Mark 10:8

and the man and his wife will become one;’ so that they are no longer two, but one.


man & wife
are as different as
giraffe and ostrich
both have long necks
but . . .

two being one
has no grounding
in the artificiality
of formal marriage
but . . .

man and woman
husband and wife
hold different status
marriage is good
but . . .

papering over différence
even doing so twice
is a frail bridge
even in fair weather
but . . .


And it was so what G*D spake after the earth had brought forth herd-animals, crawling things, and more: “In our image, humankind” (Genesis 1:26).

And it is so, the “our” is a very old problem. It gets to fallibility and weakness of the likeness to G*D. It wonders about a single authority or multiplicity of “personality”. “They were created, whole, as well as female and male” (Genesis 1:27)

Here we have both specificity and multi-dimensionality. Any intention of that which is whole, now split into two, eventually and universally re-bonding as a whole, places untold vectors into a relationship. It is amazing that the standard expectation is not divorce, a bias toward one pole or the other.

It becomes even more problematic if a second story is looked at. Genesis 2:7 relates a single, soil-being (brought forth from the earth). Not only was their form dictated, but their need for a “helper” (2:18). A next creation was needed, one then called Isha, from an Ish (2:21–24). [Note: rather than “ribs” it could be “sides” reflecting other ancient understandings of a basic androgyny (both male/female with untold variations that become a unit known as human).]

Strange business this specific differentiation intended to go beyond differentiation.

It is sometimes helpful to change media when dealing with attempts to freeze a moving target. A helpful shift would be to revisit the first few chapters of Genesis in a graphic book by R. Crumb, The Book of Genesis: Illustrated. Crumb’s introduction reminds us that the compilers of the creation stories were codified by a “priestly caste”. This is part of the irony of using priestly stories on the priests.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.