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Reader,
We just walked back through the earliest moments of humanity—
when man and woman lived side by side, co-stewarding creation in full trust and belonging,
in uninhibited friendship with their Creator.
It was luminous and untainted and wholly soul-satisfying.
It was safe in every way, so intimacy was effortless.
It was a limitless reservoir of new things to discover, adventures to have and joy to be savored.
The kind of peaceful, purposeful, playful and plentiful existence we all have a groaning ache for,
even if we manage to numb it out through setting our sights lower and settling for the status quo in the place we find ourselves.
In short, it was drenched in wonder.
In his book The Wonder Switch, my friend Harris III explores how we're meant to let wonder guide us—
having begun life's journey with that switch already turned on-
before we begin to ask why.
And I wholeheartedly agree with him.
Because when you start with wonder, you remember what we were made for.
It strips away illusion, making way for potent possibilities and daring dreams.
And as we explore how to neighbor ourselves and others shaped by a narrative of assumed male authority and female 'submission', letting wonder guide us will help us remember what was lost.
And that gives us the clarity to name what went wrong.
When you start with the wonder of trust, you feel the break as betrayal.
When you start with the wonder of freedom, you feel arrested when manipulation starts to constrict.
When you start with the wonder of belovedness, you feel the violence of being othered.
When you start with the wonder of harmony, you recognize the profound absurdity of its counterfeit- hierarchy.
But that's not usually where the story starts for most of us, is it?
If you've ever felt crazy for questioning why God seems to hate women in church settings,
you're about to discover you aren't crazy at all.
The Version We Were Told
Because most of us were handed a version of 'Eden' that sounds something like this:
Adam was created first -
making him the leader, the head, God's regional manager.
The woman was created specifically for his use -
making her the helper, the groupie, the assistant to God's regional manager.
In this version, Adam is the responsible one, the brave and stoic leader.
Rational and decisive.
The woman is his subordinate -
created to serve his vision, support his mission, follow his lead.
That's the version that's been passed down and preached for generations.
And if we're honest, it's shaped far more than just how we read this ancient story.
It's shaped our very definition of womanhood -
who she is as a being, what gives her worth,
and why she exists.
It has taught both men and women that her value is always in relationship to a man-
whether that be her father, her brother, or her husband.
We've made male investment and approval the measure of female worth.
We have made male involvement the currency of a woman's social value.
This conditions men to think they're entitled to a woman's time, attention, and affection -
to give them what they want, when they want it.
It conditions men to think, feel and behave like "benevolent" oppressors-
often without even realizing it-
that women need their permission to live big lives,
or to even have the right to exist at all.
And women internalize this male colonization of our God-given autonomy and personal authority.
This drives women to cling to men who treat us like garbage, who abuse and diminish us,
because "at least I've got a man."
And when women dare to live out of their own authority or exhibit leadership,
we are labeled:
difficult, out of order, rebellious, disobedient, bitchy, bossy, aggressive, selfish, and ungodly.
Meanwhile, men exhibiting identical behaviors are labeled:
decisive, natural leaders, protectors, proactive, convictional, strong, and praised for taking initiative.
The same action gets opposite labels based solely on anatomy.
These patterns harm everyone—men and women alike—though in different ways.
This puts a devastating amount of illegitimate power in the hands of men-
power that many never asked for and may not even know they're wielding-
but the power to legitimize a woman's leadership,
to offer protection and provision to the women who please them-
who comply and perform for them-
and to withhold it from those who don't.
It's shaped how we assign blame.
How we think power should work and who should hold it.
How we define sin, based on the gender of the person exhibiting the behavior.
Please, please don't read what I'm not writing.
This doesn't mean every individual man consciously chooses oppression,
or that every woman who's been harmed is helpless or powerless.
This isn't about stirring up male guilt - it's about liberation from systems that diminish everyone
Many men are also trapped by these systems—pressured to perform dominance they don’t want,
cut off from emotional wholeness, and carrying burdens of responsibility that are too heavy for any human.
Plus, many women and men, as they break free, are clearing paths for everyone—
modeling what shared freedom can look like when none of us are pretending anymore.
But recognizing individual complexity doesn't erase systemic patterns.
We can hold both:
personal responsibility and structural analysis.
Individual healing and collective transformation.
Start Paying Attention to What You've Been Told Not to See
Over the next few emails, we're going to step carefully and closely into the story.
Not to assign blame casually.
But to examine intent, power, and consequence—honestly.
And when we do, I suspect you'll start to see a pattern you may already know in your bones.
We're going to slow down.
We're going to read carefully.
And we're going to start asking questions the traditional version never encouraged us to ask.
Not to throw out the story. But to see what's really there.
What if we've misread Genesis 3 so badly that as the people of God,
we've reversed the roles of victim and predator, and are now unwittingly colluding with the very evil
whose deceptive grip Jesus came to set us free from?
Maybe that's what this story has been trying to do all along—
wake us up to the truth about how evil works, so we can stop mistaking harm for holiness.
You don't need to force a conclusion.
Just start noticing. Start getting curious.
Start feeling the tension between the wow of what was, the wonder of what is meant to be
and the implications of believing the story you've been told about how it all went wrong.
Waking up to wonder with you,
Camille
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