Goddess

photo by itjournalist, flickr

A few weeks ago, my daughter said to me, "God is mostly a man." I don't remember what prompted this statement. What I remember is that we were in the bathroom, I stopped breathing for a few seconds, and then I bent down to look her in the eyes and said, "God is as much a woman as he is a man" (yes, I believe I said "he" - it's hard to change those pronouns). "Sometimes I picture God as a woman with long flowing hair, and I call her 'She' instead of 'He.'"

My Girl seemed taken with the idea that God could have long flowing hair (I'm pretty sure she was picturing God as a princess). It makes me want to have Goddess images in the house so it's not so foreign to her (and me) to picture God/dess in feminine ways.

I remember a time in one of my seminary classes when the professor asked us to draw a picture of God. I think we were discussing the stages of faith development and how as we move through the stages, our picture of God becomes less concrete. So in that class, we all drew very abstract pictures full of color and movement and symbols. But no person. No man or woman (not representing God, anyway). We had all moved beyond the childhood stage of picturing God as an old man with long white beard, hadn't we? We certainly tried to show that in our art. God is Not a Man, we seemed to say with our abstractness. But God is Not a Woman was also implied. And true. God is neither Man nor Woman.

But in some way, God/dess is Both.

I went to a seminary that used inclusive language (we didn't refer to God as "he" or "father"), which I appreciate.  It was something I hadn't thought about until I went to seminary. I am thankful for the lens this language gave me, but removing pronouns from our language about and with God/dess is still problematic to me. When we always use "God" or "Godself," it seems to make God/dess a bit distant from us. I would never call someone I know by their first name every time I talk about them. It sounds weird, and it sounds impersonal. I don't know why; it just does. It emphasizes God/dess's otherness, making Her more distant, and it never provided me with an alternative feminine image to the dominant male one.

I had one professor who called God "Herim" and "Herimself." It was a good try, but that sounded even weirder.

I don't want to inadvertantly emphasize God/dess's distance with my words, so I come back to calling God/dess "She" and "Goddess" for now. I hear and read "He" and "God" all the time, so I don't feel the need to balance my personal language with masculine words. On the contrary, I feel the need to inundate myself with feminine imagery - not because it's better than masculine imagery, but because it is so foreign, and it shouldn't be.

So last week I drew a picture of Goddess in my art journal. A concrete picture of a woman with long flowing hair and wise wrinkles and a small smile. I am not an artist - not one who can draw, anyway. The picture is pretty juvenile-looking. But part of me wants to tear it out and frame it to show My Girl that This, THIS is how I picture God. Or how I try.