4.4 Exploring Ideas that Contribute to the Themes in an Ecofeminist Spirituality
4.4.1 Integration and Bodiliness
Integration and bodiliness are themes taken from feminist theology which apply equally to ecofeminist theology. Integration suggests the union of both the “vertical and horizontal” dimensions of a women’s
49 relationship with God and others (Rakoczy 2004:379). Integration supports relational experience and the struggle personal, social and political that evolves from it. In order for integration to happen, Ruether argues that humanity needs to alter their way of viewing and participating in the world so as to replace their dreams of power and wealth with ones that recognize the limits to the earth’s physical capacity so as to retard the culture of ever increasing expansion and domination. This calls for a conversion experience for all people in which they recognize the double domination and damage that patriarchy has wrought upon the earth and change to embrace new practices within relationships which affirm interrelatedness, mutual respect and appreciation. Bodiliness affirms our bodies and the role they play in our expression and experience of the world. It counters spiritual practices that have denied the full expression and recognition of our bodies and the role they have in informing our experience of the world and relationships.
In the struggle to find new ways to relate to one another, humanity needs to re-examine its religious world views. The Christian perspective has conceptualized God as a monarch of absolute power who condones the use of domination which sanctions the domination of nature and women. McFague calls attention to titles and ways of addressing God such as “King of kings and Lord of Lords”; “the Lord God omnipotent reigneth”; “God, the almighty Lord and King of the universe whom none can defeat” which venerate God’s omnipotent power and which by implication infer that we too are undefeatable and should relate in this manner (McFague 1987:64). McFague proposes that the image of a powerful, wealthy sovereign needs to be replaced with one which promotes egalitarian relations. McFague explores new metaphors for God which will support this new Christian perspective.
Ruether supports the idea of changing the Christian constructions of God and proposes an organic metaphor for God known as primal matrix. She sees it as “the root image of the divine” and imagines it as
“the great womb within which all things, Gods and humans, sky and earth, human and nonhuman beings, are generated” (Ruether 1983:48). This image of the cosmic womb is a feminine one which suggests God as the source all life. Matrix is the medium of the womb in which life is nurtured and sustained. This image supports the idea of a united centre from which all life evolved. It recognizes interconnectivity, process, change, development and transformation as the cosmos evolves.
According to Ruether, a new understanding of relational experience will promote the idea of a conversion experience which promotes the reawakening of wonder and awe at the natural environment evoking from one a response to its beauty and intrinsic worth. She stresses that “Western consciousness must heal itself of its split off divisions that have separated knowledge from wonder, reverence, and love before we can
50 learn how to tell the cosmic story in a way that will rekindle an ethic and spirituality capable of calling us to the tasks of healing and sustaining the earth” (Ruether 1992:58).
Gebara proposes an understanding of God as ‘relatedness’. She argues that the concept of ‘relatedness’ is the basis of existence in the world and “speaks of God as possibility, as opening, as the unexpected, the unknown; as physical and metaphysical” (Gebara 1999:103). Relatedness recognizes the mystery of existence but affirms God as continual presence in the mystery and the unknown. It expresses itself as
“utterance, word, attraction, flux, energy and passion” and is the materiality and spirituality of all (Gebara 1999:103).
Gebara argues that humanity’s understanding of God needs to equip us for the contemporary world. Any model of God needs to take into account recent scientific findings so as to remain relevant and able to promote healing and justice. If God is relationship then God works to improve relationships and it is through relationships that we speak of and affirm God. She says that humanity is entering a new moment in human and cosmic history and needs to “re-examine” its experience and “reconstruct” its meanings (Gebara 1999:144). Gebara re-examines the traditional Christian metaphorical images for community such as the Trinity which in our inherited experience has been reduced to “an old man, a young man and a bird” (Gebara 1999:144). She proposes a broader reinterpretation of this symbol to suggest multiplicity.
She understands multiplicity as the acceptance of differences in order to create new relationships which promote love, mercy and justice. She argues that in a multiform world people need to accept differences as God transcends difference to unify all creation in its diversity. She argues that a limited view of ourselves in relation to others encourages evil as it results in a “narrow affirmation of our personal, racial, religious, and even class identity” and she states that we end up “creating systems to protect ourselves from one another, systems based on greed or the perceived superiority of those who regard themselves as the ‘strongest’ or ‘the finest’ ” (Gebara 1999:166).
Gebara argues that when culture exalts the individual, it creates imbalances in the networks of relationships within the earth. Individualism leaves little understanding in regards to the collective nature of life; it does not support any reflective or transformative process essential to faith and remains superficially engaged with the world. This way of being in the world does not support faith as it does not support life for all. According to Gebara, faith can be summed up as the essential values which support life such as those that encourage risk and in the experience of Jesus are “made flesh in behaviours such as solidarity with the poor, defending life in spite of the many threats against it, condemning oppression, sharing, forgiving and expressing mercy and praise” (Gebara 1999:147).
51 Ruether proposes that the sacramental tradition in Christianity is valuable (Ruether 1992:229). Once stripped of its patriarchal bias it holds themes for ecological spirituality and practice that are relevant today. The sacramental tradition “regards Christ as the cosmic manifestation of God, appearing both as the immanent divine source and ground of creation and its ultimate redemptive healing” (Ruether 1992:229). The tradition affirms the presence and manifestation of God found in creation thus emphasizing God’s immanence. It introduces the concept of panentheism which is ‘viewing God in all things’ which implies interdependence and interconnection through all of life. The immanent presence of God is pervasive, sustaining and celebrates bodiliness. It does not recognize any eschatology which devalues the earth and opposes any doctrine which supports fleeing the physical world. This emphasis on bodiliness is emphasized by McFague in her metaphor of God as “the world as God’s body”.
McFague’s metaphor for God as ‘the world as God’s body’ emphasizes the immanence and vulnerability of God. In the same way that we care about our bodies and are made vulnerable by them we must attend to their well being. It implies God’s willingness to suffer with the world, thus affirming that the world and all it contains are worth loving. The suggestion that God cares about the world as one cares about one’s body with sympathetic concern does not mean that the future is assured, for inherent in the metaphor of God’s body is the vulnerability of the world to physical deterioration, implying that God too is at risk of this deterioration. It does suggest, however, that to trust in a God whose body is the world is to trust in a God “who cares profoundly for the world” (McFague 1987:74). It highlights the consequences of damage to the earth and supports the notion that bodies are worth loving and their needs important. This is a metaphor which challenges a traditional image of God. McFague feels that metaphors of God need to recognize humanity’s interdependence with all forms of life as well as promote God’s sense of responsibility and nurturing of life. She experiments with metaphors which describe aspects of God that go beyond the gender stereotyping of the traditional models, which encourage detachment and distance from the world through their “triumphalist and transcendent themes”, and proposes being open to religious change which promotes community for all life (McFague 1987:72).
Christianity has inherited a bodily tradition and uses body language such as Jesus’ body as the sacrament and the church as the body of Christ. The advantage of the new metaphor that McFague proposes is that it includes more than Christians and more than human beings, opening up salvation to the whole earth. The only risk with this new metaphor as the earth as God’s body is that it has the potential to metaphorically limit God to the world, but one needs to remember that we are more than just our physicality. This model challenges conventional thinking and promotes integration between God and the world suggesting that God is in constant touch with the earth.
52 McFague proposes another metaphor of “God as mother”, a metaphor that promotes powerful images of the birthing and feeding process for the expression of the interrelatedness of all life. McFague uses this image “for an understanding of creation as bodied forth from the divine being, for it is the imagery of gestation, giving birth, and lactation that creates an imaginative picture of creation as profoundly dependent on and cared for by divine life” (McFague 1989:106).
In summary, integration in spirituality means changing the way humanity views and relates to the world.
Any faith praxis which supports relationships of diversity and multiplicity while encouraging new ways of relating to the earth promotes a spirituality of ecofeminism. The task of healing and sustaining the earth recognizes the importance of challenging constructs and metaphors for God which promotes transcendence above immanence. It is a spirituality of activism that challenges and confronts constructs of domination. It embraces compassion and the awareness of others while encouraging love, mercy and justice for all creation. It awakens wonder, reverence, and love for the cosmic story and yearns for a holistic new reality where divisions between people are minimized such as the gap between men and women, rich and poor, old and young, and hetrosexual and gay. Bodiliness in spirituality emphasizes the importance of bodies as a primary vehicle of our experience and explores new ways to use women’s bodies in the expression of their faith.