Created in the Image of God (Crystal Hall)

So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them (Genesis 1:27)

A husband cheated. A pastor perpetrated sexual assault. A teenager fell pregnant. A daughter cared for her abusive father. We have strayed so far from God’s living-giving intentions in creating us… Before I came to South Africa gender-based violence, sexism, abuse, and broken families were issues “out there.” Listening to the stories of women here, I am unexpectedly learning to confront this same sense of brokenness within myself. Issues of gender, the relationships between men and women, is no longer something out there, but real and present “in here.” Though separated by the gulfs of culture, language, and life experience, South African women are teaching me that I too am a woman, sharing in the experiences of fallen humanity. And I too am a woman created in God’s image.

Over a weekend in March I had the privilege of participating in a workshop called Women in God’s Image (WIGI). The purpose of the workshop was for a group of twenty-odd women to ask two questions. What does God mean to me? And, what do I mean to God? Women of diverse races, mother tongues, and ages interpreted these questions through art, poetry, and prose. To put pen to paper and brush to canvas was a courageous act, a risk that required copious amounts of honesty and vulnerability. For many, including myself, the creative process was also healing, a moment of catharsis. It was powerful to prod often definitive, traumatic moments as things no long inside oneself but out. There was freedom in making those experiences one’s own, to transform something ugly and broken in something beautiful, a work of art. It was a birthing process that required large dollops of grace and trust.

As a woman, and now something of a gender activist through my work at PACSA, I was surprised that I had never considered that my womanhood could contribute to my understanding of God. If God is Spirit, beyond the human definitions of male or female, can God be understood as Mother as well as Father? The comparison of God to a mother hen sheltering her brood under her wings is often overlooked (Matthew 23:37), as well as many images from the Old Testament. God “knit us” together and “hemmed” us in even as we were being made in the womb (Psalm 139). I was challenged to consider life as a birthing process, that God, in agonizing pain, is delivering us to eternal life (Romans 8:22-23). And yet like little children we bang away with rebellious fists. For me this is an exciting new understanding of God.

The WIGI workshop was a powerful affirmation that women too are created in the image of God; that they too are holy and set apart for God’s purposes. Throughout history and today half the world’s population, in ways both subtle and obvious, has been told that it is “less than.” How are Christians living out the great commandment to love one another in this reality? Perhaps new understandings of God are part of the answer.

Below is a poem I wrote during the WIGI workshop:

Meditation on Psalm 139

Embrace from the womb,
Hemmed in,
Behind and before,
Known, yet restless.
Kicking.

Wrapped in a dark, watery blanket
Then torn into light.
Hands folded in prayer
And a sucking thumb
The day you went home from hospital.

Little banging fists.
A nipple offered—
Rejected.
To know better,
Put off childish ways.

To be a child to enter the Kingdom…
Naked.
First born.
Known flesh from Mother God.

Crystal Hall is an ELCA-MUD volunteer serving in Pietermaritzburg.