Discovering Lewis (and maybe a bit of me too)
I was a middle school girl when I first picked up the Chronicles of Narnia. I marveled at the magical eternal winter. It was such an enchanting, unbelievable idea to a girl raised in the desert of west Texas. As Lucy ventures into Narnia, she is called a Daughter of Eve. I still remember the visceral reaction in my gut as I read Lucy being referred to as a "Daughter of Eve". A Daughter of Eve seemed to me an insult. But the story continued and Aslan himself refers to Lucy and Susan Daughters of Eve. To be addressed as a Daughter of Eve is an honor.
Shocking and horrifying were my thoughts when I first realized Lewis uses Daughters of Eve as an honorific. Eve? But she's a woman! And she led the entire world astray! And we would all still be living in Eden if she had just shut up and listened to her husband or at least not had any original ideas. Why would I want to be called a daughter of Eve? I wanted to be as little associated with Eve as possible. I was running as far from Eve as I could.
I remember as an 8 year old girl knowing exactly what I would do and be if I were a boy. I would go to seminary and I would teach the Scriptures as accurately as I could. But I was a girl. Girls couldn't teach the Scripture (at least not to mixed company). I never desired to be a boy, I enjoyed being a girl and all it entailed. I wasn't even upset or angry about it, simply.... disappointed. I just knew what my calling would have been if I was a boy. And I grew up knowing it could not be.
