I wanted to start off by thanking those of you who have written those posts complimenting the blog. Your positive feedback makes my day. And if that's you posting all those nice things, Mom, just don't ever tell me it was you.

I have next to me a copy of Marchiene Vroon Rienstra's Swallow's Nest: A Feminine Reading of the Psalms. In it, Rienstra paraphrases the Psalms in such a way as to celebrate the feminine aspects of God. She says that the result is not a scholarly translation, but "rather a devotional rendering that I hope will enable readers to begin to appreciate and pray the Psalms in a new and enriching way" (xv). Take Psalm 23, for instance, one I memorized in Sunday School as a child:

Because El Shaddai shepherds me, my deepest needs are met.
She gives me rest in the green pastures of Her Word.
She leads me beside the still waters of prayerful silence.
She restores me, body and soul.
She leads me in the paths of wholeness.

Even when I walk in the shadow of death,
I need fear no evil, for She is with me.
Her rod and staff uphold and guide me.

She sets Her table before me in the presence of my inner enemies.
She anoints my head with the oil of Her blessing.
My cup of joy overflows!

I know that Her goodness and mercy will follow me as long as I live,
and that I will dwell forever in the house of Her loving presence (26).

Now, for many people this is a stretch... we're not used to hearing God, commonly known as "Father," referred to in feminine terms. Some people would even argue that this Psalm is downright heretical, goddess worship.

Yet I think that misses the point of this rendering. The point is not to say that God is male or female, but that we are all-- men and women-- created in God's image. If this is true, then isn't the God who asks Job, "Has the rain a father, or who has begotten the drops of dew?" in Job 38:28 the same God in the next verse: "From whose womb did the ice come forth, and who has given birth to the hoarfrost of heaven?" What about the Jesus who prays over Jerusalem, "How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!" (Luke 13:34). Jesus obviously had no problem referring to the feminine aspects of God-- why should we?

I remember visiting the University of South Carolina a while back and reading a version of the Lord's Prayer that used feminine imagery. After almost all the other students had left, one young woman stayed behind. She quietly commented, "I'd never heard God referred to as a woman before. I really liked it." It was a reminder for her that she, too, is created in God's image. It helped her connect to God's love in a new and powerful way.

When I refer to God, I generally try to avoid gender terms because I believe God is much, much bigger than the limits of "male" or "female." Yet God the Father has special significance to me-- when my own father passed away, it became inexpressibly comforting to know that God is a Father who can never be taken away. Hearing God as Mother, though, makes me think of the God who holds my hand through the darkness of life, who comforts me as my soul cries out in suffering, who heals the wounds of my spirit and makes me whole. It adds an entirely new dimension to God that is scripturally consistent, but often obscured by our own dogged conceptions of God.

Sometimes when I'm singing hymns, I'll annoy my little sister by switching the song's pronouns for God to the feminine. Still, next time you're singing, try switching them around in your head. Perhaps you'll end the song with a broader understanding of God than you started with.

"Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.'" --Luke 15:8-9

Kelsey