Imagining God’s Voice as “She”

Dec 2, 2014 | Spirituality, Women's Wisdom

I know. I know. God is neither a man nor a white-bearded patriarch in the sky. And yes, I know that God is not a woman either. Qualities of both. The best of everything. (Thankfully) beyond my capacity to imagine, entertain, or hope. Energy and light and love. Yes, I know.

But just because I know something doesn’t mean I can fully incorporate it. Just because the intellectual and intelligent part of me gets it, doesn’t mean that I don’t, still, admittedly, struggle to separate from old habits, deeply-ingrained lessons, nearly-in-my-DNA-dogma. And truth-be-told, sometimes, when stuck in this kind of mental spinning and theological puzzling, I want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Only not really…

I need ways of helping my brain latch onto and understand something else, anything else. I need experiences of something, anything else.

More than all else, I need and long for my head to quiet down and my heart to speak; for Her to speak. And so, by way of practice and discipline, I imagine the voice of God as a woman. What does She say? What does She know? How does She invite me to new ways of experiencing the Sacred that already and always dwell within me?

Most recently, just.like.this.:

I see how deeply and desperately you long for rest. Rest from the swirling, spinning, endless thoughts in your brain. Rest from attempts to control outcomes. Rest from the labor required to get circumstances (and particular people) to go your way. Despite all your best intentions, all the work your brilliant mind does to craft and implement solutions, at the end of the day, you can rest. Your heart will carry you. Your soul knows. Your intuition courses powerfully through your blood, your body, your very being. And there is a larger story that is writing you. It is beautiful and miraculous. Even more, you are beautiful and miraculous. You are a womb for miracles. You bear and bring forth life that is infinite and dazzling in impact and force. You are chosen. You are worthy. You are seen. You are so much more than enough. And you are not too much. Ever.

Because of all this…and so much more, you are loved.

And did I mention? You can rest.

To tell you that I have deep, unfailing faith that never wavers wouldn’t be true. What is true, though, is that I have deep, unfailing, and never-wavering hunger – and hope – for all of the above, and then some. If I could find, know, and experience this God, I’d be sold, I’d be committed, I’d be devoted, I’d preach!

I do find, know, and experience this God.

Just not all of the time.

Anne LaMott once said that “the absence of faith is not doubt, but certainty.” Because I really like Anne LaMott and because I am convinced she has a direct line to God (how else could she write as she does?) I’m going to go with this. I trust that my uncertainty is actually the doorway into faith; a faith that far exceeds the one I grew up with, the one that is too small, the one with the white, bearded man in the sky. And as I continue to doubt, I’m going to continue with the “if God was a woman” process for no other reason than to offer my brain some God-given rest and much-deserved Grace; to let my heart lead and beat and love as it wants and knows to do. In the midst, maybe, just maybe I’ll come to believe (i.e., have faith) that every single word I’ve written above is actually true.

That would offer me rest. And it does.

May it be so (for you, as well).

 

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Expressing profound grief & fierce loss

Feb 18, 2014 | Sacred Stories, Women's Voice & Power, Women's Wisdom

There is an ancient story told of a widow whose only son died. With him went her last semblance of family, belonging, and even physical security – not to mention every last shred of hope and joy. On the day of his funeral, she moved in slow motion as the procession paraded through the streets of her village. Her head was down. Her heart was broken. Her sorrow was bottomless. Her tears were unstoppable. Until she heard a man’s voice speak directly to her: “Do not weep.” Grief was replaced by white-hot rage. Her red-rimmed eyes rose to meet his only in time to hear him speak again, this time directly to her dead son: “Young man, I say to you, rise!” And her fury was just as miraculously replaced by joy-beyond-belief as her son rose and began to speak for himself. The prophet/healer disappeared into the crowd, leaving everyone speaking of what they had just heard, seen, and experienced.

I have struggled with this story – with my writing of it. I have wrestled with crafting its telling in a way that enables the woman to be the central character instead of the prophet/healer. But I’ve struggled even more because I don’t like the words the prophet/healer speaks: “Do not weep.”

I know. I know. We can understand what he says because we know that the healing is yet to occur; that he speaks knowing what is yet to come. But she didn’t know this! She was broken and struggling to put one foot in front of the other. She had just lost everything that mattered to her, everything she held dear. And we do her a disservice by hurriedly moving from one verse to the next, slipping right past her known reality to the one on which we’d rather focus.

I do not want to move past her known reality. I do not want to move past her. So here it is:

To say, “Do not weep” is insensitive if not downright cruel. But this is not the half of it. For me to say such, to even whisper it, immediately causes a shame-based pressure to clamp itself around my throat and nearly stop my fingers from typing. To say that I disagree with what the prophet/healer said means that I am directly disagreeing with Jesus, the son-of-God, a voice of authority and then some. And that’s just not OK.

You may be liberated enough to skip right over this as no big deal with an “it’s-only-a story-after-all” perspective. Or, you may be brave enough to dismiss the whole thing completely.

Apparently, I’m neither.

As I have worked to write about this story, I have felt and experienced my dissonance and disagreement as NOT ALLOWED. As though I am obligated to remain silent. As though my opinion is too much, too dangerous, and just not worth voicing.

Which means I then become complicit in letting someone else’s voice carry more authority than my own; that I also become complicit in allowing the same to happen to someone else, another women; that in this case, this man’s voice trumps that of this woman’s.

I’m not making this up. The story itself perpetuates this. This woman’s voice isn’t heard. And it’s a story about her! Which is, of course, the point.

Her story puts me face-to-face with patriarchal power/authority and a woman’s lack thereof.

Her story puts me face-to-face with words spoken that are painful but ignored, because of who he is; because the rest of the story somehow redeems the earlier harshness.

Her story puts me face-to-face with my own resistance to speaking out in response to these very stories and the god within them (not in critique, but with allowed honesty, perspective, and hope).

Her story puts me face-to-face with the paradox of the divine – things understood and far more not.

Her story puts me face-to-face with me; with the heartache I know on behalf of the woman in this text and all those within the larger Text; the silence that too-often envelops them and the voice I long to give.

Her story puts me face-to-face with my\ fear: my visceral awareness that to speak – to weep – to express my perspective, my opinion, even my rage, carries with it the nearly-certain risk of profound loss.

Her story puts me face-to-face with my own known grief and hope, silence and voice, heartache and endless-longing for miracles.

When it comes right down to it, her story is about me. I am not confused at all about this – ever.

But maybe, just maybe, her story is about you, too. It’s possible that what happened to her has happened to you – in both literal and figurative ways. It’s more-than possible that you’ve witnessed the same. And it’s highly probable that you know exactly what I’m talking about:

Wanting to speak out, but daring not to – the sudden and overwhelming rush of emotions-and-voices-and-censors that tell you to just. keep. quiet. The clamp that immediately restricts your throat. The invisible “slap” that hovers over your fingers as you try to type-write-speak. And the less-than-subtle lesson-learned: do. not. weep.

And this is exactly why this woman’s story matters.

This is exactly the subterfuge and fabulously stealth-like way in which she does speak.

This is exactly the way in which her legacy endures, strengthens, and transforms.

She calls us to weep. She calls us to speak. She calls us to voice. She calls us to express emotion that is accurate and right and allowed in any and all circumstances in which we find ourselves, no matter what. And she subtly-though-powerfully calls us to sit/stand/stay with the palpable dissonance that occurs when we come face-to-face with the divine (or at least the stories we’ve learned and incorporated of
such) – even and maybe especially when we disagree.

Does her story continue? Is her son restored to her? Does her weeping turn to joy? And does this prophet/healer’s compassion on her behalf make all of this possible? Miraculously and graciously, yes. But more, she makes this possible. It is her profound grief and fierce love that turns the eye of god in the first place. It is her profound grief and fierce love that impacts Jesus’ heart. It is her profound grief and fierce love that invites miracles, changes everything, and turns the world on its axis.

The Widow of Nain calls us to any and every expression of profound grief and fierce love we can muster on behalf of what we desire and deserve.

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It is true: not every story ends with such a happy ending. Death steals. Disappointment rocks us to our core. And weeping continues, as it should.

In the meantime and in the midst, may we be women (and men) who allow for tears – our own and others’. May we be women (and men) who bravely say what we think and feel, no matter what or to whom. May we be women (and men) who step bravely into conversations in which angels fear to tread. And may we be women (and men) who stand alongside those without voice – past, present, and future – and give them our own. That kind of profound grief and fierce love is what turns the world on its axis.

When that kind of profound grief and fierce love is expressed, the Widow of Nain smiles and says “Yes, of course. For you are my daughters (and my sons), my lineage, my kin.”

May it be so.

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Conversations of this kind are sacred ground. They matter so very much. And they’re all-too rare. Gratefully, they are what I facilitate, offer, engage in, and love via my 1:1 work with clients. Learn more about working with me. 

Sophia and Quantum Physics

Jan 20, 2014 | Hope & Encouragement, Spirituality, Women's Voice & Power, Women's Wisdom

I had to figure out how to find Sophia. Or make the space for her to find me. One day I came to realize that she’s been here all along. Through all my questions she continues to hold my hand. She nudges. Cajoles. Entices. Winks. ~ Karen Speerstra, Sophia: The Feminine Face of God

I have often wondered how my life might have been different if I’d known of Sophia; if god was a woman; if I had realized and felt that I was supported, surrounded, and upheld by the Feminine – in spirit, in form, and within.

I can only wonder, for this is not what I have known.

Rather than wallow in regret, I can, with gratitude and awe, recognize that whether I knew Her or not, even realized She existed, She has been here all along.

That’s the beauty of truth: aware, or not, has no influence or impact on its reality, its presence, its activity in our lives.

Consider gravity. Even if I do not understand it at the most scientific of levels (which I do not), its truth is no less present nor its reality any less felt. Or how about Quantum physics? (Let me be clear: no comprehension at all!) But I see its outworking and mysterious, mystifying reality around me – all the time and without question.

It’s the not-knowing, not needing to recognize, and not actually having to be aware that makes truth and its power and presence so beautiful, winsome, and undeniable.

And if we can know, do recognize, and are aware? Delight, gift, and grace.

Sophia (along with gravity and Quantum physics) has existed, acted, and stayed even when unacknowledged, unknown, un-understood, and unseen. And if that weren’t good news enough, then this: when all is said and done, it takes the pressure off when it comes to the sacred, the divine, and any understanding of (or even belief in) god – or not. It’s just not about us.

This means the slightest of winks or most tender of nudges is also nothing more (and certainly nothing less) than delight, gift, and yes, grace.

(You can imagine Sophia’s smile right now, can’t you?)

May it be so.

Believing in Another World

Jan 13, 2014 | Hope & Encouragement, My sort-of Sermons, Spirituality, Women's Wisdom

The debate is long, old, and exhausting.

Is there life beyond ours, in other places, on other planes or planets. Is there a heaven and a hell? Is there a Divine-reality that surrounds and supports; advocates and angels upon whom we can depend or guides who have our back? Are there forces of evil with which we battle? And is all of this “out there” or is it just through the veil? On the periphery or in my direct line of sight? Within or without?

I do not claim to have answers to these questions. What I do have, though, is belief.

I believe in another world; a world of mystery and beauty and the Sacred that exists around me, yes; but more, within me.

I believe in another world that is woven into the warp and woof of this world. Found in the faces of my daughters, the laughter (and the tears) of my friends. Experienced in moments of writing, particular words spoken, stories told and heard. Tasted in a perfect meal, strong coffee, and dry champagne. Recognized in stunning prose, brilliant thought, a clean house (and even a messy one). Felt in a tender touch, a long hug, a slow kiss. Seen in a sunrise, the majesty of Mount Rainier, the birth of a child. Heard in my heartbeat, my breath, my body.

Not Someday. Not far away. Not in the sweet-by-and-by. Not when the roll is called up yonder. Right here. Right now. Ripe for the picking.

Perhaps the point is less about “another world” and more about allowing, acknowledging, and yes, believing that the one we’re in is worth believing in.

If we only had eyes to see and ears to hear and wits to understand, we would know that…holiness, goodness, beauty is as close as breathing and is crying out to born both within ourselves and within the world…We glimpse it at those moments when we find ourselves being better than we are and wiser than we know. We catch sight of it when at some moment of crisis a strength seems to come to us that is greater than our own strength. (It’s) where we belong. It is home… ~ Frederick Buechner

May it be so.

Giving Up On God

Mar 22, 2013 | Spirituality

Giving up on God: I’m considering it.

I don’t ponder this from an atheistic precipice or in a state of existential angst; rather, it’s an all-out gamble on (and hunger for) a God who supersedes my doubt, who surprises, who stays, who’s relevant and BIG and full-of-felt-love.

The argument could legitimately be made that the God I’ve known since childhood is this God. I would not disagree—completely. But it’s much more complex. That God has often been so bound in strictures of thought and doctrine and prescribed behavior that I’ve felt suffocated at times – unable to breathe deep, to imagine wildly, to believe in ways that expand my heart, my soul, my world.

If God is, as I have been taught, full of unconditional and endless love, then my experience of such should be defined by freedom, grace, and ease, yes? Instead, many of my learned patterns take me to compliance, obedience, aspiring-toward-perfection, penance, offerings, and yes, that prescribed behavior; the manifestation and “proof” that I am good enough, worthy enough . . . enough, period.

I do not believe these things to actually be of God, still, they are the predominant ways through which I’ve come to not only measure my own worth, but also the health/status of my relationship with the Divine. And yes, I can intellectually argue myself out of all of this, but that does not lessen its grip; its ingrained, deep within, at-a-cellular-level hold on my heart.

I should be quick to say that I’ve also had profound personal experiences and seasons of belief that have been incredibly meaningful and even miraculous. It’s not a binary – my thoughts of God: all good or all bad, all true or all false, all worthwhile or all folly.

It’s complex: this God thing. And some days, it exhausts me; other most days it’s the only thing that sustains my hope.

Lest you are worried, it’s not actually giving up on God that I’m considering; it’s giving up on the work of considering God. It’s my desire, intention, and prayer to fall into Open Arms, ease, acceptance, flow, and grace; into a Presence that strengthens and soothes; into a God I inhale and exhale as naturally as I breath.

And maybe this is that:

If God is God, then I can trust that He/She/It will not give up on me.

Inhale. Exhale. Yes.