The Shack

My roommates have been reading that new novel the Shack. It's intriguing, if only for the reason that it's highly controversial, at least, to some. It made the Times as a surprise best seller
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/books/24shack.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

It's fiction piece about a man who is dealing with grief and loss and is visited by "God" in the form of a black woman who calls herself Papa. The idea behind this is that God is neither male nor female, but as the author says, God is called Father in the Bible because in the fall of mankind the mother became the primary caregiver and nurturer. Also, the man in the book had a bad relationship with his own father, and so had a man come to him as God he would've been harder to accept.

Why is it heresy to think of God as also being female? Or rather, being neither male nor female but giving us representations of who he is in the form different of genders. It's definitely hard to grasp, at least for me. I've never been a hardcore feminist, and in this country my ideas of gender roles are probably very skewed. It's something to think about.

About half the families I've worked with so far have been single mothers. The families in which the father is present have all at various points in time been involved in domestic violence. (Just to be fair, in all of these cases the mother was also violent towards the father.) In most cases the mother is the dominant figure (not all). In an economic class where men are rarely present (either physically or mentally) the women have learned to take control and now this applies whether the man is there or not. Even if he's there now, there are no promises about tomorrow. I wonder what similarities there are, if there are any, between these women and the women in generations past who had to live without husbands and fathers due to wars. Was it hard for the wife to give the role of authority back to the husband?

Well, back to work I go. Peace.