Book Review: "God Is A Black Woman"

When COVID hit in 2020 I took on a couple of specific reading projects. We were all at home so I decided to pick a few topics and dive deep into them. One of the areas I was interested in was the Divine Feminine. I read a number of books during that time including “The Dance Of The Dissident Daughter” by Sue Monk Kidd and then I also read “The Way Of The Rose” by Clark Strand and Perdita Finn.

So when a friend texted me and said that if I liked Sue Monk Kidd’s story that I should check out “God Is A Black Woman” by Christina Cleveland. I did. This book mostly reads like a life journal and follows Christina’s story of growing up black in a white world and discovering that her ideas of God were extremely limited. She finds comfort in the discovery of the Black Madonnas.

This journal story-telling style reminded me so much of Sue Monk Kidd’s book. I enjoyed her conversation about the Black Madonnas because I had read “The Rose” book which explores the images of the Holy Mother in way more detail. Unique to Christina’s story is how she goes on a pilgrimage and interacts with these beautiful representations of grace and mercy. Her own story seems reflected in the faces of the Black Madonnas she encounters. She went through a lot of life moments in this book and it is beautiful how her faith grows in unexpected ways.

If you are an audible person, she reads the book there which I always prefer.

Why Everything Is Spiritual

Henri Nouwen, one of my favorite authors, often includes spiritual exercises in his books. In one of his spiritual exercises, he invites us to spend 30 minutes in a guided meditative prayer. For the first 10 minutes you breathe and repeat “Jesus is God’s Beloved.” For the next 10 minutes you repeat “I am God’s Beloved,” and for the last 10 minutes you say “Everyone is God’s Beloved.” Think about that. For 20 minutes we are invited to say that not only are we God’s beloved, so is everyone else. It is here that we are able to identify with Jesus who, before his ministry begins, is called beloved by God. 

Jesus didn’t have to do anything other than be alive, wading out into dirty water. Can you see it? Jesus walking  into a muddy river toward a crazy man named John who has cricket parts in his beard. This guy has to smell horrible but Jesus presses on. In the midst of this scene, Jesus is girded by a voice that tells him he is beloved. He is God’s child.

In his book “Everything Is Spiritual,” Rob Bell tells us about his grandparents, his college years, the ups and downs of ministry and how he and his wife ended up in California after pastoring a mega-church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In the midst of these stories he is reflecting, listening, and looking for the divine moments, no matter how small they may be. That is the work of spirituality. 

Richard Rohr is quoted as saying, “God comes to us disguised as our life.” So often we go to church or some other spiritual event and hope to experience God there. But the reality is that our lives are already holy. We are God’s beloved. That is the gospel. Bell tells us that even at the cellular level you can find connection to something infinite.

So today, reflect on your own story. Breathe in the fact that the universe has expanded to create and include you. You, your family, your neighbors, your community - they are all beloved. They are all spiritual. You don’t have to go somewhere holy to find God. God is there, disguised as your life.

The Book Of Longings

Last year I stumbled onto Sue Monk Kidd. I am extremely late to the game but just happy to be here now. I have read a few of her books that have meant a great deal to me personally - specifically “The Dance Of The Dissident Daughter.”

So when I heard about this new book, “The Book Of Longings” I was excited. The premise is that in his early twenties Jesus met a girl and married her. This book isn’t about Jesus however, it is about Ana, it is Ana’s story. We get to re-live the stories of messiah, John The Baptist, Herod, Pilate and all of the characters from a completely different point of view and one that I believe is really important.

Sue Monk Kidd has been on a sacred feminine journey for some time now and she beautifully weaves in many of these themes into these characters. We get to hear the quiet prayer lives of the women including their prayers to Sofia. Ana is busy writing the stories of the s/heroes of the Hebrew faith and we even have an encounter with the goddess Isis.

Before I read the book, one of my friends said that it made Jesus seem more human. I would echo this. It enabled me to experience the story of Jesus from the ground. So often we can only see Jesus as Christ and I think that the gift of this book is the way we get to see Jesus as a real person, a day laborer, a family man, a husband and a person of great faith who lived his life in his calling.

I can’t recommend this book enough.

More About The Book:

In her mesmerizing fourth work of fiction, Sue Monk Kidd takes an audacious approach to history and brings her acclaimed narrative gifts to imagine the story of a young woman named Ana. Raised in a wealthy family with ties to the ruler of Galilee, she is rebellious and ambitious, with a brilliant mind and a daring spirit. She engages in furtive scholarly pursuits and writes narratives about neglected and silenced women. Ana is expected to marry an older widower, a prospect that horrifies her. An encounter with eighteen-year-old Jesus changes everything.

Their marriage evolves with love and conflict, humor and pathos in Nazareth, where Ana makes a home with Jesus, his brothers, and their mother, Mary. Ana's pent-up longings intensify amid the turbulent resistance to Rome's occupation of Israel, partially led by her brother, Judas. She is sustained by her fearless aunt Yaltha, who harbors a compelling secret. When Ana commits a brazen act that puts her in peril, she flees to Alexandria, where startling revelations and greater dangers unfold, and she finds refuge in unexpected surroundings. Ana determines her fate during a stunning convergence of events considered among the most impactful in human history.

Grounded in meticulous research and written with a reverential approach to Jesus's life that focuses on his humanity, The Book of Longings is an inspiring, unforgettable account of one woman's bold struggle to realize the passion and potential inside her, while living in a time, place and culture devised to silence her. It is a triumph of storytelling both timely and timeless, from a masterful writer at the height of her powers.

The Way Of The Rose

When you read spiritual books that are more general, they are about information and some story. When you read books on sacred feminine, they are about journey. I had never heard of this book before, “The Way Of The Rose” but I was interested in how it isn’t looking at the rosary from a catholic point of view but from a journey by its authors as they learned to follow the way of the goddess. They dig back into the history of the visions of Mary (and Isis before her) and listen to their hearts as they make connection with the earth and the newness of life that comes from our mother.

In this book you follow the story of its authors, Clark Strand (a Zen Buddhist Monk) and Perdita Way (A Feminist / Childhood Catholic) as they go from having an encounter with Madonnas all over the world and listening to their “girl” along the way.

I really loved the story and feel compelled to know more about the prayer mantra and practice of the rosary.

More About The Book:

Before a vision of a mysterious “Lady” invited Clark Strand and Perdita Finn to pray the rosary, they were not only uninterested in becoming Catholic but finished with institutional religion altogether. Their main spiritual concerns were the fate of the planet and the future of their children and grandchildren in an age of ecological collapse. But this Lady barely even referred to the Church and its proscriptions. Instead, she spoke of the miraculous power of the rosary to transform lives and heal the planet, and revealed the secrets she had hidden within the rosary’s prayers and mysteries—secrets of a past age when forests were the only cathedrals and people wove rose garlands for a Mother whose loving presence was as close as the ground beneath their feet. She told Strand and Finn:

The rosary is My body,
and My body is the body of the world.
Your body is one with that body.
What cause could there be for fear?

Weaving together their own remarkable story of how they came to the rosary, their discoveries about the eco-feminist wisdom at the heart of this ancient devotion, and the life-changing revelations of the Lady herself, the authors reveal an ancestral path—available to everyone, religious or not—that returns us to the powerful healing rhythms of the natural world.

The Dance Of The Dissident Daughter

The Sacred Feminine is a journey worth engaging. Our world is dominated by the hierarchical structures of the Sacred Masculine dominant world of faith. Sue Monk Kidd has become a reliable voice for me when it comes to exploring other worlds of spiritual direction.

In “Dance Of The Dissident Daughter” Sue goes on a journey from faithful evangelical, to mainline protestant, to an out-of-church but overtly spiritual person all because of her journey into the sacred feminine. Her story felt like mine in many ways except her work bringing to life the idea of the mother, the voice of Mary as not only contemplative but powerful figure was inspiring for me. I really enjoyed listening to the changing dynamics of her family in her process.

Her willingness to share her fear, her doubt, and just her realness is inspiring. This book is older but as it was new for me. I believe it may have aged very well and can be used for a long time to talk about the story of transfiguration into the balance between sacred masculine and feminine which we should all seek.

If you are looking for a way out of your ordinary faith box and would like to embrace the wholeness of the earth, the interconnectedness of humanity and a bigger idea of God, this book will help give you that new perspective. It may even be life changing.

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More About “The Dance Of The Dissident Daughter” by Sue Monk Kidd
For years, Sue Monk Kidd was a conventionally religious woman. Then, in the late 1980s, she experienced an unexpected awakening, and began a journey toward a feminine spirituality. With the exceptional storytelling skills that have helped make her name, Kidd tells her very personal story of the fear, anger, healing, and freedom she experienced on the path toward the wholeness that many women have lost in the church.

From a jarring encounter with sexism in a suburban drugstore, to monastery retreats and to rituals in the caves of Crete, she reveals a new level of feminine spiritual consciousness for all women—one that retains a meaningful connection with the "deep song of Christianity," embraces the sacredness of ordinary women’s experience, and has the power to transform in the most positive ways every fundamental relationship in a woman's life—her marriage, her career, and her religion.

A New Earth

What is the meaning of your life? A better question may be, what is making up your life? Eckhart Tolle’s most recent book, “A New Earth” teaches that life is made up of today, this present moment for it is all we have. This noted teacher of presence goes a step further in helping a reader learn their purpose and then how to marry their inner purpose with their outer purpose - there we will find a truly fulfilled life.

While reading this book I was reminded of how often we are focused on what has happened to us in the past and how we use that to steer our present life. For many of us that means there is pain or shame just below the surface of our skin and we bring that to bear on the world. What I love that Tolle does is that he shows us how all of the great spiritual teachers practice forgiveness and presence in a way that allows them and us to live in a present way with people and the world.

This book felt a little long to me but toward the end there were some real jewels about finding purpose and how if we will engage that can change our lives. I did like “The Power Of Now” more but this book is a great addition.

A question for the comments: As you have done Enneagram or Meyers-Briggs work, how is your number/type affecting your soul or your presence living?

About The Book: An article in Success magazine describes A New Earth as a "self-improvement book" that encourages its readers to live their lives in each present moment and to create happiness for themselves without emphasizing material possessions. Tolle's intent is to change the way human beings think, and he envisions a world population that is increasingly humble, enlightened and pure. According to Tolle, the book's purpose "is not to add new information or beliefs to your mind or to try to convince you of anything, but to bring about a shift in consciousness".

In the book, Tolle asserts that everyone can find "the freedom and joy of life" if they live in the present moment. The book describes human dysfunction, selfishness, anxiety and the inhumanity we inflict on each other, as well as mankind's failed attempts to find life meaning and purpose through material possessions and unhealthy relationships. It asserts that thoughts can have a powerful and beneficial "effect on the healing process", and puts forth a concept of "evolutionary transformation of human consciousness" which prompts the reader to participate in "honest self-evaluation [that] can lead to positive change."

Abandonment To Divine Providence

In a conversation with my spiritual director we were talking about living in the present moment and how intentional living creates presence (and hopefully an incarnate life as well). He recommended this book. I would recommend an Eckhart Tolle book on presence over this one but I did love a number of the points Caussade makes when it comes to the will of God - "The Holy Spirit is not at work in the world; the Spirit is at work in the hearts of people and transformation of the world comes from transformed hearts." That is true incarnation.

A Question For The Comments: What do you believe about the will of God for your life?

About The Book:

Contained within this volume is the first part of "Abandonment to Divine Providence" by Jean-Pierre De Caussade, a treatise on the practice of total abandonment to Divine Providence, or in other words, completely giving yourself over to God's will. A spiritual classic, "Abandonment to Divine Providence" will delight readers of all faiths as they discover the spiritual guidance that this volume has to offer. Jean Pierre de Caussade (7 March 1675 – 8 December 1751) was a French Jesuit priest and writer. He is especially known for the work ascribed to him, Abandonment to Divine Providence, and also his work with the Nuns of the Visitation in Nancy, France.