Finding my Christian God in Mother Earth
“TRUST IN THE LORD WITH ALL YOUR HEART AND LEAN NOT ON YOUR OWN UNDERSTANDING. IN ALL YOUR WAYS ACKNOWLEDGE HIM AND HE WILL MAKE YOUR PATHS STRAIGHT”.
-PROVERBS 3:5-6
I weaved through christian church culture ever since I was a kid. I stepped into the breath of worship music, then said no to Sunday service. I dove into scripture, then let my bible collect dust. I entered into fellowship with other christians, then prayed with pale reverence for God. Yet, within this weaving has always existed a longing for a relationship with my Maker. It is complicated because I know that longing was not all about God -- it was to please my Mom, build kinship with my friends, struggle with my Dad’s loving empty promises of my youth, and wake that silence between me and the figure called Father watching over me. It is documented with so many journal entries asking for forgiveness for my failings as a christian, for my devotion could always be so much better.
Right alongside those complicated social factors are these indescribable moments of peace. This presence that tenderly embraces me when I have lost the energy to ask. There is an overarching determination settled in my gut to live out God’s word, to live out the grace Jesus taught, to find and live out where grace thrives elsewhere. The truest part about it, I am welcomed to do it imperfectly.
Now, at 31, I still weave through the constructs we humans, for those interested, create to find closeness to a higher power. It is wild to imagine that an omnipotent being could have interest in the creative inklings of my mind. I find answer in that the reactions of my soul are not to nothing nor do they call out to nothing. Though I react with a curled back to the supposed silence, I am learning there are actually answers coming, just in a different tongue.
What this reflection is trying to break down, is where all do I find God? What is the language to which I understand God? Can the truth, that I’ve only known within the Christian context, exist elsewhere?
“Do you bow your head when you pray or do you look
up into that blue space?
Take your choice, prayers fly from all directions.
And don’t worry about what language you use,
God no doubt understands them all.
even when the swans are flying north and making
such a ruckus of noise, God is surely listening
and understanding.
Rumi said, There is no proof of the soul.
But isn’t the return of spring and how it
springs up in our hearts a pretty good hint?
Yes, I know, God’s silence never breaks, but is
that really a problem?
There are thousands of voices after all.”
-excerpt from mary oliver’s “whistling swans”
I have found an elsewhere in several places outside my familiar context. One of the most significant is with an energy healer. She practices her spiritual truth through the Indigenous healing practices that include those of the Delicate Lodge and is my former partner’s energy healer. She invited us for a relationship session that I went into with an open albeit hesitant mind, attempting to receive insight with no expectations, preconceived notions, or overt spiritual confidence. Mind you, a confidence I didn’t feel regardless.
Hesitancy tethered, open mind bloomed, what happened next challenged my rhetoric in ways I am still pondering over a year later.
—
some internal kels backstory:
When I experience pain, I often hide it. Or, reveal it just enough so I can stave off an impression of perfection and keep open the door to deep connection. My struggle in my faith is one such pain I hide. I value being a safe place for people to be vulnerable, and not from some wise height above, but right alongside in the depths below. My hiding, which I thought was a kindness to others, actually strips the opportunity away for people to be my support, to be right in the depths with me. I both want and fear their support because I’ve convinced myself that I will burden even the closest loved one I let in.
—
So, I am carrying this into the session. Almost from the start Joanna called me out on it. Well, in my high-pulsed reaction, I felt called out. I was revealed beyond what I wanted to reveal, urged to expose the pain I have worked so hard to shelter, and welcome grace and love in the deep recesses. She imparted that the most nurturing act to navigate that conflict of vulnerable soul to everyone but myself, is grounding into Mother Earth.
She told me that my spirit has been on earth many times, that I find restoration in the energy Mother Earth provides. That energy is everywhere. By her invitation, I meditated in this image of drawing a line from the crown of my head to the center of the earth, to feel every tree, creature, and life made from it. It was like uncharted exploration that I found a calm I could sink into. I was intimidated by the language of this Indigenous faith because it is so different from the foundation I grew up in. But different isn’t automatically wrong, it can be a distance bridged to a great unknown, a greater faith, constructed not by perfection, but humility. God has only looked one way to me, this masculine omnipotent figure who is solely Father. Mother has existed either in the creation and generations of Eve or in a poetic metaphor of nestling chicks beneath his wings. How could that be? Something has always felt amiss.
The distance bridged is God is Father, Mother, and Caregiver to me. The Mother Earth I have respected as an idea is now an embraced figure. I reference God with all of the pronouns, there is no restriction of a singular gender with my Maker. It saddens me that I was taught to marvel at this lifted love given to me by the wonder of heavenly men. It feels a limited capture of the omni of God and for that I want to always learn new ways to understand them.
"The most important thing you can do to change the course of history on our planet is to heal yourself of limiting and diminishing thoughts about yourself. Create a vibrant and healthy relationship with yourself. It will change everything in your world, and mine."
-white eagle women
Maybe the truth doesn’t look like my bible read every night, church every Sunday, unwavering faith and practice. Maybe it is the honor of the moments where I feel called to read those deeply underlined psalms, to go to church, to come back to my faith and have a conversation with you, God. I feel challenged to break down the fixed ideology and recognize where does humble spirituality contend with the harm of Christian religiosity, where the very Mother Earth I am learning to speak to was desecrated by christian evangelists against Indigenous peoples. Can my God still be the God of love in that?
To you, God, I question you, ask questions of you, and ponder your answers less foreign than before.
I find you in my yoga practice, my namaste is my amen to you. My exploration of how the roots of my body weave to the center of the earth for thanks restored, is my palms raised high to the prodigal hymns and Hillsong United. I marvel at the power of your creativity when a new acquaintance shares that her home holds such power because of crystals beneath her feet. I find you in the craft of this earth and me.
The Indigenous and Christian spiritual practice both hold truth for me. When honest, loving, generous; they are living edifices. Both guide me through fog and clear sight and I see how the whispers, nudges, wind embraces, sparks, discoveries, and even silence, resound within me.
“MAY WE SEE MYSTERY AS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR GROWING OUR IMAGINATIONS.”
- PLYMOUTH CHURCH OF CHRIST
I used to think that there was assurance of separation from God should I seek out counsel in other spiritual practices. The centuries old word blasphemy blazes like a warning, but that warning feels wholly untrue. Holy untrue. The scriptures say that God exists in all things, so then my creator, my parent, can be found in all faiths; both monotheism and polytheism, earth-centered, and heaven-centered, and just as possibly, outside all of these definitions. The gift of discovering God anew in my mind, my soul, and in communion with people remains constant.
That silence I have wept over is ever waking through these explorations. The moments of connection occur far more often than my cognitive awareness can recognize because my God is many things and my faith ever weaving. So, I keep coming back to tune in.
.Kels.