Yesterday we had a great day of working, eating, and singing around the piano at my Mom's house. I and several others of my family enjoyed the day as we celebrated my Mom.
This morning one of my daily devotionals by Richard Rohr was about the maternal face of God. Very apropro for this day of honoring our Mom's. Thought I would share:
One of the things that led me into male spirituality was that most people have experienced their God image by experiencing the image of their mother. They experienced unconditional love not through the image of a man, but through the image of their mother. I realized how wounded the father relationship is with so many people.
For much of the human race, the mother is the one who parts the veil for us. She gives us that experience of grounding, of intimacy, of tenderness, of safety that most of us associate with our image of God. However, many people operate from a toxic and negative image of God. Nothing wonderful is ever going to happen as long as that is true. Early growth in spirituality is often about healing that inner image, whether male or female.
Most of us know that God is beyond gender. When we look at the Book of Genesis, we see that the first thing God is looking for is quite simply "images."
Genesis 1:26-27: Then God said, "Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them."
God is not looking for servants, for slaves or for people who are going to pass loyalty tests. God is just looking for images–"images and likenesses" of who God is. God divided this one whole image and likeness into what we call masculine and feminine. Whoever God is, God is profoundly and essentially what it means to be male and female. We have to find and to trust the feminine face of God and the masculine face of God. Both are true and both are necessary for a full relationship with God. Up to now, we have strongly relied upon the masculine.
Adapted from The Maternal Face of God.
4 comments:
Just now reading this post. Loved that devotional and I am so glad that you posted it. It is a truth that could help so many people and it one that really helped me. Glad your mom is still with you....makes me happy and lonely at the same time. Wish I had mine!! But I do love yours a lot!!
Thanks for sharing the devotional, Mary. Good food for thought! Love the picture too.....is that you, perhaps?!?
Hey, Margie, I liked the devotional. We hear so much about the "Fatherhood" of God and this to me is a forgotten aspect.
Yvonne, yes the picture is one of me as a baby and my Mom, many, many, oh-so-many years ago. I love these old, old pictures and it makes me think of the saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. Hope you had a good Mother's day.
I so love that phrase 'the maternal face of God' . . . so like the verse in sacred Scripture where God wants to take care of people 'like a hen gathers her young under her wings'.
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