This Weak Force
This Weak Force
11/15/05
Lately I’ve been reading a great book called “A God Who Looks Like Me.” (Patricia Lynn Reilly, 1995, Ballentine Books) She talks about how women have been left out of western (and other) religions. That is not new to me. I have just written a book manuscript of how to find our own lost feminine plus the divine feminine, but each time I encounter the enormity of the dominant male culture making women into sexual objects that couldn’t possibly be spiritual or holy, it infuriates me. Inclusive language for God is nonexistent in my state of Oklahoma, and many other places as well. Even tv commentators and NPR reporters use the pronoun “he” for God.
If we persist in thinking of God as “he,” then God is described in terms of what men think is important: strength and steadfastness. Yet what we have learned in the last year is that when tsunamis, earthquakes and hurricanes hit, it is the bendable buildings that survive. Women know how to bend, how to accomodate, how to love. I am not a scientist but I know that in physics it is the weak force that is the strongest. Jesus born in a manger, not a castle.
War will be defined in terms of strength and rationality if we keep thinking of God as masculine. God is neither masculine nor feminine. God’s wisdom cannot be pigeonholed into macho thinking. God is the Creator, not the killer. God is the Lover, not the hater. God is ruach, wind, breath, spirit, not dominant and oppressive.
I’m having a hard time with institutional religion. The words don’t speak to me any more. Nor do the images. I relate more to the lilies in the field than to the cross, more to Mary and Martha than Joshua’s battle in Jericho.
Enough. Back to my knitting. Orange wool felted into handbags for Christmas presents this year. Something I can hold on to.
Peace, Cynthia
Powerful writing! I’m proud to be your kid…
You always taught me that if women were the rulers, the conquerors, the emperors, the tyrants, the presidents, the world would be a different place.
I wonder how many fewer Iraqis would have died, were Laura Bush president.
I wonder how many more children would know how to read, and have enough food to eat, if Laura Bush were president.
We’ve talked about this before, but if Jesus had been married, is our conception of religion not fully and completely archaic. Do we still believe that women are inconsequential in the ‘men’s world’?
We talked about the fact that the women in the bible are prostitutes and mothers… What if Christ were married? He did have a brother, and his brother must have been married, no?
Why isn’t it possible that Christ, God created in the image of human beings, loved someone with a human’s heart? And why are those women left out of the story of our religion?
I, for one, am excited to read your book:)…
I love having a mother who can rant so eloquently… I’m learning!
Comment by Kent Gustavson | 01.12.2006 | 5:39 pm