Stuck on Snow White

*Spoilers*

Unfortunately, this post is not the feminist analysis I promised in my last post---though it is coming, probably tomorrow or later in the week. This post (to anyone who has been reading this will not be shocking), is mostly about Godde and what it means to be made in the imago dei. In this post, just to let those of you who are easily offended by feminine language for the divine, Godde the "Father" will exclusively be referred to as "She."

I would apologize, but, frankly, there is nothing for which to apologize. I am through with pretending liberating naming toward Godde is wrong or "less than ideal." And, for that matter, that I think being queer is sinful. Or, to echo one of Rachel Held Evans posts during last week's of mutuality, that patriarchy, or hell, kyriarchy, is even remotely Godde's dream for the world.

To quote Martin Luther: "I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God. Amen."

As I wrote before, I was affected quite intensely by the movie Snow White and the Huntsman. The word "undone" is really no exaggeration. True, there were those gut-deep sobs during the Florence and the Machine song running during the credits that Danny sat with me through, bless him (though, it inspired a really, really, really great conversation about the power of story afterward).

In the day and a half since, one image in particular has has burrowed under my skin; the very end, when she is coronated, the subjects she liberated from the oppressive queen rasie their voices to cheer.

"Hail the queen! Hail the queen! Hail the queen!"

It slipped between my mind and my eyes: the world looked different. Even Kristen Stewart, whose expression usually vacillates from "coy, lip-biting face" to "angsty horizon-ward gazing face" (Don't let me fool you. One: I really am a hardcore fangirl. Have you SEEN The Runaways??? If you haven't, stop reading immediately, go watch her fabulousness, and come back...Two: in all honesty, those are my two most common expressions too), managed a believably regal bearing.

Her eyes. GAWD, her eyes. For perhaps the first (or second) time in her videography thusfar, there was fire there. First in the battle scenes, and then, at the coronation. Snow White knows she, not Ravenna, is the rightful heir to the throne. It is right that she occupy the seat of power-with and power-for; she cared about and loved the people.

Oh yeah, and again, it did not end with a wedding. That story has its place (it is a beautiful story--for many), but a love story is the most common one available to women (eight out of ten times) in theaters if she is the lead. If she is not, she is on the back of her man's motorcycle or tied up waiting to be rescued by him; Or, she can be a Manic Pixie Dream Girl or a Smurfette (Feminist Frequency is so right on!) but never a Virgin, one who belongs to herself. She is rarely ever a "fleshed out" character.

Along with becoming a mother, the marriage/love story is also the only story available to women in churches (see Shawna Atteberry and The Christian Godde Project for *We can fix that*).

This Snow White was not a love story, thank Godde. It was one of mutuality among genders and, mainly, woman's empowerment. It was a story I have longed for so long, apparently without knowing, that, to borrow a Biblical turn of phrase, it "pierced my heart through" when it finally came.

Then, Monday night/Tuesday morning I bolted awake at four a.m. after a strange, gauzy dream about hugging and singing a love song to another woman. I was cognizant, even in the dream state, the woman with whom I shyly flirted, was a rejected part of myself. The powerful part.

(Note: To be clear, being gay is not about one's over-controlling mother or distant father or any variation thereof. This is not a Freudian or Jungian interpretation of women's sexuality. Lesbians are lesbians because they like women. Period. In this one particular dream, I just knew the symbolism was not about wish fulfillment---or not the apparent kind, anyway).

I woke to a dark hotel room (with strange little beetles creeping around in the bathroom. Ew), insecurity dogging me again as soon as blissful haze faded. And my only recourse was to pray: "Godde, in dreaming I enjoy being a woman, but when I wake up I get the impression that You like boys just a little bit more...Snow White, that bolt of lightening that hit me when I saw a powerful woman on screen, and my experiences with The Powers That Be (implied in that is You) don't mesh. Help?"

It was one of those five year old's questions "why could a Joshua be a priest but a Jael could not several thousand years ago? Why can Johnny be a priest or pastor now but not Jane? Why does Christianity have such a masculine feel when its founder was so queer (in the sense of being so transgressive)...

For this evangelical-ish (very ish) feminist, the question is different from Rosemary Radford Reuther's. A "male" (slippery, slippery word. Gender =/= sex) savior can save women. Undoubtedly. It happened, as least according to my tradition. Plus, in the red-letters, Jesus usually welcomed and empowered all the women with whom he came into contact except that one lady (apparently, unlike some people, He learned to reject prejudice through experience). And, He hasn't said much to me about my vulva personally. It just never comes up in our conversations...

Soteriology is not the issue at stake. Ontology is (Haha. Unintentional joke. Get it? Also, consider this my immortality project, a la Ernest Becker).

All those in the Christian tradition of sound mind agree that Godde is Spirit. Shout that out at a prayer meeting, you'll get a dozen amen's. We all know Godde is not some gray haired, bearded, man in the sky. We can even sing songs like God is not a white man. But the pronoun used for our supposedly Transcendent Being is always "He."

In our heart of hearts, I bet probably ninety nine point nine times when most Christian's pray in the U.S. (my guess, regardless of one's race, gender, or ethnicity) we envision the Father as the Sistine Chapel God. White rich guy in the sky. Of course, being white, rich, or a guy is in no way wrong. Duh: this needs no further explanation.

It is when Godde is only envisioned in this way that it becomes problematic. Because if that is the only image we have, our Godde becomes brittle. Let me explain. The Holy Spirit, in John 3, Jesus says is like the wind: She blows where She wills.

When asked for a name, YHWH tells Moses Her name is, "I Am Who I Am" or "I will be there how I will be there."

Sometimes, Godde feels less like a mysterious and ungraspable Being than like a insect fossilized in amber. We diagram Her, try to pin Her down in taxonomy (otherwise known as systematic theology), or put Her on a shelf content with our categorization. We know exactly where She is, and exactly what Jesus is doing and saying at any given moment. We know that when we look at Godde, we behold a masculine face. Not a Rainbow of Light. Not a Hurricane of Love. Fire. A Lion. A Hen. A Midwife. A Woman looking for Her lost coin. A Widow seeking justice (This sermon, if you are interested, is a really good listen). A Mother crying out in labor. The Wind; Though, all these metaphors are Biblical.

And yes, I realize opining about words is hypocritical given the space I have dedicated to writing on Godde (occupational hazard of an amateur theologian).

I am just so tired of the reified Father figure who ceases to surprise us and who serves to legitimate the oppression of women. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mary Daly said...

"If God is male, male is God..."

I cannot get more profound or articulate than this...

While I adored the week of mutuality, it breaks my heart that this conversation is even necessary. At the risk of alienating my complementarian friends, I fail to see the difference between "separate but equal" gender roles (man as leader, woman as nurturer and submissive) as anything but an ontological claim.

Jesus is to Godde as Man is to Woman (nevermind that there are many, many other genders than just women and men). In the great chain of being, Godde is on top, Jesus below Her (where exactly is the Holy Spirit in this formulation?).

And somehow, practically, this becomes the impetus for a wife's submission to her husband, at all costs. Even, sometimes, to her detriment. Regardless of her strengths, feelings, or whatever Godde has "called her to" (it's trite, but conveys the idea I want to get across). Just because of how she was born (or socialized), she never gets to be whole. She lacks what her husband has always had: an ontological claim. It is good he exists, though it is merely permissable that she does.

So what in the world does this have to do with Snow White?

I think what struck so deep is that I knew Godde can and should be imaged as a queen. Not exclusively, not only (lest we reify this image as we have done with Father or King). But, I really think deep called to deep and in this moment. Godde is not a man, She is Spirit.

She is beyond gender.
She is beyond sex.
She is. He is. They are. It is.

Just one pronoun can shake up one's understanding. One's Spirit. Especially one's feminine spirit that feels so shut off from Being...

And, then, I stumbled across Psalm 93 in Laura Grimes's absolutely wonderful Sophia's Psalter:


Sophia is Queen; She has put on splendid apparel;
Sophia has put on her apparel and girded herself with strength


She has made the world so sure that it cannot be moved


Ever since the world began, your throne has been established;
You are from everlasting.


The waters have lifted up, O Sophia, 
the waters have lifted up their voice;
the waters have lifted up their poundings waves


Mightier than the sound of many waters
mightier than the breakers of the sea,
mighter is Sophia who dwells on high


Your testimonies are very sure,
and holiness adorns your house, O Sophia, 
forever and ever more.

Shame and Holy Week: Towards a healthy Christianity

Easter is my favorite holiday (Halloween comes in a close second, ironically. Maybe it's cos it is the one day I, as an adult, can play dress up without shame). I very much look forward to worshipping on Sunday (raising palm branches in praise and celebration of Jesus' resurrection). It is a joy-filled, life affirming celebration that speaks to me on a visceral level since I have struggled with depression for many years. The theme of "rising from the dead" hits me straight on anew every year. I love this focus on Jesus' vindication by Godde and it's apparent meaning that Godde is love and that love never stays dead

It's good news because, sometimes, life sucks. Things go haywire. People get hurt or harmed by others or by happenstance. Easter, to me, demonstrates that Godde is also on the side of and in solidarity with, the down and out: "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted; blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." Easter to me, means Godde, the Great Midwife, will bring us through life's birth pains with steady and skilled hands as S/He did for Jesus (see Psalm 22; one of the last sayings of Jesus on the cross according to the Christian scriptures). It is Godde "shaming the wisdom of the wise": Godde loves the poor, the oppressed, and the prisoners! And oh yes, even teh gays; Especially the gays. ;-)

On this year's Holy Week, however, I find myself in a strange position; it has caused more angst than usual; this says something because, well, angst is my speciality. There are three components to my unease: appropriation, my changing beliefs, and the centrality of shame during Holy Week. You will get an earful on each. :-)

First, as much as our Christian supremacist culture would like us to believe the resurrection belongs exclusively to Christianity, this is just blatantly false. Before Jesus, Isis wept for, and resurrected, the Egyptian Osiris after he was dismembered by Set; the Sumerian Inanna was hung on a meat hook when she descended into the underworld to visit her sister-in-law and was resurrected by the god of wisdom. Persephone, in Greek myth, was abducted by Hades and taken to the underworld. Her absence during half the year is said to have caused her mother Demeter to institute the seasons (when Persephone is gone, the earth lies cold and barren). And then, of course, we have Easter itself. Eostre was the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring whose festival, along with the painted eggs and bunny (both fertility symbols. I am not exactly sure where the chocolate came from) Christianity adapted and integrated into worship of Jesus. Eggs which symbolized fertility began to represent the empty tomb of Jesus. This Easter, I am painfully aware of the cultural appropriation implicit in our celebration of the resurrection.

Then, there is a controversial, very unorthodox (in the non-Greek orthodox sense)set of beliefs I hold about the atonement. Like other Christians, I believe Jesus is Godde incarnate, that he died "for" or because of human sin, mainly because of human mistrust and fear of love. But, I do not believe Godde necessarily needed a human sacrifice in order to forgive us or, if an "objective" sacrifice was needed, it was for different reasons than orthodoxy holds.

For instance, Pre-crucifixion, Jesus went around forgiving in Godde's name prodigally. The woman caught in adultery. "Dirty, filthy" tax collectors like Zaccehus. Everybody was welcome at his table. In His culture, sharing meals meant with someone meant you completely accepted and welcomed them.

Jesus dined with sinners. If Christians take seriously that Jesus was the "perfect representation" of Godde's being, it does not follow that Godde is literally "too pure to look on human sin." I'm pretty sure He "looked upon" sin on a daily basis while on Earth and never scourged Himself before taking meals with "rabble."

I think Godde can and does forgive without sacrifice; but I also believe the atonement was important because it removed all the obstacles between believers (for those whose path is Christian) and Godde. It was not necessarily for Godde's benefit, but for ours. In my mind, it was Godde with outstretched arms declaring "no matter what you think separates Me from you, you're wrong. Whatever fearful image you have acquired of Me, it has been crucified along with My body. However unworthy you feel, I will die out of love for you to prove you wrong."

Even though I know this is prooftexting, there is a passage in the Christian scriptures that seems to support my claim. Before He heals a paralytic, He first declares the man's sins forgiven. At face value, it seems to be a narrative about Jesus' authority to forgive sins and heal; it might also be. But the thing I find so striking here is that Jesus forgives the man's sins before He heals the man's body. I think it speaks to man's (and our) shame. Some have suggested that back then disability was seen as a curse from Godde for sin (things have not changed much in 2000 years, apparently.) It also limited that person's access to the temple; I think they had to stay in the outer courts? So, they lie on the ground separate from others, they probably experienced their life as a curse, and could not approach Godde.

By forgiving Him, I think Jesus was removing the stigma and shame the man had internalized while he was disabled, the sense of being cursed and unworthy. This spiritual healing, I think, may have been the only reason Jesus could heal his body. Otherwise, tha man might not have cooperated. Jesus completely restored him to society and to Godde. I do not see any discontinuity between the spiritual and physical here at all. The interpretations of the story tend to set them up hierarchally (spirituality out ranks bodily healing) but I think this conclusion ain't necessarily so.

Of course, on the days I believe in an objective atonement (it varies from day to day) I tend to go with "Jesus became sin and Godde condemned the sin as an object, not the people whom sin injures on all levels." Wayne Jacobson's (author of He Loves Me) interpretation. That Jesus absorbed all the world's sin in order to inoculate us from it. In this definition, sin is not a list of arbitrary rules or regulations, but all things that injure or distort love. The things that make our spirit's small and our hearts cold. The Holy Spirit transforms the person's spirit and soul.

Lastly, I am really sick of guilt and shame in my faith.

I'm done. Just done.

On one hand, healthy guilt is a good and necessary thing. If you hurt someone, guilt can help motivate you to make things right. Healthy guilt prevents one from punching babies and animals in the face. Some people, though probably not many, are benefited by this.

Christians call this (sometimes) healthy state of guilt conviction. A lot of this can be healthy because it allows one to assess and assume responsibility for their choices.

But when it crosses a certain threshold, it becomes toxic and shame follows. The thought goes from "I did something wrong" to "I AM wrong."

In Christianity, especially when processing Good Friday, we often think of and catalogue all our sins, what we've done to put Jesus on the cross. During good friday, I find it really difficult to cop to my sins (or, if you'd prefer, my mistakes) because admitting the truth, in the traditional sense, means that I killed Godde. It is a staggering existential burden (who can handle it)? It's not like I chose to be born "in sin." (Unless I did choose to be born, as some ancient Christians, and some Eastern and neo-pagan religions believe, before this incarnation).

For me, obviously, this self-review immediately goes from guilt to shame. Ok, I can be an arrogant, bawdy, self-righteous, flake. Does this mean I am unworthy of life? Every fiber of my being resists this existential threat.

It is too much to bear and I can't believe Godde created us for such a heavy weight.

I am undecided as to what "original sin" is or if I believe it exists in the traditional formulation. Looking at my two year old nephew, whose heart is still pure and sweet argues against the idea we are born completely wretched. I do know we have both the potential for doing good, pro-social things and bad, anti-social things; healthy and damaging things.

Not that I think religion's entire purpose is to make you feel all warm and fuzzy all the time, its purpose is transformation and transformation often hurts. Forgiving, for instance, though highly transformative, is probably the hardest thing one can do.

Though, at the same time, a religion that makes you hate yourself just for being born is...evil. It is not wrong to be a human. It is not wrong to feel anger or to be proud of a job well done. It is not wrong to be somewhat independent (or interdependent).

I think my problem is that Christianity lost parts of its story. According to Brian Mcclaren (or Rob Bell. Oh who can keep track of all these emerging Christian writers) *my apologies to Scott Mcknight: this was his ideas* three stories predominate and interweave: the sin and salvation story, the liberation story, and redemption story. We only focus on the sin and salvation story, which is useful if you feel guilty or ashamed about something. Though, if you're an African-American/woman in a mostly white/male workplace and are being discriminated against, you don't need to be "forgiven" for this; you might need Godde's help to forgive and to route out corrosive bitterness, but you most likely need the story of liberation. You need to hear that Godde is a safe place for the oppressed and a liberator. If you've been sexually assaulted, you definitely do not need forgiveness. You might need Godde the redeemer, the healer. You need to know Godde brings beauty out of ashes, or be reminded about the resurrection and Jesus' solidarity with sufferers.

"Being forgiven" isn't always the best answer. Sometimes it has to be okay to just "be."