Mother, Daughter, Holy Ghost

A college campus, wonderful though it is, can be constricting. I feel cooped up if I don't leave it at least once a day. One of my favorite places to escape the hustle and bustle is my church on a quiet afternoon, inside the small chapel with the light off, to just be with God. I know God is with me wherever I go, and I can and do pray elsewhere. But inside the dark little chapel, I just sense God's presence differently, strongly. I guess I'm a traditional worship gal, and dusty hymnals and stained glass connect me deeply with God and God's church throughout time.

I realized, lying on the soft blue carpet, that the tiny room is like a womb. Having taken a class in Psychology and Religion and read my Freud and Jung, I'm getting better at spotting important symbols and neuroses. This dark, soft, warm spot, where I am safe, where I am connected to God closely, where there is peace...

To be a Christian, a female, college-educated (halfway, by now), and an American makes any simple conception of gender impossible. So do my career interests and upbringing as a military brat with a wonderful stay-at-home mother and an equally hardworking, highly successful father. I do think women can and should be pastors. I also think women can work and have a career outside the home, although I'm choosing not to. I'm not planning on having any children because I don't think I personally can balance family and career, and I don't want to be any less of a mother to my hypothetical children than my own mom is to me and my siblings. My heart, frankly, is too small to love the church and kids. I must choose, and I know how I'm supposed to choose. 

I think I have thought of God as male for most of my life. In Jungian terms, the anima seeks the animus. Females seek maleness to be psychologically whole. If God is male, and I am female, we are balanced. And for years I was trying to teach myself what it was to be a Christian (God was, thankfully, with me in ways I didn't see at that confusing time), so I believed firmly that scripture is inerrant and to be interpreted literally. The Bible was my main guide, my lifeline, so in my preteen mind it had to mean exactly what the words said or it all would crumble. Say a sinner's prayer and you'll go to heaven. Adam and Eve ate a fruit and got banished. And God is a he. (As you can imagine, my childish, stubborn mind had a real field day with the "blasphemy against the Holy Spirit" verse. But that's a story for another time.) But God slowly taught me much more nuanced ways of thinking, to learn to be comfortable with doubt, ambiguity, and questions, or at least accept that those things are part of an authentic Christian life. For years, though, I still thought, and often now think, of God as male. Gender is so complicated. Still. 

But yesterday, in that holy womb, lying facedown and almost asleep, I saw God scoop me up like a mother and hold me to her chest. She didn't say anything. She just held me. And I knew, no matter what happens, my Mother God is with me. Taking good care of me. Protecting me. 

The theologically proper answer is that God is male and female and yet beyond gender. Our gender is a reflection of our being made in God's image, as the creation images point out. There is something about male and female that are part of who God is. And yesterday, I connected with the female essence of God's nature. Which should be extremely liberating, the essence of Christian feminism. Women are important because women reflect God's own image. To reject femaleness is to reject our female God. 

But patriarchy is still, sadly, alive and well in the church today. Why did Jesus come as a male? Must mean that preaching or leading or guiding require testicles. And being 5'2, because that's about how tall Jesus would have been, and being Jewish, and oh yes, having dirty feet and never wearing pants. 

Today is Snarkday, I guess. You'll have to excuse me.  

But God goes beyond gender, too. God does not have genitalia. Any language we use about God falls far short of his glory. Words and metaphors are too flat, like a stick figure trying to depict a living, breathing person. Are there any words to explain Christ crucified, the sacraments of baptism and communion, or even the birth of a child or the death of a friend? Yes. But they don't work very well. Gender is one of many metaphors we use to talk about God, and we have to continually remind ourselves that God eludes all our feeble words. 

So it was just an image, which is a little better than words, and I was in my Mother God's arms. 

Forgive my self-indulgent post today. I think it's important to think about God and gender. And to share encounters with God. Our experiences of God are not our private possessions. God gives us Herself so we can share Her with one another. 

Praise Mother, Daughter, and Holy Ghost. 

Amen.