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"God as a jealous, punitive white Anglo-Saxon male with a long beard and a longer arm lacks appeal for many contemporary women," writes Joan Borysenko. In an attempt to address and mend the rift between women's experience of God and how God is presented through male-dominated religions, Borysenko offers this book of feminine exploration. Initially, Borysenko speaks to healing one's relationship with a seemingly judgmental or exclusive God. She then moves beyond how religion may or may not have failed individual women, into how the feminine collective tends to know and touch God.
Not surprisingly, Borysenko speaks to women's intuition and creativity as surefire lifelines to God. Women rely on relationships as a means to spiritual growth, explains Borysenko, whether it be with lovers, friends, or children. She also examines women's icons--from the gentle and nurturing "Our Lady of Guadeloupe" to the fiery goddess Kali who births and then devours her children, just like Mother Nature does. On an organizational level, this ambitious book can seem a bit scattered--an easy fault to ignore. As more and more women join together from all religions and orientations to tell their spiritual stories and claim their paths to God, books such as these make excellent guides and companions. --Gail Hudson
From Publishers Weekly
A distinctly feminine spirituality is emerging in our culture, according to Borysenko, a Harvard-trained medical researcher and author of Minding the Body, Mending the Mind and other titles. Drawing on her intensive experience leading spiritual retreats for women, Borysenko observes that a woman's way of worshipping the divine tends to be "natural, earthy, relational, mystical, embodied, intuitive, sensuous, and compassionate." Yet, the same women (predominantly adventurous baby boomers) who are going on retreat and otherwise expressing their spirituality in a feminine way often have painful relationships with the hierarchical, patriarchal religious traditions of their birth. Here, interweaving ancient myths and Scripture with contemporary stories, the author explores how women can find healing and guidance even within the confines of those traditions. Borysenko replaces the heroic model of step-by-step progress up Jacob's ladder with the image of women walking Sarah's circle (from a stray song lyric by Pete Seeger). She suggests that, like all women, themother of Isaac, came to know herself in a deep, intuitive way through the medium of her relationships rather than strictly in terms of a relationship with a transcendent God. Borysenko shows women, in a work that reads like a down-to-earth conversation between friends, how to make religion their own. (Jan.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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