Born Again...Does God have a Womb?

Well, my journey continues: trying to understand how we as women uniquely reflect the image of God. Yesterday, as I was praying and reading, the thought came to me, The phrase "born again" is a reference to a feminine experience!This hit me like a ton of bricks! Having grown up as a conservative Evangelical, the term "born again" was used constantly (almost to the point of losing meaning) as a description of having had an "experience" of becoming aware of relating to God in a new and close way. BUT IT NEVER DAWNED ON ME that only WOMEN GIVE BIRTH so that this phrase is pregnant with meaning (sorry, couldn't resist!) for women.

So, what do we do? If we are "born of God" and "born again" and "born of the Spirit...." these are feminine references about God's action, addressing the fundamental process of being initiated into the family of God. How can there not be a feminine dimension to God? How I never made this connection until I was 45 years old is beyond me...how did THAT happen??? I will have to get back to you on that...but it continues to reinforce in my mind, the fact that NOT using all the images for God provided in Scripture is actually a HUGE issue.

Dr. Kristina Lacelle-Peterson (Chair of the Department of Religion at Houghton College) writes:

Since God is, in fact, referred to with female imagery in various biblical texts, the question is not whether using female images for God will draw us away from orthodox Christianity, but whether using exclusively male metaphors will so distort our view of God as to render our concept of God unbiblical. Put simply: If we reject an entire class of biblical metaphors do we still have a biblical [orthodox] understanding of God?

Why is this all coming up now? Not fully sure. But psychologists know (yeah, I'm one of them) that when we hit midlife, we often reevaluate the first half of life, take stock, and determine what was missing and what we want to make sure we address in the second half of life. Well--what has been missing for me is how I opened this brief post: I am wanting to gain a fuller understanding of what it means for myself as a woman to reflect the image of God.

Woo Hoo! What a ride this second half is going to be!!!!!!

What/Who is Energy/Chi?

One of my instructors in massage therapy school was Randy Cummins, a Shiatsu practitioner in Chicago. I so appreciated his thoughtful and "chill" approach to teaching us. Several months ago I read a past post on his blog about "My Relationship with Chi (Energy)" and thought it was so sublime--that I wanted to share it with you all:

      The moment I heard that voice, the eternal hum, resonating and reverberating throughout my physical and energetic bodies, in that instant, I knew it was love.

      Chi – primal and eternal, motivator of action, purveyor of dreams, elusive by nature, saturating by design.

      My energetic soul mate and I have walked hand in hand, informed by the sage council of Shoshin Shiatsu, sharing with us its preventative properties, its base wisdom of stretching the fascia, opening and lubricating the joints, balancing the effects of gravity and emotion.

      The work continues to open slowly to me, informing my connection to the breath. The breath, my most intimate of all teachers . . . constant companion in this life journey, showing me with all immediacy the importance of being in the moment. Giver and sustainer of life, an anchor to my wandering mind, keeper of my hara fire, eternal example of taking in all inspiration and letting go . . . giving all with every exhale.

      In the context of Shiatsu, the breath as viewed in another and self, two-edged vajra, dissolving illusion, moving one into witness.

      The breath of practitioner, again sustains and centers, enhances connection through palpation, floats the weight of the hand down on a cloud of intention, sinking through skin, penetrating muscle, entering bone energy, clearing a path to the house of the true self.

       To have the faith in self to pull back, wait till the mud settles and the water clears, so one can recognize the underlying cause of it all – the kyo (yin) behind the outward jitsu imbalance (yang). The woman behind the crime, to paraphrase from the Neijing.

       A continuous process of letting go of result, expectation, adulation . . .  learning to honor and respect the pause . . . the stillness at the beginning and end of all movement . . . till we are delivered to the door of beginner’s mind.  --Randy Cummins,  May 25, 2012   (Black Swan Productions)

Two things....

One, This is a beautiful description of how a practitioner not only approaches their work--but also their life. I have always been fascinated with the concept of integrity--i.e., what you see is what you get--no matter "where you slice it!" When something is integrated--it is fully itself--to its core. My own best work flows not from my training (although that helps) but from my PERSON. This is particularly true of any work that is interpersonal in nature.

Secondly, I appreciate the fact that this description of chi/energy is conceptualized as feminine. I think few men understand how healing it is to have something written that affirms the feminine in such a powerful way. 

As I have mentioned in another post (I think :) the Hebrew word in the Jewish sacred writings (Old Testament) for "Spirit/Wind/Breath" is "ruach" which is feminine. It is unfortunate that in the Christian sacred writings (New Testament) the Greek word for "spirit" is "pneuma" which is neuter. In the West, we have a pretty negative view of anything that is "neutered." Although I must admit, it is a rather fitting "fix" we have in our Christian traditions that have in most cases "neutered" the power of the Spirit of God. How we got from a "feminine spirit" to a "neutered it" is a theological concern.

Gendered language makes an impact....more than we know until we read something that catches us by surprise.....

Translating: From One Field to Another....

It has long been a calling of mine, to be a bridge person. Another way to say this is that I often find myself translating concepts of one discipline to the understanding of another. This in itself is ironic, because it is my elder sister who is the one who has a PhD in Linguistics! Lucky for me, I don't have to be able to spell or pronounce the words I use (thank God for spellcheck)...I just get to write about them :)

So...what is the latest translation/bridge I am working on? It is the translation of the concept of energy, Chi, or Qi--which Bodyworkers are very familiar with. But you talk to a mental health professional or a theologian about "Energy" or "Chi" and they think you have fallen out of your rocker. So...here goes.

For Psychology People: "Energy" can be translated to "Embodied Emotion." We know that we don't just have cognitions about how we feel...we FEEL our emotions. And that feeling often has a level of force to it, i.e., energy. Anger for example...when you are angry, you may feel like decking someone. That is a force to be reckoned with. Or maybe you feel love for someone, that makes you tender and attentive to them. Emotion "moves" you, and, our physicist friends know, that to move something you need ENERGY. Hence, emotions are energy expressed through the body. Does this reduce emotions to energy? No, of course not--emotions are more than energy--but energy is required to feel them.

For Theologians: "Energy" can be translated to "power [of the spirit/Spirit]." Energy moves things...and the spirit/Spirit moves things. Do we know how? Nope. Jesus said, "The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit." John 3:8. Of course, also interesting is the word for "power" in the Bible is also "dunamis"--the same word we derive the English word for "dynamite"--and we know that is powerful stuff. So when we talk about the power/energy of the Spirit of God, we may be using the word "dunamis." The Spirit moves things. This is often why, in a worship service where people find themselves, clapping, raising their hands, or crying--they say, "The Spirit was moving in today's service." Why? Because they felt their emotions connecting with their faith. They felt MOVED. And that is the job and power of the Spirit. Does this reduce the Spirit or our own spirit to our emotions--of course not. The wind is not reduced to its effects...our emotions may be the effects of the moving of our or God's Spirit.

So finally, is energy (chi or Qi) simply a force? This is where I would diverge from some bodyworkers. Some do believe energy is only a force. I believe that God is more than an impersonal force. We would surely be in trouble if God were reducible to a "force." A "force" cannot love, care, redeem, protect, etc. But God can--and does through the Spirit. So, God is more than this, but our language limits us. But our language, doesn't limit God.

The Spirit and the Feminine

 Advent helps us focus on the Incarnation--"O Come, O Come,  Emmanuel." Emmanuel--God with Us. But how God is present in our actual daily life is the place of the Spirit. As many of you know, I have been reflecting quite a bit on the role of the Holy Spirit this past year--given that the Spirit is what gives life to the body. No Spirit--dead body. Lots of Spirit--enlivened body--in fact in the Bible at times, things that are dead come back to life! Pretty simple. So, it is quite an understatement to say that my Pentecostal world was rocked when I came across this passage this summer when reading the Wisdom of Solomon, in which Wisdom (The Holy Spirit) is described in the most beautiful portrait I have ever read:
"For in wisdom there is a spirit intelligent and holy,
      unique in its kind yet made up of many parts,
subtle, free moving, lucid, spotless, clear,
      invulnerable, loving what is good,
eager, unhindered, beneficent, kindly toward men,
      steadfast, unerring, untouched by care,
all-powerful, all-surveying, and permeating
       all intelligent, pure and delicate spirits.
For wisdom moves more easily than motion itself,
      she pervades and permeates all things because she is so pure.
Like a fine mist she rises from the power of God,
      a pure effluence from the glory of the Almighty;
so nothing defiled can enter into her by stealth.
      She is the brightness that streams from everlasting light,
the flawless mirror of the active power of God
      and the image of his goodness.
She is but one, yet can do everything;
       herself unchanging, she makes all things new;
age after age she enters into holy souls,
       and makes them God's friends and prophets,
for nothing is acceptable to God
       but the man who makes his home with wisdom.
She is more radiant than the sun,
        and surpasses every constallation;
compared with the light of day, she is found to excell;
       for day gives place to night, but against wisdom no evil can prevail.
She spans the world in power from end to end,
      and orders all things benignly."   Wisdom of Solomon 7:22-30.

Wow. Beautiful. Kind of makes you want to have the Spirit around--doesn't it? And to be honest, what also rocked my socks was the fact that this Spirit was referred to in feminine terms! That there is something feminine in God is something often given lip-service to...but I think we are missing something if it is only lip-service or a cognitive acknowledgement. There is something much more profound being expounded in this passage--that will personally be my focus of my own reflection and prayer during Advent. "Come, O Come Emmanuel....and O Come, Holy Spirit!"  A Blessed Advent, Indeed!!!

Body Language

Oh boy. I could go several places with this one. (On a previous post I had fun looking at somatic idioms)...In this post I want to consider how we use language. Does it really matter? OH YES!!!! (I can hear my sister who has a PhD in linguistics practically standing up on her desk and shouting at the top of her lungs---"AMEN SISTER!!!!" (She has never really done that--but I bet she would on this one! :) Anyway, English is one of the few languages that does not assign gender to nouns. But this is not the case in other languages. 
    
According to researcher Lera Boroditsky, grammatical genders can shape how people think (a hypothesis called "linguistic relativity"). For example, when speakers of German and Spanish were asked to describe everyday objects in English, she found that they were more likely to use attributes conventionally associated with the genders of the objects in their native languages. German-speakers more often described "bridge" (in German, Brücke,  a feminine noun) with words like 'beautiful', 'elegant', 'fragile', 'peaceful', 'pretty', and 'slender', whereas Spanish-speakers more often described "bridge" (in Spanish, puente (masculine noun)  with terms like 'big', 'dangerous', 'long', 'strong', 'sturdy', and 'towering'. Art is impacted by linguistic relativity as well. In Boroditsy's research, in 85% of all cases, the grammatical gender of the concept in the artist's language impacts its portrayal. Therefore, in German art, "death" ( Tod (masculine) is generally portrayed as male, but in Russian, "death"  (Смерть (feminine) is generally portrayed as a female.(see the link: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_gender) for MUCH more detail :)

So, of course, my burning question is...how does our use of language impact our concepts of ourselves, and our concept of God? Most depictions of God in the Western World are male. God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit (usually considered male in our minds, an "it" at worst). So, as I made a comment before (See Body Theology), the the Hebrew language (in which the OT of the Bible was written), the word for "spirit/Spirit" is "ruach"(feminine). In the Greek (in which the NT of the Bible was written) the word for "spirit/Spirit" is "pneuma"(neuter). Hmmm. Worth noting?

When people say, it's not a big deal, all you have to do is imagine that if the members of the Trinity were all 'female' and we used "She" instead of "He" it would make a HUGE impact on how we would all experience God. For example, if this was the case, how would MEN view themselves? They would experience what women have for centuries--what it is like to not have any "representation"...or a concrete example of what it means to be made in the image of God. Let me tell you...that effects your self-concept and sense of having value as a woman. God help us.

Body Theology

What does it mean for women to be "made in the image of God"? This question was first raised in my mind about 2 years ago when the pastor of my church did a sermon series on "The Theology of the Body" gleaned from Pope John Paul IIs works by the same name. I don't agree with all the points made (I rarely do any more--grad school ruined me from ever agreeing with anything in toto) but it got the wheels in my brain turning. (Always a dangerous thing). Do our bodies actually reflect Truth...and if they do...what Truth do women's bodies tell?

It  boils down to this...The Bible clearly teaches that man and woman were both created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). Having grown up in Evangelical Christian circles--I have heard quite a bit about God--God the Father, and God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. By default--not on purpose, these teachings have been primarily about God as masculine given the pronouns we use (Father, Son....Spirit...not sure what category to place that one.) How do we know pronouns make a difference? Just start calling God "Mother" and see what happens in an evangelical group! :)  I don't have a problem with understanding the "masculine" aspects of God....except that it doesn't help me understand myself and how I as a woman am also created in the image of God. What does THAT mean?

It was about 2 months ago that I was thinking about the above, and I realized that the "fruits of the Spirit" (i.e. the results of being transformed by the presence of God working within a person) mentioned in Galations 5:22-23 are primarily feminine characteristics: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control." WHAT? How come I never heard a sermon on THAT? And speaking of the Spirit of God....isn't the Spirit also refered to as the Helper, Comforter, Advocate....need I go on? Where do children go to for comfort, help and advocacy when they are young...their MOTHER! Hmmmmmm. To be continued......