God is spirit, Jesus told Photina, the woman at the well, in John 4:24. I’ve been reading snippets of Near Death Experiences, and consistently, people agree that God is spirit, electric with light and love. Not human, not male, not female. So why do we need to call God Mother? Why not just do away […]
Why Gender-Neutral Language Is Not Enough Read More »
Mother God bugs people. She rocks the church-boat. She downright infuriates some. So, how can calling God Mother help us? The loving, safe associations we often have with Mother change our inner image of God, or feelings and attitude toward God, sometimes dramatically. The mother metaphor helps us form a truer picture of God than
What the Mother Metaphor Reveals about God Read More »
A Voice that Resembles the Lord’s “Listen closely, for what I say is worth hearing, and I will tell you what is right…” (Prov. 8:6). Wisdom shows up as a woman in Proverbs 1-9 and other wisdom literature. In the Hebrew, she is Chochma. Scholar Roland E. Murphy writes of this unusual personification: “Justice and
Four Ways to Get Closer to Lady Wisdom This Year Read More »
Reading Matthew 2:16-18 is like walking into a news story you never wanted to see. In fact, it’s so horrific that usually I gloss over it as I read. Last year, for the first time, I lingered on what happened after goodness saves Jesus from Herod. (Though many Matthew scholars say this probably never happened,
Three Things the Boy Jesus Learned About Evil Read More »
Matthew calls Jesus Immanuel, God with us. Yet having God-with-us meant fear and worry for Mary and Joseph as they rushed away to Egypt with a tiny baby. Perhaps they did not feel or know the power of God, as refugees from Herod’s sword, going back to the place of their ancestor’s slavery. Maybe Mary wondered, Just
The Christmas Story Vs. Evil, Part 1 Read More »
Holy Chutzpah Mary is big lately. This week, I read a blog post about Mary by a woman trying to discover a Mary to identify with. She writes, “it’s exactly the kind of feminine archetype I don’t really relate to — the kind of person about whom people say, ‘oh, she’s really nice’ as if
The Price of Being Mary Read More »
Have you ever wondered about the back story of some of the Bible’s women and men? Like what happened before, or after, a certain conversation with Jesus? Sometimes there’s a story right in front of us, hidden in the text. Or just beyond us, in the history kept through the Catholic and Orthodox churches. A
Fabulous Photina (The Samaritan Woman) Read More »
Is Mother God a Goddess? I used to procrastinate thinking through the issue of calling God Mother, just like I put off making a final decision about the nature of homosexuality. I had intellectual questions about both topics, sure, but my hesitation originated in my emotions. I feared being in the wrong. Heretical. Outside of the good people circle who
Why God-as-Mother Isn’t a Goddess Read More »
Meeting Naomi for the First Time I opened the Old Testament the other day and found myself on the first page of the book of Ruth. As I read, I saw for the first time that the story is at least as much about Naomi as Ruth, and that Naomi’s story is similar to Job’s. I think this is
Naomi, a Feminist Job Read More »
John the Baptizer didn’t come eating bread or drinking wine, and you say, “He’s demonized!” The Son of Woman has come eating and drinking, and you say, “Look, a glutton and a drunk, a friend of tax collectors and outsiders!” But Wisdom is vindicated by all her children. (Luke 7:33-35, DFV) This week I found
Wisdom Not Invited to the Party Read More »
