THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY IS A WOMAN...AND I DON'T LIKE IT.

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Okay, so I’ll start this by saying my knickers are not twisted.

I think there are bigger fish to be fried, but I thought the new Archbishop of Canterbury being a woman is a good opportunity for me to put into words why I have no problem at all with men maintaining leadership in Christian denominations.

I’m not a theologian, so I’m not going to get into the nitty-gritty over what the Bible says and doesn’t say and how one might interpret it. I’m simply going to give you one human female’s thoughts and experiences on life, religion, and all of this in relation to feminism.

I’m interested in learning about how things work…not about how I would like things to work. I’ve changed. I want to know what IS, because when we know what is, we can then gently guide things to move as we might like.

No force.

Going with the natural flow of existence.

I have a five-year-old son. And in being with him and teaching him, I have learned something profound. I am not God. I am not God in his eyes.

I’m Mary, mother of God. I’m the bearer of life. I’m all things tender and would do well to stay in the realm of all things tender. This vulnerability and tenderness have their own epic power if embraced.

My husband…is God to this small creature, my sweet son. There is a connection between the two that is more powerful than any performance I could put on. My son is looking for his father’s approval at every turn, and he is looking for my tenderness.

This is what IS…as I see it.

I was at the skatepark with my son just a few days ago, the end of a long day, kids whizzing by, but a beautiful sunset falling over the beginning of autumn, and I was grateful for this wonderful life. And suddenly, my son began misbehaving. I scolded him gently but firmly, and he said without malice, “I’m not scared of you.”

And he isn’t…and I wondered if I want him to be.

Everything in my natural energy said not to force a thing, and I so I responded…

“What about your father?” And he stopped in his tracks.

His father is one of the most gentle men one might find, a buttery softness to his general demeanor…but he does lay down the law. He has perfected a stern look that works instantly.

My son stopped as if he’d been electrocuted. “Okay, I’m sorry,” he said immediately…the word your father having that much weight.

And that was all I did, and that was all I needed to do. Without losing my temper, my precious finite energy, or my role as the tender one, the lesson had been taught by an invisible father — a father, a God that holds weight in my son’s mind. In his world.

A few minutes later, as I was drifting back to the autumn afternoon, my son came up to me again and stopped seriously. “I’m sorry about how I was. I was just upset about you trying to teach me English before at home, and I don’t like it, and it just made me angry. I’m really sorry, I was wrong.”

A five-year-old boy had this deep, unprompted reflection, wondering what his God might do. Wondering what his God might think.

I use this a lot…“your father.” And I can feel many feminists in fury. “No, he should respect you! He should be scared of you.” And I wonder at the energy and time they put into trying to change what IS. Your father has made my life so much easier, and I’m grateful for it.

And this experience reminded me of the time I met my husband. It was at the end of the Camino de Santiago. After a few days of bumping into each other over and over again, we parted ways. When I made it to the Santiago Cathedral, I saw my husband walk in…and he knelt, crossed his heart, and closed his eyes in prayer. As someone raised atheist, I’d never seen anyone I’d known do such a thing. It was completely foreign, but a great sense of relief washed over me watching this very strong grown man bow before something else. Something else was leading his thoughts and actions; he was not at the mercy of his own desires, and as a woman who knew she would be involved with this man, I knew I would not be at the mercy of his whims either. I’d been in two adult relationships with grown men who had no faith and no strong father figure, and the emotional work I had to do was…

it almost killed me. Literally and spiritually.

So I appreciate the power of The Father for men, and I don’t resent them for this biological and deep relationship that I don’t fully understand. I just accept that it IS, and we do well when we help encourage healthy relationships with the father, and we don’t try to step in the way of it.

The priests and bishops in church are our fathers. They symbolize the heavenly Father, and they are also fathers to the many boys and girls in communities who have been gypped of a strong and stable father figure…which is something of a modern epidemic.

Even though the word feminist has been used and abused, I still do deeply care about the wellbeing of women. Women want strong and stable men and I believe offering them this father is a way to create them.

Those are a few reasons I like male priests and bishops…it’s the reason I appreciate a male God. I’ve tried other modern spiritual practices, but they all seemed out of balance as they tried to override this Father figure. They, quite literally, lacked the balls I was searching for. Christianity offered me both the masculine and feminine energies and constantly highlighted the importance of both while recognizing they are different and have different places to thrive.

I am a woman, but I, like every other human, have both masculine and feminine energies…and the masculine energy leads me. It’s what gets me out of bed when I don’t want to. It’s what ensures my survival. So I like to see safe spaces where that masculine energy can thrive. Men are best at bringing the masculine, and men are also the ones who need the masculine energy most — they should have space for it.

I saw someone write, “I don’t want women in the priesthood in the same way that I don’t want men in motherhood,” and I couldn’t agree more.

I also watched a video of Catholic women at a conference discussing this very topic, and one of the women said (I’m paraphrasing), “Are you guys insane? If we don’t have a male God and male priests telling men what they need to do…THEY WON’T DO ANYTHING.” I laughed so hard. But it’s true. Men need guidance, and the word father sits in their mind, and they will search for one. If you take the heavenly Father away, if you take the church fathers away…they will find Andrew Tate fathers or attempt to father themselves…or copy women and learn a way of being that isn’t true to their true nature.

With the feminisation of society, which I’m not saying is entirely bad, I would deeply miss the male space that is the church, that allows me to connect with my Father.

My father who has strong rules that I will most certainly break, with his strong rules in place to protect me from my worst self, with his strong rules that come with so much love and forgiveness.

So this is why the Archbishop of Canterbury is a woman…and I don’t like it.

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