One of my favorite Goddess parables is the story of the Goddess Macha and the brothers who raped her. The interesting part of the story is Macha’s response. Did she beat the brothers up? Punish them in some other way? No.
Did she turn the other cheek, as Christ counsels? No.
The Goddess Macha neither punished nor played dead. She taught the men. She taught them rape is wrong.
Actually, Macha went out of her way to get each brother to rape her in turn, removing each from the pack to let him do his evil deed. Then she tied each to a tree, and taught that rape is wrong: “With Her magic She had tied them. With Her magic She then taught them, so that each became a faithful servant of the mighty Goddess…” (Stone, Ancient Mirrors of Womanhood)
In our god cultures, we don’t teach wrongdoers, we punish them. Even our best role model Jesus doesn’t teach us to teach. Jesus teaches us to play dead, to tell people who hurt us to “hurt me again. Here: let me give you the other cheek to smack.”
In contrast, in our goddess cultures we don’t hurt people – and we don’t let them hurt us. We teach people the right way to be and behave.
Let's gently replace God the Father with God the Mother now. Male gods are dangerous, to men as well as women. Female deities are ROLE MODELS for UNCONDITIONAL LOVE. People are biologically programmed to need religion of one kind or another.
_____
Thnx to Susan Sedon Boulet for the image of the Goddess Hel (it comes from a copy I own and photographed for this blog)
I am firmly against the death penalty no matter the crime. Perhaps the worst serial killer will in time want to contribute something positive to those around him, even if he's in jail.
ReplyDelete"Jesus doesn't teach us to teach" except perhaps for the command to go make people his disciples throughout the entire world and teach them to obey everything that he has commanded. Please, *please* stop telling lies about my Lord. =) You know full well he taught the twelve and sent them out to teach others.
ReplyDeleteI will admit to not knowing how and when to defend myself and when to turn the other cheek. It confuseth me. Not to give a simple answer but my gut feeling is that we are to endure insult, as well as injustice or hardship *for the name of Christ*...but that we are not meant to suffer plain abuse without putting up a defense. Again -- I do not know. =\
In any case, if a robber took your coat and you threw your jacket and shoes into the deal without provocation, I'd call that being very much alive and surprising, not wimpering, weak, and dead.
(sorry if I missed the main point of your post...I just don't want to be discattered by too many topics in one reply)
Paxton, I’m talking about teaching as a response to abuse.
ReplyDeleteYou get hit. What's your response?
O Hit back
O “Hit me again.”
O “It’s wrong to hit because…”
Actually, I believe part of why we are in "this mess" is because women DON'T hit back when they should. And I believe slugging them back in the face IS a teaching lesson at a very gut level.
ReplyDeleteI've been in too many situations which were brutally violent to swallow some fairy tale that if I'd just explained everything to the violent abusive men in just the right way, they would have suddenly said "OMG you are right!" and apologized and done what they could to make up for the crimes they whad committed.