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Write Now!
This blog started as a 'Lenten Writing Project', where we wrote each day in Lent. Now that Summer is here, let's keep up the discipline of writing with a weekly writing challenge! A prompt will be posted each week and anyone is welcome to join in and post their writing here or participate just by reading it.
Every writer has their own special light to add to this blog and all of your writing offerings are appreciated, whether poetry, prose, essay, thoughts, lists or comments and encouragement.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Lenten Writing Prompt #23
How do you get beyond gender with God? Or does it help you to picture God as a male or a female? What does God look like to you when you pray?
To me God is neither male nor female. Nor do I think of God as a father-figure or in any other human form. To me, that would limit my perception of Him. (Yes, I use 'Him'. It's just easier and 'It' or 'She' would not be right either.)
God is love. There is no gender or visual image for that.
When I pray I do not focus on a particular visual image of God. I try to listen with my heart instead of my there senses while praying.
God's presence is a constant.
When I feel farther from God it is because I have moved away, not HIm.
How do I “picture” God? As a believing child, I don’t remember giving any thought at all to what God looked like. Oh, perhaps some of the Sunday School pictures of Moses gave me an impression. But I knew Jesus as God, and Jesus loved me, the Bible told me so!
As I grew older, and especially as I became involved in feminism, I began to wrestle with what I heard other people saying about the ideas of God as gendered. To clarify my own understanding I first went to Scripture – and after reading the entire Bible several times I realized that God is referenced metaphorically as a mother, as a father, as a husband and perhaps even as a sister (in Song of Solomon. In any case, all are close family relationships.
Turning to my study of linguistics, I began to realize that we are limited by our English language! If the English language was able to refer to God without gender as male or female, but as G_D, wouldn’t that be better? But then we might miss the parenting-ness of God, and the depth of relationship that God desires?
Finally, back to Scripture! In Gal 3:28 we read, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”
Somehow that helps me sense or feel God's presence, not as a physical picture. This is confirmed for me in John 4:24, where we see that “God is spirit, and those who worship must worship in spirit and truth.”
“Our Father who art in Heaven”. This is the beginning line of my favorite prayer. For most of my life, I saw God as a male parent, a male royalty and also of course the booming voice of James Earl Jones. God the father weaves in and out of most of the prayers and liturgy that I participate in. I know the arguments by heart for why we say ‘he’: We use it to mean ‘he and she’ because it’s easier or because it’s an antiquated language, etc. etc. Of course there is also the also feminist argument that God is a woman and won’t the conservative evangelical preachers be surprised when they get to Heaven and see her. My mom used to murmur, “Our fathermother who art in heaven” quietly to herself when we read the Lord’s prayer In church. My feminist education would have me wrap God up with the history of ancient goddesses and other female-led religions throughout history and from other cultures. Having a male god is subjugation of the feminine earthspirit, etc. etc.
The thing is, even after all this knowledge and background, I still saw in my head, God as a man. A father-figure to pray to and to understand me. God that looked like Michael Landon in Little House on the Prairie with the voice of James Earl Jones comes to mind. Or did. (to be continued...)
(...continued) This passage – which I have heard a thousand times in church – made me think: “In those days, Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased” ~Mark 1:9-11
Normally, in the movie of the Bible in my head, this is the part where James Earl Jones says in his best Mustafa from Lion King voice, “this is my son”. However, these are not the words of actions of a Lion King. This ccould also be a Mama Bear. In fact, Mama Bear God TORE open the heavens to point her dovey finger down and shouted “THAT’S MY BOY!!! THAT’S HIM!!” and then calls him “my beloved”. That is what I call my daughter when I call her my baby-boo. That’s what you call someone you want to snuggle, stroke their forehead and give kissies to. And this exchange between God and God’s son is, among other things, a parent screaming ‘way to go, son!’. As a woman and as a mother, I understand this. I can chew it up and swallow that picture into my being to understand what happened. Does that mean that God is a mother? The feminist wave was correct? No. I know Dads that are just as clamourous to claim their Baby-boos and would tear open heavens to softly but insistently let everyone in the room know this is their special lovey-lamb. It’s not the pat on the head, “you have obeyed, thank you little man, now go to bed” disciplinarian God-dad.
God the father has already been touted and envisioned in liturgy and the Bible, but this is a different parent. A parent acting out of pure love. A child’s buoy of love in this sea of chaos.
I think that the classic positioning of Jesus/God/Holy Spirit has been that Jesus is God’s male form, Holy spirit is God’s female form and God is beyond gender, but we’ll call him a ‘he’ anyway. Sometimes we may try to remember to insert ‘God’ instead of a gender, but it feels like an insertion rather than a full integration.
Here’s what I think: This is all beyond gender. Gender is a human-made designation. God is God. Truly. God as the Holy Spirit is God as GOD on Earth. And God as Jesus is God participating fully with the human experience as a human (or humyn, to give a nod to my feminist sisters). However, when Jesus gives his body, his blood, dies on a cross with love and comes BACK even after that…he becomes parent of the human race. God loves us with a force that is love in it’s purest form. The point is what it always boils down to in the Bible and with what Jesus tells us: Love. This is always the right answer. I see no love in the Disciplinarian style parent-God who happens to be a man. I do see love in the God that is the parent in me. This is because God IS in me. I am created in God’s image to love. And so are you.
I have always been a third article of the creed person - big into the spirit and communion of saints.
When I pray for others, which I do often, I picture them in light, God's light getting what they need, healing, hope, whatever they need. To me it's a warm image. Oddly I never thought of it as gender neutral till I read the question.
I also have read many of Andrew Greeley's novels. He often refers to God as a she. Honestly, it was a bit shocking at first, years ago, but now it seems natural - especially when I know I am reading from his perspective - an interesting thing to be known for...
My first thoughts were to turn to books explaining the development of the Jewish religion, dig out the Hebrew and Greek words for Spirit and Wisdom (female) and expound on the male dominated process of putting the Bible together, but then I threw it all out. God is what we believe God is. And this is what I've come to believe, for now. I know I won't know for sure until that hour when my spirit is in that other space where God is.
This light, fire, living Spirit, breath of life, is all of humanity, yet beyond it, male and female, ying and yang, true balance. So, I feel free to address God as Father or Mother. But yes, I often say "Our Father and Mother in Heaven".
I hesitate to limit God lest, like Job, I evoke the questios about my presumptiousness. Where was I when God brought order out of chaos? This is a God who refused labeling when Moses asked who he should say commissioned him. "I am what I am." "I will be what I will be." And who am I to say.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete(This post was removed at author's request beccause a rough draft was accidentally posted : )
Deleteby Pat Mason
ReplyDeleteTo me God is neither male nor female. Nor do I think of God as a father-figure or in any other human form. To me, that would limit my perception of Him. (Yes, I use 'Him'. It's just easier and 'It' or 'She' would not be right either.)
God is love. There is no gender or visual image for that.
When I pray I do not focus on a particular visual image of God. I try to listen with my heart instead of my there senses while praying.
God's presence is a constant.
When I feel farther from God it is because I have moved away, not HIm.
Good point Pat! 'When I feel farther from God...' Thanks for your post!
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteHow do I “picture” God? As a believing child, I don’t remember giving any thought at all to what God looked like. Oh, perhaps some of the Sunday School pictures of Moses gave me an impression. But I knew Jesus as God, and Jesus loved me, the Bible told me so!
ReplyDeleteAs I grew older, and especially as I became involved in feminism, I began to wrestle with what I heard other people saying about the ideas of God as gendered. To clarify my own understanding I first went to Scripture – and after reading the entire Bible several times I realized that God is referenced metaphorically as a mother, as a father, as a husband and perhaps even as a sister (in Song of Solomon. In any case, all are close family relationships.
Turning to my study of linguistics, I began to realize that we are limited by our English language! If the English language was able to refer to God without gender as male or female, but as G_D, wouldn’t that be better? But then we might miss the parenting-ness of God, and the depth of relationship that God desires?
Finally, back to Scripture! In Gal 3:28 we read, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”
Somehow that helps me sense or feel God's presence, not as a physical picture. This is confirmed for me in John 4:24, where we see that “God is spirit, and those who worship must worship in spirit and truth.”
“Our Father who art in Heaven”. This is the beginning line of my favorite prayer. For most of my life, I saw God as a male parent, a male royalty and also of course the booming voice of James Earl Jones. God the father weaves in and out of most of the prayers and liturgy that I participate in. I know the arguments by heart for why we say ‘he’: We use it to mean ‘he and she’ because it’s easier or because it’s an antiquated language, etc. etc. Of course there is also the also feminist argument that God is a woman and won’t the conservative evangelical preachers be surprised when they get to Heaven and see her. My mom used to murmur, “Our fathermother who art in heaven” quietly to herself when we read the Lord’s prayer In church. My feminist education would have me wrap God up with the history of ancient goddesses and other female-led religions throughout history and from other cultures. Having a male god is subjugation of the feminine earthspirit, etc. etc.
ReplyDeleteThe thing is, even after all this knowledge and background, I still saw in my head, God as a man. A father-figure to pray to and to understand me. God that looked like Michael Landon in Little House on the Prairie with the voice of James Earl Jones comes to mind. Or did.
(to be continued...)
(...continued)
ReplyDeleteThis passage – which I have heard a thousand times in church – made me think:
“In those days, Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased”
~Mark 1:9-11
Normally, in the movie of the Bible in my head, this is the part where James Earl Jones says in his best Mustafa from Lion King voice, “this is my son”. However, these are not the words of actions of a Lion King. This ccould also be a Mama Bear. In fact, Mama Bear God TORE open the heavens to point her dovey finger down and shouted “THAT’S MY BOY!!! THAT’S HIM!!” and then calls him “my beloved”. That is what I call my daughter when I call her my baby-boo. That’s what you call someone you want to snuggle, stroke their forehead and give kissies to. And this exchange between God and God’s son is, among other things, a parent screaming ‘way to go, son!’. As a woman and as a mother, I understand this. I can chew it up and swallow that picture into my being to understand what happened. Does that mean that God is a mother? The feminist wave was correct? No. I know Dads that are just as clamourous to claim their Baby-boos and would tear open heavens to softly but insistently let everyone in the room know this is their special lovey-lamb. It’s not the pat on the head, “you have obeyed, thank you little man, now go to bed” disciplinarian God-dad.
God the father has already been touted and envisioned in liturgy and the Bible, but this is a different parent. A parent acting out of pure love. A child’s buoy of love in this sea of chaos.
I think that the classic positioning of Jesus/God/Holy Spirit has been that Jesus is God’s male form, Holy spirit is God’s female form and God is beyond gender, but we’ll call him a ‘he’ anyway. Sometimes we may try to remember to insert ‘God’ instead of a gender, but it feels like an insertion rather than a full integration.
Here’s what I think: This is all beyond gender. Gender is a human-made designation. God is God. Truly. God as the Holy Spirit is God as GOD on Earth. And God as Jesus is God participating fully with the human experience as a human (or humyn, to give a nod to my feminist sisters). However, when Jesus gives his body, his blood, dies on a cross with love and comes BACK even after that…he becomes parent of the human race. God loves us with a force that is love in it’s purest form. The point is what it always boils down to in the Bible and with what Jesus tells us: Love. This is always the right answer. I see no love in the Disciplinarian style parent-God who happens to be a man. I do see love in the God that is the parent in me. This is because God IS in me. I am created in God’s image to love. And so are you.
Ride on, Ruth!
Deletes.h.
I have always been a third article of the creed person - big into the spirit and communion of saints.
ReplyDeleteWhen I pray for others, which I do often, I picture them in light, God's light getting what they need, healing, hope, whatever they need. To me it's a warm image. Oddly I never thought of it as gender neutral till I read the question.
I also have read many of Andrew Greeley's novels. He often refers to God as a she. Honestly, it was a bit shocking at first, years ago, but now it seems natural - especially when I know I am reading from his perspective - an interesting thing to be known for...
I Am Who I Am
ReplyDeleteby Marlene Obie
My first thoughts were to turn to books explaining the development of the Jewish religion, dig out the Hebrew and Greek words for Spirit and Wisdom (female) and expound on the male dominated process of putting the Bible together, but then I threw it all out. God is what we believe God is. And this is what I've come to believe, for now. I know I won't know for sure until that hour when my spirit is in that other space where God is.
This light, fire, living Spirit, breath of life, is all of humanity, yet beyond it, male and female, ying and yang, true balance. So, I feel free to address God as Father or Mother. But yes, I often say "Our Father and Mother in Heaven".
I hesitate to limit God lest, like Job, I evoke the questios about my presumptiousness. Where was I when God brought order out of chaos? This is a God who refused labeling when Moses asked who he should say commissioned him. "I am what I am." "I will be what I will be." And who am I to say.
Love, mercy, forgiveness, strength, teacher, deliverer, refuge, rock, healer, campanion, guide, friend.
That's my picture. He is what She is.
Oof that is good. Thank you for that post!
Deletelove it. thank you!
DeleteLenten Prompt #23 March 15 2012
ReplyDeleteGod is beyond
you or me
male or female
green or purple
short or tall
God is in raging wind
sparkling stars
blackest space
invisible atom
God is beyond
you or me
yet
God is in
you and me
s.h.