Finding the Feminine Side of Religion

2/2/06

by Diane Sprague

In dreams, I wandered through a dark, sterile basement seeking a corpse. What I would find was a giant, male Frankenstein-like body lying still on the cold stone floor. To see what was once a monster whose size and power terrified me now reduced to something so silent and alone was comforting and strangely exhilarating. It was not so much the truth that the rotting corpse could not hurt me anymore that drew my attention; it was that he was so impotent, forsaken, and pathetic. Only the ancient scent of death held the suggestion of real power. Just the cold dungeon that surrounded him had the strength that now eluded the sorry corpse. Death is always a good ending to a story, and my story began when he was alive and applying his full force into his efforts into denying the reality that was awaiting him. He could not see it could set him free. He could only see its terror.

He was alive in religion. It gave him a world where his bullying, threats, and anger were given a unquestioned sanction by its sorry god. He could specify the rules, the doctrines, and the punishments for turning away from them. It was about control. Unfortunately it was the control that is only wielded by the impotent. Surrounding the false sense of security of his ordered intolerant world was an sniveling fear of the feminine. The feminine represented the unexplained, the strange, the hidden, the uncontrolled other side which weaves its way through life. It terrified him. He wanted his unbalanced, sterile masculinity to rule, to crush, and to control. He felt he could make the feminine disappear if he could silence, define, and push it away. He hoped his crippled being could only be whole if he could drive out the other side, the side that could bring him to his knees with its power, its beauty, and its strangeness. Instead, he found his terror increasing as his lopsided being came closer to death. His flailing flabby arms could continue to wave his clenched fists, but the comical spectacle of threats and shouts coming from a withered being belied the weakness and fear that filled his whole existence.

He wanted God to be a male, a male who could not control his anger, his rage, his jealousy, and his smallness. His ugly god created a vast pit as the final destination for the countless uncontrollable souls that offended his unsufferable holiness. That the universe was just a cold, unspeakable realm where we all hover over an eternal promise of a raging sea of fire and brimstone warmed his cold masculine heart. Life could be a extraordinary threat. We can be imprisoned by fear, by hopeless groveling, by guilt, by shame, and by weakness. Freedom came from bullying, from insisting, from intolerance, and from the glorification of his continual impotence. Our only hope was to side one’s self with the divine bully. The escape would only come to those who would embrace the seethingly angry god. This god must be feared, strict doctrines must be believed, and abundant limits must surround our existence. We might barely escape say the masculine bullies. Yes, we might barely escape and his whole being was defined.

Of course it was a woman who ate the apple. Good for her I say. That lovely chomp filled the universe with her strange rebellion and she was relegated to the underworld, the darkness, and the gentle whisper of existence. She just wanted to know, to understand, to reject the innocence of a paradise ruled by a god whose anger was hidden just under the surface, revealed in his first threat, his first attempt to bully and control. Then the man ate the apple too and began his lovely pattern of blame and his constant cry: "It wasn't my fault. She made me do it! I cannot control these things!"

So for ages women were rejected, dominated, and forgotten but our lovely knowledge never slips away. It remains. I spent countless hours in the church listening to the odd ugly masculine world of control and one-sidedness. I sometimes wondered about this scary, irrational, strange other person that was hidden inside of me. It intrigued me, but I wondered if it was evil, if it would incur the wrath of the masculine giant who stood in front of me with his constant droning he called preaching. To hide it I was silent, submissive, and sad. I was terrified of the monster who was telling me about the angry threatening universe that would frown upon me stepping across his arbitrary sterile line of who we can be, how we can live. He especially loved defining me as a woman. He told me what I should feel, what I should desire, and why I should be ashamed. I allowed years of this bullying until I shrunk to the size of a pea. Nothing was left.

Except for the feminine knowledge. It was gently laughing inside me. It started seeing what I was not suppose to see. When this large bullying paraded his strength in front of me, I saw his sagging impotence. When he bellowed his constant threats, I heard his whispers of terror. His impeachable doctrines fell apart with their blatant inconsistencies and contradictions. He told me to think in the foggy confused part of my mind that never questions; I began to think in the regions where thoughts were clear and pleasing in their beauty and simplicity.

I left the masculine religion. I discovered the feminine one. It's the one filled with that irrational strange world of symbols, intuition, and stories. Its gentle. Its God is not angry because anger is never necessary when one is strong, powerful, and wise. Its God is mainly a woman. She whispers to me to eat the apple, to understand, to rebel, to turn away from what I am suppose to be to what I choose to be. She tells me the limits I thought were there are illusions. The world is as big as I choose it be. She taught me to see the bullies as they really are. Their end is to become corpse in a dank, cold basement. Their impotence and anger was not to be feared, only pitied. They could never choose. They left their other side behind, their feminine side. They could never be whole. They could never raise their head high and proudly proclaim their determination and pride in eating the apple; they could only blame the women.

Every night I light a candle to the feminine. I slowly let go of years of being bullied and silenced. I am learning to embrace what I once rejected, my better side, my irrational side, my gentle peaceful, yet wildly magical side. I will place a flower on the corpse and walk away laughing at the belated gift I gave to my once tormentor. Something better, something more, the feminine in religion, a world where his anger is finished.