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Word Gems exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity
Part I
return to the main-page article on "God"
Where is your mother?
All of your life you've heard "God" referred to as "king," "judge," "father," "lawgiver," or some other masculine-patriarchal descriptor. These word-pictures of severity are taken from the Bible - but it's a very selective excision.
How could God be male and not female? Your "mama is not a llama" - and we have been denied the wisdom and glory, the dignity and spirituality, the sensitivity and tender love of ... the Divine Female Energy ... the Mother of All ... the Goddess of the Cosmos! As one of my favorite rabbi-scholars asked: How could God be male and not female? - of course, the rabbi is correct. Is it possible to know cold without the hot? Does north have any meaning without south? Can in exist but for out? Tell me, quickly now, what significance could male have without female? - even more absurd, father without mother? And yet, theologians, in referencing God, cavalierly employ one-sided gender-specific terms as if this could mean something. Yes, please explain to us all, how could God be male and not female?
Emma Hardinge Britten (1823-1899) began to exhibit mediumistic abilities as a young girl. Later, as a writer and public speaker, she would become an advocate for the Spiritualist movement. In 1864 Abraham Lincoln’s re-election campaign asked her to speak on behalf of the President; she did so; and also provided a eulogy at his death. The following item, from one of her books, is a treatise on the various bases of marriage. After establishing that many marital unions of this world center about the transitory physical attraction and also mere friendship, the discussion turns toward authentic, enduring romance: "It is soul affinity … the realization that man and woman have no actual existence apart from each other; that they are, in fact, counterparts, without which their separate lives are imperfect and unformed. Life is dual … and love, true soul-love, is the bond of union which reunites the severed parts. It exists independent of personal charms or mental acquirements; subsists through sickness or in health, through good or evil report, lives on for the one beloved … and realizes heaven only in the union which death may interrupt but can never sever [or "be sundered" as Jesus used the phrase]. Divine spiritual affinity survives death and the grave, unites the two halves of the one soul, and in eternity perfects the dual nature of man and woman into one angel." exist only contradistinctionally Editor's note: Yes, of course -- what a brilliant comment by Emma: "man and woman have no actual existence apart from each other"; for, can hot have any meaning without cold? does in offer import bereft of out? or, up apart from down, yin devoid of yang? All polar opposites exist only contradistinctionally, at the antithetical pleasure of a counterpartal other. And the greatest of dialecticisms is female and male, woman and man. These have no actual existence without each other.
failing to see the absurdity Why this insistence that God is a Father, just a Father; but, even more absurdly, a Celibate Father! who lives alone! and, oh, yes -- the incongruities accumulate -- this Celibate Father has a Son, but there is no Mother! We have been so conditioned by long centuries of male-inspired mind-programming that we fail to see the mounting absurdities of this propaganda. Scripture itself makes the claim that the creation, God's handiwork, offers clues, a measure of revelation, about that shadowy and enigmatic Divinity; and these, as I will offer evidence, hint at the Ultimate Female-Male Archetypes. But can we point to even one example from the natural world that might lead us to conclude that God is a stern Celibate Father? It is difficult to know anything about the utterly transcendent God. We must not be presumptuous regarding any such assertion. According to many afterlife testimonies, those in the next realms, even on the higher levels, are not absolutely certain regarding who or what God is; apparently, confidence in this area shall escape us for a very long time.
what God could never be But we can be certain of one thing; we can be sure of what God could never be! God could never be anything like those traditional images, the wrathful masculine-patriarchal descriptors, sold to us by the churchmen. In the words of Father Robert Benson, these fashionable faces of God constitute "dreadful errors," "monstrous ideas," a "stupid and wicked fiction," and "reeking of paganism." Whatever God is, we can claim with full assurance that Orthodoxy's view is absolutely untrue. It will be my purpose herein to inform you that the mysterious God of the universe, in some runic sense, finds expression as a Male-Female composite entity.
whatever God is, you will find her within your deepest self Some of you reading this will immediately say, Yes, of course, it must be that way! Love, even romantic love, is the most powerful force in the universe - the ultimate reality! God must be a feminine energy, too! I feel this to be true within my deepest self! But others will want me to eat those words! What evidence, they will insist, have I for such outrageous and scandalous proposition? Maybe I should reply by paraphrasing a response of Jesus: I will answer you if you first show me the evidence for your austere images of God; yes, we are all waiting.
you will not find your Mother via the scientific method My evidence? Well, here it is: it is... precious little... hardly none... an argument scantily clad, nearly naked... but, that little which I possess is far more than the nothing, and less-than-nothing, adorning the traditional-argument representations of Divinity: the male-ego inspired notions of God as some kind of angry, narcissistic, patriarchal, and petty chieftain.
she said she Many years ago a friend jabbed me by speaking of God as "she." This was a new idea for me at the time and caused me to bristle; well, after reconsidering the matter these intervening years, I now take her side. Will I have to please my critics and eat my words regarding the Ultimate Two? I will prepare the table, lay out the evidence, and serve it to you... and then we'll see who eats what.
the structure of this article
The topic under review: The Image of God, Male and Female Why Your Deepest Yearning
I will support my claim of God as Ultimate Male-Female Oneness in a three-pronged presentation:
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