June 26, 2025 • 35 mins
What happens when we expand our vision of God beyond Father to include Mother? Shelley Shepard and I journey into territory many find unfamiliar yet deeply healing as we explore divine motherhood and its transformative potential.
This conversation travels through personal stories of our relationships with our mothers and how these experiences have colored our spiritual understanding. We examine how limiting God to masculine imagery creates barriers for many who've experienced trauma or difficult relationships with fathers, while embracing feminine divine aspects opens pathways to deeper connection. As we share, "Mothering is too huge a job to relegrate to one person," suggesting our spiritual lives benefit from seeing the sacred feminine expressed through earth, community, and divine presence.
The conversation crescendos as we read the Lord's Prayer from the New Zealand Anglican Prayer Book—beginning with "Eternal Spirit, Earth Maker, Pain Bearer, Life Giver, Father and Mother of us all"—demonstrating this expanded theology already exists within Christian traditions worldwide. We reference Jesus using feminine imagery and mystical teachers like Julian of Norwich who embraced God's mothering qualities centuries ago.
Perhaps most powerfully, we suggest God transcends gender entirely, with the various expressions—Father, Mother, Spirit—serving as different access points for different human needs. The episode concludes with a beautiful prayer to Mother God, granting listeners permission to experience the divine in healing, expansive ways that honor their unique spiritual journeys.
Has your understanding of the divine felt incomplete or limiting? This conversation might just unlock doors to spiritual healing you never knew existed. Join our community of spiritual explorers at expansionisttheology.com as we continue reimagining faith for wholeness, inclusion, and love.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the Expansionist Podcast with
Shelley Shepard and HeatherDrake.
In each episode, we dive deepinto conversations that
challenge conventional thinking,amplify diverse voices and
foster a community grounded inwisdom, spirit and love.
Hello, shelley Shepard.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Hey, heather Drake, what a pleasure it is to be with
you today.
This is going to be one ofthose conversations that we're
going to be happy that we hadthis conversation.
How about?
Speaker 1 (00:32):
that I agree, and part of this is we podcast.
But after we spend a few hourstalking together, we get to
podcast after we've already gonedeep, after we've already
figured out how each other'sfamily is and what's happening
in the world, and then to beable to encounter spirit and our
(00:52):
own souls and the thoughts thatwe have in what we are creating
and how we are aligning orattuning ourselves to the spirit
within us.
This is how we get to thesepodcasts, and so I'm excited to
be here with you today.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yes, yes, indeed, indeed, and you and I have
danced around this topic ourentire lives, practically, right
.
I mean, we've had our mothersour entire lives.
Thankfully, my mother is stillwith us.
We'll celebrate her 86thbirthday.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Oh, that's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Next month, july 5th, she and my sister have the same
birthday, so that was alwayskind of a big big, a big big
deal around July 4th, and thenmy dad and his mother shared the
same birthday, so July 5th andJuly 8th and July 4th, it was
just like celebration aftercelebration.
(01:52):
And then I think as and you knowthis about me I'm writing sort
of a memoir about my own storywith my mother, about my own
story with my mother, and thatis, I think, one of the hardest
things that I've ever done in myentire life is to sit down and
write this story, and maybe allof us have this strand, or some
(02:17):
people call it the mother wound,right that we look back at our
lives growing up and we seethings like, we notice things
that maybe at the time we justwalked through, we didn't really
(02:45):
stop, and it comes to ourmothers is, you know, did we
stop long enough and talk aboutthat?
Did we pray over it?
Did we ask wisdom?
What she would do?
And so here I am now, all theseyears later, thinking about
this story with my mom.
And so I know that this podcastisn't about our mothers, but I
(03:09):
think, if we have a podcastabout Mother God, which we are
getting ready to do, and wereflect on our mothers and our
years growing up, you know, dowe look at God in the same light
and in the same ways that we doour earthly mothers, and so I'm
(03:33):
ready to jump into this dancewith you.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Well, and I want to add, or at least contribute to
that line of thinking and saying, no matter where we are as
people and what our relationshiphas been with our mother or
what it currently is with ourmother, that there is an
invitation by the spirit, thespirit that created us, the
spirit that dwells in us is toallow expansion in how we see
(03:59):
mothering and in where we'remothered.
And I think mothering is toohuge a job to only relegate it
to one person, but to be able tosay that we are mothered
through our connection to theearth.
We're mothered to ourconnection to other women.
We're mothered in connectionwith grandmothers and aunties
(04:23):
and women that we have communitywith, and so mothering is not
relegated to one person'sresponsibility.
And I think ultimately weourselves, in connection with
the spirit that birthed us, intobeing always know or always
knew.
(04:43):
Maybe there's an ancient knowingin all of us that mother is
bigger, Like how, when we'retiny, do we know that's not what
a mother should do, Not becauseof the wisdom and have seen all
mothers and can do it, but veryearly on we're able to
determine and to actually todiscern the care and the nurture
(05:08):
and the love that it looks liketo be mothered and to mother
and for us now, as adults, tolook at that and go.
Are there areas in my life thatthe Spirit is inviting me to
expand my ideas or my parametersabout the Spirit as mothering,
(05:30):
as God is mothering, as myparticipation in what the Spirit
is doing in the world?
And I really believe theinvitation is into the realms of
Spirit that maybe we have notjourneyed before or we have not
been invited to before.
And there's so much hope inbeing invited into this place of
(05:51):
expansion to say God is notjust Father, God is more.
Spirit is inviting us into thisbeauty of oneness that calls us
to.
What does it look like for usto imagine that the very source
of all things also mothers us?
Speaker 2 (06:11):
That is a very, very expansive thought for us to
unpack and unravel, and earlierin the pre-show I was suggesting
that we open the alabaster boxand let that pour out here,
particularly as an anointing forthose who maybe, as you
(06:37):
suggested, the relationship withtheir mother was not good or
maybe they're currentlyexperiencing some divide in
their mother-daughterrelationship or mother-son
relationship.
And if we use the alabaster asan image and open it, like Mary
(06:58):
did, and pour it out asanointing, not just in this
moment on this conversation, butmaybe in an expansive way, that
becomes a practice when I findmyself in a conversation with my
mother that you know she's notunderstanding, or maybe she's
(07:24):
using a biblical text against mein my own personal identity, or
maybe there's you know, someother kind of you know side eye
that, uh, that I get because I Ipray to mary magdalene at the
mountain.
These are just differencesoften, and so allowing this
(07:46):
alabaster box that MaryMagdalene broke open and used to
pour anointing, used oil topour anointing, anointed Jesus,
I think is a place that I'mfinding myself more and more in
my relationship with my motherand in particularly in the story
(08:09):
that I'm writing, and so Iwould just offer today that
using this word expansion andexpansive to see God as Father
and God as Mother is a littlebit of a stretch.
It's a stretch sometimes forpeople to see God in that way
(08:31):
and I'm not sure why, heather,I'm not.
I mean, I understandtheologically how that has been
taught and preached.
Of course maybe you and I haveeven taught and preached that
ourselves.
But this expansion, thisstretching, this movement that
Spirit is doing in our lives andin the world, I think requires
(08:55):
our attention to have this beinclusive of God as mother and
God as father, not just in thebiblical text that we can use to
support that thought, but inour own spiritual walk, where we
have been nurtured by a mother,god.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
I want to read to us the Lord's Prayer from the new
zealand anglican prayer bookokay one of the things that's
important for me is, in myexpansion, also to include the
ancient, to include those whohave gone on before us in places
to be able to say what does itlook like for us to stop, stand
(09:37):
at the crossroads and ask forthe ancient paths?
But this is from the NewZealand Anglican Prayer Book.
Eternal Spirit, earth Maker,pain Bearer, life Giver, source
of all that is and all thatshall be, father and Mother of
us all.
Loving God, in whom is Heaven,the hallowing of your name
(10:00):
echoes through the universe.
The way of your justice.
Be followed by all the peopleof the world.
Your heavenly will be done byall created beings.
Your commonwealth of peace andfreedom sustain our hope and
come to our earth With the breadwe need for today.
Feed us In the hurts we absorbfrom one another.
Forgive us In times oftemptation and tests.
(10:23):
Strengthen us From trials toogreat to endure.
Spare us and from the grip ofall that is evil.
Free us, for you reign in theglory of the power that is love,
now and forever.
Amen.
And one of the things that Ilove to do is to be able to say
you know, is this an expansionso far that no one has
(10:46):
considered it?
But clearly this is cultural,because in New Zealand, this is
the Lord's Prayer that they'rememorizing, and the prayer that
I was told to memorize was ourFather, who is in heaven.
Well, I'm grateful for that,but God is more than Father.
Jesus even called us to thisunderstanding that God is like a
woman who looks for a lost cointhat Jesus himself says I am
(11:11):
like a mother hen who longs togather you and bring you under
my wings and protect you.
And so Jesus is asking us toexpand the way that we think
about these things.
And again, we could go into thecultural study where, when
Jesus calls God, abba, father,it would have been startling
(11:32):
because those kind ofrelationships were not part of
the culture that they have.
And so you know, there's much tobe said about the spirituality
that we are handed by culture.
And when we allow the spiritthat is sourced in God, the
spirit that has created us andsustain us, the spirit that is
(11:52):
love, the spirit that is God,those things, when we allow
those thoughts to invite us intosomething bigger.
We remind ourselves we're notalone in this.
And when Jesus said to thepeople following him, you've
heard it said, but I say to you,he's giving us framework to
challenge the things that we'veheard said and to say is there a
(12:15):
higher way, is there a biggerway, is there a more expansive
way?
And so you know, you and I haveread and have such enjoyment,
even discussing and living outlives from like Julian of
Norwich and some of the othermystics that have brought us
into true deep spiritualconversation and deep spiritual
(12:37):
living.
And I think that embracing thisor being willing to open our
mind to this also opens us tohealing, and to healing in
places that are very deeplypainful to us.
And I think one of the thingsour world needs now so much is
God, the mother, because we arein such pain.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Mm-hmm, I love that you bring that piece about
healing and nurture andcompassion.
Often the God of FirstTestament is seen as a cruel
father and perhaps for reasonsthat we learned later in second
(13:23):
testament um, that weren'talways necessarily true, but in
many ways very, very violent,destroying death, you know,
ravishing children and throwingbabies against rocks and all
sorts of things of this God.
And I wonder, when we talkabout healing, if we don't need
(13:47):
healing around sometimes, theway we've been taught from the
stories in 1 and 2 Testamentabout who God is and who God was
.
We just had Trinity Sunday,last Sunday, and this effort
(14:11):
that they went to threecenturies later after Jesus
departs the earth, to try tofigure out what Jesus meant
persons into one and comprehendthat and understand it.
(14:44):
Sometimes I wonder if we don'tneed healing just around our
theologies, because sometimeswhen I think about my own
personal posture with Father God, I have a hard time
transferring that to Mother God.
For me it's easier to seeMother as spirit and maybe for
(15:09):
someone else maybe you couldtalk about what that posture is
like for you I lean into intospirit, maybe because spirit
doesn't have the history thatgod had and um, or that god does
or that spirit doesn't have thehistory that, uh well, we don't
(15:30):
even know the mother godhistory, because where is she
like?
Where have we kept her?
Where has she been hiding?
Inside these tabernacles andthese temples and these mosques
and churches?
Where is she hiding?
Speaker 1 (15:45):
I also feel like Mother God is really clearly
giving to us in Mary, the motherof Jesus.
Okay, her response.
I mean that would be clearlyjust very one of the ways that
it's described for us, but Ithink that we have to allow
ourselves to say yes to theinvitation of the Holy Spirit
(16:08):
when we expand our mind aboutthese things.
I also wanted to read to us apoem, or prayer liturgy, that's
based on a text by Julian ofNorwich and this is actually
from Fran Pratt, but it'sincredibly beautiful and
obviously by Julian is wonderful.
but mothering God, you gave mebirth into the bright morning of
(16:32):
this world.
Creator, source of every breath, you are my rain, my wind, my
sun.
Mother in Christ, you took onmy form, offering me life, your
food of light, grain of new life, grape of love, your very body
for my peace.
Mothering spirit, nurturing onein the arms of patience, hold
(16:56):
me close so that in faith, Iroot and grow until I flower,
until I know.
That feels very beautiful to meand this is what it would be
like to have God understandingour understanding of God as
mother, to offer us a becoming acompassionate witness of our
very own, to not look at us withjudgment, but to us look and
(17:20):
say, oh, delight when we talkabout delight, to have just the
eyes of delight upon us.
That to me, is the language ofa mothering God.
That is the language of a Godwho just wants to be with us in
presence.
But I loved very much the lyricof this poem that tells us that
(17:42):
God's spirit, god, mother, god,being with us and our
invitation into that.
I think it's an invitation intoour own wholeness as well,
thusly our own holiness, that wewouldn't cut off parts of
ourselves to be able toexperience something or to be
able to run from a certain pain,but to be able to say what is
(18:06):
the spirit inviting me into,into nurture, into comfort, into
healing.
Those are all such beautifulthings and the things that seem
that we need in huge proportiontoday.
We want to pause and take amoment and let you know how glad
(18:27):
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Speaker 2 (18:44):
And I'd like us to maybe individually share.
And I'll start with this one um, where that shift began to
happen, um, where I saw myselfexpanding from just father god
to a mother god or to a spiritgod.
Um, it was.
I was very young, um, when Ihad some of these, some of these
(19:08):
experiences.
But there is one book inparticular that I think, and
it's fiction, so it's theauthor's lens and view of the
spirit.
(19:32):
But Laurie Beth Jones takes whatshe calls the Contessa
Chronicles and creates thisfamily in a heavenly realm that
is in charge of, of managing thevalley landers down below us,
us humans.
And in that story, heather, Ibegan to see in a more clear way
that there was more to God'sintention than what I had been
(20:00):
taught Expansiveness that ishoused in this unknown,
unfathomable presence that wecould not get our minds and
hearts around if we spent therest of our lives doing so.
God is more expansive than whateven the Bible contains, what
(20:26):
even the books contain.
But this particular experiencefor me was an eye-opener in many
ways to see God.
So in the book she calls God Aland Mother, god Meg for Alpha
and Omega.
(20:47):
And just that, that connection,growing up hearing that god is
alpha and omega, the first andthe last right, the beginning
and the end.
I don't know, somehow itswitched on an expansive channel
that I've never wanted to letgo of, like, like, like it gave
(21:08):
me.
It gave me a different way ofseeing it, and you and I had
this similar experience in thebook of longing as well, sue
Monk kid's book, uh, wheresomething expanded, something
opened up wider through throughan author's words.
But that particular book,contessa Chronicles, was, was,
was kind of my turning towardsthis more expansive, uh,
(21:32):
understanding of who God asfather, god as mother, god as
spirit um, uh, was intended, uh,I, I think, for me.
Maybe she wrote it just for me,I'm not sure, but boy, I, I, I
lobbed onto that and it was justlike, okay, here we go, we go.
But what about for you?
What has been the turning point?
(21:52):
And maybe it's not just onebook, maybe it's multiple things
, but share with us what causedthis expansion for you?
How did you move from seeingGod as Father and expanding to
God Mother and God Spirit, Ithink?
Speaker 1 (22:06):
gradually.
That's really important.
It wasn't one day I woke up andsaw that needing, but by the
expansion in other parts andalso in loving people and
learning to love people.
Well, I often found people whocould not wrap their mind around
(22:27):
a loving father, yes, andthere's so much horror in their
life and true terror.
So to ask them to expand theirthoughts around that almost
became too painful, correct.
And to be able to say in orderto love them, well, in order to
serve them as pastor, but alsoas just friend, we had to
(22:52):
reimagine what was given to us,and we see this in what Jesus
tells us to do you know God asshepherd, that we have a good
shepherd.
I'm not a literal sheep and soI don't need an actual shepherd,
but I need that metaphor totell me how it is that I will be
(23:13):
cared for.
And when Jesus begins to offerus this understanding that we
need different metaphors theones that we have are too narrow
and to be able to say what doesit look like to have a divine
mother?
What does it look like to allowourselves to be reparented by
God and allow spirit to come tous?
(23:34):
And you and I have haddiscussions before, and very
often it leans more toward themother.
God is leaning toward how thespirit treats us or how the
spirit interacts with us.
And so you know to have theunderstanding that it's Spirit,
god, who is always with us, whonever listens, you know, to just
(23:57):
our longing, but listens to oursouls.
And so I'm asking the HolySpirit to not only expand my way
of seeing the work and themovement of God and spirit all
in the world, but to also bringus back into these places where
we can offer this expansion oroffer this love to someone else,
(24:20):
to be able to say, if youcannot imagine God as loving
father, can you see him asloving mother?
And if you cannot see God whois beyond pronouns, beyond
gender, god is not a person.
So there are these metaphorsthat kind of help us to
understand that.
But, you know, do we see God inthe witness of nature?
(24:41):
And if we recognize that theearth itself is our mother?
We were made from earth, we areearth.
You know, god took hiscreativity and shaped us from
the earth and then breathed intous.
You know this beauty of sayingthat the earth ministers to us,
the earth like a mother would do.
(25:01):
The earth not only made us butcontinues to make us, with the
food that we make and the waterthat we drink, and just that
care.
And I believe that we are askednot just to expand for
ourselves but for the world forour brothers and sisters?
How do we get into oneness andinto singularity with people so
we can all find a better story,so that we can all find our
(25:24):
place in the story that God istelling?
Speaker 2 (25:26):
our place in the story that God is telling.
You bring such a great pointhere and I want us to go back
and maybe chat about this that.
God is genderless.
God is neither male nor female,yeah, and yet for thousands of
years it has been layered andlayered and layered throughout
(25:49):
history that God is he.
But clearly there's male andfemale on this planet, there's
gender and yes, and maybethere's this wide variety of
identities wrapped in gender,and and if we can see that in
(26:12):
each other, then perhaps that'sa reflection of who God is.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
And you.
You bring me to this beautifulquestion of saying God is not
male or female we know this butthat there is a scope of God in
that, the same way that when Godsaid I created darkness and I
created light, he did notexclude twilight, did not
exclude sunrise.
It's a spectrum, a spectrum ofthese things.
(26:40):
And so are we able toexperience from God, to be able
to hear from God in a spectrumof voices, be able to listen, to
learn, attune ourselves to hearfrom God in a spectrum of
voices, be able to listen, tolearn, attune ourselves to
voices that are on the spectrumof what love offers to us, not
to hear the one clanging bell ofthe masculine.
(27:01):
That bell is important in someplaces.
It cannot be the only way thatwe experience God, who is
genderless, who is calling to usthrough everything and inviting
us into the beautiful work andthe beautiful story that love is
telling.
Yes, I love that.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
And maybe that is the definition of expansionist here
for us in this expansionistpodcast is to teach that and to
proclaim and to announce thatthere are these variables that
have stretched across time, partand parcel of this oneness,
(27:49):
this unified reflection of whoGod is.
And so when we talk about FatherGod or Mother God, we're
actually saying something evenmore expansive, beyond that,
right, yes, absolutely,absolutely.
(28:09):
Maybe someone needs a fathergod, maybe someone needs a
mother god, maybe someone needsspirit, and that's, maybe that's
why we have the trinity.
Maybe we just solved it, oh,and because we all need, we all
(28:32):
have a different need, we allhave a different shaping there's
, I just think.
I think, when we try to cornerthat off and section off God, we
are already telling someonelike myself she's not him, she's
(28:54):
not a him, she's not a he.
Right, like we're alreadytelling people that God is not
inclusive when we cut someoneelse out, when we deport someone
else from one place to another,when we tell someone you're not
welcome at this table, when wetell someone right, we could go
(29:17):
on and on.
We just keep doing this.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Then Jesus is telling us something absolutely
opposite.
He's saying go to the highwaysand byways, go to everyone who
does not have equity, go toeveryone who is not included and
tell them there is a seat forthem at my table.
So Jesus is reminding us thestories that you have are
(29:42):
limiting.
Let me expand how you see andhow you interact with the
invitation of God.
There is for us a beauty and, Ibelieve, a holiness based on
wholeness, that God is callingus to and asking us.
We are asking on a regularbasis.
(30:04):
I think the whole world is whenis our hope?
Where is the love that we alldeclare that we need more of?
And it is for me, when werecognize our source is not
limited, our source is not oneparticular sound.
Our source is love, god is love.
(30:27):
And when we return to that love, what Mary Magdalene invites us
to do return to love, return tothe good, return to these
things it may need to be adifferent voice that we learn to
attune ourselves to.
If we only knew a Father Godwho is judgmental and angry and
punishing, then we need to learnto listen to the voice of
(30:51):
spirit that is compassionate,that is merciful, that is full
of justice.
That is gracious.
That is all loving, all loving,all loving.
And learning to attune ourvoice to that takes practice and
it takes a lot of courage,because when you've listened to
(31:16):
one particular sound like formany years, there's a courage in
being able to say heal my ears.
Heal the way that I hear thevoice of the divine calling me
back to my original goodness, tomy wholeness.
We read a verse on Sunday thatreminded us that we are flawless
(31:37):
in the eyes of God and thatunderstanding that when God sees
us as flawless, as perfect,that it should cause pause for
us and go.
Is that how I hear God speak ofme, flawless, holy, invited
(31:58):
into the divine dance, invitedto co-create?
And if that's not how we hearthe voice of the divine speak to
us, then we may need healing.
We hear the voice of the divinespeak to us, then we may need
healing.
And beautifully the Spiritcomes to us as comforter, as
(32:19):
healer, but it is by invitation,the minute we invite Jesus to
show us or to reveal to us partof the job or I hate to use the
word job, I need expansion onthat but the role, maybe, of
Jesus is revealer, the thingsthat were hidden.
Jesus reveals to us, and somany of us need healing and
(32:44):
revealing in our eyes to theexpansiveness of this love and
our part in the love.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Beautifully said and I think we've gotten full circle
here today already in that partof our desire in having this
conversation was to expand Godas Father, God as Mother, God as
Spirit into those that arelistening.
(33:13):
And I would say, if someone mayjust need permission, someone
just may need permission toexperience God as mother because
of the woundedness of a father,Someone may just need
(33:35):
permission to experience thegift and compassion, as you
stated, of spirit, because maybethey were wounded by their
mother and their father, maybeabandoned, maybe rejected by
their mother and their father,maybe abandoned, maybe rejected.
And so I would want to leavetoday with giving people
(33:56):
permission to expand their viewof God as Father, Mother and
Spirit.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
Great Mother God, who created all mothers and
invented mothering.
Mother us now into your peaceand comfort, into your nurturing
love, into the kindness of yourpresence and into the shadow of
your wings.
(34:25):
We know that mothering takesmany forms and is done by many
kinds of people in differentways and situations.
Give us the wisdom of yourmother heart.
We know that love is risky andthere's always the possibility
of pain, the risk ofdisappointment or loss.
Give us the courage of yourmother heart.
(34:46):
We bring to you the cares ofthe brokenhearted.
We bring to you the pain of thedisappointed.
We bring to you the hardship ofthe overwhelmed and we bring to
you the ache of the separated.
Teach us the worth of our ownsouls and the value of our
(35:07):
existence, souls and the valueof our existence.
Give us your mother love toheal us, to nourish us, to share
freely with the world.
Amen.
Welcome to the Expansionist Podcast with
Shelley Shepard and HeatherDrake.
In each episode, we dive deepinto conversations that
challenge conventional thinking,amplify diverse voices and
foster a community grounded inwisdom, spirit and love.
Hello, shelley Shepard.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Hey, heather Drake, what a pleasure it is to be with
you today.
This is going to be one ofthose conversations that we're
going to be happy that we hadthis conversation.
How about?
Speaker 1 (00:32):
that I agree, and part of this is we podcast.
But after we spend a few hourstalking together, we get to
podcast after we've already gonedeep, after we've already
figured out how each other'sfamily is and what's happening
in the world, and then to beable to encounter spirit and our
(00:52):
own souls and the thoughts thatwe have in what we are creating
and how we are aligning orattuning ourselves to the spirit
within us.
This is how we get to thesepodcasts, and so I'm excited to
be here with you today.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yes, yes, indeed, indeed, and you and I have
danced around this topic ourentire lives, practically, right
.
I mean, we've had our mothersour entire lives.
Thankfully, my mother is stillwith us.
We'll celebrate her 86thbirthday.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Oh, that's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Next month, july 5th, she and my sister have the same
birthday, so that was alwayskind of a big big, a big big
deal around July 4th, and thenmy dad and his mother shared the
same birthday, so July 5th andJuly 8th and July 4th, it was
just like celebration aftercelebration.
(01:52):
And then I think as and you knowthis about me I'm writing sort
of a memoir about my own storywith my mother, about my own
story with my mother, and thatis, I think, one of the hardest
things that I've ever done in myentire life is to sit down and
write this story, and maybe allof us have this strand, or some
(02:17):
people call it the mother wound,right that we look back at our
lives growing up and we seethings like, we notice things
that maybe at the time we justwalked through, we didn't really
(02:45):
stop, and it comes to ourmothers is, you know, did we
stop long enough and talk aboutthat?
Did we pray over it?
Did we ask wisdom?
What she would do?
And so here I am now, all theseyears later, thinking about
this story with my mom.
And so I know that this podcastisn't about our mothers, but I
(03:09):
think, if we have a podcastabout Mother God, which we are
getting ready to do, and wereflect on our mothers and our
years growing up, you know, dowe look at God in the same light
and in the same ways that we doour earthly mothers, and so I'm
(03:33):
ready to jump into this dancewith you.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Well, and I want to add, or at least contribute to
that line of thinking and saying, no matter where we are as
people and what our relationshiphas been with our mother or
what it currently is with ourmother, that there is an
invitation by the spirit, thespirit that created us, the
spirit that dwells in us is toallow expansion in how we see
(03:59):
mothering and in where we'remothered.
And I think mothering is toohuge a job to only relegate it
to one person, but to be able tosay that we are mothered
through our connection to theearth.
We're mothered to ourconnection to other women.
We're mothered in connectionwith grandmothers and aunties
(04:23):
and women that we have communitywith, and so mothering is not
relegated to one person'sresponsibility.
And I think ultimately weourselves, in connection with
the spirit that birthed us, intobeing always know or always
knew.
(04:43):
Maybe there's an ancient knowingin all of us that mother is
bigger, Like how, when we'retiny, do we know that's not what
a mother should do, Not becauseof the wisdom and have seen all
mothers and can do it, but veryearly on we're able to
determine and to actually todiscern the care and the nurture
(05:08):
and the love that it looks liketo be mothered and to mother
and for us now, as adults, tolook at that and go.
Are there areas in my life thatthe Spirit is inviting me to
expand my ideas or my parametersabout the Spirit as mothering,
(05:30):
as God is mothering, as myparticipation in what the Spirit
is doing in the world?
And I really believe theinvitation is into the realms of
Spirit that maybe we have notjourneyed before or we have not
been invited to before.
And there's so much hope inbeing invited into this place of
(05:51):
expansion to say God is notjust Father, God is more.
Spirit is inviting us into thisbeauty of oneness that calls us
to.
What does it look like for usto imagine that the very source
of all things also mothers us?
Speaker 2 (06:11):
That is a very, very expansive thought for us to
unpack and unravel, and earlierin the pre-show I was suggesting
that we open the alabaster boxand let that pour out here,
particularly as an anointing forthose who maybe, as you
(06:37):
suggested, the relationship withtheir mother was not good or
maybe they're currentlyexperiencing some divide in
their mother-daughterrelationship or mother-son
relationship.
And if we use the alabaster asan image and open it, like Mary
(06:58):
did, and pour it out asanointing, not just in this
moment on this conversation, butmaybe in an expansive way, that
becomes a practice when I findmyself in a conversation with my
mother that you know she's notunderstanding, or maybe she's
(07:24):
using a biblical text against mein my own personal identity, or
maybe there's you know, someother kind of you know side eye
that, uh, that I get because I Ipray to mary magdalene at the
mountain.
These are just differencesoften, and so allowing this
(07:46):
alabaster box that MaryMagdalene broke open and used to
pour anointing, used oil topour anointing, anointed Jesus,
I think is a place that I'mfinding myself more and more in
my relationship with my motherand in particularly in the story
(08:09):
that I'm writing, and so Iwould just offer today that
using this word expansion andexpansive to see God as Father
and God as Mother is a littlebit of a stretch.
It's a stretch sometimes forpeople to see God in that way
(08:31):
and I'm not sure why, heather,I'm not.
I mean, I understandtheologically how that has been
taught and preached.
Of course maybe you and I haveeven taught and preached that
ourselves.
But this expansion, thisstretching, this movement that
Spirit is doing in our lives andin the world, I think requires
(08:55):
our attention to have this beinclusive of God as mother and
God as father, not just in thebiblical text that we can use to
support that thought, but inour own spiritual walk, where we
have been nurtured by a mother,god.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
I want to read to us the Lord's Prayer from the new
zealand anglican prayer bookokay one of the things that's
important for me is, in myexpansion, also to include the
ancient, to include those whohave gone on before us in places
to be able to say what does itlook like for us to stop, stand
(09:37):
at the crossroads and ask forthe ancient paths?
But this is from the NewZealand Anglican Prayer Book.
Eternal Spirit, earth Maker,pain Bearer, life Giver, source
of all that is and all thatshall be, father and Mother of
us all.
Loving God, in whom is Heaven,the hallowing of your name
(10:00):
echoes through the universe.
The way of your justice.
Be followed by all the peopleof the world.
Your heavenly will be done byall created beings.
Your commonwealth of peace andfreedom sustain our hope and
come to our earth With the breadwe need for today.
Feed us In the hurts we absorbfrom one another.
Forgive us In times oftemptation and tests.
(10:23):
Strengthen us From trials toogreat to endure.
Spare us and from the grip ofall that is evil.
Free us, for you reign in theglory of the power that is love,
now and forever.
Amen.
And one of the things that Ilove to do is to be able to say
you know, is this an expansionso far that no one has
(10:46):
considered it?
But clearly this is cultural,because in New Zealand, this is
the Lord's Prayer that they'rememorizing, and the prayer that
I was told to memorize was ourFather, who is in heaven.
Well, I'm grateful for that,but God is more than Father.
Jesus even called us to thisunderstanding that God is like a
woman who looks for a lost cointhat Jesus himself says I am
(11:11):
like a mother hen who longs togather you and bring you under
my wings and protect you.
And so Jesus is asking us toexpand the way that we think
about these things.
And again, we could go into thecultural study where, when
Jesus calls God, abba, father,it would have been startling
(11:32):
because those kind ofrelationships were not part of
the culture that they have.
And so you know, there's much tobe said about the spirituality
that we are handed by culture.
And when we allow the spiritthat is sourced in God, the
spirit that has created us andsustain us, the spirit that is
(11:52):
love, the spirit that is God,those things, when we allow
those thoughts to invite us intosomething bigger.
We remind ourselves we're notalone in this.
And when Jesus said to thepeople following him, you've
heard it said, but I say to you,he's giving us framework to
challenge the things that we'veheard said and to say is there a
(12:15):
higher way, is there a biggerway, is there a more expansive
way?
And so you know, you and I haveread and have such enjoyment,
even discussing and living outlives from like Julian of
Norwich and some of the othermystics that have brought us
into true deep spiritualconversation and deep spiritual
(12:37):
living.
And I think that embracing thisor being willing to open our
mind to this also opens us tohealing, and to healing in
places that are very deeplypainful to us.
And I think one of the thingsour world needs now so much is
God, the mother, because we arein such pain.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Mm-hmm, I love that you bring that piece about
healing and nurture andcompassion.
Often the God of FirstTestament is seen as a cruel
father and perhaps for reasonsthat we learned later in second
(13:23):
testament um, that weren'talways necessarily true, but in
many ways very, very violent,destroying death, you know,
ravishing children and throwingbabies against rocks and all
sorts of things of this God.
And I wonder, when we talkabout healing, if we don't need
(13:47):
healing around sometimes, theway we've been taught from the
stories in 1 and 2 Testamentabout who God is and who God was
.
We just had Trinity Sunday,last Sunday, and this effort
(14:11):
that they went to threecenturies later after Jesus
departs the earth, to try tofigure out what Jesus meant
persons into one and comprehendthat and understand it.
(14:44):
Sometimes I wonder if we don'tneed healing just around our
theologies, because sometimeswhen I think about my own
personal posture with Father God, I have a hard time
transferring that to Mother God.
For me it's easier to seeMother as spirit and maybe for
(15:09):
someone else maybe you couldtalk about what that posture is
like for you I lean into intospirit, maybe because spirit
doesn't have the history thatgod had and um, or that god does
or that spirit doesn't have thehistory that, uh well, we don't
(15:30):
even know the mother godhistory, because where is she
like?
Where have we kept her?
Where has she been hiding?
Inside these tabernacles andthese temples and these mosques
and churches?
Where is she hiding?
Speaker 1 (15:45):
I also feel like Mother God is really clearly
giving to us in Mary, the motherof Jesus.
Okay, her response.
I mean that would be clearlyjust very one of the ways that
it's described for us, but Ithink that we have to allow
ourselves to say yes to theinvitation of the Holy Spirit
(16:08):
when we expand our mind aboutthese things.
I also wanted to read to us apoem, or prayer liturgy, that's
based on a text by Julian ofNorwich and this is actually
from Fran Pratt, but it'sincredibly beautiful and
obviously by Julian is wonderful.
but mothering God, you gave mebirth into the bright morning of
(16:32):
this world.
Creator, source of every breath, you are my rain, my wind, my
sun.
Mother in Christ, you took onmy form, offering me life, your
food of light, grain of new life, grape of love, your very body
for my peace.
Mothering spirit, nurturing onein the arms of patience, hold
(16:56):
me close so that in faith, Iroot and grow until I flower,
until I know.
That feels very beautiful to meand this is what it would be
like to have God understandingour understanding of God as
mother, to offer us a becoming acompassionate witness of our
very own, to not look at us withjudgment, but to us look and
(17:20):
say, oh, delight when we talkabout delight, to have just the
eyes of delight upon us.
That to me, is the language ofa mothering God.
That is the language of a Godwho just wants to be with us in
presence.
But I loved very much the lyricof this poem that tells us that
(17:42):
God's spirit, god, mother, god,being with us and our
invitation into that.
I think it's an invitation intoour own wholeness as well,
thusly our own holiness, that wewouldn't cut off parts of
ourselves to be able toexperience something or to be
able to run from a certain pain,but to be able to say what is
(18:06):
the spirit inviting me into,into nurture, into comfort, into
healing.
Those are all such beautifulthings and the things that seem
that we need in huge proportiontoday.
We want to pause and take amoment and let you know how glad
(18:27):
we are that you've joined us.
If you're enjoying this podcast,consider sharing it with a
friend.
Pause and take a moment and letyou know how glad we are that
you've joined us.
If you're enjoying this podcast, consider sharing it with a
friend.
And if you found theconversation intriguing and want
to know more about what we'relearning or how you can join our
online community, visit ourwebsite at
expansionistheologycom.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
And I'd like us to maybe individually share.
And I'll start with this one um, where that shift began to
happen, um, where I saw myselfexpanding from just father god
to a mother god or to a spiritgod.
Um, it was.
I was very young, um, when Ihad some of these, some of these
(19:08):
experiences.
But there is one book inparticular that I think, and
it's fiction, so it's theauthor's lens and view of the
spirit.
(19:32):
But Laurie Beth Jones takes whatshe calls the Contessa
Chronicles and creates thisfamily in a heavenly realm that
is in charge of, of managing thevalley landers down below us,
us humans.
And in that story, heather, Ibegan to see in a more clear way
that there was more to God'sintention than what I had been
(20:00):
taught Expansiveness that ishoused in this unknown,
unfathomable presence that wecould not get our minds and
hearts around if we spent therest of our lives doing so.
God is more expansive than whateven the Bible contains, what
(20:26):
even the books contain.
But this particular experiencefor me was an eye-opener in many
ways to see God.
So in the book she calls God Aland Mother, god Meg for Alpha
and Omega.
(20:47):
And just that, that connection,growing up hearing that god is
alpha and omega, the first andthe last right, the beginning
and the end.
I don't know, somehow itswitched on an expansive channel
that I've never wanted to letgo of, like, like, like it gave
(21:08):
me.
It gave me a different way ofseeing it, and you and I had
this similar experience in thebook of longing as well, sue
Monk kid's book, uh, wheresomething expanded, something
opened up wider through throughan author's words.
But that particular book,contessa Chronicles, was, was,
was kind of my turning towardsthis more expansive, uh,
(21:32):
understanding of who God asfather, god as mother, god as
spirit um, uh, was intended, uh,I, I think, for me.
Maybe she wrote it just for me,I'm not sure, but boy, I, I, I
lobbed onto that and it was justlike, okay, here we go, we go.
But what about for you?
What has been the turning point?
(21:52):
And maybe it's not just onebook, maybe it's multiple things
, but share with us what causedthis expansion for you?
How did you move from seeingGod as Father and expanding to
God Mother and God Spirit, Ithink?
Speaker 1 (22:06):
gradually.
That's really important.
It wasn't one day I woke up andsaw that needing, but by the
expansion in other parts andalso in loving people and
learning to love people.
Well, I often found people whocould not wrap their mind around
(22:27):
a loving father, yes, andthere's so much horror in their
life and true terror.
So to ask them to expand theirthoughts around that almost
became too painful, correct.
And to be able to say in orderto love them, well, in order to
serve them as pastor, but alsoas just friend, we had to
(22:52):
reimagine what was given to us,and we see this in what Jesus
tells us to do you know God asshepherd, that we have a good
shepherd.
I'm not a literal sheep and soI don't need an actual shepherd,
but I need that metaphor totell me how it is that I will be
(23:13):
cared for.
And when Jesus begins to offerus this understanding that we
need different metaphors theones that we have are too narrow
and to be able to say what doesit look like to have a divine
mother?
What does it look like to allowourselves to be reparented by
God and allow spirit to come tous?
(23:34):
And you and I have haddiscussions before, and very
often it leans more toward themother.
God is leaning toward how thespirit treats us or how the
spirit interacts with us.
And so you know to have theunderstanding that it's Spirit,
god, who is always with us, whonever listens, you know, to just
(23:57):
our longing, but listens to oursouls.
And so I'm asking the HolySpirit to not only expand my way
of seeing the work and themovement of God and spirit all
in the world, but to also bringus back into these places where
we can offer this expansion oroffer this love to someone else,
(24:20):
to be able to say, if youcannot imagine God as loving
father, can you see him asloving mother?
And if you cannot see God whois beyond pronouns, beyond
gender, god is not a person.
So there are these metaphorsthat kind of help us to
understand that.
But, you know, do we see God inthe witness of nature?
(24:41):
And if we recognize that theearth itself is our mother?
We were made from earth, we areearth.
You know, god took hiscreativity and shaped us from
the earth and then breathed intous.
You know this beauty of sayingthat the earth ministers to us,
the earth like a mother would do.
(25:01):
The earth not only made us butcontinues to make us, with the
food that we make and the waterthat we drink, and just that
care.
And I believe that we are askednot just to expand for
ourselves but for the world forour brothers and sisters?
How do we get into oneness andinto singularity with people so
we can all find a better story,so that we can all find our
(25:24):
place in the story that God istelling?
Speaker 2 (25:26):
our place in the story that God is telling.
You bring such a great pointhere and I want us to go back
and maybe chat about this that.
God is genderless.
God is neither male nor female,yeah, and yet for thousands of
years it has been layered andlayered and layered throughout
(25:49):
history that God is he.
But clearly there's male andfemale on this planet, there's
gender and yes, and maybethere's this wide variety of
identities wrapped in gender,and and if we can see that in
(26:12):
each other, then perhaps that'sa reflection of who God is.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
And you.
You bring me to this beautifulquestion of saying God is not
male or female we know this butthat there is a scope of God in
that, the same way that when Godsaid I created darkness and I
created light, he did notexclude twilight, did not
exclude sunrise.
It's a spectrum, a spectrum ofthese things.
(26:40):
And so are we able toexperience from God, to be able
to hear from God in a spectrumof voices, be able to listen, to
learn, attune ourselves to hearfrom God in a spectrum of
voices, be able to listen, tolearn, attune ourselves to
voices that are on the spectrumof what love offers to us, not
to hear the one clanging bell ofthe masculine.
(27:01):
That bell is important in someplaces.
It cannot be the only way thatwe experience God, who is
genderless, who is calling to usthrough everything and inviting
us into the beautiful work andthe beautiful story that love is
telling.
Yes, I love that.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
And maybe that is the definition of expansionist here
for us in this expansionistpodcast is to teach that and to
proclaim and to announce thatthere are these variables that
have stretched across time, partand parcel of this oneness,
(27:49):
this unified reflection of whoGod is.
And so when we talk about FatherGod or Mother God, we're
actually saying something evenmore expansive, beyond that,
right, yes, absolutely,absolutely.
(28:09):
Maybe someone needs a fathergod, maybe someone needs a
mother god, maybe someone needsspirit, and that's, maybe that's
why we have the trinity.
Maybe we just solved it, oh,and because we all need, we all
(28:32):
have a different need, we allhave a different shaping there's
, I just think.
I think, when we try to cornerthat off and section off God, we
are already telling someonelike myself she's not him, she's
(28:54):
not a him, she's not a he.
Right, like we're alreadytelling people that God is not
inclusive when we cut someoneelse out, when we deport someone
else from one place to another,when we tell someone you're not
welcome at this table, when wetell someone right, we could go
(29:17):
on and on.
We just keep doing this.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Then Jesus is telling us something absolutely
opposite.
He's saying go to the highwaysand byways, go to everyone who
does not have equity, go toeveryone who is not included and
tell them there is a seat forthem at my table.
So Jesus is reminding us thestories that you have are
(29:42):
limiting.
Let me expand how you see andhow you interact with the
invitation of God.
There is for us a beauty and, Ibelieve, a holiness based on
wholeness, that God is callingus to and asking us.
We are asking on a regularbasis.
(30:04):
I think the whole world is whenis our hope?
Where is the love that we alldeclare that we need more of?
And it is for me, when werecognize our source is not
limited, our source is not oneparticular sound.
Our source is love, god is love.
(30:27):
And when we return to that love, what Mary Magdalene invites us
to do return to love, return tothe good, return to these
things it may need to be adifferent voice that we learn to
attune ourselves to.
If we only knew a Father Godwho is judgmental and angry and
punishing, then we need to learnto listen to the voice of
(30:51):
spirit that is compassionate,that is merciful, that is full
of justice.
That is gracious.
That is all loving, all loving,all loving.
And learning to attune ourvoice to that takes practice and
it takes a lot of courage,because when you've listened to
(31:16):
one particular sound like formany years, there's a courage in
being able to say heal my ears.
Heal the way that I hear thevoice of the divine calling me
back to my original goodness, tomy wholeness.
We read a verse on Sunday thatreminded us that we are flawless
(31:37):
in the eyes of God and thatunderstanding that when God sees
us as flawless, as perfect,that it should cause pause for
us and go.
Is that how I hear God speak ofme, flawless, holy, invited
(31:58):
into the divine dance, invitedto co-create?
And if that's not how we hearthe voice of the divine speak to
us, then we may need healing.
We hear the voice of the divinespeak to us, then we may need
healing.
And beautifully the Spiritcomes to us as comforter, as
(32:19):
healer, but it is by invitation,the minute we invite Jesus to
show us or to reveal to us partof the job or I hate to use the
word job, I need expansion onthat but the role, maybe, of
Jesus is revealer, the thingsthat were hidden.
Jesus reveals to us, and somany of us need healing and
(32:44):
revealing in our eyes to theexpansiveness of this love and
our part in the love.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Beautifully said and I think we've gotten full circle
here today already in that partof our desire in having this
conversation was to expand Godas Father, God as Mother, God as
Spirit into those that arelistening.
(33:13):
And I would say, if someone mayjust need permission, someone
just may need permission toexperience God as mother because
of the woundedness of a father,Someone may just need
(33:35):
permission to experience thegift and compassion, as you
stated, of spirit, because maybethey were wounded by their
mother and their father, maybeabandoned, maybe rejected by
their mother and their father,maybe abandoned, maybe rejected.
And so I would want to leavetoday with giving people
(33:56):
permission to expand their viewof God as Father, Mother and
Spirit.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
Great Mother God, who created all mothers and
invented mothering.
Mother us now into your peaceand comfort, into your nurturing
love, into the kindness of yourpresence and into the shadow of
your wings.
(34:25):
We know that mothering takesmany forms and is done by many
kinds of people in differentways and situations.
Give us the wisdom of yourmother heart.
We know that love is risky andthere's always the possibility
of pain, the risk ofdisappointment or loss.
Give us the courage of yourmother heart.
(34:46):
We bring to you the cares ofthe brokenhearted.
We bring to you the pain of thedisappointed.
We bring to you the hardship ofthe overwhelmed and we bring to
you the ache of the separated.
Teach us the worth of our ownsouls and the value of our
(35:07):
existence, souls and the valueof our existence.
Give us your mother love toheal us, to nourish us, to share
freely with the world.
Amen.
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