Truth is One, but sages call It by many names

I'm borrowing my dad's truck for a little while so I can go out to work before Hammy gets home at 6:00. His truck only has a cassette tape player so I went to the library and got a couple of books on tape. I started listening to one of them. I thought it was going to be a simple love story about a Turkish rug weaver but it turns out that it will be about a search for the original mother goddess! What a delightful surprise!

I think I've written before about my understanding of God but my post with the lyrics to "Praise Ye the Lord" has kinda made me want to write more about it.

I believe that God is big enough to be whatever each of us humans, with our limited understanding and perspective, need God to be. "Truth is One, but sages call It by many names" so says a Hindu adage.

I don't think God is male or female but contains elements of both genders. I believe that we are all made in God's image. That no matter who we are, where or how or when we live, we are made in God's image. God, Goddess, the One, Divine Energy, Grace, Love: It doesn't matter much how we perceive or address God because God is big enough to be all of those things and so much more, if we allow ourselves to be guided by the still soft voice within.

I use the name God because I am comfortable with that name. Other folks, because of cultural or religious baggage, are not. I fully understand being uncomfortable. I spent a decade as a confirmed agnostic-bordering-on-atheist. I was very cynical about any talk about Spirit that came from a Christian perspective. I wanted nothing to do with the god of my childhood. It wasn't until I found the voice of the loving and nurturing God speaking softly in me, that could I begin to reinterpret the things I'd been taught as a child.

Back to the lyrics "Praise Ye the Lord". That song came unbidden to my head that morning but I can't say I care for the name "Lord". It smacks too much of hierarchy and male privilege. I always think of the royal "M'Lord". I don't think of God as a "king" or lord, preferring the gender-neutral "Ruler". I prefer to imagine the "realm of God" over "kingdom of heaven".

I tend to think of God in gender-neutral terms except when I'm in my "moon-time" and imagine God the Creator, who is the Divine Mama, creating and nurturing and loving everything. My mind is never still and I am full of creative energy (but oddly lethargic, at the same time) and I can relate to Big Mama God on a wonderful creative jag, full of amazing ideas for centipedes and butterflies and kangaroos!

That's why I find the exploration of and awareness of the original Goddess so interesting. I know how people have worshipped God in many of human's interpretations of God's male forms. I want to know how people interpreted God in God's female forms. What was society like when God was known as female or as an amalgam of both genders?