God is She and He?

Have you ever heard God referred to as a “she”? My definition of God has changed over the years as my understanding of the power given to these three letters has evolved.

With complete certainty I know that God is not a “he.” If I had to pick a gender pronoun, I would offer “she” is more accurate. In our human existence, the woman (she) carries life within her womb. She shares her body in a sacred way bringing new life into our world. A mother gives inner protection and nourishment. She alone experiences the unborn child within herself, not the father.

Growing up Catholic, I was educated that God was father only. There was a Mother Mary yet somehow, she was less than. When my mother, Joan Pierce’s book, Sunday Words have Monday Meanings was written, I learned about her beliefs. With great joy, I share her philosophy.

“Then I never thought of my mother of as an image of God. Not until long after I became a mother and could reflect on the changes that motherhood made in me, did I come to see the need to expand my image of God. The mother gives nine months of her body, her comfort, and her attention before a child is born. The child comes from the middle of her body into the middle of her night, the middle of her dinner, the middle of her thinking. And what is it all for? So she can possess a child and be loved?

Webster defines God as the supreme and ultimate reality. Isn’t reality a funny thing to call God? Isn’t God the ultimate hypothesis and question? When I think of real, I think of myself. I am real, the house is real, the dogs barking, the pine trees. Yet I know that all of these change, are changing while I watch them and after a while they won’t be there. So maybe I need to expand my idea of real beyond material objects. An experience can be real. Our son surprised us and came home for a holiday when we weren’t expecting him. That experience is so real years later that I can “relive” it.

This is the basic orientation of what believing in God means to me: that I am directed outside of myself to the One who is beyond me, different from me, greater than I, yet dwells within my very being as my greatest good.”

As I explored past teachings, I found the Gnostic Gospels identified Sophia as both divine female creator and counterpart to Jesus Christ. Christ was conceived of as having two aspects: a male half, identified as the son of God, and a female half, called Sophia, who was revered as the mother of the universe.

For nearly 300 years following Jesus’ time on Earth, the Gnostic writings emphasized the Oneness of God and the human, the divinity of the individual, and the creative power of each soul to rise above limitation. They worshipped the pure spiritual Light of the indwelling Christ, and through their knowledge of thought-form energy became their best selves.

In A.D. 180, Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, attacked independent thinking and all teachings relating to the Oneness of God and human. Emperor Theodosius made Christianity the sole and official religion of the state in 395, thereby the Institution took complete control over individual minds and humanity entered the thousand-year period referred to as the Dark Ages.

This short chronicle gives me the understanding why God is widely accepted as father only. Consequently a “he” prevails in many minds based on past conditioning.

Whatever your religious or nonreligious convictions, we all know the power of our word. Recently I needed to sign a legal document and it said “he.” I told my lawyer that I was not a “he” and therefore that part did not apply to me. He changed the word to “she.”

I invite you to pay close attention to your speech and use of pronouns. Especially when you are referring to your Source, Universe, Christ Mind, Buddha, Krishna, Rumi, Brahman, Holy Spirit, Higher Power, or God.

What are your thoughts about limiting God to a “she” or “he”?