Equal Access

These days, I do most of my reading on Kindle. As soon as I finish a novel, I quickly download another from Amazon. My virtual library contains hundreds of volumes and has space for hundreds more. But I still relish holding a real paper book in my hands, one that has pages to turn and return to again and again, one that has margins in which to scribble notes and stick Post-its, one that I can place on my real book shelf like a trophy.

Some books are just too precious to let go even if I never turn their pages again--like anything written by Maya Angelou or Toni Morrison. Then, there is SIMPLE ABUNDANCE by Sarah Ban Breathnach and JESUS CALLING by Sarah Young, also THE LANGUAGE OF LETTING GO by Melody Beattie. These are among the missives that have changed who I am at the core.

I didn't set out to cherish only books written by female authors. In fact, I do read and appreciate a great variety of authors, many of whom are male. But female writers speak to my soul. Perhaps it is because "Women are intrinsically mystical. That is, we tend to experience direct connection with the Divine." These words are not mine.  I wish I had written them, but they are quoted from Joan Borysenko's book, A WOMAN'S JOURNEY TO GOD.  Several years ago I received this book as a gift. I placed it on my book shelf and there it stayed until this morning when something (or Someone) prodded me to open it.

Borysenko points out that women long for spiritual expression in a religious world historically dominated by men. We seek a God that is not exclusively male for males, a God who includes us, respects us, finds use for our particular gifts, and loves us both equally and uniquely. "God as jealous, punitive, white Anglo-Saxon male with a long beard and a longer arm lacks appeal for contemporary women," says Borysenko. She goes on to express, eloquently, what woman have longed to say for centuries, "Many women are tired of repenting for Eve's imagined sins and are ready to reclaim the energy that has been lost to religious traditions in which the framers were singularly unconcerned either with women's spirituality or with their basic rights and gifts as human beings."

Are Borysenko's words anti-Bible? Are they blasphemous? Are they male-bashing? The answer is "yes," if you are a white Anglo-Saxon male who is convinced that only his faith-journey counts and that the Bible was written only for him and his kind. But Jesus was neither white nor Anglo-Saxon, and Jesus did not exclude women (or ethnics or Gentiles or Lepers or prostitutes or homosexuals or pillars of the organized church) from His teachings or His love. "ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23)." In other words, we are ALL equally in need of God's mercy and forgiveness.

Granted, women have come pretty far since Borysenko's book was published in 1999. Many have even succeeded in becoming ordained clergy. Clearly they understand that Jesus's promise, "Just as the Father has loved me, I have also loved you (John 15:9)" does not exclude them. I'm convinced that the Divine with whom I commune every day intends for ALL to have equal access to our father/mother God.