In a comment re: yesterday's post, paxton said:
"It's extremely important for little girls to know that their mothers and fathers absolutely adore them, and love them more than life. But when kids are revered instead of merely adored, I suspect that they would become spoiled, arrogant and bratty. Human-worship is not a healthy thing for the worshipers or the worshipee."
To which I reply,
paxton, you’ve painted a pretty picture of a giant difference between your war god Jehovah and our Great Mother Goddess.
Unlike your war gods Jehovah and Allah, the Goddess does not demand that we put Her on high, bow and scrape, and worship Her with our backsides in the air. We revere Her not because She demands it, but because She naturally draws reverence out of us. Your war gods, on the other hand, have to scream and holler to get you to "worship" them: "I AM A JEALOUS GOD! I WILL SEND 1000 PLAGUES AND 1000 HORDES OF LOCUSTS IF YOU DO NOT BOW DOWN AND WORSHIP ME!!!"
Now, some theAlogians believe women *are* the Mother Goddess. So it's only natural that we'd revere women -- and girls -- isn't it?
paxton, Goddess spirituality is not christianity with a female deity at the helm. It's an entirely different way of looking at existence.
Bless you, BTW, for returning here periodically to give us good grist for our thealogical meanderings.
_____
thnx to the Susan Seddon Boulet Foundation for the foto (which comes from a foto of a copy I own). Although this could be a picture of the Great Mother Goddess holding any of us, Boulet meant it to show the Greek Goddess of the Moon, Selene, holding the mortal man Endymion.
5 comments:
=)) I enjoy talking with you too, Athana ^_^ (*is touched* =)
I think you took my comment as something other than I meant.
All I meant was that I've seen kids who are put on a pedestal, and I do not envy said children. Every moment, they are encouraged to choose arrogance, and that is a bad thing. The warning bells went off in my head when you said we should put young girls on pedestals.
Secondly, random thought, how come only the very young and very old were revered? Isn't middle age bad enough already without losing your divinty?
Would respond to the actual topic of this post but I am out of time. =)
By the way, I would object as strongly to putting boys on pedestals, so do not think it is a gender issue. It is a "treat your kids responsibly and realistically so hopefully they don't grow up to be jerks" issue. ;)
Paxton - this culture does put boys on pedastals and that's why so many are arrogant jerks.
Again, though, Athana is right - you are looking at this idea through a patriarchal filter. Adoring a little girl doesn;t make her arrogant. It makes her strong. Adoring an older woman keeps a society healthy by making the most of her wisdom and extending her life and therefore her availablitiy to provide that wisdom.
Arrogance is a product of "power over" thinking. Empowerment is the opposite of that - it is maximizing one's own power without regard to the power of others, and without seeking power over anyone but the self.
To quote my previous comment: "It's extremely important for little girls to know that their mothers and fathers absolutely adore them, and love them more than life."
I never opposed adoration -- it was just the idea of putting kids on a pedestal. You said yourself that putting boys on pedestals encourages them to be arrogant jerks (which is true) -- that's why it set off the warning bells in my head.
There is a recent surge of country songs about fathers who cherish their daughters. It is a trend that greatly pleases me. =)
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