SACRED FEMINISM: How Christianity Revealed My Worth

WORLD WITHOUT END

Christianity hates women.

This was my very concrete thought for most of my adult life. I was raised to see all religions as oppressive to people who weren’t heterosexual men, but a special kind of seething was reserved solely for Christians.

If you walk into my father’s house, you will find a carved wooden statue of the Virgin Mary with her head being pushed down by two giant cocks.

This sums up my religious education from ages 0 to 18.

So, I’m more surprised than anyone that I’m finding my essence and the sacred feminine strength in this particular faith tradition.

As I’ve written in a few of my pieces, I suffered from harrowing ecological angst when I got pregnant and for most of my son’s early years. I found it impossible to find joy and light as I mulled over how much of this lush world we would mess up in his lifetime.

These thoughts consumed my days, so it became my mission to pull myself out of that state and find a mental and spiritual pathway that made sense of, let’s be honest, straight-up evil human behaviors.

Failing so badly that you begin eating your children’s resources is a pretty huge transgression, and I had no idea what to do with it. We are all victims and perpetrators of overconsumption and greed. Yes, a special few at the top have dived headfirst into hell without any thought that they might pause to help solve this mess… but we are all in it together. We’re all participating, sin by sin, in this culture that is both devastatingly beautiful and utterly, utterly horrific.

I have come to understand that a large part of my ecological anxiety was rooted in a resistance to death itself. We in the West live very comfortable lives now but if you dial back five generations or so and there was a very big chance you would watch your child die in your arms. Death was baked into your understanding of the harshness and beauty of life.

No one in 1900 would refuse to have a child because it might die. They braved the brutality of life because it might live. Hope was how they moved because the miracle of life came and graced them—for just a moment or two sometimes.

Women especially were made of much stronger stuff.

And how did these warrior women get through such tidal waves of grief?

They were surrounded by images, stories, and one story in particular that gave their grace the backbone and the courage, if you will, to bear the agony.

It’s one story, about a young woman named Mary.

The Mother of God.

The Queen of Heaven.

These images and stories pulled a spirit into eternity, and the repetition of words and prayers had your mouth move to say, “HOLY MARY, MOTHER OF GOD.” Sorry, but this is not a lowly position. It’s not a bad thing to put on a CV. Talk about a purpose-driven project.

Queen of Heaven doesn’t sound like oppression to my ears.

Jordan Peterson pointed out that Mary teaches a woman how to gracefully go on her heroine’s journey—to create a perfect, God-like human that will no doubt be crucified, literally or metaphorically, by the wild nature of life.

You must let go of him for any of this to move forward. You must let him live… and you must let him die. You must let him be forsaken.

What a journey.

What an impossible ask.

But what great sense it made.

How it helped me breathe.

How it let me let go.

How it had me rise to my role, the one that money hasn’t been able to ugly up entirely… yet.

How it made motherhood sing instead of sting.

There are also other things to factor in. Tom Holland’s work in Dominion highlights how Christianity was the story that put the most vulnerable in the highest position—saving ancient society from treating women and children brutally. It moved men to be responsible and to protect and care for the weak when no social order insisted on this before.

It demanded a man be faithful financially and physically to his wife and children and encouraged couples to care for one another until death do them part.

It repeatedly stated that your God, your king doesn’t love gold, screaming and hoarding all the wealth to fly to Mars. No, this is a simple man, who speaks softly, humbly, and loves literally… everyone.

This is what you should be aiming for, it said, This is peak people, people!

There is tremendous beauty if you look at this epic tale and tradition with fresh eyes that don’t always assume the worst of anything ancient.

I don’t even mind that women aren’t priests. It doesn’t get my goat. I would not have a problem with a female priest, but I don’t believe priests and bishops hold the epic power that we imagine they do.

I believe mothers in their homes have enormous power.

I believe nuns, sisters, being allowed to sit in meditation and quietly, deeply ponder, and pray for us all, have a mystical power we don’t understand.

I don’t see things as I once did.

I find this Christian story far more complete and far less sexist than the Goddess of Gaia, which excludes the concept of men and the masculine altogether. A belief system with no real system, because it imagines natural chaos will sort itself out. No, I like the balance I find in Christianity.

And let’s not forget that the concept of the Church herself is a she with lots of bee-like priests tending to her hive.

I find such a beautiful and balanced blend of men and women honoring the divine, natural elements that live inside them.

Is this the perfect structure? The perfect story? Possibly not. But it’s a great one, a bright and functioning portal to peace and true power that I have no interest in smashing but every interest in understanding.

Yes, like anything holding great power, it can be used for evil. But at its core, it provides a structure that honors the natural continuation of existence in ways that the modern world has thrown away at its peril to the point where women are giving up their role as Mother Of God and replacing it with Social Media Manager, or Assistant Content Creator….or Only Fans Millionaire.

As a woman who has lived through the very experimental, dangerous, and very very loud third wave of feminism…I’m finding my feminine power in the last place I would have ever looked.

I don’t know exactly how I got here.

I don’t know exactly why this is happening…

but maybe it’s just that a wise whisper will outlast a scream.