I REMEMBER ABOUT A YEAR AGO, while I was in Canada for a directed retreat, coming face to face with a newspaper vending machine which displayed the headline "United States Bombs Libya." Above a picture of the devastation in Libya caused by the bombing was another headline: "Women and Children Killed in Bombing Raid."
I realized again that day that the many forms of violence which destroy life in one way or another will continue to occur over and over again as long as typically masculine understandings of power prevail and the feminine continues to be suppressed in the church and the world. This suppression of the feminine effects not only the oppression of women but also the oppression of God. I believe the greatest evil of sexism in the church is a denial of the fullness of the revelation of God.
Later, when I reflected on the thoughts generated by the hews of the bombing of Libya, this prayer came to me:
Enlighten your church, 0 God, with the light of your Word, that all of us, male and female, are in your image capable of imaging your son. Free it from the violence which keeps you oppressed, 0 God. Release your femininity on the world, O Mother God, because your glory demands it; because the fullness of the revelation of who you are demands it; because the peace of the world demands it.
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