The Book of Longings

by Sue Monk Kidd

I am the first and the last I am she who is honored and she who is mocked I am the whore and the holy woman I am the wife and the virgin I am the mother and the daughter I am she . . . Do not be afraid of my power . . . I am the knowledge of my name I am the name of the sound and the sound of the name THE THUNDER: PERFECT MIND

Knock upon yourself as on a door, and walk upon yourself as on a straight road. For if you walk on that road, you cannot get lost, and what you open for yourself will open. THE TEACHINGS OF SILVANUS

I’d begun writing down the stories of the matriarchs in the Scriptures. Listening to the rabbis, one would’ve thought the only figures worth mention in the whole of history were Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph . . . David, Saul, Solomon . . . Moses, Moses, Moses. When I was finally able to read the Scriptures for myself, I discovered (behold!) there were women. To be ignored, to be forgotten, this was the worst sadness of all. I swore an oath to set down their accomplishments and praise their flourishings, no matter how small. I would be a chronicler of lost stories. It was exactly the kind of boldness Mother despised.

My parents’ stories found their way into the flesh of my flesh and the bone of my bone. It had not occurred to me that my abilities had been intended, that God had meant to bestow these blessings on me. On Ana, a girl with turbulent black curls and eyes the color of rainclouds.

When I looked up, Yaltha’s eyes were settled on me. She said, “A man’s holy of holies contains God’s laws, but inside a woman’s there are only longings.” Then she tapped the flat bone over my heart and spoke the charge that caused something to flame up in my chest: “Write what’s inside here, inside your holy of holies.” Lifting my hand, I touched the bone my aunt had just struck to life, blinking furiously to hold back a tumult of emotion.

Our one true God dwelled inside the Holy of Holies in the Temple at Jerusalem, and I was sure it was impious to speak of a similar place existing inside humans, and worse still to suggest that yearnings inside girls like me had intimations of divinity. It was the most beautiful, wicked blasphemy I’d ever heard. I could not sleep that night for the ecstasy of it.

The act itself of writing evoked powers, often divine, but sometimes unstable, that entered the letters and sent a mysterious animating force rippling through the ink. Did not a blessing carved on a talisman safeguard a newborn and a curse inscription protect a tomb?

Rising, I took my incantation bowl to the small high window, where skeins of light fell. I rotated the bowl in a full circle, watching the words move inside it, rippling toward the rim. Lord our God, hear my prayer, the prayer of my heart. Bless the largeness inside me, no matter how I fear it. Bless my reed pens and my inks. Bless the words I write. May they be beautiful in your sight. May they be visible to eyes not yet born. When I am dust, sing these words over my bones: she was a voice.

“Yes, but his death was brought about by my prayer. It’s why I cautioned you to take care what you wrote in your bowl. When the longing of one’s heart is inked into words and offered as a prayer, that’s when it springs to life in God’s mind.” Does it? “Earlier tonight, I sent my bowl across the room with my foot,” I said. She smiled. Her face looked ancient and somehow beautiful. “Ana, your betrothal has stolen your hope. Return to your longing. It will teach you everything.” Her words seemed to release a raw power in the air around us. “Be patient, child,” she continued. “Your moment will come, and when it does, you must seize it with all the bravery you can find.”

“I mean that the story can happen inside us,” Yaltha said. “Think of it—the life you’re living can be torn apart like Osiris’s and a new one pieced together. Some part of you might die and a new self will rise up to take its place.” Tabitha scrunched her face. Yaltha said, “Right now you are a girl in your father’s house, but soon that life will die and a new one will be born—that of a wife.” She turned her gaze on me. “Do not leave it to fate. You must be the one who does the resurrecting. You must be Isis re-creating Osiris.” My aunt nodded at me, and I understood. If my life must be torn apart by this betrothal, then I must try to reassemble it according to my own design.

A feeling of loss and wrath rose in me. I wanted to shout at her—I am betrothed to someone I despise and who despises me in return. I have little hope I will see the man I love ever again. I don’t know what has become of my brother. Words are life to me, yet my writings are buried in the ground. My heart is sickled like wheat tares and you speak to me as if I am weak and imbecilic.

Later, alone in my room, the house deep in slumber, I removed the white marriage dress from the chest and with the snipping knife, I cut the hem and the sleeves into long tatters. I slipped it on and crept from the house. The air caused cold scintillas of flesh to rise on my arms. I mounted the ladder to the roof and climbed like a night vine, the shreds of my dress fluttering. A small wind stirred the dark, and I thought of Sophia, the very breath of God in the world, and I whispered to her, “Come, lodge in me, and I will love you with all my heart and mind and soul.” Then, on the roof, as close to the sky as I could get, I danced. My body was a reed pen. It spoke the words I couldn’t write: I dance not for men to choose me. Nor for God. I dance for Sophia. I dance for myself.

THE NEXT MORNING as the sun stirred awake, Jesus trekked into the hills to pray. It was his daily habit. At other times I would find him sitting cross-legged on the floor with his prayer shawl drawn over his head, unmoving, eyes closed. It had been so since we married, this devotion, this feasting on God, and I’d never minded it, but today, seeing him walk away in the half-light, I understood what until now I’d only glimpsed. God was the ground beneath him, the sky over him, the air he breathed, the water he drank. It made me uneasy.

I’d not laid eyes on the Temple in years, and the sight of it sprawled across the mount ahead brought me to a halt. I’d forgotten the vastness of it, the sheer splendor. Its white stones and gold filigree blazed in the sun, a spectacle of such grandiosity, it was easy to believe God dwelled there. Does he? I thought. Perhaps like Sophia, he prefers a quiet stream somewhere in the valley. As if our thoughts were conjoined, Jesus said, “The first time we met in the cave, we spoke of the Temple. Do you remember? You asked me if God lived there or if he lived inside people.” “You answered, ‘Can he not live in both?’” “And you said, ‘Can he not live everywhere? Let us set him free.’ That’s when I knew I would love you, Ana. That’s when I knew.”

We must let life be life.”

“Life will be life and death will be death,” I whispered,

I was grateful for my solitude. It gave me time to mourn. I slept with grief and woke to it. It was always there, a black strap around my heart. I didn’t ask God why my daughter had died. I knew he couldn’t help it. Life was life, death was death. It was the fault of no one. I asked only for someone to find my husband and bring him home.

“I call my hymn ‘Thunder: Perfect Mind,’”

I was sent out from power . . . Be careful. Do not ignore me. I am the first and the last I am she who is honored and she who is mocked I am the whore and the holy woman I am the wife and the virgin I am the mother and the daughter

Do not stare at me in the shit pile, leaving me discarded You will find me in the kingdoms . . . Do not be afraid of my power Why do you despise my fear and curse my pride? I am she who exists in all fears and in trembling boldness

I, I am without God And I am she whose God is magnificent . . . I am being I am she who is nothing . . . I am the coming together and the falling apart I am the enduring and the disintegration . . . I am what everyone can hear and no one can say

“All shall be well,” Yaltha had told me, and when I’d recoiled at how trite and superficial that sounded, she’d said, “I don’t mean that life won’t bring you tragedy. I only mean you will be well in spite of it. There’s a place in you that is inviolate. You’ll find your way there, when you need to. And you’ll know then what I speak of.”

And it comes to me that the echoes of my own life will likely die away in that way thunder does. But this life, what a shining thing—it is enough.

“I am Ana. I was the wife of Jesus of Nazareth. I am a voice.”

Everything is the proper stuff of fiction. —VIRGINIA WOOLF

“Bless the largeness inside me, no matter how I fear it. . . . When I am dust, sing these words over my bones: she was a voice”

writing is an act of courage