Oh, Susanna

I found the story of Susanna to be quite compelling, I found my self glued to the pages as I read this intriguing little tale. The first element of this book that struck me was the word choice in describing the events surrounding the plot. Susanna is obviously a beauty to look upon I gathered this from two sentences in particular. One goes, "And albeit they both were wounded with her love" and the other, "that they may be filled with her beauty." The key word in these sentences are wounded and filled respectively. As I was reading I stopped, circled the word, and read them again. I was in awe how these two seemingly simple words conveyed so much to me about the story. The word wounded reminds me of a Shakespearean sonnet, I can't remember which, or maybe it was an Edmund Spencer poem, in any case the speaker of the poem is wounded by his lover's eyes, because, as the poem tells us, there is a little army of cupids sitting on her eyelashes that shot their arrows at his heart. Haven't you ever felt like this when gazing upon something of beauty, I know this feeling all to well, when it happens it feels as if you have lost something like you will always have this pain that hurts you like there is an overwhelming desire to honor it but you feel like you are unworthy of its beauty. The word filled also gets at this idea in that when something fills you, you have nothing else inside that takes dominance, you are what you see, you swim in it as it covers you with its beauty, and its a trap almost one that has you transfixed and numb. Maybe its just me but I'm fascinated with the Bible in how it uses these words to communicate its meaning, in any case it takes the reader to put it all into context. Another aspect of this story that in a way puzzled me was the two different ways in which Susanna's faith is described. In the beginning of the story we are told she is "one that feared the Lord" and later that "her heart trusted in the Lord" To me fear and trust cannot exist in unison. They have so many conflicting attributes, fear implies a kind of weakness felt in its presence, were as trust communicates a feeling of honor and faith. Is this how we are to feel about God, be fearing and trusting, maybe its his powers that we can feel this ways about, but how could we fear and trust the personification of God. I'm reminded of the film "A Bronx Tale" were a mob boss is asked if it is better to be feared or loved. To which he responds, "It's great to be both, but fear lasts longer than love" I think this has some merit in the case of the Suzanna story because there is this static sense of fear when we talk of God, and the love we have for him weavers depending on various factors, so the question is does God want to be feared is it part of this masculinity that we speak of in class that characterizes him. I think it would be better to be loved because there is an element of exchange and compassion in it that fear will never be able to capture.