One River, Many Wells - Chapters 6 & 7

The Feminine Face of Divinity

God is understood as mother in the medieval Christian tradition. Mechtild of Magdeburg said: God is not only fatherly, God is also mother who lifts her mother's cloak wherein the child finds a home and lays its head on the maternal breast. Hildegard of Bingen offers images of a curved Divinity. We are surrounded with the roundness of divine compassion, she writes. Divinity is like a wheel, a circle, a whole. Meister Eckhart describes God as mother when he says: From all eternity God lies on a maternity bed giving birth. And, What does God do all day long? God gives birth. Acknowledging and desentimentalizing the work of Mary at the same time, he declares that we are all meant to be mothers of God.

English mystic of the late fourteenth century Julian of Norwich most developed the theme of God as mother.

Just as God is truly our Father, so also is God truly our Mother . . .
The deep Wisdom of the Trinity is our Mother. In her we are all enclosed . . .
[God is] our true Mother in whom we are endlessly carried and out of whom we will never come.
God is the true Father and Mother of Nature, and all natures that are made to flow out of God to work the divine will be restored and brought again into God.
God feels great delight to be our Mother.
- Matthew Fox, Ch. 6


Wisdom: Another Feminine Face of the Divine

All people are equal, as equal as the teeth of a comb. There is no claim of merit of an Arab over a non-Arab, or of a white over a black person, or of a male over a female.
He who honors women is honorable, he who insults them is lowly and mean.
He who has a female child and does not insult her and does not prefer his sons over her, will be ushered by God into paradise.

I urge you to treat women kindly. They are a trust. Be in awe of God's trust.
- Muhammad (founder of Islam)

The heart is a sanctuary at the center of which there is a little space, wherein the Great Spirit dwells, and this is the Eye. This is the Eye of the Great Spirit by which he sees all things, and through which we see him.

The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of men when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells Wakan-Tanka, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us. This is the real peace, and the others are but reflections of this.
- Black Elk, from the Native American tradition

You thought yourself a part, small;
Whereas in you there is a universe, the greatest.

That is to say, you think of yourself as a small thing, whereas in you there is hidden the biggest of the universes. . . . The meaning of the Qur'anic verse becomes clear to the Gnostic: "Wherever way you turn, there is the face of God.
- Ibn Al-Arabi, in the Islamic tradition

Enjoy - haven't updated for a few days - been busy - now it's time to out my son to bed as he's having trouble falling asleep by himself. :-)

Blessings & Peace,
Hugo