National Catholic Reporter has a lovely article about Meinrad Craighead, an artist who grew up Catholic and whose images convey “a keen sense of the brooding, watching, beckoning power she finds in the land around her, in the sky above, the earth below, in the animals, in our dreams.”
I would change a word in the statement that the artist’s “first real religious experience, at the age of 7, was not in the church but in nature, with her dog.” Her experience was spiritual, not religious.
Gazing into her dog’s eyes, Craighead as a girl felt water rushing deep inside her and saw a woman’s face that she immediately recognized as God, “more real, more powerful than the remote ‘Father’ I was educated to have faith in. . . . God the Mother came to me and, as children will do, I kept her a secret. We hid together inside the structures of institutional Catholicism.”
Craighead’s feminine images of the Divine are healing the Christian tradition’s lopsided use of male images and masculine pronouns. “He,” “Him,” and “His” endorsed the oppression of women and also the degradation of nature, because psychically women are associated with nature.
As Carl Jung pointed out, however, Catholicism retained more feminine imagery than Protestantism because Catholics venerate Mary, who plays exactly the psychic role that the Goddess played in pre-historical times—she’s the Great Mother, as mythologists like to observe.
Jung approved vigorously when the Assumption of Mary into heaven was declared in 1950 because, he said, it brought some balance to the masculine Godhead. He did not believe any doctrines literally; his concern was human psychic health. In addition to gender imbalance, he observed Christianity’s low valuation of nature.
Maybe because women give birth and suckle children, they are more closely related in the human psyche to nature than are men. Interestingly, shrines devoted to Mary often have moving water, as Craighead’s vision had. And the Goddess appeared with natural elements such as water and trees.
We need feminine God-images to balance the preponderance of “king,” “lord,” and “father.”
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Women transforming the world
I begin with a statement from Bob Wedl’s email to me: "Let us not confuse the church and the faith.” Observing that the institutional church’s stance against women and homosexuals destroys faith and insults God— whose supposed error produced these deficient persons—he said, “We cannot permit the church to continue trying to destroy the faith.”
It cannot continue because cradle Christians are changing the church. I'm feeling optimistic because I spent the weekend with women who are helping to transform not only the church but the world.
Gather the Women connects women with each other to activate their untapped feminine well of wisdom and direct it toward solving problems of the world. The women I met this weekend glowed with Spirit’s power. I still see their love-filled faces. Working under and behind the glare of public headlights, they raise awareness by carrying out individual “assignments,” discerned through deep listening to the Divine. They "call on each other to BE the change we want to see." Their website is http://gatherthewomen.org/gtw/index.htm
I was flattered to hear a paragraph from God Is Not Three Guys in the Sky quoted in the welcoming ceremony. It describes “the unique set of attitudes, skills, and perspectives that women contribute toward healing the world from the patriarchal bias of several millennia. To the independence-seeking male, let us add the connection-seeking female. To counter the adversarial inclination, let us apply relationship building. To counter warmaking, competition, and domination, let us apply peacemaking, cooperation, and partnership. To the image of a God or Gods up above, let us add that of living within the womb of Mother Earth, whose air, water, and soil we strive to protect. Barred from power for many centuries, women are able to practice power WITH instead of power OVER and AGAINST, as demonstrated by their disproportionate presence in peace advocacy. This has implications for global politics and economics as well as religion.”
Peace to all
Jeanette
It cannot continue because cradle Christians are changing the church. I'm feeling optimistic because I spent the weekend with women who are helping to transform not only the church but the world.
Gather the Women connects women with each other to activate their untapped feminine well of wisdom and direct it toward solving problems of the world. The women I met this weekend glowed with Spirit’s power. I still see their love-filled faces. Working under and behind the glare of public headlights, they raise awareness by carrying out individual “assignments,” discerned through deep listening to the Divine. They "call on each other to BE the change we want to see." Their website is http://gatherthewomen.org/gtw/index.htm
I was flattered to hear a paragraph from God Is Not Three Guys in the Sky quoted in the welcoming ceremony. It describes “the unique set of attitudes, skills, and perspectives that women contribute toward healing the world from the patriarchal bias of several millennia. To the independence-seeking male, let us add the connection-seeking female. To counter the adversarial inclination, let us apply relationship building. To counter warmaking, competition, and domination, let us apply peacemaking, cooperation, and partnership. To the image of a God or Gods up above, let us add that of living within the womb of Mother Earth, whose air, water, and soil we strive to protect. Barred from power for many centuries, women are able to practice power WITH instead of power OVER and AGAINST, as demonstrated by their disproportionate presence in peace advocacy. This has implications for global politics and economics as well as religion.”
Peace to all
Jeanette
Friday, July 18, 2008
God is not supernatural
We don’t need proofs of divine reality because we all have an innate sense of it, atheists included. The work of mythologists supports the conclusion I reached from my own experience that God is the most natural reality, not some super-natural, extra-natural, un-natural, external-to-reality being we have to be told to believe in.
The Mystery deep within all reality does not belong to religion more than to the rest of life, and any claim by a religion that it possesses exclusive revelation of what we call God is absurd. It is religion’s preposterous claims plus its conflicts, craziness, and cruelties that disgust atheists. Understandable. But let’s not ignore the positive contributions of religion.
A recent study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life indicated a growing awareness by Americans that God is not a humanlike individual. This is a step toward realizing that the Holy Force is independent of religion. While 60% of respondents said they believe in a “personal God,” a surprisingly high 25% said they believe in an “impersonal force.” I welcome the shift to this more abstract idea of God and away from the Guys in the Sky. As it gains familiarity in public consciousness, I hope that a growing number of people will see how distorting and inappropriate is the steady drip of “He,” “Him,” and “His.”
The poll by the Pew Forum confirmed the importance of faith to Americans, but it also showed dogmatism waning. 70% of Americans affiliated with a religion or denomination, including majorities among Protestants and Catholics, said they agreed that "many religions can lead to eternal life."
Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune saw the poll results as proof that “the Humble Majority” agree “that no single religion or philosophical system has a monopoly on the Absolute Truth.” He believes, “Humility is the appropriate response to the vastness of the universe and the wonders and horrors of life on Earth.”
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-zorn_26jun26,0,4570287.column
The Mystery deep within all reality does not belong to religion more than to the rest of life, and any claim by a religion that it possesses exclusive revelation of what we call God is absurd. It is religion’s preposterous claims plus its conflicts, craziness, and cruelties that disgust atheists. Understandable. But let’s not ignore the positive contributions of religion.
A recent study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life indicated a growing awareness by Americans that God is not a humanlike individual. This is a step toward realizing that the Holy Force is independent of religion. While 60% of respondents said they believe in a “personal God,” a surprisingly high 25% said they believe in an “impersonal force.” I welcome the shift to this more abstract idea of God and away from the Guys in the Sky. As it gains familiarity in public consciousness, I hope that a growing number of people will see how distorting and inappropriate is the steady drip of “He,” “Him,” and “His.”
The poll by the Pew Forum confirmed the importance of faith to Americans, but it also showed dogmatism waning. 70% of Americans affiliated with a religion or denomination, including majorities among Protestants and Catholics, said they agreed that "many religions can lead to eternal life."
Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune saw the poll results as proof that “the Humble Majority” agree “that no single religion or philosophical system has a monopoly on the Absolute Truth.” He believes, “Humility is the appropriate response to the vastness of the universe and the wonders and horrors of life on Earth.”
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-zorn_26jun26,0,4570287.column
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Women in the Bible
A 1996 study by Sr. Ruth Fox analyzed passages chosen for the lectionary, the book of biblical readings used in liturgical celebrations. http://www.futurechurch.org/watw/womeninbibleandlectionary.htm
She found that passages in the Bible about women performing significant deeds have been omitted or relegated to weekdays instead of Sundays or “neatly sliced out of the middle of the lectionary passage.” The pattern of exclusion could not have been accidental. It was deliberate, and it reinforces the message promulgated by Church officials: Women are subordinate to men in regard to sacred matters.
Fox cites examples in the scriptures known to most Christians as Old and New Testaments. Some omissions are almost laughable because the reading stops just at the point when women are depicted as dignified messengers from God to humanity. And sometimes, writes Fox, “Passages containing positive references to [women] are left out while those containing negative references are retained.”
Women are doing something about this. For information about a campaign to “put women back in the biblical picture,” go to http://www.futurechurch.org/watw/index.htm .
I’m glad women are prodding the Church toward gender justice, but I expect more rapid progress in the secular sphere. Hillary Clinton’s candidacy, for instance, changed perceptions about women as leaders. I noticed during a discussion on NPR about federal policies that speakers referred to a hypothetical president as “he or she.”
It’s all about perception. Deletion of passages about women leaders from proclamations of the Word in church reinforces the exclusion of women from decision making in the Church.
But life is not static. Religions, like species, thrive or die, depending on their ability to adapt to changes. My hopes rest on evolving attitudes toward woman power.
Jeanette
She found that passages in the Bible about women performing significant deeds have been omitted or relegated to weekdays instead of Sundays or “neatly sliced out of the middle of the lectionary passage.” The pattern of exclusion could not have been accidental. It was deliberate, and it reinforces the message promulgated by Church officials: Women are subordinate to men in regard to sacred matters.
Fox cites examples in the scriptures known to most Christians as Old and New Testaments. Some omissions are almost laughable because the reading stops just at the point when women are depicted as dignified messengers from God to humanity. And sometimes, writes Fox, “Passages containing positive references to [women] are left out while those containing negative references are retained.”
Women are doing something about this. For information about a campaign to “put women back in the biblical picture,” go to http://www.futurechurch.org/watw/index.htm .
I’m glad women are prodding the Church toward gender justice, but I expect more rapid progress in the secular sphere. Hillary Clinton’s candidacy, for instance, changed perceptions about women as leaders. I noticed during a discussion on NPR about federal policies that speakers referred to a hypothetical president as “he or she.”
It’s all about perception. Deletion of passages about women leaders from proclamations of the Word in church reinforces the exclusion of women from decision making in the Church.
But life is not static. Religions, like species, thrive or die, depending on their ability to adapt to changes. My hopes rest on evolving attitudes toward woman power.
Jeanette
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Justice for poor, marginalized
The Catholic Church preaches justice, compassion, and aid to the poor. Over the centuries Catholics have lived out that commitment in many ways, but certain actions of its hierarchy send the very opposite message.
John Nienstedt succeeded the beloved Bishop Raymond Lucker in the Diocese of New Ulm and caused consternation with his hard-line, rightist positions on sexual morality and other matters. Then the ultra-conservative was promoted to become Archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis.
Fears of the consequences have materialized. His office has attacked two vibrant Catholic parishes in Minneapolis, some would argue, the two most active promoters of justice—St. Stephen’s and St. Joan of Arc—by thwarting their ministries to the marginalized. In both, their offense in his view apparently was that the parishes affirmed gay and lesbian persons.
A board member of the Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities called the archbishop’s action “another volley of dehumanizing spiritual violence” under his “reign of homophobic hatred.” St. Joan of Arc parishioners are speaking out. At St. Stephen’s a group broke away to continue worshipping as it thinks appropriate. Nienstedt’s outrages galvanize Catholics who might otherwise slide passively along in a Church with “leaders” who lag way behind their supposed followers.
Conscientious Catholics are resisting the tyranny of cruelty disguised as morality. Another example is the subject of “Community supports ousted nun” at http://ncronline3.org/drupal/?q=node/1330
Sr. Louise Lears is a faculty member in theology at Saint Louis University known for her work for peace and justice, for the poor, for survivors of torture and war trauma, and for the homeless. Saint Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke banned her from ministry and from the sacraments, after which he was elevated by the Vatican to a higher position. So much for the official Church’s preaching about justice and human rights.
To non-Catholics it may seem incredible that Catholics stay in a Church with dictatorial and wrongheaded officials. It’s a question I wrestle with in the first chapter of God Is not Three Guys in the Sky.
John Nienstedt succeeded the beloved Bishop Raymond Lucker in the Diocese of New Ulm and caused consternation with his hard-line, rightist positions on sexual morality and other matters. Then the ultra-conservative was promoted to become Archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis.
Fears of the consequences have materialized. His office has attacked two vibrant Catholic parishes in Minneapolis, some would argue, the two most active promoters of justice—St. Stephen’s and St. Joan of Arc—by thwarting their ministries to the marginalized. In both, their offense in his view apparently was that the parishes affirmed gay and lesbian persons.
A board member of the Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities called the archbishop’s action “another volley of dehumanizing spiritual violence” under his “reign of homophobic hatred.” St. Joan of Arc parishioners are speaking out. At St. Stephen’s a group broke away to continue worshipping as it thinks appropriate. Nienstedt’s outrages galvanize Catholics who might otherwise slide passively along in a Church with “leaders” who lag way behind their supposed followers.
Conscientious Catholics are resisting the tyranny of cruelty disguised as morality. Another example is the subject of “Community supports ousted nun” at http://ncronline3.org/drupal/?q=node/1330
Sr. Louise Lears is a faculty member in theology at Saint Louis University known for her work for peace and justice, for the poor, for survivors of torture and war trauma, and for the homeless. Saint Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke banned her from ministry and from the sacraments, after which he was elevated by the Vatican to a higher position. So much for the official Church’s preaching about justice and human rights.
To non-Catholics it may seem incredible that Catholics stay in a Church with dictatorial and wrongheaded officials. It’s a question I wrestle with in the first chapter of God Is not Three Guys in the Sky.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Tax System Unfair
I received phone calls in enthusiastic agreement with my article in the St. Cloud Times.
http://www.sctimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080630/OPINION/106300049/-1/archives
Our democracy is in danger of becoming a plutocracy, a nation controlled by the rich.
A really “free market” would not slather economic rewards on a favored few. We need to tax the wealthiest Americans fairly to avoid going the way of Latin America or Asia.
http://www.sctimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080630/OPINION/106300049/-1/archives
Our democracy is in danger of becoming a plutocracy, a nation controlled by the rich.
A really “free market” would not slather economic rewards on a favored few. We need to tax the wealthiest Americans fairly to avoid going the way of Latin America or Asia.
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