And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.    John 3: 14-15

Sing, O barren one who did not bear; burst into song and shout, you who have not been in labour! For the children of the desolate woman will be more than the children of her that is married, says the Lord.       Isaiah 54:1 

   I have no children.  I will have no children.  Now, as I am into menopause, I find myself asking, “What was that all about?”  I think about my mortality and the disposition of my material goods, destined for my siblings’ offspring.  Much as I like the idea of my great-nieces and great-nephews eating off of ancestral china currently in my possession, it doesn’t quite qualify as a reason for having been. 

   I heard the phrase “Seven Generations” the other night during a program on the education of First Nations people in Canada.  The phrase was used to describe the length of view of aboriginal peoples and was contrasted with the contemporary Canadian political view-length of about five years.  Seven generations refers to the impact that one has on the environment, on one’s children, on one’s society, on one’s culture, on the future.  When I heard the phrase repeated later in the show, I thought, “I will have no generations.”  I went to bed in a funk.  The snake of despair had bitten.

   By morning, however, I was angry.  I thought, “I’m selling myself short.”  Thinking of seven generations in biological, ancestral terms is surely way too tribal, way too literal, way too linear.  One’s impact, one’s ripple effect, clearly extends beyond one’s potential descendants.  In fact, although I am sad not to have had children, I do not at this point in my life want children:  that time for me is past.  So why would I fall into the trap of looking at “seven generations” in such a literal way?  Why do I find the snake so compelling in his despairing whispers? 

   I find him compelling because what he says contains an element of truth.  I do not believe that the only way one can have an impact on future generations is through one’s children.  But if I listen, instead of blocking him in fear, I find the snake is also saying that a lack of children reflects a fundamental lack in me:  a lack of openness to life and, therefore, a lack of openness to God, to Christ.  Most of that accusation is rubbish, but the part about lack of openness to Christ, this grabs my guts.  Not about lack of children, but about a lack of openness to what Christ might ask of me with respect to the “seven generations.” 

   Somehow, I’m playing it safe.  I am not aware of resisting a particular call, but I am aware of playing it safe, of not being able to imagine the future.  Despair is sometimes safer than change.  It can be easier to imagine a whimper of departure than to imagine creating, or contributing to the creation of, something that ripples out through seven generations.  Whatever it is I’m supposed to do, I’m afraid to do it, and fear is blocking my perception of Christ’s prompting.  In that respect, the snake is right.

   The snake’s comments provoke feelings of despair:  “I will have no generations.”  It would be easy to look at him as purely destructive, as the enemy to be fought or blocked or feared.  I feel strongly the need to fight back against the snake, to hiss back, “I will not be erased!”  And so I should.  In dealing with the snake, one must be on guard not to be completely seduced into the despair.  However, the discomfort the snake brings is powerful exactly because it contains an element of truth.  Looked at in that way, one could say that, finding the front door closed, Christ has found his way in through the back, through the whispers of the snake.  The snake’s judgement, that I am stuck, is Christ’s judgement.  I am stuck, frozen by fear.  But what does He want of me?  How will I know which way to go?  Instead of giving up hope, I should ask, Where in my life am I most afraid to deliberately and affirmatively adopt a non-biological “seven generations” view?  

   My work with this group, Two Fishes Press, is crucial to me, as we explore the nature of Christ and look to discern him in our lives and in the world.  We have left the church and are thus outside of the chain of its generations.  Here, the snake of despair whispers that Christianity will fizzle out, leaving no more mark on the culture than a commercialized Santa Claus, and that our work will gather dust on forgotten shelves.  Here again, the snake is curiously literal in his understanding, and cannot see beyond the existing, conventional frame.  How might Christianity develop, how might we develop in ways we cannot yet imagine, in ways we may fear, to include the likes of ourselves somehow in its generations?  

   The members of Two Fishes Press see a problem of pervasive despair and spiritual hunger within our culture.  How often do we hear that Western culture is destroying the planet through its insatiable appetites, and there is no health in us?  This problem of planetary destruction is not presented in the media as a spiritual problem, but it is one:  guilt and despair (whispers of the snake) keep the understanding locked in the material world, fuelling the very appetites that ensure its destruction.  

   The theology that separates the world into the saved and the damned, sorted by a benign and friendly Jesus, is at the root of much of the despair because the only tool it gives us for dealing with the snake is banishment.   What we need is a way to contain and transform him, not always to banish him.  The saved/damned theology keeps us from hearing within the whispers of the snake both the judgement we long for and the change we are afraid to make. •

Red Berries, photograph
David Bailey, 2011

Coral Poppies, photograph
Marjorie Seguin, 2009