The Most Neglected Mother

“Where were you when I created the earth?... Who held back the sea behind partitions when it burst forth from my womb, when I created clouds as the earth’s raiment and thick darkness as its swaddling clothes… Whose womb gives life to ice or gives birth to skies filled with hoarfrost, when waters become solid as stone and the face of the deep becomes hard as steel?

“For a long time I held my peace, restrained myself and held myself in check. But now I groan as if giving birth, gasping and panting!”

“Listen to me, house of Leah, Rachel, and Jacob, and the remnant of the house of Israel; I carried you from your conception, I supported you from your birth; and even when you are old, I am with you, and when your hair turns gray I will carry you still. I created you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will save you.”

“…as a mother comforts her child so will I comfort you…”

(Job 38:8, Isaiah 42:14, Isaiah 46:3-4, Isaiah 66:12c-13a)

While the above passage is a compilation of scripture readings, when read together they show us a beautiful picture of Mother God in our Bible. A mother who has been much neglected, diminished, and even willfully ignored by the church. It’s way past time to reclaim her.

I was born in 1966. My dad had a master’s degree in mechanical engineering, my mother had an associate degree at a business school where she learned secretarial skills and probably some basic accounting. All the traditional rules applied. My dad was the breadwinner, my mom cooked, cleaned, taught me how to iron my dad’s shirts and handkerchiefs, and helped at our grade school.  Later she did some part-time bookkeeping for my dad’s business, but that didn’t change any roles at home.

We rarely attended church (I can think of twice) because my dad didn’t believe in God. But they were both raised in the church… the church where God was male and in charge and at best Mother Mary was demure, quiet and obedient. So, while we didn’t go to church, we seemed to be living the church’s prescribed patriarchal model of life.

This sounds weird, but I’d honestly had very little religion, and next to no knowledge of the Bible, before I went to seminary in 1993. My couple of theology classes at Marquette didn’t scratch the surface of Christianity. So, despite my dad telling me I could grow up to be whatever I wanted - and I was fiercely determined to be a strong, independent woman - I had only really lived and experienced traditional male and female roles, and a male-gendered god.

If someone had asked me at the time where I saw the influence of Mother God in my life, I’d have said, What Mother God? I have no idea what you’re talking about.

Yes, I was introduced to feminist and womanist theology in seminary. We talked about patriarchy and women’s role in the organized church, but I don’t remember any conversation about God even being like a Mother, much less holding the title Mother God.

To compile the above reading, I had to work to find mother language for God in the Bible. Many of us know that Shekinah, Hokmah, Sophia and Wisdom are all aspects of the Divine Feminine that has been downplayed (if played at all) in Christianity. But those don’t really represented the mother archetype. The verses I tied together from Job and Isaiah weave beautifully into a passage in which Mother God talks of birthing creation, carrying the people of Israel in her womb and supporting them in their lives, comforting them when needed.

I wasn’t raised at home, at church or in seminary to use female language or imagery for the Divine, much less goddess imagery! Frankly, I’ve always been more of a spirit person anyway… an invisible presence, rather than a theist. Hence, it’s been an awkward, cautious journey to claiming the most neglected mother as any part of my spirituality.

I understand that there may be some people who had rotten mothers, and that Mother God imagery could go either way… either anathema, or a welcome connection with a loving female figure. But I offer this concept to you to broaden your experience of the Divine if you choose.

I’d be willing to bet you that, most churches around the country this Mother’s Day are not talking about Mother God, or Earth Goddesses, or female imagery for God. And a great many of them are still in the days of teaching their daughters how to iron. I believe this has been a great loss for women and men.

While I was still in seminary (1996 – just to put the writing in a time frame) Sue Monk Kidd wrote a book called The Dance of the Dissident Daughter from her perspective as a Baptist pastor’s wife finally recognizing the sexism and misogyny of the church and beginning to claim her power and spirituality as a woman. She wrote,

“When we truly grasp for the first time that the symbol of woman can be a vessel of the sacred, that it too can be an image of the Divine, our lives will begin to pivot. Today a lot of women are seeking feminine imagery of the Divine…The Divine Feminine is returning to collective consciousness, all right. She’s coming, and it will happen whether we’re ready or not.”

I wonder if perhaps this neglected mother, the Divine Feminine, has truly been returning to consciousness which is why we’re seeing the backlash in the evangelical, fundamentalist and conservative religions and politicians. Perhaps this is why the purity movement began in the Southern Baptist Church, why Roe vs. Wade was overturned, why they are trying to change the credentials needed to make it harder for women to vote, why research on women’s health, and head start are being defunded. Why Planned Parenthood is being attacked. Why the pronatalist movement is ramping up and the administration wants to pay women $5,000 to have a baby (as if that covers the cost). And more…

This most neglected mother has the power to liberate closed minds, bring respect and equality of genders, and offer balance in relationships and peace in our communities. And this is threatening to some of those in power.

But coming to know Mother God offers transformation for both women and men. Feminist writer Naomi Wolf once wrote this:

The world of men is dividing into egalitarians and patriarchalists – those men who are trying to learn the language and customs of the newly emerging world, and those who are determined to keep that new order from taking root. The former group welcomes these chances, seeing that though they are painful in the short term, over the long term they provide the only route to intimacy and peace. But the latter group sees only loss… The patriarchalists’ world view, shared by women as well as men, is battling the emerging egalitarian world view, which is also shared by people of both sexes.” (101)

Long before Yahweh God, many cultures embraced a Mother Goddess, an Earth Goddess. Sadly, she was mostly driven out of existence by the patriarchal cultures who worshiped male gods. But she survived in a few places and I have to believe we would have a healthier relationship with creation and the Earth if we had been taught to honor her, care for her, and be grateful to her.

One of the places she is still remembered is in the Andes of South America where Mother Earth is known as Pachamama. The Andean people see the universe as a place of lavish abundance, symbolized by this ever-giving mother of us all.

Among the Andes people there is a practice called ayni (pronounced eye-knee), this is the reciprocal exchange of offerings and gifts between people and between people and Mother Earth [Pachamama].  Their saying is “today for you, tomorrow for me.” The Indigenous Andean people are taught from a young age that all living beings are connected.

One of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard is about the Andes people and newborns. I’ve read that when a baby is born, the family will wrap her in a blanket and place her in a shallow hole so that Pachamama can hold her first. Sick children are also placed in a similar hole so that Pachamama can help heal them. In the spirit of ayni, the people offer simple gifts on a daily basis: seashells, flowers, feathers, candy. Practices like this could help bring us back into balance with each other and our environment.

In honor of Mother’s Day, let me leave you with this beautiful quote from Wild Mercy, by Mirabai Starr:

To be someone’s mother is to die again and again. Die to who you thought you were and who you hoped you would become. Die to your cherished notions of what a child of yours should look like, sound like, behave like. Die to your illusions of control. Control of your own emotions, control of your child’s experiences. And in proportion to all your deaths you will be blessed with endless resurrections. You will rise, radiant, form the flames of what you thought was the end of the world. And your child will rise, luminous from the ashes of your errors….

You will not carry responsibility for shepherding this human being through the world by yourself (you cannot). The Great Mother holds you even as you hold your son or daughter. When you feel incapable of making the next decision or even taking the next breath, you will turn to that Mother. You’ll lay your head in her lap, unburden your heart, and listen for her guidance. And then, warmed beside her heart, you will go back into the forest and pick up your baby and continue your journey.

Love & Light!

Kaye