Of course the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, told in the 19th chapter of Genesis, has been woven into my life, one way or another. This complicated, convoluted, and confounding text has been used as a blunt instrument in religious thinking about sex and sexuality for centuries. Somewhat unrelated to all that context is the fate of Lot’s wife, who failed to heed the rescuing angel’s instruction, “do not look back,” as fire and brimstone were raining down on the doomed cities. For her failure, Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt. So much for nostalgia.
Interwoven in my life, along with the memory of what happened to Lot’s wife for looking back, is the story of Orpheus who goes to rescue his love Eurydice from the underworld, but is warned against looking back as he guides her return to the land of the living. Orpheus’ failure results not in his own death, but in the of demise of Eurydice, now lost to darkness and death. Women often pay the price, don’t they?
Don’t look back.
As I think about the founders of this nation daring to sign the Declaration of Independence, I strongly suspect that, having thought this thing through and debated it, one of the feelings they would have to have contended with would have been the nagging urge to look back at what they might be leaving behind. I would not be at all surprised if Ben Franklin had been reminding some of his fellow delegates at the Continental Congress not to look back. Don’t look back, he might have said, there’s nothing in it for you but a pillar of salt.
Whether or not Ben Franklin dispensed such advice, it is a lesson I have been trying to remind myself of these days, as I forge a path in life that very little resembles what I had expected at this stage, alienated from the institution to which I devoted nearly all my energy for the past thirty years and more. It is exceedingly difficult to not look back; and yet it begins to dawn on me eventually that the only thing left for me in looking back is a pillar of salt. Of course, the reason to not look back is because it will prevent you from going forward, getting to safety, getting to freedom. You can trap yourself in the past, even if it’s love that seems to pull you back, just ask Orpheus. Don’t look back.
This advice is not universally applicable, and there are times and circumstances in which looking back is necessary and good: remembering is not a curse, it is a vital part of knowing who we are, and it’s important to know when and what to remember. And, in truth, the injunction to not look back is not a command to forget, and should not be confused with forgetting. We need to remember and be remembered to be whole.
In my imagination, Lot was holding his wife by the hand when the angel instructed them to not look back. For all I know, Lot was still holding her hand when his wife craned her neck around to have a look back at all she was leaving behind, even as it was being destroyed. What sadness must have overcome him as he felt her soft flesh disintegrate into almost prickly grains of salt. The decision to not look back is not an easy one to abide by.
Does it do Orpheus any good to tell him not to look back after he has already lost Eurydice? When he tries to go back for Eurydice again, the gods deny him a second entry into the underworld, after which Orpheus gets so lost in his grief that his once joyful songs become invariably sad. Unable to do nearly anything but look backwards, he comes to a deeply unhappy end.
I think it would have been easier for Ben Franklin to follow his own advice (if he ever gave it) to not look back, since he was such a profoundly pragmatic man. But Orpheus was a romantic through and through. I can just hear him moaning that with Eurydice by his side he could have marched forever forward without ever turning back, but that she was the one thing for which his heart would always turn back. I know the feeling.
Lot’s wisdom, if we can call it that, is in accepting the fact that his life was not actually in his own hands, that much was beyond his control, and that he could only control the things he could actually control - like choosing not to look back. He could not control the messengers of God, he could not control the men of Sodom, he could not control his family, whose lives were in God’s hands, not his; he could only control his own decision to go where the angels told him to go, and do what they told him to do. Lot understood that he was the only person over whom he had any control, and I suppose that’s why he was delivered from destruction, along with most, but not all, of his family.
So the advice to not look back is seldom sung in a major key, and in all likelihood it isn’t received as good news. Don’t look back: it’s just a fact that sometimes the only way you are going to get where you are going is if you heed this advice. Often this is the case when the thing (or the person) who is the object of your backward glance is also the object of your love. How hard it is to move forward, remembering that the love is real, and still trying to hear the wisdom whispered in your ear, “Don’t look back.”
So difficult to not look back, yet so tempting, so human, to do so.
Godspeed