Day 48: This morning my walking partner and I met a woman from Jamaica who told us she is in our community with a charge to pray for all herein. She offered to pray with us and we accepted readily; the three of us held hands and she went at it with energetic faith and grace. Because of frustrated comments I’ve made in the past, my friend was quick to say to me afterwards, “I was hearing all her father language.” I heard it too, but was mostly translating to an ungendered term each time. I have decidedly mixed feelings about raising others’ consciousness about what is *not* being said when God is always a father because I don’t want to diminish anyone else’s connection to the holy. It’s just that, to me, the human need for parenting *is* so ungendered, and it’s only our culture’s language that implies otherwise. Mothering is a guiding value for Jesus as much as fathering is. The Christ – God among us - was quite literally neither, and both. -
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Day 47: YES - After a long stretch of days without posts, this promise of God’s love and affirmation - indeed, God’s very nature - bursts forth! At this weekend’s joyous and joyful Atlanta Pride Festival, the delightful greeting repeatedly shared and endlessly proclaimed is, HAPPY PRIDE!” How divine, quite literally, to imagine God’s own fist bump to God’s own self for all of God’s people created in God’s own perfect image. Yes! -
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Day 44: God as Source. Sometimes, like today, I just Google a term like this to see what comes up. I'm looking at a long article at reasonsforJesus.com that urges believers to separate the concept of source from that of God, and I have to say, the author makes some valid points, at one point saying, "source is big and does not carry any of the moral, spiritual, and metaphysical properties or characteristics that God does as a maximally great being." Yet as I read the article, I sense a rejection of "New Age" and even non-Christian believers as labeled by the author. To be honest, the whole article is leaving me tangled and muddled, but in the end, I think I have a heart for those new agers, and certainly for those outside of the Christian tradition to know and honor a God of their own understanding. -
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Day 43: God as Foundation.
A friend's offhand reference to an atheist today got me thinking about people's belief in God, or lack thereof. I love that classic question, "Tell me about the God you don't believe in," because inevitably it's a God I don't believe in either -usually male, vengeful, and toxic with conditional approval. I do believe that everyone has a foundation, and that foundation is their god. Whatever your foundation - whether love sought through justice, forgiveness, and grace, or love looked for in money, wealth, and fame, or some other set of values altogether - that is your God. I guess I just don't believe in atheism, because to be human is to seek out foundation. -
#the100daysproject
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#contemplativecrafting
#createdtocreatecohort
#mandalaart
#mandalamusings
