When Women Say God
When Women Say God
The Voices That Are Bringing Me Home
I lay there in my bed with my eyes half-closed and a half smile drawn across my face as I listened to two of my favorite voices on one of my favorite podcasts. The Indigo Girls we’re on We Can Do Hard Things and this gave me joy even in my exhaustion. Then the conversation turned and Glennon asked Emily and Amy about their current experiences of spirituality.
I shifted, shot my eyes and ears wide open, listened at high alert. I can’t explain how deeply moved I was to hear the Indigo Girls talk about God in their personal experiences and iterations of the Divine.
You see, I’ve struggled to feel a personal connection with God lately. I’ve grasped in all the directions and searched all the places that once connected me to God, that brought the Spirit to life in me. Empty. Dry. Nothing there.
I’ve longed desperately to know where to find that movement of the Spirit again. And finally, my body showed me in its instinctual responses where it is the Divine is moving for me.
It is in the voices of women. In hearing them say God in the many ways and means they might express themselves. It is in the lilt of a poet’s voice, the softness of an artist reading her journal aloud, words poured out on pages by friends and writers I like to pretend are my friends. It’s in Instagram reels and stories. And it’s in the voices of the female mystics and the grand variety of female saints. It’s under the starry mantle of Mother Mary and in my imaginings of the voice of the Feminine Divine.
I thought I was missing Him, my God. Turns out She was there all along, calling me to Her in wild wonder of womanhood. The voices that make my arm hairs stand on edge and my breath catch in my throat when I hear the words of the Spirit slip off their tongues with ease and grace even in their grapplings with who this God is.
They call me back home with their wisdom, grounding back in myself, my body, my own experience of God, Yahweh, I AM. They are the ordinary every day mystics whose voices transcend the here and now and lift me to the heavens where the supernatural feels so close I am sure I can see, smell and taste it. My body quivers with the joy of mystery and matter mingling in the throats of feminine geniuses.
This. This is where I am finding God. This is where Spirit is so undeniably real and true to me. When women say God, I am found. And I am suddenly home.
Where Women Are Saying God:
The Indigo Girls on We Can Do Hard Things
The Essays and Prayers at Mothering Spirit
Cole Arthur Riley in This Here Flesh
Shannon Evan’s latest Substack Essay
Fiona Maddock’s Hildegard of Bingen: The Woman of Her Age
the_modern_saints_by_gracie images of female saints
Those times I said God:
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Did you hear? I am writing a new book! Coming from Franciscan Media. Details as we get closer, but for now, I would love your prayers as I dig in and write!
LOVED THIS. It is indeed what we've been missing!