Psalm 98 Echo

~ Divine Love ~ Justice With Equity ~

Psalm 98 

(adapted)

O sing to Jehovah a new song

for Godde has done marvelous things!

Your right hand and your holy arm

have gotten you the victory and you

have made known your righteousness.

You have revealed your vindication

in the sight of the nations and have 

remembered your steadfast love and

faithfulness to the house of Israel

(and to me)

The ends of all the earth have

seen the salvation

of our Godde

Make a joyful noise to Jehovah, all the earth;

break forth into joyous song and sing praises.

Sing praises to Yaweh with the lyre,

with the harp and the voice of a psalm.

With trumpets and the sound of the horn

make a joyful noise before Jehovah 

Our Monarch

Let the sea roar, and all that fills it;

the world and those who live in it.

Let the floods clap their hands;

let the hills sing together for joy

at the presence of Jehovah, for

Godde, who is coming to judge the earth,

will judge the world with righteousness

and the peoples with equity.

adapted by

JoMae

1/2/22

An echo passage - adapted for personal praise and thanksgiving

Image of Godde

~ Beyond Gender ~

The Spirit of Godde

as mirrored in mortals is

seen not only in people called

’he’ as if our Creator were male

reflected only by males as

taught in the language of

patriarchy

The Spirit of our Creator

whose image, reflected in our

mothers and fathers since the day

of creation, echoes that essence

gifted to all - such mystery, for

Godde is Spirit and we but

mortal clay.

Mystery - for Godde is Spirit

not bound by human limitation, yet

most persist in naming our Creator ‘HE’

engraving an image on our mind’s eye
an exclusively male portrait which

blinds us to Divine seen also in 

our Moms

JoMae

10/23/19

Resemblance

~ RESEMBLANCE ~

Our Godde whose image I too echo

in whose very essence I am made

Godde to whom I am beloved, is

the Godde who 'looks' like me

who 'looks' also like my brother 

and my father and my mom

Holy Godde, in whose Spirit we’re

created, molded  to reflect divine

brightly shining in our mothers

an echo often un-proclaimed 

Mom’s reflection seldom mentioned

as is our father’s - yet both bearers

of the holy image, her’s unspoken

veiled, invisible and out of mind

Two souls created in the likeness

of our FatherMother Godde

yet to the one we are kept

Blind

JoMae

5/20/19

How blessed to see the souls of both my parents reflect the image of our Heavenly FatherMother - Creator whose image I too reflect.

Maternal Images of Godde video

A beautiful video for Mother's Day by Christine Sine at GODSPACE

Click Below for the Video:

http://godspacelight.com/2015/05/07/maternal-images-of-god-a-video-and-a-prayer/

Motherly Parent

Imperfect Praise

On Mother’s Day, let us celebrate and give

thanks for our Motherly Heavenly Parent

as we honor our Moms, created, with

our Dads, in Godde’s Divine image

Our Mothers, who in imperfection bore us

nurtured, led and sometimes punished 

reflecting the Presence of their own

Maker, Creator of all in perfection 

So today I give thanks for my Mom whose

life unwrapped for me the unconditional 

love of my Beloved Heavenly Parent 

My Eternal FatherMother Godde

MotherFather, ONE. Not two as mortal parents

are designed to be. Not separate. Not bound

by bones and sinew. Our Godde is Spirit

free to be everywhere, all in all at once

I wonder. In speaking of Godde as only a Father

have we transferred our human understanding

of one parent to our concept of the Holy ONE?

Has man created Godde in the image of man? 

Since birth I learned to see Godde’s love by knowing

the love of my dear Dad. Our language for Godde

was Our Heavenly Father. Mom reflected Godde

too, although unsung. We were not taught to see

Our Mother in the Face of Godde

JoMae

5/11/18 

Broken Harmony

Your desire will be for your husband,

and he will rule over you. Gen 3:16b NIV

~~Broken Harmony~~

When I consider the fall and it’s consequences, 

how Godde foresaw that the man would now rule 

over the woman yet her desire would be for him, 

I see examples of brokenness in need of 

healing by the promised Messiah. 

Not only was male dominance a result of sin, 

so too was women’s longing for him in spite of it.   

Generation after generation Christians have 
confessed our sins and promised anew 
to live as Jesus taught us to.  

As Godde meant for us to be.  

We have used endless gifts of intelligence to discover

 and harness secrets of creation to enrich our lives.

To ease the pain of childbirth for instance, 

yet patriarchal dominance remains 

We are  mindful always of Christ’s enormous gift 

and sacrifice to bring us near to Godde.

Yet I wonder if we haven’t missed 

a great part of Jesus' gift.

The modeling of how we are to treat each other.

Jesus, the Promised Messiah, born a male mortal, 

did not dominate, did not demean or misuse women.

Rather, Jesus listened and interacted with respect.

We still have much to learn as image bearers of

 our Creator. As redeemed children of Godde

 striving to live as folks redeemed and healing

 from the brokenness of sin.

                                                              JoMae
                                                              10/1/17

Birther Godde

As we reflect Godde’s love, as we teach and praise our Beloved Maker, as we serve the ONE who rules our lives, let us not limit the essence of the Divine Mystery with language that pictures our Loving Godde as if only and exclusively male.

You deserted the Rock, who fathered you; 

you forgot the God who gave you birth.  
Deut 32:18 NIV

~~Remember The Godde Who Gave Us Birth~~

Aside from the gender inequity inherent in our world, one reason I find myself determined not to use exclusive language for Godde, is that it diminishes our view of the endless enormity of the Divine.  It shrinks our understanding of the ONE reflected by all created in  Godde’s  image, to honoring only a portion of Godde’s amazing being.

Words draw pictures in our heads, engrave them on our minds and in the hearts of our children. A traditional Sunday morning full of quotes from male theologians, numerous references to our Heavenly Father, Lord, King etc. - and multiple uses of he, his, and him, reinforces the patriarchal picture.

A typical message about Godde tends to render invisible and mute both the feminine face of theGodde who gave us birth and the daughters who bear the divine image along with their brothers

     ~~Prayer~~

Heavenly FatherMother, 

Please speak to our hearts

Whisper your truths to ponder

that we may know you more fully

that we may serve you more truly

As we walk in the Holy Name of

Jesus Christ
Amen

JoMae
10/1/17

In the Breath of Your Being

The Firth of Fifth
Painting by Judith Spoelhof

In the Breath of Your Being

My Godde

Let me step into the breath of your being

let me hold onto your hand for a while

let me enter your space

lean into your peace

embraced by your essence

safe in your arms

let me rest my head against your breast

and absorb the beauty of your Wisdom

Please help me always trust your voice 

remembering to breathe in You

with thanks

-JoMae 

  2/28/07 

Dwell In Me

DWELL IN ME

Jesus Our Immanuel, 

In this quiet place please fill 

this waiting space within my

heart and guide my way.

Please sit with me and

let me hear your voice,

sense your presence and

know your listening ear.

Please hear my cry, my tales, 

my joys, my doubts - my thanks and 

adoration. Like a small child with her

Mother, may my soul be at peace in you.

O BLESSED SPIRIT

                                                  
                                                              -JoMae

                                                               6/13/15

God Beyond Language

~ God Beyond Language ~

When an admired and accomplished teacher leans down to explain something to a three year old, she doesn't use all the words in her vocabulary. She chooses those a child can understand. Words that build on concepts already known to his limited mind.

Perhaps, when our great all knowing God bends down to explain the Divine to our small minds, a similar thing happens. God uses the familiar to help us begin to comprehend a mystery - the fullness of which is so many times greater than we are that we can never truly grasp it all. The Godhead. So God speaks of One who has hands and arms to carry beloved children or rescue them from danger. Who knows us already in the womb, gives life and nourishes us. Who knows both birth and death, good and evil. Who knows all about both anger and love. Who teaches about fear and pain as well as healing and joy. Who offers both comfort and justice. All of which a mortal can comprehend from personal experience.

From heaven's vast and perfect realm, God enters our lives, takes our hands and carries us as children. Out of abundant language far beyond our own; far beyond our capabilities, God teaches us on our own level, the way of salvation. Offering a glimpse of eternity and giving the joy of Christ's Spirit to guide our way.

The people, now thinking we grasp the essence of our Creator, interpret and express our view of God's self as a gloriously magnificent manifestation of ourselves. Forgetting the incomprehensible enormity of ONE who holds the oceans in cupped hands, weighs mountain ranges on a scale and counts the stars by name. Forgetting that God is not created in our image.

We tend to forget that God's language goes far beyond any we will ever learn on this earth. That God is so much greater than our vocabulary is able to express. We tend think too small. We tend to limit God.

JoMae

6/3/15

A Mother's Day Echo of Psalm 131:2

  Like A Weaned Child With Its Mother

Like a weaned

 child with its Mother,

My spirit is quiet within me

Like a weaned child

 with its Mother,

My soul is at peace in Godde

A Little Lullaby for Grownups on difficult days - my echo of Psalm 131:2 

         Reminding me that my LORD (YHWH) is also my Mother

 

Psalm 131

A song of ascents. Of David.

1My heart is not proud, Lord,

my eyes are not haughty;

I do not concern myself with great matters

or things too wonderful for me.

2But I have calmed and quieted myself,

I am like a weaned child with its mother;

like a weaned child I am content.

3Israel, put your hope in the Lord

both now and forevermore.   (NIV)

Blind Spots and New Vision

Blind Spots and New Vision: Virginia Mollenkott’s   
The Divine Feminine

The Divine Feminine: The Biblical Imagery of God as Female 

By Virginia Ramey Mollenkott

Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2014 (reprint of 1984 edition) 
Paperback, 120 pages 

Reviewed by JoMae Spoelhof 

Dr. Virginia Ramey Mollenkott’s book, The Divine Feminine: The Biblical Imagery of God as Female, has recently been reissued, and I am eager to recommend it. It beautifully illuminates the feminine images of God as portrayed in the Bible. First published in 1984, it remains a valuable tool for glimpsing a view of the Godhead that tends to be glossed over and invisible in traditional Christianity. As Mollenkott writes, “For those who accept trinitarianism, it will be striking that all three persons of the divine triad [the Creator God; the eternal Christ; and the Holy Spirit] are depicted in feminine as well as masculine images”(p. 4). 

The author guides the reader through familiar scripture passages, pointing out an underlying presence of God’s feminine face.  For people like me, raised in a deeply embedded patriarchal/hierarchal mindset, Virginia Mollenkott is a godsend.  She addresses the power of such patriarchal teaching, power to keep one from being able to see the feminine in God. She helped me grope through layers of my own blind spots to recognize that our Creator does not recoil from language referring to God’s womb or labor pains or countless other examples of identification as female, as I once believed. Our God loves us as Mother as well as Father. And Mollenkott doesn’t just tell us this, she shows us, carefully referencing each passage that points to this truth. 

Her book discusses numerous instances in the Bible where God is spoken of in feminine terms. She cites many references to God as giving birth, nursing an infant, and carrying out other maternal activities. Referring to Acts 17:28 (where Paul explains to the Athenians that God is not far from anyone for “it is in God that we live and move and exist” as God’s offspring), Mollenkott points out that “although the apostle does not specifically name the womb, at no other time in human experience do we exist within another person” than our time in our mother’s womb (p. 16).  Another motif the author examines is God as midwife, actively involved in delivering new life (chapter 6). And the whole of chapter 7 is devoted to teaching about the Shekinah, a grammatically feminine term referring to God’s glorious presence, as manifest in the tabernacle (and temple later on), and as the pillar of fire by night and pillar of cloud by day, guiding the Israelites out of slavery. 

Along with showing Christ’s affirming and empowering interactions with women, the book is full of both familiar and less familiar images unpacked to reveal fresh meaning, including Lady Wisdom, God as female homemaker, the bakerwoman God, and analogies from nature (mother eagle, mother bear protecting her cubs, mother pelican).  Mother Hen, for example, so familiar to Christians from Jesus’ desire to protect Jerusalem’s children “as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings” (Luke 13:34), is especially underscored. Through the highlighting of several Old Testament passages such as “I take shelter in the shadow of your wings” (Ps 57:1), we are reminded that Jesus’ words would have been very familiar to his Jewish listeners. Ruth and Boaz lived with that familiar image as well, and I was delighted to read of Ruth’s wonderful response to Boaz’s blessing, in which Boaz had praised Ruth for caring for her mother-in-law Naomi. “May the Lord recompense you for what you have done, and a full reward be given you by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge” (Ruth 2:12).   Mollenkott writes, “Later, Ruth takes Boaz up on that blessing, urging him to “spread your wing [Kānāp, the same word used in 2:12] over your maidservant, for you are a redeemer” (p. 94). 

New to me was the prevalence of early church leaders who addressed and referred to both Creator God and Jesus Christ as Mother, embracing rather than avoiding feminine images and metaphors for God.  I’d heard some of this, but the names and quotes documented in this book surprised me, as did how long this practice  went on— beyond the early centuries of Christianity and well into the Middle Ages.  However, while these leaders spoke of God as both mother and father, they still considered female qualities to be inferior to the male. Writes Mollenkott, “But if we can teach ourselves to value the roles traditionally associated with the female on a truly equal level with those associated with the male, the result will be the enrichment of all humanity. Inclusive God-Language is a step in the direction of that enrichment” (p. 13, italics added). She then challenges religious leaders to recognize “the female presence in their grammatical choices” and to utilize “biblical references to God as female.” She sees this as a way for these leaders to “demonstrate the sincerity of their commitment to human justice, peace, and love, and therefore to psychological and social health” (pp. 13-14). 

Virginia Mollenkott later explains how we see what we expect to see in Scripture. 

“All of us approach any written text with

certain expectations and those expectations

govern what we are able to see in what we

are reading. Perhaps it is helpful to think in

terms of an interpretative grid, a grid that

gives clear focus on some things and blocks

   us from seeing others. 

   A patriarchal interpretative grid has simply

made it impossible for most people through

the ages to be able to perceive the many

images of God as female which are the

subject of this study.”   (pp. 64-65) 

She further reminds us that for those whose expectations have been blocked by language teaching the exclusive maleness of God, many layers of misinformation will need to be peeled away. Looking back, I can see how true this has been in my own life. When I first read The Divine Feminine several years ago, it addressed questions I barely knew to ask. It began to open a new understanding and to bring some clarity to my questions about God and gender. But moving beyond deeply instilled patriarchal teachings took a long time.  After living with these new ideas and letting them percolate, while gradually increasing my comfort level with loving God as both Mother and Father, I picked the book up again some years later. By then I was ready to take in more details, better understand my yearnings, and thereby gain the confidence to speak out. Each time I read, its message met me in a new place on my journey; and at each reading, more layers of patriarchal “blindness” fell away so that I could notice truths I hadn’t been ready to absorb before.  It takes a long time for old layers of thinking to fade away and a new reality to feel normal. 

Now, having read it a third time to prepare this review, even more has fallen into place. If you are grappling with lifelong patriarchal teachings about God and Christianity, pick up this gentle book!  It is packed with information that will help. It will enrich your life.  It has truly enriched mine. Through these pages, I see that my precious God and Savior not only is reflected in my father, but is also a God who “looks” like my mother —and me!  Both male and female are created in God’s image, an image that is both masculine and feminine. I’m so glad this book is available again to enlighten the lives of a new generation. 

------------- 
This review, first published by Christian Feminism Today in the Spring of 2014, can be found here. CFT is dedicated to sharing 'Equality and Inclusiveness Through God's Expansive Love'.

Inclusion - Gender Equality and God

 GENDER EQUALITY AND GOD

The letter came in the mid 1970s and sounded dangerously feminist to me. It was an invitation that would eventually lead to a paradigm shift in my life. But that came later. At the moment my days were full and I was content. Raising five of our own plus assorted foster children left little time or inclination to question the values I was passing on. Values deeply rooted in my childhood and the teachings of my Christian faith. I loved my family and clearly was loved in return—first as a daughter, then as wife and mother. My friends from church would chuckle that I was spoiled rotten!

My love affair with my Heavenly Father was steeped in awe and trepidation. The concept of a Mother God did not exist. I’d never noticed that Christians were a motherless family and it would be many years before I saw a link between this view of God and traditional attitudes toward women.

I sometimes chafed that men held all the power, or hurt for women whose husbands might belittle them; still, life was good. I might not like it that the female was designed to be lesser, but who was I to question God? It hadn’t yet occurred to me that God’s designs were understood through male interpretation and translation. Through givens born of ancient norms.

In 1959 I had gladly given up my identity to become Mrs. John Spoelhof. Later it was “The John Spoelhof family.” Somewhere, hidden with the children under the veil of John’s name, stood JoMae Keuning. There came a point when I began to feel constricted and wanted to get out and grow up. Not out of marriage, but out of anonymity; into more autonomy for myself and women everywhere.

Yet when that letter came from a new movement in our denomination seeking gender equality within the church, I was afraid. It was an invitation to an annual conference on ordaining women. I recognized the justice, yet sensed that any interest would open a Pandora’s Box and change my life forever. So I tucked it away. I feared offending God.

A lifelong bookworm, I began to read more and more on the subject. Slowly the sentiments of feminism began to ring a bell. During the 1980s, I did start to crack open the box. I dug out the letter and attended conferences to study the issues and question traditional interpretations of the teachings in the Bible. In the King James Version of my youth I mainly saw myself referred to as a son of God. One day it struck me that if a “son,” I was a female son! What a difference that made! Meanwhile new translations changed the wording and confirmed my identity as a daughter on those pages.

I wondered, “If sons could mean sons and daughters; brothers, brothers and sisters, how long would it be before one could catch a glimpse of a Mother lost within the identity of our Heavenly Father?” I pondered such questions until after much reading and prayerful study, I learned to know God in a new way. I began to relate in a manner that recognized both the feminine and masculine face of God. If my sisters, mother and grandmothers—along with all God’s other daughters—were created in God’s image, there must be a feminine face to reflect, I reasoned.

I found it increasingly difficult to worship with only male leaders, with masculine language for humanity, and as if God were only male. I toyed with pronouns. Translated the hymns while singing. Until going to church became exhausting. I longed for childhood’s simple understanding of God. When God was my beloved Father; before I’d noticed there was no Mother. But you can’t go back.

Gradually our church did move forward. After a long and painful struggle in the ‘90s, it now ordains pastors and other leaders who are female. It has become more sensitive concerning language for humans. However, to this day, only masculine pronouns are used for God—albeit a bit less redundantly than in the past.

Today I still trust the God of my childhood and worship in the same church. The same faith—but with a fresh paradigm. The difference is a new understanding of who Godde is, and a new confidence in who I am. Godde is my complete Parent. My mind’s eye even sees this Mother/Father Godde spelled in the ancient English manner to de-emphasize the maleness.

Mine is an ongoing quest. It is very personal, admittedly imperfect and often lonely. But I believe there is a direct relationship between how we view, speak of and understand our Divine Parent, and how we view ourselves and each other. Language is that important. As long as Godde is known and worshiped as if only male; as long as the female reflection of Godde is absent, women will struggle against being treated and viewed as ‘lesser’; will struggle against feeling ‘lesser.’

-JoMae Spoelhof
   8/16/11

Written 8-16-11 and later featured on Jann Aldredge-Clanton's 'Changing Church' Blog:
http://jannaldredgeclanton.com/blog/?p=1382

Dance of the Said and the Unsaid - Translation/Interpretation

Dance of the Said and the Unsaid

This morning on Face Book I read an interesting piece on hermeneutics.  It was "The Interpreter" by Daniel Cohen, from the Feminism and Religion blog.  I saw something like this - that reading involves both the dark marks and the bed of light background they rest upon.  The idea is that the blank background is as important to decipher as are the black marks.  The dark printed words speak of what must be said and called attention to.  The light bed they are set on contains the context.  The givens.  Information so common to the reader it needn't be mentioned.  After interpreting the printed words of an ancient writing, it is just as important to understand what didn't need to be spelled out. 

I envisioned a dance of black and white.  Where together the spoken and the unspoken words begin to tell the whole story. And even where much of the context detail (once as familiar as the air first readers breathed) has been lost, awareness of that loss and the mystery of that common background must play its powerful part in translating and interpreting old teachings. There is power between the lines!

Link:  http://networkedblogs.com/CajX8

I posted this link on Face Book with the following comment:

Here is a story that made me think about the backgrounds of our ancient stories/lessons that were so familiar they didn't need to be spelled out.

.

..."every text contains two messages, one formed by the ink and the other by the spaces left between the inked letters, the material included and that which was excluded, and that the message was never complete if only the first text was read."

...[what was excluded was] "so well-known to the people in whose times the texts were written that they were taken for granted by the writers, who therefore felt no need to mention them.  Yet it was only because of the work of the cattle-farmers that others had leisure to write texts. And so once again he had shown us that what the text does not contain is as important to a true interpretation as what is made explicit in it."

-JoMae
 9/15/12

God's Word in Man's Language

God's Word In Man's Language

                                                                                       - A Journey

"The Word of God is infallible, but man's interpretation of that Word is not."  After thirty years all else is long forgotten from that course in sociology.  I believe the professor left our denomination soon after I left Calvin, but his words have remained with me. 

I still recall the impact of that statement, the newness of that thought for me.  As I went on to raise a family, I'd pull it out from time to time and pass it on.  Yet I have left it up to other women of the Christian Reformed Church to begin to look more seriously at the interpretations men have given Scripture.

I have been content with the status quo.  First valued as a daughter, then as a wife and mother, I have no axe to grind.  I have felt no call to be a pastor, no desire to be an elder.  My life is full.

During my first decade as a confessing member of the CRC,  I could not vote.  As I recall, even this didn't particularly bother me.  I did at times feel hurt on behalf of other Christian women or anger at husbands who might belittle them, but I always came back home for the most part unmoved.

Then in the late seventies a communication arrived entitled Women in the CRC.  This also failed to pique my interest.  I felt that if my Creator had established a helper role for women, I couldn't question His design.  And if generations of theologians had studied His Word and not changed their basic understanding of the role of women, it must be valid. 

Perhaps too, being deeply bonded to the church and heritage of my ancestors and confident in her solid teaching on the Word of God, I feared "Pandora's box."  What if I mustered up the energy to question?  What if my parent church has misunderstood a major teaching all these years?  How could I then be sure of anything?  And who was I to challenge theologians? And whom was I to trust?  So for all these years I've taken little interest in better understanding the role of women as designed by God.

Something, however, has changed all that.  Over the past several months I have been repeatedly confronted with articles, speakers, and books which interpret passages in a new and different way.  Explaining the ancient language and context in a manner which forces one to stop and re-examine.  These repeated confrontations were at first totally unsought and amazingly consistent, although completely unconnected as to source.

Finally my attention has been captured!  I find myself searching for answers, only be be left with more questions.  What does the Bible say?  What do the words mean?  As interpretations vary, which is reliable?  And how are we to grow?  I wonder how many other women find themselves somewhere along the path I have described.  More than ever I admire Laura Smit and others like her who have had the courage to face these challenging issues.  How we need the expertise and the unique insight of our female students of theology!  They are gifted women of integrity and talent, able to encourage us with respect and dignity.  Yet one by one we have lost them to be a blessing to other denominations while we still have so many questions.

Since time began, humankind has delighted in unlocking the secrets of God's marvelous creation, grasping each new concept only by first comprehending the truth which had encased it, excited to make each new discovery a foothold to a deeper understanding.  Should we then wonder that the gold mine of God's written revelation of Himself still holds deep veins of truth hidden in its labyrinth of language?

In the end, perhaps my convictions will not change.   But I cannot go back to burying the questions.  I must listen to the arguments and have opportunity to test them and hopefully to grow. 

Remember how you smile when children burst with enthusiasm at some new idea so commonplace to you?  I like to think God smiles that way as scientists and theologians and even I enrich our understanding of the truth.  To such a gentle God I pray for wisdom, for myself as well as for all the men and women of the CRC.  I pray that we will keenly seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit as we continue to pursue a fuller understanding of God's Word to us.

-JoMae Keuning Spoelhof
   April 1988


This piece was written in the Spring of 1988 and appeared in the 5/9/88 edition of The Banner.  It was also printed in the 1988 Spring issue of the Newsletter for the Committee for Women in the Christian Reformed Church.  This is the CWCRC version.  The Banner article was slightly edited.

Double Exposure

Ancient Church in France

As faith evolves beyond patriarchy and understanding deepens…

Double Exposure

Yesterday we celebrated the Lord's Supper in our church.  We also celebrated an infant baptism.  The two events became superimposed upon my heart.

We were nourished at communion with spiritual food.  Christ's broken body.  Christ's blood shed for the complete remission of all our sins.  We remembered and believed.  We were nourished as truly as an infant at its mother's breast.

I thought of Moses angrily confronting God in the ancient desert:  "Did I conceive all this people?  Did I give birth to them, that you should say to me,  'Carry them in your bosom as a nurse carries a sucking child,'  to the land that you promised on oath to their ancestors?"  (Num11:12)

No Moses, I thought.  God is the one who conceived us and gave birth to us and carries and feeds us as if we are sucking children.

Feeds us as surely as each of our mothers, (created in God's image) after shedding her blood to give us life, fed us with her body and made us one with her again.

Seeing that young couple holding their newborn,  reminded me of my FatherMother God in whom I am reborn.  Whose arms have held me since before my baptism.  Who saves me daily from myself and feeds me love and makes me one with God.

Whose salvation I remember at communion.

-JoMae 
Written March 15, 1999

Bobby's Baptism

                                       BOBBY'S BAPTISM

A little boy's baptism. A first born son. The occasion brought much reflection to my heart on what it means to be heirs in God's Covenant. For boys. For girls. From childhood we learn to worship God as our Father - through prayer, music and in the messages we hear. So too, Bobby was baptized into the name of the Father.

The children's message that day taught something of the meaning of the sacrament. Small boys and girls absorbed the familiar story of being part of the family of God and having a Heavenly Father who loves them so very much. I watched as they turned to look at the sleeping infant and then at the child's Dad, as the point was made that God's children have not just one, but two Fathers. Did they think it strange that God's family has no Mother?  Or that Bobby's Mom did not seem to have any significance in this story?  Or were they already so conditioned to patriarchal thinking as not to notice the omission?

There sat the lovely young Mother whose body formed this child, who carried this little life nine months before shedding her blood to give him birth. Between the couple on that front pew were three proud little sisters - future Mothers in God's family. Would their generation continue to be invisible as to the image of God reflected in them?

So much of the Christian message is about birth.  About being born again. About being born of the Spirit of God. Even little children know that one who gives birth is called a Mother.  Yet in my church we never mention God as Mother.  We never use this honored name to celebrate the one who gives us second birth.

Why are we so reluctant to use the name Mother in relation to God?  Is the idea of Mother demeaning for God? Is Mother somehow a lesser name for the Most Holy? There was a time when I thought so. When addressing God as Father/Mother felt blasphemous. I wondered why. It has been a prayerful journey.

At Bobby's baptism I saw a sincere and loving couple, each created in the image of God. Yet the link we emphasize between our earthly and heavenly Fathers carries a powerful patriarchal message that blinds us to the link between our Mothers and our God.

I wonder. One day when we see God face to face, will we only see the face of a loving Heavenly Father? Or will the faces of our Mothers be reflected there as well?

-JoMae

Written December 2002

Mom's Hands

MOM AND ME - 1938

She held the whole world in her hands, my mother. As have the mothers of countless small children across the generations. She was my whole world at first - sprinkled soon with siblings and that other set of hands joined in holding us together. Four loving hands shaped my life. One pair cradled me to her soft breast and nursed me, the other later tossed me high above his head or wrestled most ferociously his laughing girl.

Two hands clasped mine tightly and swung me up over the puddles as we trudged through this forest called life. Mother's hand on one side; Father's on the other. Together teaching me about the One who truly holds the whole world in loving hands. Their hands fed me and provided, touched my heart and sometimes spanked. Their parental fingers prodded and molded and folded in prayer for me. I can almost feel my mother's palm resting on my head as I learned "Now I lay me down to sleep." (Or is it my palm and my child kneeling there?)

Mother hands. Father hands. Strong gentle hands. Each in their own way. Familiar on my face was their goodnight caress before I fell asleep. Each touch distinct. Each half of a whole that together taught me of God's parental love. In my experience, however, the most frequent touches came from my mother. As she measured a new dress or brushed my hair or washed my face or held my hand to cross the street. Father's impression was a bit more removed. He worked every day to provide for us. Mom worked every day WITH us. Both modeled God's love and provision, with Mom modeling God's nearness in a very immediate way.

Yet sadly, in my church and many like it, parental may only be spelled paternal. God's love to us is spoken of only as a father's love. We have been taught to know God solely as Father. It is forbidden to address God as Mother. As if the mother side of God's parental love does not exist, it remains invisible. So while I now recognize God's Mother love as surely as I know my mother's hand upon my cheek, I never, save in the privacy of my own soul, give voice to her. For our language portrays God as Father. He. Male.

I love being God's child. God's heir. I treasure Christ's love for me. Yet for years I only understood God as my Heavenly Father. What joy to know God is my Heavenly Mother too! How long, I wonder, until the unique touches of a mother are used to illustrate the lessons of God's love for us. How long before we see the One who holds the whole world carefully in hand as neither He nor She, but as our Mother/Father God. Our complete and perfect heavenly Parent.

JoMae
1/15/99