[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:09] Speaker B: Welcome back to the collective table season 10, the 50.5%, where we are centering the voices, experiences, and wisdom of women. In our last episode, Janelle and I started an amazing conversation with Deneen Akers, author of the book Dear Mama, God, a beautifully expansive children's book that imagines God as a loving mother. So if you missed part one, be sure to go back and listen. Today we're diving even deeper with Deneen, exploring how language shapes our faith, why reimagining God matters, and what it means to cultivate a more inclusive spirituality. So let's jump back in.
[00:00:52] Speaker C: So your book was based on some of your daughter's prayers. And I'm curious, since this book has been released, how have other kids who have read it surprised you about their understanding of the divine feminine? I'm. I'm our family minister here at Oceanside Sanctuary, and I am surprised every single week when I tell our kids story. They make the most genius associations. Like I was telling the story of about Philip and the eunuch last week, and one of the kids chimed in and was like, oh, it's like when I asked Alexa to explain something to me, the eunuch was asking Philip to say, what does this mean? Like, how I say, hey, Alexa. I would have never made that association. Alexa was not a part of my life as a kid. But for all these Gen Alpha kids, they ask Alexa something when they don't understand.
And all the kids got it in a way that I couldn't explain it to them.
[00:01:46] Speaker A: Yeah, well, actually, one of the things that I've loved, the stories that have come back because, yeah, kids, they're so beautifully unfiltered. They haven't had all the cultural overlay yet. And so many people told me that when they actually, like, had a conversation with their child, you know, prompted by the book, it was completely obvious to them that God should be a mama because who creates life.
And it was one of those things where I actually lamented the. The daughter whose prayers inspired this was a. A later reader. Like, she was one of those. My older daughter was one who would have started reading no matter what you did at five. And the, the younger one has been a later reader. And I have lamented her capacity to, like, say, read billboards and other things because, you know, the theology presented in Billboards are. Is rarely something you really want to be reading driving down the road. So she genuinely did not know. And I've heard this from other parents about their kids when they, you know, young, younger kids who are still at those early Stages. They had no idea that people might think that God's a boy. Like, it just didn't make any sense to them because they, they see who is giving birth and they see who is nursing. And like, it just seems obvious to them that like life flows from mamas. Science isn't my background, but I mean it's within not that long of human history that we have understood that the female had a role to play other than just being this like incubator. It's, it's amazing how many domains are impacted by this. And this includes, you know, like, how much like very little medical research is done with women in mind because our bodies are complicated and the hormones might, you know, like dip and like they, they just so like medical research. I just read a book about this that just got me seriously fired up. Most of it's. It was until recently mandated. It was just done on men because it was easier. And the idea was that women were just like male bodies, but like often a little bit lighter, so just like a little bit less of that medicine, when actually in actuality our biologies are really quite different. We need more anesthesia, for example. We literally feel more and are more likely to wake up in surgery and traumatic events like that if you don't have like appropriate amounts of anesthesia. But they did not discover that through intentional research. It was accidental on something else that then like the, the data just happened to show that. And it was literally like in the late 90s that that was known. So like it's been very recent discovery. But yeah, in pretty much every domain, this patriarchal view which, you know, starts with like what we hold as the ideal which has been male and masculine, has, has impacted the way that we see and, and value women. And of course in the religious sphere, there's still a whole lot of places where women are not allowed to do anything unless it had family in front of it.
[00:04:24] Speaker D: Yeah, we are very late to the game. And as you talk about medical research also, I think we're, we're seeing that some of this is happening because now there are women doctors. And so they're like, wait a minute, this is not how I'm experiencing things. So then there. What, what do you mean? There's no past research on female bodies. It shows the role of not only how we need to make sure that we see the role of God in divine feminine, but that we bring people into leadership that are female, that are non binary, that we allow those spaces, that we have multicultural spaces so we can learn language, that we may not have in English that somebody has that right word for in another language. We need everybody to show us who God is, to show us the mirror into who we are as a group of people. And so yeah, this is all such important information and yet we're just barely.
[00:05:31] Speaker A: Getting off the ground, honestly.
[00:05:33] Speaker D: Right.
[00:05:33] Speaker A: One of the things people say is like, but Jesus prayed to God the Father, so that's what we must do. Like that's our model. And to come back to the point you made earlier, Claire, about the particularity, it's interesting that we don't remember very often Jesus's human particularity of poor brown skinned Palestinian carpenter living under an oppressive empire, murdered by the state. We don't remember those particularities, especially his socioeconomic status and his very clear messages about the poor. Like we do not hang on to those particulars about Jesus in the way that we have the way. That was his chosen metaphor. And that's what it is to me. Like I love that Jesus felt a close enough relationship with God to be in that sort of parental intimate metaphor. Like that was a very particularly intimate close metaphor. You know, I just say that's Jesus's metaphor. And Dr. Johnson in she who Is, which is one of these seminal texts that started talking about this back in the 70s at least, also says that in the earlier texts that we have. So like Mark was the, you know, earliest gospel text, you know, not during the actual lifetime, but I think it was like 35, 40 years. Ish. So like within memory for sure, of at least a few people, there's only four references to God that Jesus uses. God and, and Jesus uses other terms like, and other metaphors for God too, like the woman looking for the coins. But we haven't, we haven't held on to some of these other ones. And then by the time John is written, which is significantly later, like 90 or 100 or something like I'm. It's a lot later that there's Father all over John. But that really represents the evolving doctrine as the church is getting established and not the like, historical language use of Jesus. But I always say, like, listen, if God as father is life giving for you and like the metaphor that you need, like be blessed with it. The challenge is when you like make it exclusive and the only available metaphor for everybody.
[00:07:35] Speaker D: That makes me think of a book called Amma Abba and it's by Nicholas Lee and it's Improvisions on the Lord's Prayer. And what she really says is that in the Aramaic it would have been more of A my parent, not just father. And so even then in her work, seeing that perhaps we twisted it to just father, but that it would have been more the meaning of Ama Abba, my parent. Really interesting. And that's one that we pray. We'll pray the Lord's Prayer, and we love that one, and that's very meaningful. But we also use some of her works to bring a richer idea of maybe what the Lord's Prayer encompassed of the time.
[00:08:25] Speaker A: One of my good clergy friends, she is Presbyterian, and this was super pushing the envelope for her church. I spoke there once on this, on why we need the divine and feminine form. And this wasn't the first time she used it. She uses it more, but she closes, in the name of God, the Father, the Son and the Spirit, Mother of us all.
And I think it took a fair bit of time for our congregation to adjust to just that little bit of language. It is amazing how, how much I go to a little small congregation now where a lot of the music has been revised slightly. It gives us different perspectives like this. Rejoice, beloved woman. Psalms. The Psalm 23 reads, My mother is my shepherd and I lack nothing. She lays me down in green grass and carries fresh water to me. I can rest in her watchfulness while my soul is restored. She leads me along the path to wholeness. And then skipping on, mother, you prepare a meal for me in the sight of those who would do me harm. You have bathed me and massaged me. My cup, filled with you, flows over to the brim. Goodness and love surround me, and I will follow you forever. I will live in your house all the years of my life.
Such a familiar something calm. And yet the richness and the expansiveness, the spaciousness that opens up with my mother is my shepherd.
[00:09:58] Speaker D: Why should men be listening to this conversation? We are talking about children's books where three women talking about how this has affected us or how seeing God in divine feminine is important to us. And we know that sometimes female voices can be turned off by male ears. I think I want to say that I think for many men this can be a very intentional listen. And it can be a like, what does this have to do with me? Why this? So why should we ask them to dig in today and listen to this podcast?
[00:10:42] Speaker A: I mean, it's the same reason why white Americans need to hear from black Americans. I gotta think anybody who's listening to your podcast would. Would understand that it's important to hear about the experience that isn't yours, especially when you occupy the dominant place of power. And. And. And it's not intentional. Right. You were. You were born who you were born. And it can be, I think, really hard for especially men who are more conscious and wanting to be aware. It can feel like a lot has just been kind of clobbered on them in the last bit. And, you know, I can. I've seen men I care about try really hard to do well with that, and it can be hard to take it in and then feel that there's any space for you to, like, share your experience or gifting or. Or things like that. And so I think it's okay to sit with the discomfort of trying to figure out how to do that. Like, Right. Doesn't mean there's, like, it's not a scarcity model. Right. I think it's important that we continue to remind ourselves, like, it's abundance. Like, the message continually is abundance. God's love is abundance. And it only blesses to hear from. From more of the population. And we live in a world where women and girls still experience all kinds of sexism and abuse. And like, the repercussions of the patriarchal model, which has been with us for a few thousand years, is only just beginning to be understood, much less dismantled. And it will take men to participate. You know, if you look at other movements, they're all intertwined. Like, this is like, they all are connected. And that's why it requires allies. Like I talked about. Like, I did a lot of work in my denomination to help share LGBTQ stories, and I do not identify as lgbtq, although I've been assumed to be lesbian because of that work in so many places. I think even, like, online, you can find references to me as. As queer, which I take as an honor.
[00:12:29] Speaker D: Say, not. Not a bad thing to be called.
[00:12:31] Speaker A: We have to move past the idea that liberation work should only be done by the particular group of people that it impacts, or it'll just be exhausting, and it, you know, and. And a lot less interesting. And we won't. We won't hear from as much, you know, of the people who we need to. And also, I just got to assume that men have a lot of different people in their lives for whom patriarchy and sexism affects. And also it affects them. That's another big thing is, you know, I am raising girls. My sister is raising boys. And I have often thought, as hard as it is, I think, to raise healthy, confident, happy in their body girls, given the, you know, culture that we live in, it has got to be really hard to raise Boys, because you really need them to, like, respect all of this, understand it, and still have their own sense of purpose and identity. Like, and we actually allow, like, especially younger girls, we have a little leeway for like the tomboy, right? Like, we allow a little gender playing for girls in a way that we don't allow for boys. And that really shuts stuff down. You know, I have watched young boys when my children were growing up who loved fun colors and glitter and like, they had no idea their mom was shopping in quote, unquote, the girls section of Target. Because for some reason we've decided that boys are only supposed to like, dinosaurs and reptiles. And, you know, we, we kind of let puppies go either way. But, like, if you'll notice, even like, animals have been gendered as to, like, what kids are supposed to be into. And that's very limiting to men and boys. Like, it really shuts down their emotional potential and their creativity and their, their nurturing. And they're like the, the things that are like, the feminine is not exclusively for females and the masculine is not exclusively for males. And that gets very confusing sometimes. I hear people, one of my teachers who's Taoist just says, let's just use yin yang. Because people, like, at least in Western culture, they don't have enough baggage with that yet that they can kind of use that. So, like, we are all, all of it. But because our culture so strongly rewards the masculine qualities, especially monetarily, you know, all of us, male and female, non binary, we, we all have like, minimized those feminine qualities because, like, the marketplace isn't paying, you know, like, they're not, they're not valuable. So, like, it really benefits all genders for us to like, expand these like, stuck metaphors that, you know, are harming our, our entire. I mean, it's harming the planet too. Like the exploitive, just extract and dominate model which has, you know, been strongly put forward by like, Western Christianity, you know, we're seeing planetary repercussions for that. Like, we can't sustain this. Like, it must, it must change.
[00:15:05] Speaker C: Yeah, that's so true. And we need men to be a part of this work and not because they are attached to a woman.
[00:15:13] Speaker A: Totally.
[00:15:13] Speaker C: Like daughter, wife, what have you. Any kind of relationship with a woman. Men need to be a part of this work whether or not they have any relationship with a woman. Non binary person, trans person.
[00:15:26] Speaker A: Yeah, no, it's in the same way that, yeah, often, yeah, there'll be appeals to like, oh, you should care about this because you have A mother or daughter. Yes, I'm sure that does affect you and you need to care about it beyond that because it's bigger than just those personal relationships. It's about how our societies and systems and planet functions.
[00:15:43] Speaker D: I love that because it leads into. One of the things that you did with Holy Troublemakers and Unconventional Saints is you told some of those stories for people who maybe weren't connected or weren't aware of some of these amazing newer stories of this century of saying, look at this individual, look at what they did and how they've put pushed humanity forward. And I know that you are working on a new project that is similar to that, if I'm understanding it right. But I wanted to give you the opportunity to tell us what's happening with you now and what can we be looking forward to in the next couple of years, maybe.
[00:16:30] Speaker A: Oh, that's so kind. Well, I do hope to write another volume of Holy Troublemakers an Unconventional Saints. And so it's a very helpful lens for me to remind myself of people who are just remembering to do the work that they're here to do and to find joy. You know, this is one of the things that I don't know how this is going to play out yet, but I feel called to help young people connect with joy in the more than human world and things like that because we are in such an age of anxiety and I think progressive circles, we can be a little bit heavy.
And I can absolutely identify with that myself. Well, this is important. We must do this. Lives are on the line. And I'm not trying to mock or minimize because it is. And we have become so trauma informed that sometimes we forget play and joy. Like this is our human capacity and our gift. And I really want to help young people work through some of the anxieties of this age that I think this whole generation of kids, we all were so optimistic.
And it's not that there aren't some, some, you know, wonderful good things that have come from this. And yet I think we're realizing like, oh, wow, there's been some really big ills also. So, yeah, I don't know what form that's going to take yet. I am. I'm playing with the idea of like sort of a On Wonder little magazine for kids. And by kids, I mean, I'm almost 50, so there's a whole range of what counts as kids to me. Right. Youth is probably the better. The better term. Yeah. Art and poetry and play. Like just remembering there was an educator whose name is sleeping my Mind right now. A year or so ago, I saw him on Instagram saying, as a society, we've become really trauma informed, which can be helpful. However, we have forgotten how to teach our bodies when it's not in trauma. And the opposite of trauma in our bodies is play. And yet how often. And this is another thing, because, like, our dominant cultures do not make any sort of space for valuing this. When. When do we play? When are we mischievous? When are we laughing for the sake of laughter and not because it's, like, resting us up to go fight the fight again? So, like, there's a little bit of me that I think, because I have been on the front lines of advocacy in one form or another for a while, I can feel what that's done in my body, and I. I want to, like, help another generation who cares about a world where we all flourish, but in. But in ways that doesn't just wipe out their own joy in the process. Like, it's a really tricky balancing act.
[00:19:01] Speaker D: I think that is the big conversation. I will say, as a spiritual director, one of the things that I really love is when people come in and meet with me and talk about their sacred stories. We often get to talk about. Let's talk about your joy stories today. Let's rediscover joy in a childhood that may have been mixed with harm and struggle, but there were spaces. So let's balance that. Let's have a balance and discover that. And it's, I think, a really important way to move. One of the things we're doing at the Oceanside Sanctuary is we've been having, like, a party after church every single Sunday since a certain time. I'll just say that we were all very down and crying.
And I said last week, we've learned something from the LGBTQ community that when you are being oppressed or when you are under extreme duress, that what you do is you party.
And there is a radical statement that you make when you say you are not going to push me down, that I am going to allow my joy to bubble forward in an effervescent way in which it's seen by others around me. There's a real power to that. And so I am in such agreement. We cannot wait to hear how this all works out. You have an amazing, beautiful gift. We're so blessed to have been part of working and helping with. With Mama God to a little bit.
[00:20:44] Speaker A: Oh, thank you. And you all give me a ton of hope. Like, I'm on your socials and newsletter, and I grew up in that part of the world and still love it a lot. And it's just, it's important to know where these corners are happening. You know, like, we have to catch courage from each other. And Joy, I love that you're having a party. Yeah, Our church last weekend afterwards, I said, hey, who wants to have, like, improv game night? Because, like, we need to do something fun. We're feeling. We're feeling it. And there'll be times for that, of course. But yeah, we gotta remember that joy is resistance.
[00:21:27] Speaker E: Here are some questions to consider.
Do you have female leaders you look up to and learn from?
What images or metaphors for God feel most meaningful to you right now?
And why is that?
How do you see lament and celebration working together in community?
Can you think of examples where they coexist?
Well, what a conversation.
We're so grateful to Deneen Akers for sharing her heart and wisdom with us. And don't forget, we are still giving away free copies of Dear Mama God. Be one of the first 20 people to call or email us with your thoughts on the Divine Feminine and you'll receive a book. Our email is tcteansidesanctuary.org or even better, I will say, leave us a voicemail that we might use on a future podcast. That number is 760-722-8522 and use the prompt for the podcast.
Thanks for listening to the Collective Table. We are a production of the Oceanside Sanctuary Church.
Learn more about
[email protected] we'll see you soon.
