Tag: religion

Bully Pulpit

~ Deb ~ 4 Comments 
In Sunday School,
I learned that a 
person could live 
inside the belly of
a great fish for
three whole days

And a boat could 
be built that would
hold two of every
creature ever born
plus a family of
eight

And that a barely
pubescent shepherd
could slay a giant 
with a slingshot
and a well-aimed
stone.

And the Jesus
we heard about
fed people and 
welcomed children and
told stories about
kind strangers who
cared for others

And he talked 
about mercy and 
he talked about hope
and he talked about 
loving one another,
not as good ideas, but
as the essence of
righteousness. 

And how the ones
who taught me that
became advocates for
a theology of meanness,
mouthpieces for a
politics of hate,
soldiers in an army
of exclusion,
is a kind of reverse-
miracle I’ll never
understand.

The Man, The Bear, and The Divine Feminine

~ Deb ~ Leave a comment

Just to bring the three people who haven’t heard about the man and the bear up to speed:

A woman on social media asked her husband if he would rather have their daughter alone in the woods with a bear or a man. You can see his tortured thought process in the brief video. What kind of man? Can I pick the man? How far away is the bear? When his wife shifts the question to whether he would want his daughter in the woods with a bear or a woman, he doesn’t hesitate — “A woman.”

The internet has erupted with this conversation, and women are saying a LOT:

  • “Now you know why we walk to our car with our keys between our fingers like wolverine claws.”
  • “The bear won’t try to convince me he’s a friend before he attacks me.”
  • “At least people won’t question whether I led the bear on or dressed too provocatively.”

Men also have a few things to say, but their defensiveness often proves the point. One meme shows a cartoon man walking away from a woman being mauled by a bear and saying, “Hey, you chose the bear.” That’s not quite the flex the meme creator believes it is. Implying that women should be mauled for seeing you as a danger makes you . . . dangerous.

But this question really isn’t about men. It’s about maleness, and more specifically, toxic masculinity. It’s about years of patriarchy, both social and religious, that have created an extreme imbalance of energy. It’s about the way we belittled and buried the necessary qualities of feminine energy — gentleness, intuition, non-hierarchical collaboration, receptivity, nurturing — and emphasized the masculine energy — leadership, assertiveness, power, strength, protection.

It’s important to remember that female and feminine are not synonymous. In the same way that my Aries nature often causes me to express as an assertive and strong woman, many men I know excel in following their intuition and nurturing those around them. Those men in touch with their feminine energies seem remarkably silent in the man-and-bear debate. It’s almost as if . . . they get it.

In religious circles, the slow recognition of the need for more divine feminine energy has sometimes led to a placebo that seems to have an effect for a time but doesn’t really heal. I’m talking about women in leadership. The answer to so many well-intentioned religious organizations who want to balance patriarchal energy is to put more women in leadership. But, if those women have been steeped in the same masculine soup of traditional religiosity, they are likely to perpetuate the divine masculine because they have learned that’s how you survive and succeed.

Eastern religions have long revered the divine feminine. Perhaps that is why their popularity in the West has grown so impressively over the past several decades. People may not always be able to put it into words, but when droves run from a religion that systematically reduced the role of women, Mary Magdalene in particular, and move toward wisdom traditions with goddesses and yin-yang balance, it seems a connection could be made to the yearning for balance.

You see, the real question is bear or toxic masculinity, and we’d all be better off with the bear, women and men alike.

And for those men who don’t know how to respond to the man v. bear question, here’s a suggestion: Don’t. Just listen. Acknowledge that women are generally terrified of toxic masculinity. And work to balance your feminine energy so you’re the Gentle Ben who would protect those around you.

Be Your Own Guru

~ Deb ~ Leave a comment

Sometime back in the early 2000s, I had that sentence flash through my brain – be your own guru. I thought it was deeply profound and a unique insight. It had arisen in my spirit in an organic fashion, and it seemed to spring from Source itself. Surely, I was a prophet. 

I briefly considered buying the domain name, writing a book, starting a movement, and being the guru that brought “be your own guru” to the people. Briefly. Very briefly.

Come to find out, a person named Betty Bethards wrote a book by that title way back in 1982 (a book I haven’t read, by the way, so this is not a plug, but it could be awesome for all I know). Then I found another book with the same title. And then several books with almost the same title — How to Be Your Own Guru, Be Your Own Change Guru, Find Your Inner Guru. It seems I wasn’t all that special.

Or, perhaps, we were evolving together and a bunch of us were getting the same message: It’s time to take ownership of our spiritual journey.

Evolutionary shifts are often messy, and the leap to being our own guru seems to have its own share of fits and starts. One of the byproducts seems to be some disenchantment with spiritual teachers. I’ve seen several instances lately of people turning away from gurus they once revered. And I’ve noticed that when people reject teachers I don’t resonate with, that is fine with me, but when they turn against those I respect, I feel an internal pushback. I want to parse the ways in which the teacher’s message must have been misunderstood. I want to bring the person back into harmony with the teacher. 

But when I move beyond that initial moment, I start to accept that everyone’s journey is valid, and their rejection of a teacher is what they need in this moment, and learning to listen to our intuition, learning to be our own guru, is often a herky-jerky affair.

On my journey to self-guided spirituality, I’ve learned to hold loosely to those I revere. We’re on this journey to begin with because we’re seeking answers, and when we find someone who seems to have them, we tend to clutch their teachings with a tight grip. We become a disciple, and we want to spread the gospel of our guru. But every single time I believe I’ve found a guru who has transcended this life and the ego completely, I’ve soon been given the opportunity to witness their humanness.  If I hold them loosely, though, I leave room for what rings true to wiggle into my spirit, and I stop wasting the energy of holding them hostage to my delusion of their perfection. 

If we don’t hold them loosely, then when we see their humanness, we tend to reject them, call them a false prophet, and even wage our own little smear campaign. We call them narcissists and money-grubbers. We sneer when someone mentions their name. Our newfound insight into “truth” might even cause us to judge someone else’s journey just because they are currently listening to that teacher. 

Please note, I’m not talking about the true charlatans. Those who have put on a spiritual disguise to collect wealth and power are their own special kind of repulsive. Preying on a person’s desire for spiritual growth is the lowest of all cons in my book. 

No, I’m simply talking about the many, the increasing many, who have had an insight and felt called to share it with the world. Some might even suggest that I am in that number, and in my very small way, I suppose I am. I’ve learned some important lessons on my journey, and for whatever reason, I feel so led to make them public. So, for those who are listening, and I’m glad that you are, I urge you to hold anything I say loosely. Let it roll around in your spirit. See how it feels. Take it for a test drive. If it feels like truth, you are welcome to it, free of charge. If it doesn’t, well, I’m only human.

Broken Home

~ Deb ~ Leave a comment 
Policed by toxic masculinity,
an entire nation like a 
battered wife,
twitching with PTSD
and suppressed anger.

Politicians praising the 
abusers, enabling,
perpetuating, celebrating
the evil and demonizing
the victim. 

Judges and courts
ready to find the 
technicality that
can set a murdering
cop free. 

Churches cheering
white supremacy and 
patriotism as conjoined
twins never to be
parted.  

America is a broken
home unleashing 
her traumatized
children on an
astonished world.



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