Page 58 of Bless This Hot Mess
Rebekkah exhaled slowly, “Well, not my very own. I share it with Ronald and Japheth.”
Her mom shrugged, brushing off the minor detail, “But those two gentlemen will be happy for you to take the spotlight, right?”
Rebekkah hesitated, “Maybe, but I don’t know any HER story! What would I even sing about or say?”
Her mother’s face lit up, her eyes dancing with excitement, “Just because men didn’t write it all down doesn’t meanwe women weren’t livingbiglives. It’s called erasure, and that’s what’s happened to women for centuries; we didn’t make the pages of the history books because the men didn’t want to share any of the ink!”
Rebekkah blinked, feeling her mother’s words sink in, but still unsure of herself, “Mom, you might have to help me with this one. I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
Her mother’s face softened, and then, with the enthusiasm of someone about to belt out an old favourite song, she began to speak in prophetic riddles, her voice clear and strong, “Right at the beginning, there was Eve! Some will tell you Adam came first, but don’t get it twisted. How can you have an Adam if you don’t first have an Eve?”
Rebekkah’s eyes widened, but despite herself, she hitched her wagon to her mom’s, knowing it was about to be a bumpy ride. She asked hesitantly, “like the chicken or the egg?”
“That’s right!” her mother nodded vigorously.
“But… which one is it?” Rebekkah pressed.
Before Rebekkah got an answer, her mother launched into a verse,
“Joan of Arc saw visions when she knelt down to pray!
Some men said she was crazy, but it wasn’t that way.
Joan had a calling from Heaven, and I’ll tell you why.
She knew deep down that God wasn’t a guy!”
Rebekkah nearly choked, “What?! Mom!”
Her mother grinned mischievously,
“God’s not a dude! She’s a dudette.
Look around the world, and you’ll see that it’s true!
Our Mother in Heaven is what we should say,
’cause God’s not a dude!”
Rebekkah blinked, incredulous, “Was this on that Dixie Carter meditation DVD, too?”
Her mother ignored the question, too wrapped up in her own musical revelations,
“Mary M showed up when the world turned away,
First to see the miracle, first to shout ‘He’s okay!’
The boys club called her slut,
when she washed his feet with her hair!
They wrote the rest of the story,
like she wasn’t even there.”
Feeling the inspiration rise within her, Rebekkah stood and tried her voice on a second verse,
“Eve bit the apple and they blamed her for the world's pain,
