While my relationship to it is radically different than it once was, I am still aware that I was brought up in a patriarchal religion. As Father’s Day approaches I feel the wafts of how pervasive the “big daddy in the sky” theology is. It has now been decades since that was my predominant thought system, yet vestiges of it still pop up from time to time in my consciousness. I believe that it is partly because I am an energetic being in a Field for which that is still considered a governing reality. Praying TO an outer paternal God is the religious dynamic for a goodly portion of the world’s population. Not only is this super-parent somewhere “up and out there” it is also looking down here in critical, punitive, and condemning ways. At a level that is mostly unconscious most of humanity has a vague sense of being scrutinized almost all of the time. Patriarchal religion is a lens through which we experience our Source, our selves, each other, and our world. Though it is less obvious in more New Thought schools of spirituality, it is still alive and well as a life diminishing paradigm. If you ever judge yourself based on what you think is the spiritual ideal Big Daddy has a hold on you. If you ever compare yourself to some homogenized humanity and then feel shame in the comparison the patriarchy has you in its grips. If you are lost somehow in your own self-definition you are caught in the trance of a faulty story about Source.
While parental images of G-awed can sometimes feel comforting they also create a slippery slope into lovelessness. Parents, no matter how well-intentioned, are not capable of loving unconditionally. It is a fact of the human condition. A big piece of the way our life stories show up in order to be transcended is through our parents and authority figures. Much of our early wounding occurs in relationship to our parents. Discipline can be a traumatizing experience. When we place our Source in the same category as our human parentage a deepening of the belief in separation occurs. No matter how close we may be to our mothers and/or fathers we are still distinct and unique from them. No matter how close the apple falls it is still separate from the tree. This is simply not the case within our Source. We are part and parcel of this One Infinitely Intelligent- all Loving Creative Force. It could never look down upon us for we are contained within It. It cannot judge or condemn us because It knows no such thing. We are truly the Gleam in the Sources I.
And so patriarchal theology needs to fade back into the limiting perceptual system from whence it came. It could be said that Source G-awed is Father in that It is First Cause. Of course It is also the Loving Embrace of the Cosmic Mother. To think of Father G-awed as a force greater and more powerful than the individualized ego-self is for me not only prudent but also empowering. There is no dead-beat dad in this Universe of One. It is always right here for me to pray INTO. It is never distant or remote. Only my fearful misperception births that illusory experience. It is in deepening INTO heartful, connected prayer that I experience directly my Source, my sustenance, and my provision. If there is parenting to be done it is in my choice to open and to mother First Source Gawed, and then to channel that Power in inspiring ways that father this realm called earth. Because I am Fathered I consciously father. I am the choice to return home to Source.
And so to pray to Father-Mother G-awed is a dynamic that connects me to my Source here within this realm of space and time, but is ultimately meaningless in Eternity. I am IN the One Source by whatever name I choose to call it. It is not a Big Daddy in the sky. It is the Father Force from whence I came and that I have never left.
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