Although raised male in a male-dominant world by a great dad who taught me "how to be a man," I always wondered about the role of women.
"Always respect them," Dad sternly instructed. But was I really "superior" as society implied?
Nope.
Fortunately, the "male" assertiveness I developed was balanced by my mother and two sisters. But as a boy I wondered why men dominated the world. Even religion. With the exception of the Virgin Mary, where were the women?
Thank heavens we are in an age where the sexes appear to be entering balance. Indeed, gender identification is in dispute.
In 2019, I explored The Feminine Divine in my two-month-long film art show at Vanderbilt Divinity School's Art Gallery. No one objected to the nudes. Only that I was not gender-inclusive enough.
In early 20th century England, feminist Francis Swiney advanced the fascinating notion that "all life, spiritual as well as physical, begins as female. [Evolutionarily] the masculine was only a temporary and transitional phase, between the eternal feminine cause and the eternal feminine effect."
For Swiney there was only one sex, the feminine...Men were simply imperfect women, both physiologically and spiritually," she argued. (emphasis added)
This is about energy difference not body parts. Society adapts slowly. How much longer can we tolerate the violence routinely caused by men? We desperately need balance.
Balance is what happens in the best healthcare settings. Healing occurs only when male assertive-energy (via man or woman) is balanced by feminine nurturing (via woman or man).
The time for men to recognize the superiority of the feminine divine is not only here, it is long overdue!
-Rev. Erie Chapman
Poster-art Courtesy, Vanderbilt University Divinity School
