Clearing My Throat

Goddess (Photo credit: junibears)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For years now I've been reading the works of Matthew Fox,

a former Dominican priest who was silenced by the Vatican.

This is taken from an interview he gave a few years ago:

I think that the return of the Goddess is one of the most important

movements of today's hope.... the Goddess represents the Divine

creativity in everybody ... if we have just a male image of God, that

legitimizes the other patriarchal privileges and oppression - including

men towards men - that goes on in the culture. So obviously we need

gender justice in our divinities.

A few weeks ago I signed up for an online week-end seminar he was

leading.  Unfortunately the first speaker I listened to wasn't Matthew Fox. 

But Matthew Fox was there and I felt betrayed.

 In the space of one hour the speaker told the audience of mostly women

four times that he knew he was being sexist but he didn't care, (i.e. I

know this is sexist but I insist on a literal translation of this [ancient] text.)

 I don't give churchy men a second chance anymore.  I've heard this kind

of bullshit my whole life.  In my opinion if the ancient text is sexist then

it isn't ancient enough.

 Shortly after the week-end ended Matthew Fox tweeted this:

 

 ... The suppression of women in the Church is but one of the many signs

of this masculine domination….Reason has to be 'married' to intuition;

it has to learn to surrender itself for the deeper intuitions of the spirit...

from the presence of the Spirit in the depths of the soul. -Bede Griffiths

 

Normally I would be far too intimidated to reply to such a famous

intellectual but I couldn't stop myself.  I was far too angry.

Francie McGlynn@Frazzee1       @FCSCreationSpir What am I missing? This was the message I was hoping to get from the Christ Path Seminar but it wasn't what I heard. - 03 Jul

 

Surprisingly he answered me right away:

 

@frazzee1 Bede is talking about the need to include right brain and intuition and spiritual practice to counterbalance left brain rationality. There was LOTS of that this weekend--surely the entire Sat aft practice with the Cosmic Christ icons; the Cosmic Christ itself; the chants. My talks on Jesus as a mystic/prophet living out the four paths of creation spirituality and the recesses of his soul. - Matthew Fox

 

Jeesh. 

I thought Bede was talking about the suppression of women and

male domination.

But Matthew Fox didn't ask me where I had gotten lost.

Anyway, somewhere in the middle of this struggle of mine I read

Magaly's blog that spoke about how angry she was when she learned

that there was a host of Anglicans who were adopting pagan practices

hoping to bring more people back to the church.

Her many Pagan blog readers were angry too. 

Actually angry isn't the right word but is there a word in the English

language to describe feelings that have built up over 5,000 years?

I decided to throw in my two cents. 

I said not to worry, Jesus would have accepted Pagans because that's

just the kind of guy he was but the Anglican Church would not.

 

The funny thing is that it wasn't until yesterday when I read that Dr. Fox,

former Dominican now ordained Anglican priest, is giving another talk

did I put the two together.

My own words came back and stuck in my craw.

 Because they were true.

The Church (be it Catholic, Anglican or any other denomination) will never

end gender discrimination.

 

I need to regroup.