Comments on: These Ruby Slippers Don’t Pinch

By: Cheryl

Cheryl — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 22:48:31 +0000

I have been reading through much of the material here and have come to the conclusion that the issue in many cases is simply language. There is talk of metaphor and the genderlessness of God hemmed in with masculine pronouns for God. I believe many women would be more apt to explore the feminine aspects of God within the context of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures instead of straying into other traditions if we weren’t so afraid of feminine language in describing the Holy One.
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I’m going to have to disagree, Cheryl. Behind language is meaning, and it’s worth being careful how we talk about God because those of us who choose to represent Him want to be as clear and accurate as we can. Also, there is nothing wrong with a very healthy and biblical fear of misrepresenting God, and I for one agree with Annie Dillard when she says it might be a good idea to wear crash helmets to church so as to survive the thunderbolts.
SUSY
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By: Grian

Grian — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 11:46:16 +0000

“I believe God got it right in Eden when he put a Woman and Man in charge, together. That, I believe, should be our goal, neither elevating nor denigrating one sex over the other.”
And Goddess worshippers believe this as well. Separation is not an idea that is embraced. Instead, there is an idea of Oneness that we believe the Goddess embodies. She is both male and female.
The idea of engendering God is something people do to connect with something that is basically hard to comprehend. The concept of God is huge. The human brain is not even capable of grasping the idea of infinite space, let alone the vast concept of God.
I think everyone has pictured God with human qualities before. Though we may believe God is a being beyond gender – or a being that contains both sexes – we do not imagine God as a hermaphrodite or as an androgynous or asexual being.
The ideas behind masculine and feminine represent metaphors that people can relate to and connect with. And, in my opinion, as long as one is reaching to understand the true nature of divinity what should it matter what tools are used to relate to that deity? You see, I believe your God is the same being as my Goddess. We just envision them differently. I believe there is only one being seen by the people of the world in many different ways.
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I agree that metaphors help us to understand aspects of things far too big for us to comprehend. The Bible uses metaphors for God that help me to grasp in some small way who God is (a shepherd, a lion) and what He is like (a rock, or a river of living water).
But those biblical metaphors describe one God, a perfect and holy Being who created the heavens and earth, and who humbled himself and took on human form to live among us in the first century. (I love that about him!)
—SUSY

By: Kristy

Kristy — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 17:26:24 +0000

This makes me think of those famous quote: “If women ruled the world there’d be no war…” I always laugh at this because if it were true we wouldn’t have books and movies entitled “Mean Girls.” Men and women are different but both with sin and fault. Thanks for pointing that out.