What if God Were a Woman

Last week, I was at the Spiritual Director’s International Conference in Seattle. One of the breakout sessions I attended was “Gender, Sexuality, and Spirituality in the Art of Spiritual Direction.” The three-hour workshop was led by five under forty queer folk. The gathering was informative, enlightening, and encouraging. The discussion wandered more than a few times into pondering upon the divine sexuality; the notion of the “Queer God.”

One of the more “enlightened” cis white straight dudes in attendance, suggested that his God was beyond masculine or feminine, his God was, he said with ethereal emphasis, “Being.” I get it, intellectually, that is—God is not, not; God is nothing. Yes, I understand. But I don’t think my body gets it.

“What if God was one of us? Just a stranger on a bus?” Joan Osborne style.

Right now, one of you, a Christian, is saying, “God is one of us; that would be Jesus Christ.” Okay, well, I’ll restate my premise. What if God was really one of us? Not someone who has become the European white, male, beautiful, perfect, celibate, American, picture hanging on your Sunday School wall, Jesus. Not that one of us. But a real one of us. The one of us Jesus, was; a Jewish Galilean, poor man of color, born of a woman, a woman without a husband, and who died alone, like the rest of us, one of us. That’s good, but—that Jesus still leaves God a man. Better yet then, what if God were a woman, one of us? Even better, a queer woman. I do wonder?

What if Jesus had been born Sophia? I wonder? I wonder where we would be, today? I wonder if the followers of Sophia would have allowed the empire of Rome to co-opt their religion? Would the Roman Catholic Church be reeling from horrors of child abuse? Would America already have instituted reasonable gun control like New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern immediately promised her people after Friday’s tragic mass shooting? Would there even be rampant mass shootings? Would the Episcopal Church be breaking its arm patting itself on the back by electing twenty-five percent of its bishops, women—for the first time? I do wonder?

For those of us who are less enlightened—Sophia is Divinity. She is a central figure in the holy texts; she has many names and she has spoken her truth to us. She is the co-creator. “Before the beginning of the earth…I was there when Yahweh drew a circle on the face of the deep.” (Proverbs 8:23, 27). She is the teacher. “Now my children, listen to me; happy are those who keep my ways.” (Proverbs 8:32) She is the great high priestess. “Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk in the way of insight.” (Proverbs 9:5) She is the revolutionary. “The Divine has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; the Divine has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.” (Luke 1:52-53). She is the Queen. “A woman clothed in the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.” (Revelation 12:1) She is worthy of praise and worship. “Nothing you desire can compare with Her…She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of Her.” (Proverbs 3:15, 18) Sophia is the beloved Mother of God, the beloved Daughter of God, the beloved Bride of God. I do wonder, what if we turned our eyes to Her? My body feels like we would better off, today. No need to wonder about that; I’m pretty certain.

Cheese Wiz

My grandsons call me Giz, it was my nickname during those long-ago baseball playing days. The grandboys like it because the name differentiates me from the other two grandpas in their life. Lately, the youngest one, who is four, has taken to calling me Gizzie. He’s cute and funny. He could call me anything and it’d make me laugh.

A few weeks ago, Gaga, yep that’s what they call their grandmother, the two boys and I were playing Mouse Trap. The name pretty well describes the game; involves building a mouse trap, to catch the mouse, and using cheese. The boys are seven and four, so we were playing a very modified version of the game. As the game digressed, we resorted to making up rhyming names for cheese. As you might know, seven and four-year-old boys will laugh at about anything. At one point, I mentioned Cheese Wiz, and then the youngest called me “Gizzie, the cheese wizzie.” Good lord, they burst out in that pure child laughter from the gut that is unforgettable and undeniably fun. I laughed so hard at their new name for me, I almost peed my pants.

I’ve had a variety of nickname’s or titles in my life. Coach, Skip (which is a variant of coach), Dr. Stafford, and Father Gil. I never cared much for any of them. The last one I detested, primarily because I knew most people who used the moniker were throwing their daddy issues on me, or worse, their projections of God. Over my fifteen years as an active Episcopal priest, I implored people to just call me Gil. Which set me up to really suspect those who wouldn’t, as having serious unconscious projections. Of course, I really wondered even more about those priests or other leaders who insist on being called by their special title, earned or otherwise. What kind of unconscious insecurity issues are they caring around? Not that I don’t have plenty of my own issues, I just don’t want them attached to my name.

So please, just Gil, or Giz, or Gizzie, the cheese wizzie.