Somewhere in the book of Genesis, a man named Lot flees his city with his wife.
An angel tells them to never look back, and as they went,
Lot’s wife,
Nameless as she was,
Peered over her shoulder.
One last glance at all she left behind,
A home, a community, every joyful moment and every heavy mistake,
Too many memories to carry on her back into a secret salvation.
And when she looked,
At everything she’d ever known,
Cresting over horizon with the enormity of loss,
She turned to a pillar of salt where she stood.
I was taught that she deserved this —
To disintegrate into nothing,
To blow like ashes in the breeze,
And I’ve got to wonder why looking back is such a sin.
Why remembering where we’ve been is so damning.
Why it is considered a worldly desire rather than a human instinct.
Rather than an act that whispers on wind to say:
“I will not let this happen again”.
And it makes me wonder if God would forgive me,
For remembering the time
The man touched me without asking permission.
Or the man hit me and begged for forgiveness.
Or the man shoved me and told me he liked it.
Or the man hurt me and admits that he learned from it.
For peering over my shoulder when it feels like the only way to ensure my protection,
For not forgetting my wounds even as they begin to scar,
Skin thickened with the memories of what happened there.
On average, it takes about a month for our body to completely replace its skin cells.
So I guess, in this way,
we are pillars of salt —
always softly crumbling,
But not as punishment,
More as defiance,
as safe zone,
as prophetic protest,
as a way to make room to rebuild,
To shake the dust off our bones and keep going.
So forgive me,
if looking back is sometimes my best defense.
And if recalling it all is what will turn me to salt,
Then I hope my anxious particles blow back in the eyes of the men who created enough harm for me to flee.
And I’ll keep praying,
On bleeding knees,
Reaching out for the disintegrated hand of Lot’s wife,
That I never forget there is some sort of spine underneath the salt that falls away —
something untainted, something unwavering.
Something strong enough to bar the door with
when he tries to come back in.