On some level we’re all Thomas, believing the wounds we can see and feel, rather than someone else’s stories.  We say that Thomas was a skeptic.  I think he was bereft.  There had been this man - miraculous, loving, and powerfully unpredictable.  Now there wasn’t, and he wanted to mourn the death and emptiness, not listen to Peter yammering on about some hysterical manifestation of his own guilt.  Maybe Thomas wanted to believe as much as anybody, but he just couldn’t stand for anyone to try and take away his grief, because it was all he had left of Jesus. 

Sometimes holy Saturday lasts a long long time, and there is only sadness and a hope of resurrection, but no Jesus in our living rooms.  Christians frequently give the impression that we spend all our time on the other side of Easter - all new clothes, new life, and chocolate bunnies - when really you can’t swing a hymnbook in any given congregation without hitting someone’s hidden, furtive secrets or snagging someone’s scars.  Most of us are scared.  We’re afraid of being truly discovered at the same time that we’re afraid of being alone.  We’re a mass of messy contradictions and we hurt each other.  Forget praying for stigmata – we’ve already got all the scars and wounds we need. 

There are days that I am Thomas, hating all this talk of a risen Lord that ignores the parts of me still lying buried in a graveyard.  Those are the days that God the Father is just another hellfire sermon, and Jesus is just a story I read about somewhere. Fortunately, graveyards are good for ghosts.

We tend to be afraid of ghosts.  They show up so unexpected, coming through closed doors and following us in the dark.  I suppose that’s why we seem to be a little scared of this One, because the Spirit can go down to all the parts that live beneath our skin, down to our memories and broken bits and hollow places filled with only screaming.  The Holy Ghost is the part of God that haunts us - hanging round our tombs and what happens in dark houses, slipping spirit-like into the cracks between our words.  Those are the places that sermons and books don’t fit; the places where we find we are not as important as we think we are, but more valuable than we could have ever dreamed; the places where  theological discussions sound kind of cute, like listening to a five year old trying to explain the government. 

Right now, I need healing instead of explanations, and the Spirit is the One who shows up when I finally stop talking, the One who sent the prophets on their acid trips and made the disciples talk funny.  I’m starting to discover the wild woman of the trinity, who cannot be explained, contained or sustained by institutions or written down in books.  She is violently rearranging my soul, leaving me in an altered state wondering what just happened here.  Theology is math. The Spirit is molecular biology, and we carry our souls in our bones, not our brains.  To live deep we’ve got to die bone-deep, and let the Spirit lead us down the path of pain and coming back to life.  We’re all crucified, dead, and resurrected, and all the abstract thinking in the world won’t help us sort that out. 

I know I’m supposed to bring the emerging church into this somehow, but to be honest, I’m thoroughly tired of linking the state of my soul to the state of the church.  While there are good people in every congregation, no one is more aware than I of what’s wrong with churches.  Between the abuses of power, hypocrisy and mean-spiritedness, and unspectacular yet deadly demands that we all sit and smile and keep our eyes shining, it seems like the ones who are merely bored by the spectacular irrelevance of it all are the lucky ones.  If the church is the only place I look, then I want to pull a Jesus and the money-changers scene, walk into my local Christian bookstore and do a little smiting.  I know the pain of trying to belong to a church that doesn’t seem to like me.  I know it so well, I could tell you what it ate for breakfast.  I don’t even want to talk about gender equality if that just means that I can stand behind some podium and pretend I have no places in me that are screaming. 

I think I finally figured something out:  Ultimately, all that is a distraction, albeit it a desperately painful one, from touching the presence of God.  That’s all I ever really wanted, even if I didn’t know it.  I want to find redemption, not postmodern theology and better ambience. 

Once I pulled my head out of my critique, I saw the Spirit drive up on a motorcycle.  She roared up loud and said “Sugar, child, you talk too much.  Do you want to stand here having intellectual conversation or do you want to take a ride?”   I was so tired of chasing down the voices in my head, I would have handled snakes or hollered if I thought that it would work.   I hemmed and hawed and sputtered, but finally clambered on the back.  I’m not the one driving this thing, which makes me feel both afraid and free.  I brought all my baggage with me, and emptying out my suitcases is going to take a long long while.  This is going to make me bleed, I think, but then being stranded on the church house steps with bags heavy enough to pull my arms out of their sockets is not a particularly attractive alternative. 

I have a friend who thinks that I’m a mystic.  I’ve decided to agree because mystic sounds better than crazy, even if it’s sometimes hard to tell the two apart.  Whatever the cause, I see a lot of ghosts – memories and pain and brokenness – and they rattle their chains and moan to let me know they’re here.  I’m not as afraid of that as I used to be.  The Spirit only comes to those who are haunted. 

Christy, I have to say first of all that there are a lot of others out there that feel the same way. I have been in ministry now for about 15 years and I am beginning to search out the opportunity to start a new church that deals with the issues you brought forth. There is a longing for something outside of intellectualism within our souls that just isn't satisified with a traditional worship service. Superficial small groups that are supposed to connect us together and help us through the hurts and pains are few and hard to come by. The Holy Spirit is the One who is to give us counsel in the depths. Like Paul talks about in Romans 8 that the Spirit is intercedes on our behalf when we don't have the words to say what goes on within us.

Second, I find it strange that we try to put a gender to God, myself. My wife and I don't agree with all those authors who try to put men in one category and women in another. There are things that she is more like the male in their so-called categories and things that I am more like the female in those same kinds of things. IF God is of only one gender, why would He have created male and female both in His image? There have to be sides of God's being, His very nature (God in the person of the Father) that is just as much feminine as it is masculine. This only makes God more complete. "Let us make man in our image..." the plurality of God from the beginning is displayed in our differences. If God only created a male or a female, we would not know God's completeness that is displayed through the diversity He created.

Finally, as you look to the Spirit for healing, that will happen. Jesus came to heal the broken hearted and the He said that one would come after Him to be the Comforter, the Counselor to continue the work He started. The Spirit will bring healing as we allow the Spirit to thrive in our life and allow the Spirit to be the one driving the Harley.

Journeying with God!
GZ
--Greg ( ZunderNLightning at hotmail dot com ) on 10/5/2004; 11:20:00 AM

Thanks for the props, ya'll. I really didn't sit down and think, "Now I must come up with a feminine image for the Spirit so I can bring balance to our portrayals of God." I really am just damn happy to be experiencing some healing, and connecting with the feminine side of God is a part of that for me right now. I know that some people will read a lot of negative connotations into that, but finding some freedom after being in a lot of pain for a real long time makes me not care about that all that much.
--Christy Lambertson ( christylambertso at hotmail dot com ) on 9/11/2004; 1:42:07 AM

It's funny to me that people react so violently against the idea of femininity in the GodHead. Let's start with Genesis: God made mankind in HIS OWN image, male and FEMALE he created them. Later, you can study the Old Testament names of God, like El Shaddai (Many or Large breasted one), or the Divine Lady Wisdom of Proverbs. Additionally, Jesus Himself used feminine imagery in His preaching, referring to how he wished to gather Israel under his wings, like a mother hen.
A single-sex image of God is not only inaccurate, it's simply not scriptural. This author has found the golden mean, between the unhealthy, alpha-male image of our All-in-all, and the equally damaging Goddess theology, and I salute her.
For women raised in churches that have beaten us up for having curvy bodies, and "tempting" men by our very existence, the realization that we, too, are made in God's image is incredibly healing.
I love the idea of a Harley ride on which I do not drive. I am less in charge every day, and it is exhilarating. Thank you for a great article.
AD
--AmberDawn ( ad at vianova dot org ) on 9/10/2004; 9:24:24 AM

Bill, you're an ass.
--Kim ( Kimmilynn64 at yahoo dot com ) on 9/8/2004; 10:25:23 AM

Hi there mystic! Yeah, i guess its ok to be yourself, you don't have to change just 'cos someone else finds you offensive or even obscene. God knows, and that's what matters.......keep it up gal! Just go on and say whatever He told you no matter what it may turn out to be!
--Immanuel Joseph ( immanuel_joseph at yahoo dot co dot uk ) on 9/2/2004; 2:13:09 PM

Mattie -
Glad you liked it. There's freedom in being messy, even if it's often painful. Enjoy the motorcycle ride.

Peace,
Christy
--Christy Lambertson ( christylambertso at hotmail dot com ) on 9/1/2004; 4:22:18 PM

Christy-
I needed your article today. I think God gave it to me. Thanks.

I have been in too many churches like the ones you described. There are too many 7 steps to a perfect Christian life.

When life doesn't work out the way it is supposed to, these places don't really want you.

Life is messy. Thank you for not putting God in a box. I am ready to get on the Harley with Her.
--mattie ( metaylor at industryinet dot com ) on 8/30/2004; 5:20:12 PM

Bill -
So, tell me how you really feel. :-) Guess you're not my target audience. I'm sorry you interpreted this as disrespectful of God. That certainly wasn't my intent, as it comes from a place of awed gratitude at the deep healing that the Spirit is doing in my life after many years of pain and inner turmoil.

If you knew my story, then you might understand why the image of the Spirit as a nurturing, free-spirited, strong woman is such a liberating thing for me and a gift from God. Why that image seems to make you so uncomfortable is a question you will have to ask yourself. I don't have some radical feminist agenda - I'm just desperately grateful to finally be figuring out that God isn't some angry big man in the sky who is stronger than me and doesn't like me much, and who wants to use me up and spit me out as a tool to accomplish the will of God.

The people I've heard from who liked this article have all been through really painful stuff, and been in that place where it hurts so bad, you need redemption and healing just to breathe. I wrote this for myself, I wrote it for them, and it's okay with me if it doesn't make sense to anyone else.

Peace on your journey.
Christy
--Christy Lambertson ( christylambertso at hotmail dot com ) on 8/27/2004; 3:08:19 PM

First off, you got me hooked with the title. I thought it was going to be something thought provoking or deep, with references to The Holy Pirit and Harleys. Wrong on both accounts.
Second, I don't think your disrespect of God and the Holy Spirit is a good thing. Show me just one place in the Bible where God is refered to in the feminine.
Third, you need to be careful when you say the Holy Spirit talked to you, and then say HE said something like, "Sugar..." Whenever the people of the Buible were approached by gGod, they were HUMBLED. Isaiah said, I am an uncleaned man, with unclean lips, Moses thought he would died cuz he HEARD the voice of God, on and on the examples go. God is to be revered, not post-modernized into Gilligan, our little buddy. HE IS GOD. Don't forget that. In Revelations it shows us that when we stand before God, at the very mention of His name, every knee will bow, every tounge confess, in Heaven and on earth, that Jesus Christ is Lord. I don't think anyone will be thinking "Now, Sug..."
--Bil ( zmutt at hotmail dot com ) on 8/26/2004; 9:26:19 PM