{"id":1497,"date":"2013-06-12T15:47:13","date_gmt":"2013-06-12T21:47:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/carynriswold\/?p=1497"},"modified":"2013-06-12T19:23:15","modified_gmt":"2013-06-13T01:23:15","slug":"where-is-the-motherbody","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/carynriswold\/2013\/06\/where-is-the-motherbody\/","title":{"rendered":"“Where is the Motherbody?”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a>Many good things can be said about Terry Tempest Williams\u2019<\/a> 1991 spiritual memoir, Refuge<\/a><\/em>.\u00a0 Its subtitle reveals that it is in part about the intimate connection between people and the natural world: \u201cAn Unnatural History of Family and Place.\u201d\u00a0 I\u2019ve heard people talk about and praise this book over the decades since its release, and just now got around to reading it in full.<\/p>\n

One passage stands on its own and needs to be read and considered by as many people as possible.\u00a0 It\u2019s on pages 240-241:<\/p>\n

In Mormon theology<\/a>, the Holy Trinity is comprised of God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son, and the Holy Ghost.\u00a0 We call this the Godhead.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Where is the Motherbody?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

We are far too conciliatory.\u00a0 If we as Mormon women believe in God the Father and in his son, Jesus Christ, it is only logical that a Mother-in-Heaven balances the sacred triangle.<\/strong>\u00a0 I believe the Holy Ghost is female, although she has remained hidden, invisible, deprived of a body, she is the spirit that seeps into our hearts and directs us to the well.\u00a0 The \u201cstill, small voice\u201d I was taught to listen to as a child was \u201cthe gift of the Holy Ghost.\u201d\u00a0 Today I choose to recognize this presence as holy intuition, the gift of the Mother.\u00a0 My prayers no longer bear the \u201cproper\u201d masculine salutation.\u00a0 I include both Father and Mother in Heaven.\u00a0 If we could introduce the Motherbody as spiritual counterpoint to the Godhead, perhaps our inspiration and devotion would no longer be directed to the starts, but our worship could return to the Earth.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

My physical mother is gone.\u00a0 My spiritual mother remains.\u00a0 I am a woman rewriting my genealogy.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the larger context of the book, this passage reflects the intimate and painful experience Williams\u2019 has living with the process of her mother\u2019s dying as well as the 1987 flooding of the Great Salt Lake.\u00a0 The way that physical and spiritual, human nature and nonhuman nature, birds and women, all intertwine are captured in her poetic writing.<\/p>\n

Williams\u2019 wrote recently about her Mormon feminist awakening, and you can read more about that in a 2011 piece in The Progressive<\/a><\/em>.\u00a0 It\u2019s a great summary of the women\u2019s reproductive health movement over the past century (\u201cthe world is splitting open,\u201d) and toward the end of it she relates a story of being summoned to her Church headquarters shortly after Refuge<\/em> was published.\u00a0 It turned out to not be for this un-orthodox theological suggestion about the Motherbody, but rather for something more personal altogether:<\/p>\n

What disturbed him most was that my husband and I had chosen not to have children<\/strong>. This was the threat I posed. I had a voice. He asked me if I realized that by not becoming a mother, I, too, would become an endangered species leading future generations of spirit-children down the path of extinction just like the wild birds I so loved and championed.<\/p>\n

The phrase that my religious leader uttered that I have never been able to forget was this: \u201c<\/strong>Just as a mother bird has no choice whether or not she will lay her eggs, she must, God insists. So the eggs you possess, over which your husband presides, must also come forth. Will you choose to become a Mother of Zion, or will you allow your womb to become empty and barren, defying the faith of the women who came before you?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

In that moment, I became a feminist<\/strong>. In that moment, I realized that to control a woman\u2019s body and deny her the choice over her own reproductive health is to silence her individual voice and rob her of her innate power, which is the power to choose her own life\u2019s path. To control women is another way of controlling nature<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Please.\u00a0 Read more Terry Tempest Williams<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many good things can be said about Terry Tempest Williams\u2019 1991 spiritual memoir, Refuge.\u00a0 Its subtitle reveals that it is in part about the intimate connection between people and the natural world: \u201cAn Unnatural History of Family and Place.\u201d\u00a0 I\u2019ve heard people talk about and praise this book over the decades since its release, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1142,"featured_media":1498,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,5,9,4],"tags":[187,485,483,484,482,28,77,464],"class_list":["post-1497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-abortion","category-christianity","category-contraception","category-feminism","tag-divine-feminine","tag-godhead","tag-great-salt-lake","tag-motherbody","tag-refuge","tag-religious-autobiographies","tag-reproductive-justice","tag-terry-tempest-williams"],"yoast_head":"\n"Where is the Motherbody?"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Many good things can be said about Terry Tempest Williams\u2019 1991 spiritual memoir, Refuge.\u00a0 Its subtitle reveals that it is in part about the intimate\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" 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