WomanChrist (7 of 8)
Perhaps most dramatically for me: why does Weber wish to stay with a Church which effectively defiles her sacred nature, when she is so clearly aware of the beauty and joy of the Goddess?! Throughout the book Weber practically flirts with the Goddess’ myriad forms, dancing along the knife’s edge of admission and acknowledgment of Her: “Our faith, our spirituality, then, is the living out, in the common experiences of every day, of the yearning of Wisdom for greater being. … She is… the energy of our quest…. She it is who is our Mother and the Womb from which we are born. We come forth from her each moment wet with the birthing waters of a more whole being” (150).
I love that imagery! I read that and I find myself sure Weber will finally implement the balance of which she so beautifully writes, returning the Goddess as both peer and partner once more to Catholicism’s emotionless and isolated God – just as Yahweh originally was balanced by Shekinah-Sophia. The author names Her repeatedly, too — both actual and allegorical: WomanChrist is Weber’s naming of the physical embodiment of the supreme female principle within the male-bodied Jesus. She also evokes the Goddess in her life as Demeter & Persephone/Kore, Mary/Eve, Shekinah/Sophia, Aphrodite, Ereshkigal & Inanna, Psyche, Wisdom — and so much more:
Holy Pietà – pray for us
Mirror of Justice – pray for us
Tower of Ivory – pray for us
House of Gold – pray for us
Ark of the Covenant – pray for us
Morning Star – pray for us
Gate of Heaven – pray for us
Seat of Wisdom – pray for us (172).
To me it seems Weber’s love and devotion for the Goddess is clear. There are times, in fact, when I read her beautiful prose where I almost feel Weber prefers the Goddess to the God:
She loves humankind and beckons us from within and without to participate in her dance – the dance of creation. Her call is ultimately the same as the command of Yahweh. “I have set before you life and death. … Choose life” (Deuteronomy 30:19 JB). The choice between life and death is also a choice for love – love of creation, love of the dance of Divine Wisdom. Love of her is love of life itself. (150)
Later she recognizes the challengingly beautiful complexities and contradictions of the Goddess – as well as the basic, fundamental error of the very dualities she used elsewhere in her writing.:
She is present wherever there is in our creation a reconciliation of opposites. Wisdom is active whenever what is below is drawn together with what is above, when the shadow is united with the image of light. When the dualities we have constructed to make our task of identification and power taking easier are returned to their original wholeness, we know that the spirit of Wisdom is present. (152)
However… just as I realize with relief that Weber must finally be about to admit Judeo-Christianity was never truly a monotheist religion; just as I’m reading eagerly to see how Weber provides us balance once more by offering us the Goddess to offset Yahweh’s usual jealous, petulant greed for worshipers… at the seemingly very last metaphorical second! -Weber darts off intellectually, turning back once more to worship of a single, supreme, emphatically male deity.
