Although there is a fairly "masculine" side of me that enjoys working out, playing sports, having a quest to conquer, being a "gentleman", and gets inspired by male comic heroes like the Christian Bale Dark Knight, there is another side to me. This other side is not "feminine" per se, but really enjoys interaction with certain older wise Christian women who are a generation or more older than me. God has used many of these "mothers in Christ" to build into me and shape me into a "son of God" that I am today. Over the past few years, these spiritual mothers in my life have been wise, caring, encouraging to me in my spiritual journey and I am just so thankful beyond words that I know them and am privileged to grow under their spiritual motherhood.
Theologically speaking, I believe this is very healthy actually. I learned a lot about theological anthropology in my class with Victor Shepherd this past year at school. One of the points he repeated really stuck with me and influences my conscious and subconscious thinking to this day.
"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." - Genesis 1:27
Being a male, I know that the full representation of the image of God is not contained in my manhood. Since God created both male and female in his image, I understand that females have the other portion of God's image. I choose not to interpret this in a quantifiable manner where 50% of the image of God is in man and 50% of the image of God is in woman. I'm not against anyone who does, but I just don't see it that way. The way how I see it is that the full representational image of God is achieved when both parts are experientially linked through relational interaction with each other. This includes but is not restricted to romantic interaction. In my view, it definitely includes platonic relational interaction. The same goes with sisters in Christ, where if they never interact with their brothers in Christ deeply, something will be missing in their experience of image bearers of God and as a result, their experience of God himself will be severely limited. Only when members of both genders have existential communion with each other can the image of God be fully represented and experienced in humanity. And it is only when the image of God is fully manifested in an incarnational reality that can people experience a full (yet finite) representational experience of who God is.
There is something marvelous and mysterious about this. It is marvelous because I know that when I interact with sisters in the faith, there is a "female dynamic" that brings extra colour to the social and spiritual interaction that defies exhaustive description. I know that things are different when it is just me and the boys. My mind can attempt to understand this to some degree. Generally speaking, there is a greater graciousness to female being. There is a more caring aspect to them. They know how to empathize in a "female" way. Their texture of thinking is somehow linked to their physiology of having a female body. But I don't reduce the "magic" to such named traits. I think ultimately it defies description yet it is undeniably understood on an intuitive level.
I know that there have to be boundaries, even when I meet with these women who are about a generation older than me. Some things, I think, should only be shared with other males. But I think there's a lot more stuff that can be shared in an intergender context than we think. I think that treating the opposite gender with purity does not mean treating them with emotional distance or Nazi-like relational boundaries. I know such friendships are not for everyone. But I believe they are for me. I not only think that they're healthy, I think they're a necessity for my spiritual well-being. I am a better Christian man because I am I know these women of Christ.
Here are some of the spiritual mother-son relationships that God has blessed me with in the past year or two (in no particular order):
1) My Mentor. Yes, I have a female mentor who is 12 years my senior. I met her in seminary when I first started. I saw her because I wanted some counsel and I heard that she had "the gift of discernment". I didn't really know what to think. Some people may say that certain people are "discerning" when in fact, in my honest opinion, their level of discernment skills is just okay. Nothing spectacular. Not this lady. Holy crap she's discerning. I'd say it's a mix of natural sharp observation skills coupled with supernatural/prophetic discernment, the latter meaning that she has the ability to discerns things accurately which cannot be done with mere human abilities. She knows things (supernaturally) about me that I don't even know about myself which I only discover a few months after she tells me. By far, out of all the people I personally know in my life, she is the wisest and most discerning person I know. And she doesn't brag about it. She's responsible with her powers like Peter Parker.
I call her a Holy Spirit empowered Jean Grey (cuz the Holy Spirit literally enables her to read your mind at times, and you know it's not because she's reading your body language). She laughed when I called her that once. She knows my weaknesses so well. And she can describe them in a texture and tone as if she's "inside" of me describing the subjective experiences of those weaknesses in a way that intuitively resonates with my day to day experience. And her prayers are so powerful.
2) My Spiritual Director Supervisor. Being a Spiritual Director Practicum Student this year, God has really blessed me to provide spiritual direction to different kinds of people and help them respond to God's unique promptings in their lives. It has been a unique journey. Really. But it also comes with its own sets of trials and tests. In such a practicum, my own weaknesses have surfaced to a whole new level, and I'm discovering new blindspots and underdeveloped parts of me that are somewhat embarrassing to be aware of. However, my Spiritual Director Supervisor has been such a blessing to me. She actually really, really cares about me. Being a spiritual director herself, she really knows how to really enter into your inner world with lots of compassion and grace when you share your weaknesses. Her "spiritual direction" flavour of encouragement is really uplifting for me. She never condemns me.She never is impatient with me. She understands. She doesn't "tell me what to do" with my problems, but she encourages me to take them to God and work them out with God. I know she's guiding me through stuff that she's had to deal with on her own in offering spiritual direction to others. She's really good at allowing me to "figure things out on my own" with the Holy Spirit and to dig deeper inside to see what's really going on with things while she asks reflective questions and perspectives that are very beneficial. She's great.
3) My Psychology Professor. Although I only had 1 class with her, she's been such a big blessing to me. Honestly speaking, a year ago I had very little respect for Christian psychology. The Christian psychology that I was exposed to seemed like the substance of secular psychology superficially clothed with Christian terminology. However, taking a course with her and talking to her really changed my view on this. I never knew that legit Christian psychology could be soooo insightful and helpful in helping one deal with spiritual strongholds in one's life! Instead of merely "trying harder in spiritual disciplines" and then failing in one's signature sins again, her and other Christian psychology resources have helped me understand the psychological root of a lot of my behaviour, feeling, and thinking that I was previously oblivious to. I am forever indebted to this stuff! I never knew that a set of questions that were razor sharp with insight could help one uncover the secret/hidden source of one's sin! I am now convinced that if we don't deal with the secret/hidden sources of our sin, although we can still be forgiven by God, we won't be able to stop these sins recycling themselves destructively in our lives. Talking with this prof has really helped me understand a lot of underdeveloped parts of me from a psychology standpoint and I am beginning to experience freedom through this. And the cool part is that these sets of insightful questions has helped me begin to set others free too!!
I met up with her several times last semester in her office to not even talk about course related stuff, but to just explore what the heck is going on inside of me from a psychology point of view. The rewards were rich beyond ocean treasure.
4) My Spiritual Director. I enjoy meeting with female spiritual directors. This is partly due to the theological reasons stated above. 4 out of the 5 spiritual directors I met with in the past few years have been female. I've informally talked to the one I'm meeting with now for a couple years on and off, and I started seeing her recently on a regular schedule. She's really good at offering different perspectives for me on my journey in becoming more like Christ. She's good at not projecting her experiences on to my experiences in order to try to understand where I'm coming from. She made me realize that it's helpful to view the attempt to balance different tensions in the Bible (sovereignty of God, free will) in my experiential journey with God as something that is very healthy. She encourages me that my holiness is not a matter of suppressing my humanness, but embracing it. I'm thankful for being able to journey with her. Her companionship is really appreciated on the "Lord of the Rings journey of spiritual formation".
I'm thankful beyond words for these Mothers of Christ that God has provided for me in this chapter of my journey. They've changed me so much. It's scary to imagine how I'd be if I never met them. Thank God I did.
