The Island & The Goddess

“There is an island. It’s us” – Jordan Two Delta, from the movie “The Island”

I’ve recently had my writing complimented. A friend described my writing thus; “Kirk can take the most normal of things, like going for coffee or something, and then write about it and write so much stuff that you think your brain is going to fall out because he just goes on & on & on forever.”

So yeah, bearing that in mind….

I took a ‘me’ day on Friday. Had a compressed Friday off work & so had the day free. Took the car in early to try & diagnose some ABS sensor problems & then hoofed it from Northland mall down to Brentwood station (I definitely need the exercise) to grab a delicious breakfast at Smitty’s (the ‘colossal omelette’ is fantastic after a brisk walk in the cool air). While there, I decided to enjoy an essay from the “Finding Serenity” book, a collection of essays related to the Firefly/Serenity TV series/movie.

On that particular morning I read Joy Davidson’s essay, “Whores and Goddesses: The Archetypal Domain of Inara Serra”. Dr. Davidson’s a sex therapist & the essay traces the history of ritual prostitution down through the ages. Honestly I found the article fascinating. I didn’t agree exactly with large chunks of what she had to say (which is perhaps neither here nor there), but the article did open me up to a lot of concepts I’d never really thought of.

She goes into a lot of detail about the concept of “the goddess”:

“From these records [from ancient Mesopotamia] come the earliest references to sacred prostitution, the predecessor of what we know today as the sex trade. In ancient times however, people didn’t merely trade in sex; rather they shared union with the Goddess through her fleshly embodiment, the temple priestess.

The goddesses of this period, though worshipped in multiple locales under a variety of names, were all related to Kali Ma, the Hindu “triple goddess” of creation, preservation and destruction. As the source of birth, existence and death, kali’s world was an eternal living flux, a dark and liquid chaos from which all life arose and disappeared again in endless cycles…. As mother and creator, Kali emanated karuna, meaning “the treasure house of compassion.” Karuna was the quality of mother-love directly experienced in infancy and later amplified to embrace all forms of love, tenderness, sensual pleasure, eroticism. Tantric sages called karuna the essence of religion – that is, the essence of the Goddess, for the Goddess was religion itself and karuna flowed into the world through the Goddesses’ agents on earth, women. The Goddess’ sacred whores were thought to be specially anointed teachers of karuna.

….pagan Rome gave the Great Goddess the title of Mater Cara – mother beloved – for she combined all the qualities of sexuality, motherhood, spousal intimacy, friendship, generosity and mercy, or caritas which the Christian church later purged of sexual implications and called “charity.”

…In ancient Babylon…her priestesses lay with men in exchange for monetary offerings. To enter the body of the priestess was to come as close as a male could ever dream to the source of divine power and comfort. Through congress with her, the warrior was cleansed of the ravages of war, the transgressor purified. By sharing karuna, a man received far more than carnal delight; he received blessing.”

I’ve never understood the concept of the ‘goddess’. I’ve heard stuff from Wicca & various new age or ultra-feminist movements that embrace this concept of ‘the goddess’. But I’d never heard it explained as to who “the goddess” is or why someone would want to believe in her. This article helps me to make sense of this.

Dr. Davidson points out that so many ancient cultures had a concept of the goddess. She was called Ishtar in Babylon, Inanna in Sumeria, Astarte in Egypt, Aphrodite in Grecia, Venus in Rome. She is known as Ashtoreth or the ‘queen of heaven’ in the old testament. This helps bring the idea of the goddess into terms I’ve heard before. These are dark & ancient gods worshipped in ages past and, apparently, embraced today.

I’ve always been sort of nervous around the term ‘the goddess’ and, with my lack of understanding, have never really known why. Putting ‘the goddess’ in terms of ‘Ashtoreth’ brings it back to concepts I’ve at least read about; brings it back to the ‘big three’ in the old testament. Throughout the old testament, there seems to be three main categories of gods that ruled the nations around Israel (and sometimes Israel themselves). They had different names depending on which nation you came from, but their functions were the same across the cultures. There were the gods who ruled by fear, the thunder & lightning gods, the Baals or lords, who controlled people through the fear that if they didn’t offer up some sacrifice, the god would be mad & smite them or their crops/lands/cattle with thunderbolts (we in the Christian church sometimes get the Christian God confused with the Baals). There were the fertility goddesses like Asthoreth or Ashera whose temples would be huge phallic symbols with ritual prostitution. These goddesses (arguably) controlled people through their sexual desires. And then there were the Molechs, the abortion gods, where you’d sacrifice your children for the hopes of having fertile crops or cattle or wives; killing the heritage you’ve been given for the possibility of ‘more’….

But still, as unnerving as I find the concept of ‘the goddess’, Dr.Davidson describes it all as something beautiful, something wonderful, something desirable & something (dare I say it) holy. Again, I have my scepticism – partly from being a guy & recognizing that we don’t always treat sex, or women, as sacredly as we should. (And I’m sceptical that prostitution, in any form, is a trade in which a woman can be completely empowered, completely free to choose her own way without the predators of society entrapping & enslaving her.)

But in the midst of her description of the goddess, Dr. Davidson makes these statements:

“Scholars have suggested that such deep respect for the sacred feminine was a serious threat to the priests of later monotheistic religious sects who sought to position themselves between the people and the sacred source. To do so they had to remove women from the path to power, and that meant not only eradicating the Goddess herself, but also locking the door that led directly from the feminine body and its pleasures to the divine. The priests achieved this end by turning truth upon its head and reducing female sexuality to a source of sin and shame – a vicious undertaking to which we in the twenty-first century are still held hostage.”

And yeah, this statement kind of rocked me. I have no way of knowing how true this is, but it still makes me think; have we done this in the church? Have we been so afraid of ‘the goddess’, so afraid of the powers & wonders of our own sexuality, that we’ve completely locked & closed the door to everything good & wonderful about sex & sexuality?

I’ve been raised in the church. I grew up with no real concept of sex or sexuality. Sure I knew there were differences between boys & girls. I knew that women got pregnant & had children. I knew that mom’s & dad’s got together & kissed & ‘stuff’ & that was what started the whole pregnancy process, but yeah, I had no concepts of the details. I partially learned about sex as a 13 year old listening to my friends talk about sex. I had to sort of piece all of it together from the random bits of conversation that they had. There was a language, a ‘code’ about sex, and yeah, it took a while for me to work out the code to get even the most basic understanding of sex & how it all worked. (Mind you the hormones & process of going through puberty & seeing the girls around me turn into women definitely helped the process of understanding).

I’m now 33, turning 34, haven’t dated much, haven’t ‘gotten laid’ yet (mostly due to a lack of gumption rather than some adherence to principles or ‘doing the right thing’). I do have a much better understanding of sex (at least conceptually) than I did when I was 13. But yeah, I’ve seen a lot of things….

..what I’ve seen mostly is how the church treats sex & sexuality. I’ve seen sex treated as the big taboo, the one sin that will instantly get a person treated with shame & scepticism. It’s one of the more ‘obvious’ sins; not like pride or jealousy which we can hide in our hearts or label as ‘piety’. I’ve watched the church shun people who’ve had sex like they were carrying some plague. I’ve watched the church shut our mouths to keep us from talking about sex. I’ve watched the church stand up in moral indignation at the culture of sexuality around us & decry all the ‘wickedness’ of the world around us, all the while trying to pretend that we in the church are some sex-less beings, or beings who don’t need, don’t want, don’t crave sex until we’re married (and then it’s OK once in a while).

I’ve watched youth groups where the messages have been to try to keep kids from having sex, listening to music with explicit lyrics & doing drugs. I’ve heard people talk of how God thinks these things are ‘bad’, and I’ve wondered whether these ‘truths’ are based in what God actually thinks or based instead on what parent’s want their kids to hear so they grow up to be ‘safe’, productive members of society with good educations & good jobs and don’t get waylaid on the road to university by ‘unwanted preganancies’.

I’ve watched people, good, beautiful & holy people, agonize over their past sexual experiences. I’ve watched good people, people that God likes & loves, torture themselves & feel like ‘sinners’ and ‘whores’ because they’ve had sex in the past. I’ve watched people’s faith crumble ‘cause they can’t stop thinking about sex (and this isn’t some obsessive thing, it’s just kind of ‘normal’ levels of thinking about sex) and they figure they’re ‘evil’, ‘disobedient’, ‘rebellious’ or weak willed because they can’t, through their will power, quench their sex-drives….

…and I’ve watched a lost of us in the church castigate (or metaphorically castrate) ourselves, trying to act like we are non-sexual beings when, lo & behold, we ARE sexual beings – and our sexuality is a gift from God. (God’s first commandment, as Rich Mullins liked to point out, was that men & women “go forth, be fruitful & multiply” or, if you read Kirk’s paraphrase version, “go out & make lotsa whoopee!!”)

In Genesis chapter 1, the interesting statement is there saying “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them”. And there is this aspect that to be made in the image of God is to be incomplete apart from union with another. The Christian faith worships a God in trinity – three and yet one – and so, too, we humans most reflect God’s image when we are in union – when God, man & woman, join together and become one. And this, as Genesis talks about, is mostly clearly demonstrated in the bonds of sexual union.

And so, in a lot of ways, the above sounds much like the beautiful parts of what Dr. Davidson describes with her concepts of karuna. Mike Mason in his chapter on “Sex” in his book “The Mystery of Marriage” talks about sex within marriage as being this beautiful place of union and healing. He talks about it being this place of where man & woman can return to Eden, to return to the place where they can be ‘naked & without shame’ as Adam & Eve were in the garden before the fall, before the time where they chose to break union with God & each other by eating from the forbidden tree.

And, as with Dr. Davidson’s description, Mr.Mason makes it sound beautiful & amazing… it sounds like heaven, like home, like what my soul’s been longing for. For, if what they say is true, this place of union is the place of where man & woman can truly meet each other & truly meet with God. That as the entwined couple looks at each other, they can see the face of God, the face of love, smiling back at them. It’s this beautiful, healing & restorative thing where you can be entirely naked with another person and with God; naked both in the physical & the emotional/spiritual. You can lay your soul bare before another & they can see all your beauty & majesty as well as all your flaws, blemishes & inadequacies….and in this magical, in this beautiful, in this holy place, you find that you can come with full disclosure & be fully known & in that knowing, your beloved (& The Beloved (God)) fully embraces you in all of your nakedness & fragility, not only accepting all the good & bad, beauty & blemishes, achievements and failures, virtues & faults, but actually loving & cherishing every single part of you in your past, your present & your future.

It is in this, that sexual union is to have the powerful effect of bringing healing to people & to societies, cultures & nations. It is the exchange of love, the free flowing of love & acceptance that first of all heals the couple through the touch & acceptance of love & then spills over through the couples joy, love & happiness to the world around them.

And this, too, highlights the danger of a union where there is no love or no commitment present. The danger is that this type of union takes something that is so potentially beautiful, positive & healing & turns it into one more voice that says “you’re not worthy of love”. God wants (‘commands’ if you will) sexual union within the context of a loving & committed relationship not because it’s some arbitrary concept of right & wrong, but because He knows the pain of when that union is broken – the pain & damage that is caused when someone who was to be the ‘face of love’, the reflection of God to another, then turns & says, “I don’t want you”, “I don’t love you”…. and all of this sends people again into the spiral of damage & condemnation, of fear & cynicism of where they are mistrustful of God, of good, of love…. (though on the flip side of that, I’ve met plenty of people who have ‘survived’ this, or haven’t even noticed this as having an effect on them.)

And so through our fear, the church has turned something beautiful, something marvellous, some completely natural God given thing that we all (or mostly all) desire and turned it into something shameful & wicked. Out of our ignorance we’ve decided to follow ‘rules’ instead of understanding principles. We’ve left grace for law & abandoned mercy to take up judgement… Instead of teaching the wonders of our creation, the wonders & miracle of sexuality, we’ve robbed it all & left people in shackles – condemned by their own bodies that they desire that which is ‘forbidden’…

And so I shudder at what we’ve done in the church. Of how we’ve made ourselves irrelevant to society by our illogical arguments. I wonder just what damaged we’ve caused? Both in making the church unwelcoming to people who have had sex and in not preaching the ‘good news’ of sex or of a God who desperately loves us & longs, aches, for union with us. I wonder how much we’ve limited women in the church with this thinking? How much have we as men, who are often ruled by sexual desires, have suppressed God’s moving in the women around us because we aren’t able to master our own hormones. How much have we (men & women) blocked the path to union with God? How often have we asked people to come through us, or through our set of rules, or clique, or club or church, instead of coming directly to God just as they are? How much have we turned the truths of sex into lies? There’s just so many questions & it all makes me go, ‘wow, we have totally botched this…. And turned God’s glory into something shameful.”

Again, I just go back to Jesus. He is the God-man who was comfortable with ‘whores’ – He welcomed their presence & was welcome in theirs. He was the one who knew they were looking for love, real love, not the ‘love’ that someone pays for, but the love that is freely given from a sacrificial heart. His was the heart that brought healing to theirs, who showed them their worth, their true status as people, as women, as individuals, that they were precious & honoured, respected & loved. All through the Bible, God embraces those who have had all kinds of sexual background/history. God chooses Rahab the prostitute to be part of His plans in making Israel a nation & bringing a Messiah to earth. God chooses David’s adulterous relationship to sire a king, and eventually sire King Jesus, through the wife of the man David murdered. God continually embraces Israel over & over after all of her adulterous affairs with the pagan gods (and goddesses) around her.

God is not afraid of passion, His will not crippled by our attempts at finding union – however temporary or fleeting. God will not treat us with shame & contempt for anything we have done. Instead He comes, ever always, as a lover to embrace us, to meet us in our nakedness & bring us into the union of perfect love with Him where Jesus’ sacrifice, and sacrificial love, covers us, heals us & washes us clean….