Yesterday I talked about how I’ve been walking with compensations due to my feminine wound…and how that led me into the church. I explored how this wound made sense as to why I entered and embraced the Church’s traditional gender roles – or TGRs. Today I will explore where these thoughts and realizations took me and are taking me…
IS THERE A CORRELATION HERE?
Only now can I see that just as a cyclical abusive pattern in a relationship is almost always based on patriarchy and the need to have one person remain on top – this form of relating also strives to kill not only the soul of both parties involved – and when the soul suffers so does the physical body. Furthermore, I think this relates on a bigger picture to the body of Christ…
Yes, I am trying to say that patriarchy and hierarchal order in essence justifies an abusive relationship… and that this is similar to the Church clinging to TGRs so that in essence we can justify the masculine dominated view of God.
Going a step further, if the outcome of an abusive relationship is soul-killing/body damaging of BOTH involved…then the outcome of TGRs and a masculine dominated view of God in essence is also killing the soul and body of those involved.
What are the parties involved?
The Bride of Christ – the Church and God Her/Himself.
How is it killing the Bride?
People are leaving the church in droves. Church and the people in it are considered irrelevant for the times. People see the church as not practicing what it preaches. And a large portion of people see the Church as a place full of hypocrites and fear mongers. While the culture is touting “toleration and acceptance”…many Christians are finding that their beliefs are not well tolerated…that their faith is under attack…and I just have to say – maybe for good reason.
Not only is the Church body dwindling – but I think the “soul” of the Church is dwindling as well. This could be cause for the attrition of the masses. But I think the loss of the Church’s Soul is also evident in the fact that the Church concentrates more on getting people into Heaven and less about helping Heaven come to Earth; the Church is more concerned about standing up for their right to disagree forcibly with others in our culture than it is about loving people into the kingdom; the Church is more concerned about idolizing the Scriptures than it is about Loving God. The Church is or has already become the Pharisees…the white washed tombs.
How are we killing God?
We are killing the Earth – the creation. And what is a creation by someone? It is a reflection of who they are, what they believe, what they value…it is a reflection of them.
Yet, there is more. Think about it. The Earth is usually referred to as “Mother Earth” and everything that is associated with Earth is usually the associated with feminine. I’ll go more into this in the next post…but this thought just came to me as I started typing.
the Earth is a reflection of the feminine side of God…
But why? Why would any of us want to do this? What do we benefit from this? What do we gain by trying to keep God only within the masculine? What do we gain by a strict adherence of TGRs? What do we gain…?
To be honest – I can only guess at the answers. I can only guess that it has been quite convenient for men to have someone to blame for their own sinfulness for – well, for all of time basically. I can only guess that the blame shifting appeases their conscious and allows them to be able to point the finger away from their own guilt in order to say that it is women who are pulling humanity away from God, away from our true essence as Spiritual beings by simply being women.
I can only guess that on the flip side women – while perhaps momentarily throughout their lives feel the sting of being made inferior – push this sting aside to find a way to blame shift and “compensate” for their hurt as well. Perhaps this is why women become so petty and are so apt to gossip…for if we cannot ever “one-up” men…then at least we can do it to one another. Or perhaps that is why women, when given a little room with libration take it too far and become the oppressors. Or perhaps we like the idea of being “babied” and that if we maintain the status quo – well then we don’t have to take responsibility for our share of Creation, nor for ourselves.
I can only guess that on a much deeper level if we acknowledged that there is an ENTIRE side of God we are ignoring – well then we would not have God so figured out would we? That when we realize we don’t have God so figured out – well things get a little uncomfortable for the human psyche because we realize we no longer can believe in the “machine God” – as Peter talks about God in Insurrection. That our entire NOTION of who God really is must be thrown off kilter if we realize He is also a She.
Because when we can think of God as just one of the sexes…then we can wrap God into a neat little package that allows us to manipulate, understand and in a way – control this god to our liking.
Maybe it is just me, but when I try to open my mind up to these questions and to answer them…the ground underneath me feels that much more unstable and unsettling. That as I open up to these questions, more questions arise. It makes me realize that God still has some very big lessons for me to learn – that I have yet to fully “lose everything INCLUDING God” for the sake of finding the True God….and that no matter what I think about God or what S/He is….well, I can only quote Paul:
but then face to face:
even as I am fully known.
I cannot wait to continue on my journey into this…to fully explore gender roles and gender characteristics and the like. I am meeting with women – with women pastors and women outside the faith. I am listening to messages and books about the subject of women’s equality and reading posts and books.
I cannot wait to continue to explore where these avenues lead to, what ideas and thoughts are generated…and hope others will join the conversation with me. The scary thing is – I’m only 70 pages into Sue’s book…and there are 228 pages total…eeks! There could be a lot more revelations and writing still to come…in fact I know there will be.
Thus, I “end” with where I started…that we ALL are compensating for this “Feminine” wound. That as I keep alluding to, I do not believe the journey to set women free from the oppression of patriarchy is just about women – but about men too. And by the sounds of it, the Creation as well. And even a bit of – okay a large “bit” feels like this is about God as well.
This is another way we are killing the “Soul” of God…by not allowing Him to also be the Her that She is…we are not truly seeing who God is. We are forcing God to be 1/2 of who S/he fully is…
