Recently I heard something interesting about our perception of God. I can't remember exactly who came up with this concept, but... it was either a theologian or a psychologist (meaning, I didn't just overhear a couple of people pontificating at the bus stop. Not that good, valid ideas can't come out of that scenario too, of course).
The concept was that our perception of God comes from the primary caregiver we had as a child. They were our first exposure to authority, to someone who cared for us (or was supposed to care for us), to someone who loved us (or, again, was supposed to love us).
This made me think about all the different types of caregivers people have while they are children, and the ramifications of these different caregivers on our perception of God. What if we had a caregiver who neglected us? They may have been the primary caregiver, but maybe they left us alone for hours, days at a time, and weren't really present in our lives. Maybe we would think that God was absent and wasn't really there when we needed Him. Or what if our caregiver was harsh or strict with our behavior, or unforgiving of our shortcomings, and seemed to have conditions placed upon their love for us? In the bible we read that God is forgiving and loves us unconditionally, but I wondered if that would not be the way we would perceive Him if we had not yet experienced unconditional love from our parents. However, if our parents were warm, gentle, forgiving, tender, affectionate, and always there when we needed them, we may have a similar view of God. And if we find that we had some negative experiences with our primary caregiver, but yet feel that God has a different identity or role in our life, I wonder how much effort it would take to change our view of Him into the one that is presented in the bible.
As I thought about this more, I realized that I had another perception of God, separate from the aspect of the primary caregiver. I realized that I have always considered God as a male, having a masculine identity as opposed to having no gender, or being neutral, or being feminine. In my life, I connect emotionally, socially, and intellectually with both males and females, but tend to have connections with more females than males. Maybe this is normal for all females, but I always attributed it to the fact that I am gay. I have a bunch of female friends, I have a bunch of male friends, but if I were to split it up in percentages, my female friends constitute 90% of my friendships. I was wondering today why I have always associated God with the male gender. Maybe just because He is almost always represented in the bible with the male pronoun, but even as I realize that now, intellectually, He still seems like a male in my mind. I wonder if anything would change in my relationship with Him if I started focusing on him being gender neutral or having a feminine identity.
These are all kind of half-thought out ideas. If you've made it this far, thanks. :) I'll have to develop this a bit further.
These questions really interest me too. Actually, for the past year or so, I've been experimenting with altering the gender of my God-language while going over familiar prayers and even while reading my weekly Bible lessons. Every other day or so (sometimes more) I use strictly feminine terms for God (Her, She) in going over the 23rd and 91st Psalms, as well as throughout the weekly Christian Science lesson; and about once a week I use gender-neutral language (it, its). As you can imagine, it's been super-interesting! And, at first, so counterintuitive. Something that helps me do it, I think, is also changing out "the LORD" (a traditional but ultimately arbitrary rendering of God's name in English) for other names for God, like Love, and Truth, and Spirit. I basically choose a different name each day and incorporate it into those familiar Bible prayers, and on days when I'm experimenting with feminine pronouns for the divine, well, I think it helps, because none of those other names carry the kind of gender baggage that "God" or "the LORD" have come to. Anyway, no big conclusion or surprising result–just that it's been (a) doable, though challenging, and (b) really interesting.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing that's interesting and way counterintuitive to me is that you attribute your high percentage of same-gender friendships to your being gay! I mean, is that NOT the norm among your straight friends? 'Cause I'm pretty sure it is among mine. I mean, it's never been a hard-and-fast rule; I've always known straight people who have more opposite- than same-gender friends (one of my brothers, for example). But I'm pretty sure your same exact 90% is quite common among straight women. Am I wrong about that?
I'd also venture a guess that no one I've ever known who was raised in a Christian, or Muslim, or Jewish family was raised in such a way that they thought of God primarily, or even equally, in feminine terms–no matter their gender or the gender of their primary caretaker. And, yeah, I would attribute that to the gendered language (overwhelmingly masculine) of the Bible and the Quran.
I love your ponderings! I feel like a lot of those comfort levels have to do with connotations (which I think are fascinating). It's a fairly common connotation to think of women as the more sensitive and nurturing gender (whether or not that's true matters less than our perception), so maybe that's one reason you feel more comfortable opening up to women and therefore have more strong friendships with them. I know that's a lot of it for me.
ReplyDeleteAnd thinking of god as a male gender seems to be the norm in our culture. Remember when god was portrayed as a woman in that movie, Dogma? :) It was surprising. Change is difficult especially when thinking of identity. One minor example of that for me was a friend of mine getting colored contacts. It totally threw me, haha. I knew it was still my friend, but it was like, who is this? haha The familiar went away and it was strange for a while.
That was a pretty powerful and enlightening shift for me too after reading feminist theology. It also reminds me of the Silent Voices version of the Bible Jack created. I wish you well on your retreat and larger journey of life.
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