[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: Hello.
[00:00:09] Speaker C: Welcome back to season 10 of the Collective Table, the 50.5%.
This season we're centering the voices, experiences and wisdom of women who make up more than half of the global population, but have too often been sidelined or silenced.
Through conversations with theologians, creatives and leaders, we're exploring the divine feminine, the vital role of women in the church leadership, and the patriarchal norms that have shaped Christianity. Together, we'll reflect on how the progressive church can embrace a fuller, truer expression of spirit. And today we are so excited because we are sitting down with Deneen Akers for part one of a two part conversation about her book, Dear Mama God.
Deneen is a writer, teacher, filmmaker and mother who believes deeply in the power of stories.
Dear Mama God is an award winning children's book. An expansive, wonder filled prayer a addressed to God as Mother Deneen's work reimagines faith in ways that nurture belonging and the common good.
We are so excited to share this conversation with you, so let's dive in.
[00:01:40] Speaker B: Welcome, welcome, welcome.
[00:01:43] Speaker A: Oh, thank you so much. It is wonderful to be here.
[00:01:46] Speaker D: We're here talking about your book Dear Mama God, which I see you have behind you and I have right here with me.
[00:01:52] Speaker B: We're all big fans. Oh, yay.
[00:01:55] Speaker A: I have one here too.
[00:01:57] Speaker D: We actually, Jason, our other co host and pastor, we had the opportunity to speak with Will Gaffney this past week and had a lovely conversation and she'll also be on our podcast season this, this year. And we know that you drew on a lot of her scholarship and biblical translations. And Dear Mama God, she was also one of your focuses in Holy Troublemakers. And we were just wondering if you could read the job verse that you use from Will Gaffney. Yeah, I would just love to hear you speak more about the different images of God that emerge from these translations like this, like in David, Dear Mama God, there's the tree, the lap and others and how these images shape the way you understand and experience the divine.
[00:02:47] Speaker A: Absolutely. And I absolutely am grateful to womanist scholars and theologians like Dr. Gaffney because there has, there's actually been just so much thought and research that has gone into this and we're just sort of at that cusp where it's getting outside of academic circles or certain circles. And so I, yeah, I feel absolutely indebted to their scholarship. And when she gave us permission to license this translation, so we did license this translation for this book, I think it's really important to make sure you're always paying for where your Scholarship comes from. So she talks a lot about how one of the reasons we have not encountered she as part of our divine language for so long is because there's been some, you know, probably intentional translation work that skipped over pronouns. We've all become a lot more aware of pronouns in the last few years, which as an English teacher I'm like woohoo. Don't have to explain what pronouns are anymore. Anytime we see the spirit of God in the text, you could use the pronoun she and that would be grammatically correct. So anytime you've come across the spirit of God in either the Hebrew scriptures or New Testament scriptures, you can know that that could take a feminine pronoun and be correct. And it would be a lot easier if we just mix that in because we would, we would be reminded that these are all metaphors to begin with and not just get stuck on the one. So her translation of Job 33:4, it can still make me cry. The spirit of God, she has made me. And the breath of the nursing God, she gives me life. And if you think about the era in which this text would have been written or written about, you know, were mammals and the only way that mammals survive is through their mother's milk, you know, that's, that's the thing that makes us. So if you can imagine this was, would have been, you know, pre bottles, pre any, any, you know, pre formula, of course, all of these things. A nursing God is a very sustaining, nurturing, life giving force. And when I first heard that, I just wept because it was one of the first times my female body actually felt that it was made in the image of God. You know, I grew up in a tradition that at least gave lip service to the idea that God was neither male or female. And yet the next sentence was always he is spirit, all art, all prayer, all doctrine. You know, anything I ever heard or saw modeled it was, it's still a denomination that won't ordain women. So the only thing I ever saw was male bodied masculinity equaled divine. And even if it's just a subtle message, that is a very strong lesson to everybody growing up in that environment. So yeah, I went through a strong shift in my own faith journey and the way I talked about the divine. My older daughter, I have a seven year gap between my children and my older one was old enough to recognize the difference. You know, like hey, you're changing the way you talk. And often for a long time I would just use gender neutral terms because that was my first go to. It felt so strange, so strange to use a she or a mama or a mother even. And then. So for a while, my. My next step was mother, father, God. Like, I would just, like, slip it in there really fast, especially if I was praying in front of people. That was like, the boldest move I could do for many years. But then my older daughter, and it happened to be during COVID when we weren't really going anywhere or doing anything. My younger daughter was 3, and my older daughter started teaching her to pray just on her own. And one day I came in and she was teaching her to say, dear Mother God. And of course, then her little, like, toddleries, it was dear mother, dad. And then on her own, as she made this her own practice, she started saying, mama, God, because she called me Mama. That's what she called other mamas. And somehow that landed for me as well. And I realized it gave me prayer back in a way that I hadn't had access to prayer in a long time. The whole book is like, dear Mama God, thank you for the earth and all living things. Thank you for rain that makes rainbows. Thank you for seeds that grow into plants. Thank you for trees, for birds to build nests in. It's really simple little gratitudes. And they're all prayers that my little one, when she was like three, four, and five, actually prayed. And I would just occasionally jotted stuff down because it was so moving to me to hear that. The very final one, I like, did a sweet little wrap up. And she always knows. She's like, I didn't say that one, but. And some of them are silly, you know, like, thank you for hula hoops for dogs to jump through. You know, this is because we have a dog who likes to do tricks. And, you know, thank you for paper to draw on and like, beating hearts that love. Like, they're just like. They're actually like young child language. And it was so beautiful to me to see that it just refreshed my own spirituality and sense of connection with the divine. And I think that's what happens when we expand our God language and we suddenly realize, like, oh, I've only been seeing this one little prism, but it's this whole mural, you know, and the light is coming through, and it really is meant to light up all of these different aspects, but we've only seen this, this little narrow one.
[00:08:00] Speaker B: Part of what Claire and Jason talked with Dr. Gaffney about was this idea of prism. And so we love how so much of this comes together and allows us to see more refractions of light, to shed light on some darkness around womanist and feminist theology and whether or not we have a table that includes all people and how that has worked out. And so what I love about the book is the fact that I believe that the Spirit is in everyday life. And what you did and what your daughter did in part of writing this with you was talk about Mama, God, and all of the little joys of life, and that that's where we find divine goodness. And so I love that. I am wondering, and I asked this question based on a little bit of experience. A couple of Easters ago, our worship leader at the time decided to introduce a new song on Easter. And it was called she's in the Room. And it just was answering that God was here, she was in the room. And oh, boy, oh boy, did I get some calls. And. And it's so funny because I got the calls. You know, Jason and I co lead minister together.
Joey, our worship leader, picked the, the song. But oh, boy, why did you choose Easter to do this? I mean, okay, maybe, like, this is a concept we could be thinking about, but, you know, like Easter, when my mom, who's 82, is coming. This really, like, made our Easter lunch uncomfortable.
[00:09:57] Speaker A: I love it.
Go. Holy troublemaking, Joey, go.
[00:10:02] Speaker B: Yes, there was some troublemaking happening. And so I can only imagine for you, as a woman who was deconstructing, who's teaching kids about some of these really big concepts that as you're deconstructing and seeing others deconstruct, I can imagine that perhaps you had some obstacles around this. And we're doing this work as women attempting to push through that. There needs to be some. Look at this. We need to look at how we see God, how we teach our kids God. And it is oftentimes, like Dr. Gaffney, like some of the other holy troublemakers that you talk about in your first book, it's women that are saying, hey, we need to be represented here. We are also in the image of God.
[00:11:00] Speaker A: So.
[00:11:00] Speaker B: So if you, if you're open, did you have obstacles? And if so, how did you do?
[00:11:05] Speaker A: Well, yes, as you can imagine, there were a few conversations. I'll. I'll start by showing you. I have a stack of books next to me that I always keep when I do one of these, because they're sort of the cloud of witnesses that I love to keep by. So some of these are children's books, like all the oldie goody ones, like the Rabbi Sasso. What is God's name that includes a whole lot of God's names, often including Mother Christina Cleveland. God is a black woman. Rejoice, beloved woman. Quite. It's. It's a little bit older. Barbara Munda. And it's the Psalms redone with feminine divine language. It's really beautiful. Reverend Gaffney does that in her lectionary also. She does that for the psalms in particular, because she knows people like to pray the Psalms, and there's something very, very powerful about using that. And she has a whole list of other potential divine names as well, like gender neutral and feminine. There's a whole index in the back, and just reading them will give me the shivers and the weeps, especially the she who is mighty, she who birthed the earth. She was a strength, source of life. She who speaks life. This is an original like Dr. Johnson's. She who Is is one of the classic feminist texts. This is like 25, 30 years old now. Mother God is another one that came out the year before mine did by Teresa Kim Petronovsky. That's beautiful, beautiful art. And just all the biblical images of. Of God described in feminine form, of which there's many. You know, the mother, the mother bear, the mother hen, the baker woman making all. Like, I say that to say that there's actually, like, this depth of resources and people thinking about this. But then, yes, of course, when you start to put it out there, especially if you're female. Female bodied, you get this idea that you have an agenda to push here. And it gives me great sympathy. For example, my. My film work for many years was trying to tell. Tell the stories, share the stories of LGBTQ people within the denomination that I grew up in. And it was easier for me to face the homophobia and transphobia because I did not have that identity. You know, African Americans and black people in this country putting forth Black Lives Matters, I can imagine it's a. It's a similar challenge when you share that identity and you're receiving this. So it's.
[00:13:15] Speaker D: It's.
[00:13:15] Speaker A: It's actually. It's why we need allies in all of these movements, because I can come alongside my LGBTQ siblings and speak up when it's appropriate. You know, don't steal the mic, but, like, when it's appropriate, in solidarity, to offer support. And it doesn't impact my personal sense of being in the way that when people talk about Mama God, it does. Like, if they're offended. I think my favorite comment once was it compared me to Jezebel.
That's always a good that's always a good insult for women. You know, she's just a Jezebel. And so, yeah, it can be very. It can be very hurtful. It's not a safe conversation to have with everybody, of course. But for some people who are. I actually think there's a lot of. There's. There's a tremendous amount of biblical support for this like that. It's not looking outside the text for this in any way at all. But honestly, some of the first resistance came from myself. There is a great deal of internalized sexism that we're all a part of. And that's one of the reasons why Dr. Gaffney says we can't just use neutral terms because it doesn't disrupt our learned patterns. What I actually get the most is the. The middle of the road, progressive leaning to say, can't we just skip gender altogether? Like, let's just skip gender altogether. It's just God, right? Spirit God. Like, let's just completely skip anything gender. And I love that Dr. Gaffney and Dr. Johnson and some of these others say that's actually not enough because we have thousands of years attached to this word. God equals this masculine, you know, and honestly, in the west, like, we think white male, Sistine Chapel, God, whether we want to or not. Like, that goes through your head for a second, even if you're trying to override it. So, like, that is our pattern. That's what's, you know, so much history and tradition and dogma and creed and liturgy and hymns. Like, it all is there as the he. So we actually have to work in those uncomfortable. She's. Now, maybe Easter morning isn't the place to start, but, you know, or it is. You got something going. I got to get. I got to give him that credit. That's, you know, I don't sit in that congregation to get the phone call. So from the outside, I'm like, now, that is some holy troublemaking right there. I love it.
[00:15:29] Speaker D: There's something about the particularity of using feminine pronouns, feminine images, feminine language, I think, about the particularity that we get in who Jesus is a brown Palestinian carpenter who was killed by the Empire. But we don't think a lot about the particularity of who God is and our images of God. And I think there's something so intimate and accessible and relatable for me as I'm woman, hearing this language of God. Even in your book, seeing the epilogue, the letter that you write, you capitalize her. And I know that that's very intentional because oftentimes we see him capitalized when talking about God. And seeing that pronoun her capitalized was is just so powerful for me. It brings me so much joy to think of the liberating and empowering things that this is just doing for little, little girls or just children in general who are getting to read this.
[00:16:36] Speaker A: And the boys, the boys and the non binary trans kids. We all genders need it. And that's one of the things that I really like to make sure I point out. By the way, I don't think we should capitalize he or her in this context. However, I talked to my rhetoric editor a lot about that because neither of us were like, we really don't think we should be doing either of them. But because it's been so commonly capitalized as the, as the he him, that we, we thought we should do that for this particular purpose. Yeah, so you are getting to a great point here that when we open up the metaphor, and these are all metaphors, right.
Nobody literally thinks God looks like a, like a mother hen, like feathers and clucking, Right. We don't think these are literal. But because we got so stuck in the masculine male, we, we kind of have. We, like, we've taken a metaphor which is meant to be a gesture. Metaphors are. And that we need all of them because they all are just little pieces. So we need all those metaphors, you know, and we need the metaphors going to land for different people because we really are all that collective image of the divine walking, walking around. And if we could remember that, we would treat each other better and ourselves better. So when we have excluded the feminine ways of making meaning or of finding metaphors, especially the mothering ones. And I really think mothering is a. Like, I argue strongly that mothering is accessible to all genders. Like, and it's not a biological thing, but because we have in our culture diminished it to like a women's only work, more mostly unpaid and unrecognized work. I think it's important to step into that and sort of claim it as something that we all need to do. And one of my favorite lines in Holy Troublemakers is from a profile from a. A woman named Kate Martin who says that Jesus is a man who mothered the world. I'll say it one more time because it's so powerful to hear the first time. Jesus was a man who mothered the world.
And if you think about the stories of Jesus, the way he sat with people, he touched people, he nurtured people, he took time for people and children in particular, and those who. Society said, what you can't. That is not good for your reputation. Do not go sit with those people. And he took that time. And that's a mothering act, to see the essence of somebody and, like, fiercely protect it. To say, no, this is good and holy, and I'm going to help you become this and manifest this. Like, that's a mothering act that all genders can participate in. And when we have excluded that from the idea of the divine, and it's right there in all of our texts, God is giving birth. Like, in screaming, writhing, agony, God is giving birth. You know, God is the rock who nursed you. Like, there's the, like. There's so much biblical language about these mothering metaphors for God that when we exclude those, not only do we exclude actual women, girls and mothers, but for all genders, we downplay and minimize the nurturing qualities which, you know, our world really needs a lot more of. Like, we're seeing this dominant alpha masculinity right now that is at the moment, quite powerful. And I wouldn't say that we need to be leaning into that more. We actually really need to acknowledge the gentle nurturing and can be a fierce mama bear, of course, type of qualities, but we really need to intentionally bring that into our God language. Like, I think it's had very harmful effects on our society, this patriarchal language and worldview.
[00:20:05] Speaker D: Absolutely. This is reminding me of a book that Janelle introduced me to. Have you read the book, Mom Jeans?
[00:20:12] Speaker A: I have not, actually.
[00:20:14] Speaker D: It talks a lot about how we have this idea of a motherly instinct, and that's not necessarily true on a biological level. And that for people of all genders, there are certain instincts that are feminine and motherly that can be cultivated and brought out of a person. And so it's so interesting to me. What you're saying, I think is not just true on, like, a theological, philosophical level, but also, I would argue, on a biological level.
[00:20:44] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. We. We all can cultivate that. You know, I would say there's. There's really good fruit that comes from this. And that's often my test for something when you open that up and, like, what it does for children, but and for the adults in the room, like, it can be wonderfully freeing. Um, one woman told me a story. She was very, very opposed to this. You know, like, it was just like, I cannot. No way. This is, like, wrong. And somebody challenged her for six months to try intentionally praying to God and imagine mothering Figures, mothering concepts, whether that be, you know, human, more than human, natural world, like, what? And she. After it didn't even take six months. It was just about six weeks.
Just said, it is like I suddenly see in color, and I hadn't realized that I had been colorblind before. Like, it's just an expansiveness. And of course that's true. Like, there's gonna. There's gonna be these other avenues. And that's why I think it's, like, so amazing to have churches like Oceanside Sanctuary fully affirming, because I'm gonna learn something from when my LGBTQ siblings don't have to, like, hide or pretend or not bring their understandings forward, I'm gonna learn something completely different, have a totally different perspective shift than, you know, if I just kept the. The range to, like, one color palette.
[00:21:57] Speaker B: Well. And I think naming the intentional erasing, it wasn't done always just because we didn't know better. There was an intentional erasing of how we use pronouns in the Bible or the scriptures, as Dr. Gaffney likes to use. There is a intentional erasing or covering up of women today.
And I appreciate your point about mothering not being something that we see as having a monetary value. And so many of the skills that women are thought to bring are considered weaker, not worth paying for, not true work product.
And this kind of soft skills you. In your book, a Dear Mama God threw out. Some of the people who said, this is an amazing book was Valerie Core, who is also somebody that we have had on the podcast in the past. And her bringing forth this idea that revolution happens through birth, this idea of strength. I mean, you and I have been through birth, and it. It takes like, I don't know a single man who could do it. So this idea that women are a weaker vessel that we've been taught and hold on to and apologize for and make ourselves smaller and all of the things that we do because we were socialized to think that that was who we were. We have to have stories like Dear Mama God, like Holy Troublemakers, so that our kids, both boys, girls, non binary, can see that there is strength in being in many different ways with many different characteristics. And as we read those to our kids, to our grandkids, to our Sunday school kiddos, we're taking those in for ourselves. It's building our imagination. So it is such important work that is being done. I would like to hear why somebody who is a documentary filmmaker, writer, creative, would choose to direct your knowledge and your gifting towards children's spiritual formation.
[00:24:27] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. I'm sure a huge part of that is because I'm a mom, and I really felt the personal need for. For something that I wanted to share with my children that had anything to do with faith, that felt in alignment with my values and what I hoped people of faith were about in the world. And I really grew up in a. In a beautiful, beautiful community, but yet it was very small in a lot of its understandings and doctrines. And as I, you know, there's lots of words for it now. Deconstructed, composted, all. All of those things. I was left with very few books or, you know, works of art that I wanted to share with my children. And I really do believe that art is one of the ways, you know, that we speak to the soul. I'm a word person. I love to sit down and, you know, either write or hear a good sermon and engage in discussion. But those things don't stay with us in the same way that music and poetry and art and story do, because we're human, and that's. That's just how we process meaning. And so I really wanted something in the story universe that was beautiful. Like, the aesthetics really matter to me also that my kids and then others would. Would want to hold onto and open up and look at and be inspired by and have that. That memory, that tangible memory of an encounter with art and the divine.
[00:25:51] Speaker B: When we were setting this up, one of the things that you said is you talked about children's books really being purchased by the parents and maybe like, a first understanding of these new concepts. Would you be willing to unpack that for just a minute?
[00:26:06] Speaker A: Sure. And the person who pointed this out to me is my curriculum collaborator. Her name is Wendy Claire Berry. She's been working in the Episcopal Church for years doing intergenerational faith formations. And she's the one who really first brought to my attention that anytime you're doing anything for children and youth, it is always intergenerational, because the parents, the grandparents, the teacher, a guardian, you know, somebody is doing the purchasing. You know, the kids are not getting on the websites and buying these books or downloading these podcasts. Like, this is. This is not to say it's not valuable, but it is going to be usually a trusted adult in their life who is going to, like, you know, nudge, nudge these things and bring them into conversation. So you are also always communicating with that adult, whether they're directly in the room or indirectly in the room. And so in many ways, it's a powerful way to help nudge intergenerational conversations about topics that might not otherwise easily Just come up.
[00:27:13] Speaker E: Some questions to consider have you ever prayed to God as mother?
When you imagine God, what picture do you conjure?
And how has the intentional erasing of women in the scriptures affected your spiritual journey?
Before we go, we've got something special for you. We're giving away free copies of Dear Mama God to the first 20 people who call or email us to share why the divine Feminine is important to them. If you call or email us, you will receive a free copy of Deneen's book Dear Mama God. You can send us an
[email protected] or leave us a voicemail at 760-722-8522.
Thanks for listening to the Collective Table. We are a production of the Oceanside Sanctuary Church. Learn more about
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