of this is easy. It’s ongoing and endless. In truth, it makes up and takes an entire life. But to bravely rewrite the stories that have shaped us, to passionately create the ones we’re yet to live, and yes, to most-definitely change everything along the way, is the story that is ours to tell . . . and live: bold, amazing, unapologetic, and glorious.
May it be so.
I hope you’ll preorder my book—now only 37 days away from publication! It’s available wherever books are sold (though I’m partial to Bookshop.org). Oh, and this week’s BIG NEWS? Studio time has now been scheduled by the publisher of the audio version! Woohoo! Rest assured, I’ll let you know the second you can download my voice reading my words on your behalf!