God Our Mother Guided Meditation
I grew up with a patriarchal faith, being told that God is my Father, and that the hierarchy as designed by God was a pyramid. God was of course on top, then men, then women and children on the bottom. God often felt far outside of myself, somewhere away in the clouds. People would always say that Jesus calls God “Abba,” a more personal nickname than the formal “Father.” When trying to connect with God, I used to imagine myself being held in my Heavenly Father’s lap to find solace.
I have been practicing yoga outside for the past two years because of the pandemic. If I count it all up, it’s approximately 240 hours spent communing with Mother Earth. There is something visceral about lying on the ground, being literally held by the earth below. It’s reminding me that instead of this far off Father God, instead, I can believe in a God who is as near to me as my breath. A God who doesn’t require me to try and distance myself from my body, from my humanity. A God who dwells in the mess and literal dirt, that I can scratch and get stuck under my fingernails. That I can get coated in like freshly cut grass on the lawn when I stretch my arms out at the end of a yoga practice.
I don’t believe that God is a man or a woman. Yet for centuries of Christianity we’ve been given primarily masculine images for the Divine. The Bible, and in particular the Hebrew Scriptures/Old Testament, contains many feminine images for God. Many passages portray God as a mother. Feminine and specifically maternal images say something true about God and my experience with God, and I offer you this meditation as a chance to reflect on these images as seen in scripture. In case you’re curious, if you click on the link below for the transcript, I’ve added the references to where God is described in this way in the Bible.