Carol P. Christ – Page 49 – Feminism and Religion

AM I SUFFERING? by Carol P. Christ

In response to a recent blog on Buddhism and feminism by Oxana Poberejnaia, I stated that while I would agree that “clinging” to an identity is a cause of suffering, I am not in favor of “giving up” identity altogether.

Oxana replied that “if you are not suffering,” then you do not need Buddhism. I responded that for the most part I am not suffering because years ago I gave up “having to have” certain things in my life. I added that I often wondered if that made me “kind of a Buddhist.”

One of the things that I gave up was the notion that I “had to have” a lover and life partner. The other was the notion that I “had to have” the job teaching graduate students in women and religion–for which I was eminently qualified.

Not having these “things” that I thought I deserved (and why not?) caused my younger self a great deal of suffering. In fact, it often seemed to me that a life without a partner and lover simply was not worth living. My suffering was so great that I considered suicide—more than once.

As a result of my first Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete (a story I told in Odyssey with the Goddess), I finally realized that I really could not control all of the conditions of my life–not through hard work, not through desire, not through mental focus, not through magic. This realization led to a major transformation in my life.

Instead of focusing on what I did not have, I began to focus on what I did have. I realized that though I did not have a life partner, I had many good friends who loved me a great deal. And though I did not have the job I thought I deserved, I had the great good luck to have written books that changed the lives of thousands of women.

I recognized that I had given up exactly the kind of “clinging” to ideas about life that Buddhists say create suffering.

At the same time, I was not drawn to the Buddhist path. I could never accept the fact that Buddha considered his wife and child an impediment to his spiritual path. Nor was I ever drawn to give up my “ego” or “identity” altogether. Later, I would write in She Who Changes that all paths of spiritual “rebirth” seemed to me to be based upon “matricide” which I defined as the idea that birth through the body of a mother into a life that includes death “just isn’t good enough.”

I consider this life to be a gift. For me a life that includes death is the only life we have. Although I too suffer the loss of those I love, I accept this as part of life. I do not expect that “I” should live forever, and in fact I consider the idea that “I” should be immortal or reborn, to be the height of folly. I do not seek to escape what Buddhists call the “cycle of birth and death” but rather to affirm the cycles of “birth, death, and regeneration.” For me it is enough to know that life will continue: I do not need to imagine that “I” will live forever.

My comment to Oxana that “I am not suffering” was belied in the days after I wrote it. I have been suffering this week as a result of the thought (and most likely fact) that I have been “cheated” by the man who sold me a new computer and promised to reinstall all of my programs and documents so that the new computer would work exactly like the old one.

This afternoon I was told by the technician who failed to turn up for several appointments that I should not contact the man who sold me the computer again, because he has my money and does not intend to fulfill his part of the contract. The technician said he would finish the work “for me” even though he would not be paid by the store owner.

I was so angry, my stomach tensed and I feared that I would fall victim to the stress for which I have been under doctor’s care in recent weeks. I was about to call the man who sold me the computer to read him the riot act, but instead called a friend to ask what I should do. She said she had also heard stories about the man who sold me the computer. We agreed that we live in the countryside with people who don’t have any idea of how to run a business.

After I hung up the phone, Oxana’s words “if you are not suffering” came into my head.

I realized that I was suffering because of the idea that because I am a person who should not be cheated or lied to. As soon as that thought came into my mind, I let go of it. I accepted that the young man who sold me the computer – whether out of ignorance or out of cunning – had cheated and lied to me. I still think I am a person who should not be cheated or lied to, but I gave up the idea that therefore, being cheated or lied to would not happen to me. I decided to pay a technician to finish the work, even though this was not the agreement I had made.

My suffering ended.

Carol P. Christ is looking forward to the spring Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete which she leads through Ariadne Institute—space is still available on the spring tour. Carol can be heard in a recent interview on Voices of Women. Carol is a founding mother in feminism and religion and women’s spirituality. Her books include She Who Changes and Rebirth of the Goddess and the widely-used anthologies Womanspirit Rising and Weaving the Visions.

THE DIVINE DRAMA AND THE UNIVERSALITY OF DEATH by Carol P. Christ

In Greece the liturgies of lent and especially of the week before Easter are known as the “divine drama,” in Greek theodrama. This may refer to the “drama” of the capture, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus and to the suffering of God the Father and Mary.

However, it is important to recall that the drama in ancient Greece referred to both the tragedies and comedies, most specifically, those that were performed in the theater of Dionysios in Athens. While we have been taught that the Greek tragedies celebrated “downfall of the hero” due to his “tragic flaw,” it is important to remember that Dionysios was the original protagonist of the Greek tragedy: it was his death and rebirth that was first celebrated.

Some have argued that the Greek tragedies should never be “read” alone, for they were always “performed” in tandem with the comedies, which were followed by the bawdy phallic humor of the satyr plays. The tragedies end in death and irreparable loss. But if the comedies and satyr plays are considered an integral part of the cycle, death is followed by the resurgence of life. Continue reading “THE DIVINE DRAMA AND THE UNIVERSALITY OF DEATH by Carol P. Christ”

Curiosity About Everything and the Language of the Goddess by Carol P. Christ

My recent discovery of Marija Gimbutas on Youtube rekindled my admiration for her work. In her slide-lecture “The World of the Goddess” Marija Gimbutas allows us to follow the line of reasoning she used to decipher the “language of the Goddess” in Old Europe.

Careful attention to her lecture shows that Gimbutas did not close her eyes, dream, and then attach her own ideas and intuitions to the artifacts she later discussed. Rather, she catalogued groups of images with similar symbolism and used her knowledge of nature (what does a water bird or an owl look like?) and folklore (she collected thousands of songs connected to the agricultural and life cycles in her native Lithuania in the 1930s) to unlock the meaning of ancient symbols.

I suspect that most of the critics of Gimbutas lack the knowledge she gained through her wide curiosity about life. Do other archeologists as a group know what specific species of water birds or owls really look like? Do they have the same kind of knowledge of folklore and folk traditions that Gimbutas had? Continue reading “Curiosity About Everything and the Language of the Goddess by Carol P. Christ”

IS EVIL PART OF THE NATURE OF REALITY AND DIVINITY? by Carol P. Christ

What is the origin of evil? Is it innate in human nature or even in the nature of the universe? Judith Plaskow and I discuss this question in our forthcoming book Goddess and God in the World and this is a chance to listen in our conversation.

I am responding to Judith’s allegation that in imagining Goddess as loving and good I am fantasizing an ideal deity who exists apart from the evil-and-good world that we know. Judith speaks of an “evil impulse” in human beings which she considers to be innate in human beings and in the nature of reality. Judith says that my “defense” of the goodness of God comes down to “the traditional free will defense.” She also questions my view that human beings can

I argue that it does not because the traditional free will defense imagines an omnipotent God who existed before the creation of the world. Then I continue:

I think what you meant to say is that like those who invoke the traditional free will defense of the omnipotent God, I attribute humanly chosen evil entirely to human beings—and not to Goddess or God. Continue reading “IS EVIL PART OF THE NATURE OF REALITY AND DIVINITY? by Carol P. Christ”

Segregation by Carol P. Christ

As I think about the incarceration of young black men for relatively minor drug crimes, and the murders of Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis, I cannot help but compare the astonishing progress that Americans have made in overcoming prejudice against gays and lesbians to the astounding lack of progress we have made in overcoming prejudice against black Americans.

It is often repeated that the reason for changes in attitudes about gays and lesbians is the process of coming out—most people in America now know a lesbian or gay family member, friend, or co-worker. On the other hand, I would dare to speculate that many—perhaps most—Americans who are not African-American do not know a boy like Trayon Martin or Jordan Davis. If you do—count yourself lucky! Our society remains divided by race and class divisions (many of them a legacy of racism) that prevent many non-black Americans from knowing a single young black man. Continue reading “Segregation by Carol P. Christ”

“Immanent Inclusive Monotheism” with a Multiplicity of Symbols Affirming All the Diversity and Difference in the World by Carol P. Christ

In recent years monotheism has been attacked as a “totalizing discourse” that justifies the domination of others in the name of a universal truth. In addition, from the Bible to the present day some have used their own definitions of “exclusive monotheism” to disparage the religions of others. Moreover, feminists have come to recognize that monotheism as we know it has been a “male monotheism” that for the most part excludes female symbols and metaphors for God. With all of this going against monotheism, who would want to affirm it?

In response to some or all of the above critiques, many modern pagans define themselves as polytheists, affirming at minimum, the Goddess and the God, and at maximum a vast pantheon of individual deities, both female and male, from a single culture or from many, including divinities with animal characteristics. Other pagans define themselves as animists, affirming a plurality of spirits in the natural world. A group of Christian feminists have argued that the Christian Trinity, the notion of God Three-in-One, provides a multiple and relational understanding of divinity.

While also rejecting exclusive monotheism and male monotheism, Jewish poet, ritualist, and theologian Marcia Falk provided a definition of inclusive monotheism that I find compelling.

Monotheism means that, with all our differences, I am more like you than unlike you. It means that we all share the same source, and that one principle of justice must govern us equally. . . Continue reading ““Immanent Inclusive Monotheism” with a Multiplicity of Symbols Affirming All the Diversity and Difference in the World by Carol P. Christ”

Was Ariadne the Most Graceful Bull-leaper of All? Deconstructing and Re-visioning Greek Mythology by Carol P. Christ

Sometimes we think of Greek myth as a pre-patriarchal or less patriarchal alternative to the stories of the Bible. After all, Goddesses appear in Greek myths while they are nearly absent from the Bible. Right?

So far so good, but when we look more closely we can see that Greek myth enshrines patriarchal ideology just as surely as the Bible does. We are so dazzled by the stories told by the Greeks that we designate them “the origin” of culture. We also have been taught that Greek myths contain “eternal archetypes” of the psyche. I hope the brief “deconstruction” of the myth of Ariadne which follows will begin to “deconstruct” these views as well.

Ariadne is a pre-Greek word. The “ne” ending is not found in Greek. As the name is attributed to a princess in Greek myth, we might speculate that Ariadne could have been one of the names of the Goddess in ancient Crete. But in Greek myth Ariadne is cast in a drama in which she is a decidedly unattractive heroine.

In the story told by the Greeks, Ariadne falls in love with Theseus, a handsome young man who was sent with 11 other Greek young people to be fed to a monster (who is half man, half bull) known as the Minotuar. The Minotuar is Ariadne’s half brother (see below). Because of her “love” for Theseus, Ariadne helps him to murder her brother. She then flees with Theseus on his boat.

However, this “love story” does not have a “happy ending” as Theseus abandons Ariadne on a nearby island–long before he arrives home in Athens. Theseus is ever after celebrated as a hero who killed a monster, while Ariadne is just another cast-off female. Whose story is this? Continue reading “Was Ariadne the Most Graceful Bull-leaper of All? Deconstructing and Re-visioning Greek Mythology by Carol P. Christ”

IS GODDESS “WITH US” OR “IN CONTROL” OF EVERYTHING? THE “THEOLOGICAL MISTAKE” OF DIVINE OMNIPOTENCE by Carol P. Christ

How do we make sense of loss, great loss, and everyday disappointment? Some would tell us that “everything has a purpose” or that whatever happens “must be the will of God.” I have found that these answers to questions raised by life as we know it often do more harm than good. Yet they have a sticking power–we hear them all the time, sometimes even from other feminist seekers.

From the beginning feminists in religion rejected “the God out there” who rules the world from a throne in heaven. Most of us have insisted that “God” is more “in” the world than “beyond” or “outside it.” However we have not always been consistent in our convictions. When feminists are confronted with untimely death or great evil or just not getting what we think we want, we can sometimes be overheard to wonder, “Why did God (or Goddess) let that happen?” This question is based in the assumption that God or Goddess is omnipotent and rules the world from outside it. This is the theological idea I intend to question today.

The “zero fallacy” is a term philosopher Charles Hartshorne used to explain the “theological mistake” known as divine omnipotence. Hartshorne pointed out that if God is omnipotent, then God has “all” or “100%” of the power. If this is so, then human beings and all other beings have “zero” power. But if we have zero power, then do we even exist? Continue reading “IS GODDESS “WITH US” OR “IN CONTROL” OF EVERYTHING? THE “THEOLOGICAL MISTAKE” OF DIVINE OMNIPOTENCE by Carol P. Christ”

WOMEN AND WEEDING, THE FIRST 10,000 YEARS* by Carol P. Christ

Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow? With silver bells and cockle shells, and pretty little maids all in a row.

From the beginning of horticulture about 8000 BCE or earlier to the present day, weeding has been women’s work. Women, who were the gatherers and preparers of food in traditional nomadic societies, no doubt were the first to discover that seeds dropped at a campsite one year sometimes sprung up as plants the next year. When this discovery was systematized, agriculture was invented, and human beings began to settle down in the first villages and towns.

In the early days of horticulture (the name for the earliest stage of agriculture before the plow was developed), the cycles of planting and harvest and all the stages in between were understood to have been given to mothers by the Great Mother, the Source of Life. The secrets of planting, seed collection, harvest, and food preparation and preservation were all perceived to be “mysteries” connected to the ongoing cycles of birth, death, and regeneration in the universe.

My grandmother Lena Marie Searing who was born on a farm in Michigan must have learned agricultural secrets from her mother, for she not only created a beautiful garden, she also farmed an orchard and preserved its fruits in glass jars that lined her pantry. It was she who taught me and my brothers and cousins to love nature. My mother learned to garden from her mother, but she did not harvest food crops. I think of both of them whenever I work in my garden.

The past few days I have been weeding my garden after heavy rains that left the soil clumpy and moist. I have weeded before, but I have never enjoyed it so much. My garden has matured over the past seven years, and now the weeds are more “under control.” There aren’t so many of them, and as I have now been weeding them out over the years, their roots are shallow.

As I slide a trowel into the earth the weeds lift up and with my fingers I gently pull the plants with their roots from the soil. The weeds are familiar, though I don’t know all of their names. The “sticky weed” has many tough roots, the clover has many fine ones—both are hard to eradicate. Other weeds are easy to pull up and do not reappear again until the next year.

wild chamomile blooming among "weeds" — wild chamomile blooming among “weeds”

I am discovering that weeding is a delicate process. Sometimes the roots of plants I want in the garden are entangled with those of the weeds. I work carefully choosing the ones to save and the ones to discard.** I leave poppies, chamomile, yellow daisies, and marigolds where I find them, as I consider them to be wildflowers that will provide beauty in my garden when they bloom in spring. I also take care to “keep the soil in good heart” by not discarding too much of it along with the weeds.

As I weed, I think of the women in my village who harvest greens from the fields, feeling certain that some of the weeds I discard are edible. I marvel at all of the knowledge women have shared and passed down over the past 10,000 years and more, as I realize how little of it I know. My suspicion that some of my weeds could be food is validated when a friend and I order boiled “greens from the mountains” for lunch at a local taverna and are served one of the plants I had thrown into the garbage can.

As I weed, I am reminded of an essay called “Keeping the Soil in Good Heart: Women Weeders, the Environment, and Ecofeminism” by Candice Bradley which was published in Karen J. Warren’s Ecofeminism. Bradley writes that weeding is women’s work in almost all cultures. As I work, I understand that this is so because weeding is delicate work that requires concentration and patience and that must be repeated. Bradley says that in many cultures men disparage weeding as they disparage housework—not considering either to be “real” work.

Horticulture is the most environmentally friendly form of farming, according to Bradley, because it does the least harm to the soil, and because the weeds that are not eaten are burned or composted and turned back into the earth to replenish it.

While weeding by hand has been considered work for women and children, men have generally controlled the plow and its recent successor, the tractor. However, as Bradly states, the plow and the tractor do not eliminate the need for hand-weeding. In many cases they encourage the weeds to regenerate. Women and children still weed.

The chemical gardening and farming industry (“round it up”) is based on the premise that weeds can and must be eradicated. Rachel Carson warned us of the danger this approach to agriculture presents to human and all other forms of life. A by-product of chemical agriculture is that the careful work of women weeders is further discounted.

I do not use chemicals or pesticides in my garden, and I will be out there weeding on a regular basis in the next months. As I put my hands in the earth, I will think of all the women before me who have weeded and planted, weeded and harvested, and weeded again. Blessed be.

*The title of this essay is an homage to Elizabeth Wayland Barber’s Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years which discusses and celebrates women and weaving.

**I am aware that no plant was born a “weed” and that the designation of some plants as weeds is a by-product of human digestive systems, human taste, agriculture, and the creation of gardens for the celebration of beauty.

Carol P. Christ created a newly released new website for the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete which she leads through Ariadne Institute. Early bird special for the spring pilgrimage available until February 15. Carol can be heard on a WATER Teleconference. Carol’s books include She Who Changes and Rebirth of the Goddess and the widely-used anthologies Womanspirit Rising and Weaving the Visions.

The Great Commandment for Women: Love and Care for Yourself as You Love and Care for Others by Carol P. Christ

A rabbi known as Jesus of Nazareth taught that you should “love God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself.” Charles Hartshorne, philosopher of relationship and a twentieth century advocate of the “two great commandments,” added that it should be understood that this means that God wants you to love yourself too.

I quote Hartshorne’s midrash on the great teaching often because, sadly, too many women—and some men too–have been taught to love their neighbors at the expense of themselves, to care for others, but not to care as much for themselves. Continue reading “The Great Commandment for Women: Love and Care for Yourself as You Love and Care for Others by Carol P. Christ”