“I believe that women’s spiritual quest(s). …are drawing all of us to accept finitude and change, to live in and through it, without trying to escape it. For me the goal of the ‘mystical’ quest is to understand that we are part of a world which is constantly transforming and changing.
….Awareness that this larger whole is still subject to death does not mean that we must therefore seek to distance ourselves radically from or escape from it. Nor does it mean that we should overemphasize the death aspects of our world. All that is subject to death is teeming with live, vibrant as we are. It is also true as Margaret Atwood eloquently stated, that ‘nothing has died, everything is alive, everything is waiting to become alive.’”
– From Diving Deep and Surfacing: Women Writers on Spiritual Quest, preface to 2nd Edition, by Carol P. Christ
I am grieving Carol Christ’s death by rereading some of her books. I never before had someone I know comfort me with their own words. after their death. Carol had already been on my mind when I heard of her death since I had recently told a friend about the great writing advice she gave me 35 years ago.
Carol came to Harvard Divinity School on a Women in Religion Fellowship 1986-7. In 1978 I had read her essay “Why Women Need the Goddess” in Heresies magazine, followed by Diving Deep and Surfacing a few years later. Her work influenced my decision to go to divinity school. The fellowship called for her to teach one seminar only, and I felt that getting into that seminar was a life-death situation. Sitting in the HDS library, I filled out the application. My words felt flimsy, so I quietly performed a little ritual before handing it in. It was effective. I was accepted to the seminar with 14 other students to study ‘God and the Prehistoric Goddesses.’ Each session began with viewing slides of sculptural female figures, starting with some of the earliest known art from the Paleolithic period and moving through the Neolithic. I was at home with this work which had influenced my sculpture. Carol presented these images as a kind of goddess ‘scriptural’ record of sacred female symbolic thinking. Many in the class were not as comfortable. Indeed, a few responded with strong visceral feelings of disgust. Their responses reminded me of when someone bought my moon-goddess sculpture and returned it because she explained that the goddess’s eyes followed her around the house, challenging her to get divorced, and she was not ready.
I saw this as a pastoral issue and talked to Carol about it. She was surprised that some were disturbed by the visual record and responded that she did not know what to do about it. I listened to those students seeking to understand better. Meanwhile, the lectures, reading lists, discussions, and papers engaged all of us. Having gone to art school, I was still learning to write a decent paper. Carol spoke to me about one that she said was excellent, adding that when I described something I could see in my mind’s eye, I was a good writer. Her comment opened a space in my thinking that allowed my following papers to be well written - not to mention fun to write. It was this comment that I remembered with such gratitude decades later.
Carol did not stop at opening my ability to write. She stimulated the asking of a key question that has guided my career and my growth as a human being. One of the papers we were required to read was by a professor of Christian Theology at HDS, Gordon D. Kaufman, ‘Theology and the Concept of Nature.’ A responsibility of the fellowship was to do a lecture open to the public. Carol chose to have a debate with Kaufman about the concepts of nature from his tradition and hers – God vs. Goddess. During the debate, he argued that the transcendence of the Biblical God – separate and above nature - was both humbling and empowering for humans who were below God and above nature. This, he concluded, inspired humanity spiritually and morally. She argued that the immanence of Goddesses -symbols of the sacred qualities integral to nature inclusive of humanity - was more effectively humbling and empowering. The Goddess concept of nature highlighted our humbling vulnerability and finitude while inviting us into a relationship with the rest of nature, which was empowering. This, she concluded, inspired a powerful spirituality and morality. Christ was a strong charismatic debater, and Kaufman was not.
The energy in the room was clear, and she had won the debate. It was time for questions. A community member asked a question that did not rationally follow the debate in my mind: why were so many of the women she knew attracted to goddess spirituality also victims of sexual abuse and rape? The members of my seminar all looked at one another and started to buzz…. “Really?.... Is that true?.... If so, what is the relationship?” The question after the debate led 5 of us to form a seminar the next year to explore those questions. That question led me to listen to many more women talk about abuse and spirituality, to my dissertation, to a life-long study of trauma, and to a ministry of healing.
Carol stayed in touch with me during that follow-up seminar and my parish internship the year after, when I taught feminist theology, and she came to lecture. Then she moved to Greece. I focused on my ministry. We lost touch. She wrote more books. I continued to read her.
From Carol’s books, I saw that she continued to learn. She learned to support her students emotionally as well as academically. We both learned to be more whole, integrate mind – spirit - heart back into one soma - so vulnerable, so finite, and holy. Now I remember how very nurturing and supportive she was as a teacher. I remember how carefully she listened to us, how proudly she acknowledged all that she learned from us. I realize that I can continue to learn from her. I am trying to write a book that demonstrates my journey towards wholeness. Reading her books feels like she is showing me how she learned to write her journey. Thank you yet again, Carol. Thank you for everything.