Is GOD exclusively masculine?

i am amazed that people have issues with anything "feminine" about the attributes of GOD to be honest. every woman i have ever known, except maybe 2, have had issues because of the adamant stance of the church on GOD being totally masculine. this is utterly alienating to some women. thankfully i have had a few really good jewish friends along the way who have reassured me that in the hebrew language GOD was never just this masculine being.

one described creation as GOD the father created and GOD the Holy Spirit (ruach/shekinah/spirit) breathed the breath of life into them. because i was one of the women who felt alienated by this dominating/patriarchal/dispassionate GOD this has always been a help to me. but other women seem threatened by the concept that there is any feminine in GOD. to which i would say, look in a mirror. in the image of GOD he created them....male and FEMALE he created them. if there wasn't a divine female image, then why do women exist at all?

My week...

i received a dozen roses from my husband for valentines day. first flowers in 17 years. then we fought all day over something stupid. sigh

our newest kitten was in heat the end of last week which was sincerely annoying. she has siamese in her which you rarely hear UNTIL she goes into heat. OMG.

saturday was OMG busy at the Y. non-stop from beginning to end...thankfully Tara gave me a ride home.

i'm at work.

this weekend i was taken by my son and daughter-in-law to Top Nails to have "acrylics" put on and then to lunch at Red Robin. it was "hamburgers benefit the Vanessa Behan crisis nursery" so we all had hamburgers and endless fries. jeremy had freckled lemonade. tamara had dr. pepper. i had tea and then a vanilla milkshake. i unwittingly mentioned my birthday and so the place clapped and sang to me and gave me a chocolate sundae (which jeremy and tamara shared because i couldn't handle it with my shake) and 2 birthday balloons (which my cats pulled down from the ceiling and popped in the night). then they took me to safeway because my kitties was out of food. then home.

i bought a new desk that couldn't handle the weight of the monitor so we tore that apart and moved the ugly white plastic one down from upstairs.

i got a dust buster for my birthday (early) and dust busted my way up the stairs to my room and dust busted the chair emmy (our long-haired cat who is no longer with us) used to love. and every corner.

today is hubby's birthday so i ordered him a black forest cake and a small balloon boquet which i will pick up on the bus at safeway after work. (he was all pouty that i got to go out and it isn't even my birthday till thursday).

it snowed again this morning...just a light dusting thank GOD.

i chatted with my youngest daughter in texas on my lunch hour.

ok...that's about it i guess unless you want to know that i did 2 loads of laundry and dishes this weekend.

I was asked some questions today...

here is the question(s) put to a group i am on with a bunch of other women:

I have a question. Every day we see more and more of conspiracy theories and the like, every company has it's own view, every politician has a view, every individual has a view, drug companies sell this, news media sells that, vote for this guy, don't vote for this guy, this person profited from this, this person profited from that, buy this and be healthy, don't eat this or you will die young, use this product, oh, wait that product causes cancer, genocide in the Sudan, riots in Kenya, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the bad economy, kids being thrown off over passes, murder/suicides, etc etc etc. My question is how do each of you deal with the over powering negative impute into your head? Are any of you into meditation? Do you do something that keeps a focus of positive in your soul? What do you do to filter the world? (guess that was more than one question)

and here is my answer:

first i stopped studying the book of revelation. i was into that end times theology and all that entails so big time it was creepy (tri-lateral commission, bildebergers and all of that). that doesn't, however, mean i stopped believing that we aren't running the world. we aren't. it's an illusion. what it meant was i stopped believing i could do anything about it and i stopped worrying about that part. plus i came to believe (through studying and prayer) that we have been taught this book all wrong and that helped!!!

second, i stopped watching daily news. i almost OD'd on news after 9-11 and it almost drove me into a death depression i couldn't see light from. after 6 months of it i stopped watching AT ALL. now i can watch an occasional program of news.

third, although i love a good political debate as well as the next man/woman, i know nothing i believe about any candidate makes one iota of difference on the real level. i vote anyway because no one who doesn't vote has a right to complain about the politics of our country . so i vote KNOWING that ultimately my vote doesn't mean much.

fourth, i read...a LOT. widely differing viewpoints. all the time. because of this there are certain things i know, even if i can't prove them. big pharma owns the medical system in this country. their bottom line is NOT health, it's disease. they don't need you well, they NEED you sick. they push drugs like no big-time drug pusher i know and they do it legally. they KILL people on a regular basis and get away with it. i shun all drugs that i can because i want to live. this is going to get harder to do as time goes on. they have that much power. (aka the coming forced vaccinations we talked about before).

on foods and disease: anyone who has studied any nutrition knows that fruits and veggies are the best way to stay healthy. all the nutrients are there for us to use. processed foods kill us. very simple stuff here. meat in moderation. if you can't bear the thought of dead bambis and moocows in your body then be a vegetarian. humans complicate things so much. sigh.

news in the world: sudan, darfur, kenya, war, kids microwaved and/or dropped off of bridges, or raped/molested...those are harder. ultimately we have no control over these horrific things. does that mean we ignore them? no. not for me. i can't and be me. i have a notebook (a prayer notebook) that i put things in and i consciously pray for people/situations. i journal. sometimes i journal and then i burn it. (depends on how intense). i sign petitions. if called upon, i march. if i have pennies i send them. (i research charity organizations reaching out in the areas my heart hurts the most over and i send to the best i can find). in the spring/summer/fall i walk. walking meditation (i.e. praying or screaming or crying out to GOD/universe) releases more of the good hormones that help us to cope AND to resolve issues within ourselves.

i believe that most people are just good people at heart, trying to struggle along in a world that bewilders them. i try to treat each person that way. smile. say hello. we cannot change the world. but we can, in our own little corner of the world, be a light. we may light up just one other light. but that light will light another and together, one light at a time we can take back our world. not on a political level, because that will take a revolution. but grassroots, as we all tap into the great divine collective consciousness, living the light of GOD/the universe/divine THROUGH us into the world, we can change corners, blocks, then subdivisions then cities and eventually the light of the kingdom will spread throughout the world...one person, one connected person at a time.

wow...look at me...the die-hard realist to the point of cynicism. and if i can get here, trust me, you can too.

meditation is good. i'm reading a book on zen christian where i'm learning to count the breath. i'm buying a yoga for unfit people book so i can learn to stretch more and maybe get more flexible and strong. i believe that before the grassroots gets connected enough, it's going to get rougher, so i want to be centered and stronger to face/deal with whatever life throws at me. i'm studying homesteading (even though i don't own any land) in hopes of knowing how to grow things if everything crashes around me. and i'm storing seeds for that eventuality.

we do what we can. where we are. with what we have. our best is all we have to offer. so it has to be "enough".

Comfort in the midst of Despair

O God, you know the emptiness of my heart. Sometimes I wonder if you are there...if you hear...if there is any hope that my situation will be different. When loneliness looms around me, when my questions are unanswered, when no one seems to care, when days and nights go on and on with no change, when I fall deeper into despair, I pray that you will let your peace fall upon me as gently as the spring rain that waters the earth. Remind me of your unconditional and eternal love for me. Assure me of your presence. Fill my heart with the hope that my life is held in your hand. Lift my pain from so that joy may flow freely again through me. I ask this for the sake of your love. Amen.

Article on the Golden Compass Books/Movie

From the Boston Globe: boston.com

God in the dust

What Catholics attacking 'The Golden Compass' are really afraid of

By Donna Freitas | November 25, 2007

ON DEC. 7 New Line Cinema will release "The Golden Compass," starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig, the first movie in a trilogy with the massive budget and family blockbuster potential of "The Lord of the Rings."

Yet, even before it opens, "The Golden Compass" finds itself at the center of a controversy. The Catholic League, a conservative religious organization, launched a campaign on Oct. 9 calling on all Catholics to boycott the film. The group also published a lengthy pamphlet attacking the story and distributed the pamphlet to Catholic schools across the country. Other groups have joined the fray, including the evangelical nonprofit Focus on the Family, whose magazine Plugged In urged parents to keep kids out of theaters showing the film. And the Christian blogosphere is alive with warnings not only about the movie trilogy, but also about the series of books it is based on.

Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, charges that the books, known as the "His Dark Materials" trilogy, are deeply anti-Christian. Donohue says he fears that the film will inspire parents to purchase "His Dark Materials" for their fantasy-hungry kids on Christmas, unaware that the third book of the series, "The Amber Spyglass," climaxes in an epic battle to destroy God. Some of the book's villains are referred to as the Magisterium - a term used to refer to the Catholic hierarchy. The British author, Philip Pullman, has said openly that he is an atheist, and Donohue charges that his books are designed to eradicate faith among children.

But this is a sad misreading of the trilogy. These books are deeply theological, and deeply Christian in their theology. The universe of "His Dark Materials" is permeated by a God in love with creation, who watches out for the meekest of all beings - the poor, the marginalized, and the lost. It is a God who yearns to be loved through our respect for the body, the earth, and through our lives in the here and now. This is a rejection of the more classical notion of a detached, transcendent God, but I am a Catholic theologian, and reading this fantasy trilogy enhanced my sense of the divine, of virtue, of the soul, of my faith in God.

The book's concept of God, in fact, is what makes Pullman's work so threatening. His trilogy is not filled with attacks on Christianity, but with attacks on authorities who claim access to one true interpretation of a religion. Pullman's work is filled with the feminist and liberation strands of Catholic theology that have sustained my own faith, and which threaten the power structure of the church. Pullman's work is not anti-Christian, but anti-orthodox.

This emerging controversy, then, is deeply unusual. It features an artist who claims atheism, but whose work is unabashedly theistic. And it features a series of books that are at once charming and thrilling children's literature, and a story that explores some of the most divisive and fascinating issues in Catholic theology today.

Pullman wasn't always "the most dangerous man in Britain" as he has been called by columnist Peter Hitchens. Pullman studied literature at Oxford, went on to become a schoolteacher, and then discovered he had a knack for drawing middle-school-aged children to the edge of their seats over classics like "Beowulf." Pullman began to write stories of his own in the early '80s.

It wasn't until Pullman married his talent for epic adventure with the genre of children's fantasy in "His Dark Materials" that he reached a wide audience. The book the movie is based on, "The Golden Compass," came out in 1995 and won the Carnegie Medal, awarded for an outstanding book of children's literature. The sequel, "The Subtle Knife," was released in 1997, and the final installment, "The Amber Spyglass," was published in 2000 to wide acclaim, including the prestigious Whitbread Prize, the first given for a children's book. The series has sold some 12 million copies worldwide.

In interviews, Pullman has gone on record as an atheist, not only doubting God's existence but charging that organized religion has been an instrument of evil in world history. He has criticized C.S. Lewis's Christian allegory "The Chronicles of Narnia," because Pullman sees in "Narnia" a world in which innocence is so prized that Lewis never allows his heroines and heroes to grow up.

But to reduce Pullman to these few juicy sound bites is to ignore the whole of a complex, exuberantly curious intellectual who has infused his writing with a complex, crisply rendered theology.

The trilogy is a retelling of Milton's "Paradise Lost," the classic epic poem from which Pullman borrowed a line, "His Dark Materials." Milton tells of the battle between Lucifer's army of fallen angels and God's rule in heaven. In "Paradise Lost," God prevails. But in Pullman's book, the two child protagonists help to defeat the rule of the Authority and the Authority dies.

When critics say that Pullman's series advocates killing God, this is what they mean. But that is the most literal possible reading, and misses the point of the books.

The "God" who dies in "The Amber Spyglass" is not a true God at all. Pullman's Authority is an impostor, more like Milton's Lucifer than like a traditional conception of God. In the novels, the universe's first angel tricked all other angels and conscious beings created after him into believing he is God, and has spent an eternity building a corrupt empire for the purpose of hanging on to absolute power.

Readers of the trilogy know that the Authority is a tyrannical figure who uses his power to deceive, to conceal, and to terrorize. His death not only liberates all beings, but reveals the true God, in which and in whom all good things - knowledge, truth, spirit, bodies, and matter - are made. The impostor God has spent an eternity trying to wipe out all traces of the divine fabric of the true God - what Pullman calls Dust - because it is so threatening to his rule.

Most Christians are taught to imagine God through the first and second parts of the Trinity, through the Father (God) and the Son (Jesus). Pullman's vision of God is much closer to the third part of the Trinity: the Holy Spirit. Dust is the Holy Spirit.

For Christians, then, perhaps the most important concept of all in the story is that divinity isn't just a being, but a substance that loves us and animates us, yet has a mind of its own. In the books, Dust's love for humans is unconditional, even though they often do things to hurt and deplete Dust's influence and presence. Dust has many names in "His Dark Materials": Wisdom, Consciousness, Spirit, Dark Matter.

Dust also has a distinctly female cast. When Pullman personifies Dust, and he does on occasion, he uses the pronoun she. Evoking the third person of the trinity as female is nothing new - in fact it's biblical. Wisdom (Sophia in Greek) is the feminine aspect of the Holy Spirit. One finds God spoken of as she in both Proverbs and the Psalms (among other places). Framing the divine through Spirit-Sophia is nothing new either - this is a move made famous by the work of revered Catholic feminist theologian Elizabeth Johnson, a professor at Fordham, in "She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse," now a classic text among Christian feminist scholars.

God is not dead, then: A false God has died and the true God - a feminine divine - is revealed.

The universe of "His Dark Materials" is far from atheistic or anti-Christian, but to understand why, we must allow ourselves to open up to a theological vision that exceeds the narrow agenda set by some Catholics.

Pullman's Dust certainly moves beyond orthodox Christian ideas about God. Dust is a "spirit" that transcends creation, but all living beings are made of Dust, so Dust is a part of creation. While Dust is indeed the divine fabric of the worlds of "His Dark Materials," Dust is not all-powerful, all-knowing, and immutable. Dust is as dependent on creation for its sustenance as we are dependent on Dust for ours.

This view of Dust echoes many of the theological ideas that the Catholic Church finds threatening today. The most obvious thread is liberation theology, the Marxist and socially progressive rereading of the Gospels born among Catholic theologians in Latin America in the 1960s. Liberation theology teaches that Jesus is a political revolutionary who loves all that God has created and wants all creation to flourish on this earth, not just in heaven. Liberation theology also holds that believers should disregard doctrine that leads to oppression.

This is not an idea in favor with the current leadership of the church. In placing the common welfare above the dictates of church authorities, this movement has sparked a long running battle with the Catholic hierarchy. The Church has issued high-profile attacks on liberation theologians, both in official Vatican documents and, perhaps most famously, in the reprimands issued to the former Brazilian Franciscan priest Leonardo Boff by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a Vatican office led by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. The cardinal is now Pope Benedict XVI.

Dust also reflects strains in feminist theology that reframe the divine as feminine and hold that Christians' relationship with the divine is mutual, not hierarchical: We make ourselves vulnerable to God as God makes God's self vulnerable to us. Many see this feminized God as a kind of heresy - a rejection literally embodied in the fact that women are forbidden to represent Jesus through the Catholic priesthood.

Pullman's characters who discover the true God fall so deeply in love with the divine that they will sacrifice everything - even the bonds of first love. They are willing to hold on to this God even if it requires that they wage war with the powers that be, the authorities called Church and Magisterium - those who rule by secrecy and serve a false God who takes the form of the old man in the sky.

It is a beautiful story, and a Christian story. It is a story that could prompt believers to reflect on their faith. It is just not a story that everyone may want you to read.

Donna Freitas is a visiting assistant professor of religion at Boston University. She is the coauthor of "Killing the Imposter God: Philip Pullman's Spiritual Imagination in His Dark Materials," and author of the forthcoming "Sex and the Soul" from Oxford University Press.

© Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

An interesting way of thinking....

How an “X” Written on Your Hand Can Equal An Act of Kindness... and Improve Lives

By Brian Vaszily, Founder of IntenseExperiences.com

Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. The third is to be kind. – Henry James
If someone you know reasonably well has written an “X” on the back of their hand, you’re naturally curious what it means. Especially if it is an adult who penned that “X,” as writing on the skin is a far more common pastime of kids and teens.

I am routinely one of those Xing adults.

Perhaps once or twice a month, and despite the fact that my cell phone, computer, watch and probably other gadgets all have audio reminder capability, I’ll find myself scribbling an “X” in the canvas between the back of my thumb and forefinger to remind myself of something particularly important.

”Peacock Leaf,” by Deanna Leonard.

Inevitably anyone who knows me and who sees this has to ask, “What’s that for?” And usually my reason is mundane; the other day I did it to make sure to get my ex-wife a birthday card, for example. “Oh” is all people usually have to say when you give them such boring truths.

But the time before that, about a month ago, the “X” I had scribbled in black on my hand had a more interesting purpose behind it.

Nice Teeth, Brian

That morning, I awoke in one of those super blah moods where I knew that, if I allowed it to, the world and everyone in it was going to grate on my nerves. I realized why I was in this bad mood – not enough sleep several nights in a row, consuming fast food for the first time in a very long time the day before – and I also realized I had better go through certain motions to release those negative emotions before I faced the day.

I went through those motions, but this time – perhaps because I chose to supersize the %$^#& fast food the day before – enough of the blahs still lingered that I had to do something more.

So I decided to try something different.

With a black pen, I created an X on the back of my left hand that was double the size of my normal X. Then I outlined it with a red pen. Now, discounting the voice of an old schoolteacher who warned her students that the ink would surely leach into the skin and poison us, and accepting that my left hand wasn’t the world’s most professional-looking left hand but that was a small price to pay, I felt prepared to face the world.

That’s because that black X in red outline stood for a commitment I made to myself so as not to let my chemical mood get the best of me and ruin my and other people’s day (or worse), and in fact to possibly transform it: no matter who I encountered, the X said, I would pay them a big, honest compliment. Two or three if necessary.

Kindness at all costs, even if I encountered the very devil or the very ex-girlfriend from long ago who stole my entire cassette tape collection.

Since I was the first person I met that day, I looked at my X and then stared into the mirror. “Wow Brian,” I complimented me, “kudos to you for so vigilantly trying not to let your toxic emotions control you.” I also added, “Nice teeth,” because after brushing they looked particularly bright and shiny.

The next person I encountered was my wife. Now, anyone who is married knows that, when you’re in the throes of the blahs, the one other person most likely to pay for it is your spouse. Especially if she’s running late for something and doesn’t like her hair that day. So I looked long and hard at that X on my hand – I would’ve even licked it if necessary – and then paid her a series of important compliments.

And she left the house beaming.

I did the same with my kids and, although both seemed to have awakened on the same side of their beds as me that morning, after my compliments their stomping turned to happier, buoyant steps out the door.

I won’t give you a chronological history of everyone I encountered that day in person, on the phone, and via email or the compliments and kindnesses my X made sure I handed them. But I will share with you two important points:

Three Ghosts Not Required for this Scrooge

First, one of the people I encountered earlier in that day was someone who, in a different, younger life, I would have called a complete and total jackass (in a moment of contemporary weakness I still might use this designation). This person, being full of anger and therefore vindictive, and also being in a position of power, had stabbed me and many others in the back over the years.

I only still dealt with him periodically because business demanded it of me.

The call he was placing to me was not to chat about old times or make amends… on the contrary. Momentarily I wondered if I would fail my X, if I should’ve carved it deep into my flesh versus merely using ink, but I pressed forward. As he launched into the nature of his call, negative tone intact, I dual processed, considering the biggest compliment I could hand him.

When he paused, I inhaled deeply and began: “Before we go on, I just always meant to tell you something despite our history together.” And I proceeded to tell him how much I admired his tenacity in the face of adversity (leaving out his part in the adversity) and several other compliments. (Everyone – and I mean everyone – has some good qualities, something you can learn from or appreciate in them.)

When I finished, and though admittedly I expected him to proclaim my compliments nonsense, an amazing thing happened. His entire tone changed, as did the intent of his call. I could feel him backtracking – still preserving his ego of course – on his intent as he spoke. By the call’s end, he had basically talked himself out of the negativity he had meant to pursue.

I realize kindness is not always this immediately “magic,” and that my compliments to him likely didn’t change the man permanently.

But I also strongly suspect that if I and others more vigilantly responded to his anger with kindness, that act alone really would “magically” help heal his heart and transform his character. His anger had typically been met with more anger and fear – and negative emotions only breed more negative emotions – but what if it had been met with unrelenting kindness? What if it could be?

Though it is perhaps the hardest medicine of all for people to administer, kindness cures where nothing else can.

In Which the X is Transferred to My Heart

The second important point I want to share is that, even before the near-miraculous transformation of Scrooge earlier in the day as noted above, and certainly thereafter, several amazing things happened as I presented compliments and kindness to everyone I encountered:

”Veined Splendor,” by Deanna Leonard.

1) My day brightened… intensely. It is a beautiful thing, and it should be an obvious thing though all too often it is obvious only in retrospect, how shining light upon someone returns light. Simple kind words – to business associates, friends, the man behind the counter at the gas station and other strangers – can transform a day (or more), transforming yours right back.

2) After a certain point, I no longer needed to look and listen to the X on my hand at all. Around midday was the last time I recall needing to look at it, in fact. After that point, the compliments and kindness to friends, associates and strangers just came naturally and easily. It was now penned on my heart (which would make my old schoolteacher really nervous about the ink leaching through if she knew.)

Now, I would love to conclude this piece by noting that since that day I have been committed to constantly practicing kindness, including kindness in the face of adversity.

But that wouldn’t be true.

I don’t always pay sincere compliments to those I encounter, though I have seen the power of it and know doing so would be best. Due to negative emotions or lack of sleep or a headache or any number of other excuses I can muster, I am not always kind … though I have seen how being so can transform people, including me, like nothing else in this world.

I have not been 100% kind and complimentary since then, and I also know I will never be 100% so. But I thoroughly intend to try to be so -- and to kindly forgive myself when I fail and keep trying again – because everything that needs to be said and done can be said and done far more effectively in a kind way.

There is nothing more that we or the world around us needs more than that knowledge, and that commitment.

As J.M. Barrie, author of perhaps the greatest children’s story ever told, Peter Pan, noted, ”Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others, cannot keep it from themselves.”

That is worth remembering, even when it takes a black X outlined in red on the back of your hand to do so

Daily OM for October 17, 2007

In The Presence Of Difficulty

Compassion

Compassion is the ability to see the deep connectedness between ourselves and others. Moreover, true compassion recognizes that all the boundaries we perceive between ourselves and others are an illusion. When we first begin to practice compassion, this very deep level of understanding may elude us, but we can have faith that if we start where we are, we will eventually feel our way toward it. We move closer to it every time we see past our own self-concern to accommodate concern for others. And, as with any skill, our compassion grows most in the presence of difficulty.

We practice small acts of compassion every day, when our loved ones are short-tempered or another driver cuts us off in traffic. We extend our forgiveness by trying to understand their point of view; we know how it is to feel stressed out or irritable. The practice of compassion becomes more difficult when we find ourselves unable to understand the actions of the person who offends us. These are the situations that ask us to look more deeply into ourselves, into parts of our psyches that we may want to deny, parts that we have repressed because society has labeled them bad or wrong. For example, acts of violence are often well beyond anything we ourselves have perpetuated, so when we are on the receiving end of such acts, we are often at a loss. This is where the real potential for growth begins, because we are called to shine a light inside ourselves and take responsibility for what we have disowned. It is at this juncture that we have the opportunity to transform from with! in.

This can seem like a very tall order, but when life presents us with circumstances that require our compassion, no matter how difficult, we can trust that we are ready. We can call upon all the light we have cultivated so far, allowing it to lead the way into the darkest parts of our own hearts, connecting us to the hearts of others in the understanding that is true compassion.