Day 31: Death of God as Father and Mother

"Women who are "getting it together" are beginning to see that as long as God is imaged exclusively as male, then the male can feel justified in playing God."

"We cannot really belong to institutional religion as it exists.  It isn't good enough to be token preachers.  It isn't good enough to have our energies drained and co-opted.  Singing sexist hymns, praying to a male god breaks our spirit, makes us less human.  The crushing weight of this tradition, of this power structure, tells us that we do not even exist." 

"Our time has come.  We will take our own place in the sun.  We will leave behind the centuries of silence and darkness.  Let us affirm our faith in ourselves and our will to transcendence by rising and walking out together." Mary Daly

I think I live in a world that has a balance issue. When one side is over weighted, the response is to overweight the opposite side in order to create balance.  Maybe that has to happen because we don't know how to ditch the baggage overweighting us in the first place.  So then it becomes the other's responsibility to offset the balance by extra baggage on their end, tipping the scale in their favour.  Then the original overweighted side adds more weight to offset their lack and it goes on and on.  No one learns how to ditch the baggage and even out the scales.  

I had two great parents here on earth where we are identified by sex. Because of a mother and a father here, I have found existence.   Our species exists because of the two sexes available to us.  That is a limitation we have as organic species.  We have been set up to replicate ourselves with male and female contributions.  

When it comes to God, or Creator, there is no procreation required.  There is only Creator. So there is no gender needed to identify this Creator.  All gender attributed to the Creator is a result of the balance issue of humanity.  Mary Daly helped me to see that today, but I think I already had the inspiration in me.  She just helped move it forward today.  

It is easily understood how Christianity has adopted a male God.  Christianity arose out of a male dominated culture.  The bible was written by men.  There was no second thought to making God male.  Even today, people pray "Our Father" and don't think of what it implies.  Even the Holy Spirit has been engendered as a "he".  

Maybe it is the fallacy in our language that doesn't allow us to have a gender neutral pronoun for the Creator.  It gets awkward for people who need pronouns as a shortcut to talking about someone.  But I think it does a disservice to so many.   We are making God in our image.  Is that not an obvious observation?  

My first attraction to "The Shack" book ( and eventually a movie) was the introduction of Papa as a woman.  And then the Holy Spirit was also a woman.  But thinking more about it.  It seems like a balance response because the other side was overweighted.  Maybe that needs to happen, but is it the best way to create balance and see the Creator as not human and not engendered?  I don't know anymore.  Maybe we are stuck with trying to balance the scales by pushing each side to the extreme.  

As much as I enjoyed the Shack, I now am okay with not needing a female God anymore than I wanted to ditch the male God.  If I still need a visual connection, I am okay with seeing the Creator more as a river or as the wind.  Where I am not looking for a human face, but a picture of movement and all encompassing presence.  

I don't need a cosmic daddy.  I don't need a cosmic mama on the other side trying to balance the scale either.  I am okay with Creator being that which is beyond my human limitations.  

Day 30: Looking for something a lot more simple.

 

Ten days left and I don't know what to write about.  These last two weeks have been draining on me physically.  My brain started out okay with AFL material, but I am over whelmed and feeling like I did when I was taking Computer Programming at NAIT.  I feel like I got in over my head.  

Some of the conversations over the last month have been helpful and encouraging.  Maybe I got what I needed to get out of the course.  I can still hang in there, but maybe I don't have to feel bad about losing interest in the heady material and weighty theological journey.  

I think I will be okay and that is all I really wanted.  I have some good leads in books going forward that will keep me interested in the journey toward letting go of "God" and embracing the Creator beyond the religious paint job.  I hope so. 

Day 29: Reaching Maximum Potential

Paul Tillich Quotes from today's reading

 Here I can say that something is holy to everyone, even to those who deny that they have experienced the holy

The ultimate in being and meaning cannot be limited, cannot be caught in any particular religion, in any particular sacred place or by any particular sacred action. 

The religions of the world must acknowledge this struggle and not destroy it by an arrogant dogmatism. They must open themselves to those who ask the question of the absolute with passion and unconditional seriousness, both inside and outside the churches.

Well.  this is called Authentic Lent.  I am at day 29 and authentically have reached my maximum potential for intake on this course.  I am tired, worn out, sick, and my brain isn't processing the great stuff like I had hoped.  But I will keep going until the end and will find something of value.   

I think this might be the last time I commit to daily writing of anything.  

Day 28: My Birthday Experiment

I turned my Birthday Zoom meetings into an experiment that helped me see how church works.

A last minute bout of laryngitis/bronchitis has encouraged me to be a fly on the wall of my birthday conversation. I hadn't planned for it to go this way, but I decided to mute myself and blacken out my video and invited people into the Zoom room.

The morning meeting started at 10:00 am. I activated the Zoom room at 10:00 am sharp and let people dwindle in for five minutes. I did a screen share and played my welcome video with the instructions. I didn't mute anyone, so as the video was playing, people were talking... and missing some of the instruction. I figured that out because it took a while for the conversation to move forward, and then one friend had a poem for me, but suggested we wait until I showed up before she shared her poem. My mother reminded her that I wasn't going to show up. (I had mentioned something like that in the introductory video.)

It wasn't long before the conversation started rolling without me. One attendant had technical issues and that kept others from continuing the conversation. Her screen would keep freezing. That halted the conversation for a few minutes.

Eventually, the conversation started rolling again, and during the next half hour, I noticed a few funny things.

The attendees spoke about me in third person even through I was in the room. (I never hid that fact)

They told me that they can't wait until they can see my face and hear my voice.

And eventually they just did their own thing and had their own conversation.

And at the end they remembered me again and sang me Happy Birthday.

This reminded me of the average church service. People gather around the celebration of someone who they don't see and can't hear. That person is in attendance... at least that is what they have been told. But there is no real evidence of that. There maybe moments when they think that someone is communicating to them, but then others are clueless.

I had the chat window open and my Mom messaged with me. She knew how to use chat. But I messaged my other friends, and they weren't getting my messages. Mom later figured because they didn't know how to operate chat. She figured that was my job to enlighten everyone on all the nuances of Zoom. I told Mom as I explained my experiment to her, that it gave her something more to share. She could pass the messages along.

The second meeting went well, but also had a glitch of the electronic variety. One of the attendants didn't have audio, but soon figured a way to compensate and she hand wrote messages. Something different... she had access to chat, but went old school. More for the story.

I did reveal myself with ten minutes left on the clock. We had a nice visit and I enjoyed the discovery of what it was like to be invisible, yet present.

My take away from both meetings... It is an exercise in humility for someone who is used to being the centre of attention.

Day 27: Had I only known

 

Had I only known that I would have nothing to say today of any value today, I might not have started this blog.  Had I known that I was to start something I couldn't finish, I wouldn't have started it at all.  Had I known that I'd be in too much pain today to write, I just might have listened to that voice inside.  

"No one is going to read this.  No one is going to care.  No one will know what boils in the heart of you."

Had I known, I could have just said "To hell with it all... Time to fly off into the sunset." 

I didn't know.  So I stammer to get some words down in this post while the tears flow from my face.  And I hope that the clock doesn't strike midnight before I can get today's picture.  

Day 26: Only one thought today.

 "One man's meat is another man's poison."

Day 25: Nietzsche speaks

Friedrich Nietzsche

(October 15, 1844 - August 25, 1900)

To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.

We love life, not because we are used to living but because we are used to loving.

Without music, life would be a mistake.

On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain: either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow.

There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.

You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.

In every real man a child is hidden that wants to play.

There are no facts, only interpretations.

Blessed are the forgetful: for they get the better even of their blunders.

It is impossible to suffer without making someone pay for it; every complaint already contains revenge.

When one has not had a good father, one must create one.

To forget one's purpose is the commonest form of stupidity.

We have art in order not to die of the truth.

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.

There are no eternal facts, as there are no absolute truths.

I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you..

All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.

He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.

It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.

A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.

The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.

Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings - always darker, emptier and simpler.

The future influences the present just as much as the past.

When marrying, ask yourself this question: Do you believe that you will be able to converse well with this person into your old age? Everything else in marriage is transitory.

The irrationality of a thing is no argument against its existence, rather a condition of it.

Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called 'Ego'.

All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.

Faith: not wanting to know what is true.

Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen, few in pursuit of the goal.

Thank you Friedrich, for some amazing wisdom.  

I downloaded a collection of quotes from the internet, and selected some that I either resonate with, or am challenged by, or need to seriously reflect further on.  That doesn't mean that I agree or disagree with any or all of them.  I like that I don't have to agree or disagree in order to gain from someone's wisdom.