Rediscovering Womanhood and Spirituality

Spiritual Sunday

I've decided that the best way to discover the source of the true feminine spirit is to study women throughout religious history. I am going to study women of the Bible, goddesses of ancient Greece and Rome, as well as important women in the history of the world.  This week I'll be studying Ruth from the Bible. I want to know the woman who is known to many.

I also wish to encourage other women to learn more about themselves and about women throughout history. We are not meant to be silent. We are meant to be the other half of men. Men and women are the yen and yang of the world. Neither is better than the other, we are created to compliment one another. The phrase "my better half" is often used in casual conversation. That statement is partially right. We are the other half of each other. Is that to say that one must be married in order to be whole? No. We must first love ourselves and be a whole person before we can fully love anyone else. We must find our own paths in life and not allow others to destroy what we know in our hearts to be true. As women we sometimes forget that although having others in our lives is a blessing, we are not servants to the whim of others. We are beings with spiritual and physical needs that must be nourished in order to nourish our families and friends.

Spiritual Sunday

"May what I write ring true for someone else so that they will not feel alone in this world." This is my prayer for my Spiritual Sunday posts.

I'd love to start off by saying that I had some elaborate dream or some amazing epiphany that set me on this spiritual journey. But that wouldn't be the truth. In truth, I was raised a Christian. Southern Baptist to be exact. Nothing gets you "saved" faster than the fear of going to Hell.

I was never a person that went to church often until I was an adult. Long story short, the church (in general) and I had a "falling out". Over the years since then I have struggled with many aspects of Christianity. One of which being the whole "wives submit to your husbands" aspect. I've never understood this. I've tried. Over and over I have tried and failed. I've studied the different aspects of the situation and the reasoning behind it and no matter how much I wanted to feel at peace with it. I still struggled. So I began investigating deeply into Christianity and other religions. This brought me to the book The Dance of the Dissident Daughter by Sue Monk Kidd. Upon reading it I discovered that God is not simply male but female. The divine has both masculine and feminine qualities so that one without the other is lost.

This is just the beginning of my journey in discovering my true feminine self. I hope that each week will reveal something new. If you're a Christian struggling with your faith I recommend Dance of the Dissident Daughter. If the wife of a minister can have doubts then most anyone can.