A Feminine God

In his meditation for today, Fr. Richard Rohr speaks of salvation depicted in feminine form.  (see Revelation 12)  Pregnant and in labor, this woman escapes "into the desert until her time."  He writes,

Could this be the time? It is always the time! The world is tired of Pentagons and pyramids, empires and corporations that only abort God’s child. This women-stuff is very important, and it has always been important, more than this white male priest ever imagined or desired! My God was too small and too male.

Do not put your trust in princes,
        in mortals, in whom there is no help.
When their breath departs, they return to the earth;
        on that very day their plans perish.  (Psalm 146:3-4)

Princes, Pentagons, pyramids, corporations, denominations, theologies, our ways of doing things, our ideologies, our heroes, ourselves; we have endless things to trust other than God.  I wonder if Rohr is right, and some of this problem is a male thing.  As he also notes in his meditation, Jesus came not exercising power in typical, male ways.  He was meek and lowly, come "to undo the male addiction to power."

 I wonder how much damage we do to faith, to the Church, because we imagine God in the form of princes, of Pentagons and generals and presidents, largely muscle-flexing, male images.  I wonder how often our faith and trust is in plans and institutions that we devise around such muscle-flexing images rather than in the Living God "who keeps faith forever," who comes meek and lowly, as a servant, in Jesus.


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