Standing strong: Give it to our women, they are the ones who might bring us back to life

A very dear and long-time friend has mentioned to me she is going to read through the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, this year. This delighted me, as I love and admire serious readers.

I know my sister will keep her resolve because she is a strong and determined woman. My only advice to her was that she should care more about the quality of the reading rather than the quantity.

I have also been reading the Bible lately, and one word leapt up to my attention out of all that reading. The word is: “Stood”.

We should start by putting it in context. After all, quoting texts, let alone single words, out of context is the bane of all writing, however lofty and sacred. It is what enables even the devil to quote scripture, to our peril.

Mention of sacred scripture brings us to our context. Today, Christians all over the world are coming to the end of the season of Lent, during which they fast, pray, do special good works and reflect on the ministry, suffering, death and resurrection of their founder, the Christ.

This culminates in the festival of Easter, which will be celebrated this Sunday. Now, as part of the reflections during the fasting period, believers are encouraged to read the scriptures. These are the sacred records of their creation, fall from grace, eventual redemption and final promise of eternal life.

My own Lenten readings landed me on the sentence or verse that says: “By the cross of Jesus stood his mother…” (John 19: 25). The problem with great texts is that we become so used to them, casually “reading” and “hearing” them, that we hardly ever really “see” them or listen to them. Familiarity thus breeds inattention.

This is particularly true of the spiritual writings. Indeed, there is such a lot of scriptural fatigue that we can all name several “serious” Christians who have not opened a Bible in several years, even if they have a (dust-gathering) copy.

OLD JOKE

The old joke is being extended to say that if you want to hide something from a Christian, hide it in a Bible!

But the illiteracy is not limited to scriptures. Even most secular great texts suffer the same fate. I wonder, for example, how many among my own professional literary colleagues have looked at a Shakespearean text in the last three months. (I looked at the murder and porter scenes in Macbeth last week, but that was because I wanted to check on a quotation).

All right, Shakespeare may be old hat, foreign, colonial and all that. But do we ever think of rereading Things Fall Apart, So Long a Letter, A Grain of Wheat, Song of Lawino, or even a slim volume like Betrayal in the City? These are classics of our own literature, and every time you read a classic, you discover something relevantly new.

This is because every time you read a text, you read it differently. Since you are always growing and changing, you bring new experiences and perceptions to the reading of even the same old text.

Thus it was that when I read the verse about this middle-aged woman standing by the gibbet on which her condemned son was hanging, I could not help a gasp of respectful recognition.

To begin with, I understand more intimately now the child-parent relationship than I did when I was a carefree, unattached bachelor.

Secondly, I know that one of the effects of extreme shock or distress is a weakness in the knees. Where did this plainly simple village woman get the strength to stand for three solid hours, watching her son dying an excruciatingly painful death? Thirdly, the son in question was not only a “traitor” to the state, calling himself king, but also a “blasphemer” who claimed divine status. Yet the woman stood, facing the hordes of tormentors who taunted her and her son for the heinous crimes.

The criminal’s “sensible” male friends had betrayed him, sold him, denied him or gone into hiding. Only one naïve youth remained among the women who stood at the scene of the execution. For, let us admit it, the narrative specifies that there were two other women, both coincidentally named Mary, standing with the mother.

That partly answers my question about the mother. Part of her strength comes from the support of the women friends who stand with her. “Sister solidarity” is what you might call it. The mutual understanding, support and encouragement among women goes a long way in empowering them to face and deal with the dire circumstances in which they often find themselves.

I will not hasten to add that the dire circumstances are brought about by the “other side”, which usually finds its power and courage in the instruments of terror, torture and destruction that they possess.  It is astounding that the woman stands and asserts herself before the helmets, lances, crosses, swords, machetes or bombs, tanks and guns.

Maybe the ultimate explanation of the woman’s strength lies in her faith. Did that woman on the craggy hill not declare to all and sundry that she knew her son, believed in him and in the worthiness of his cause? I know I am treading on slippery ground, trying to pontificate about matters of which I know less than nothing.

But I know how reassuring and heartening it is to have a woman believe in you with an unshakeable faith. I will not speculate on the Resurrection here. But it seems to be natural to me that the astounding event was actually announced to humanity by a woman, one of those who stood faithfully at the cross of the supposedly dying and dead criminal.

I believe a woman’s faith can keep you alive and immortal. Have a blessed Easter.

Prof Bukenya is a leading East African scholar of English and Literature. [email protected]