"Sophia, Creator God, let your milk and honey flow. . . . Shower us with your love . . . ." chanted more than 2000 women gathered at the 1993 Re-Imagining Conference in Minnesota. "We celebrate sensual life you give us. . . . We celebrate our bodiliness. . . . the sensations of pleasure, our oneness with earth and water," continued one of the leaders. Representing main-line denomination, the women had come from the Presbyterian Church USA (about 400), the United Methodist Church (about 400), the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (313), the United Church of Christ (144), and Baptist, Episcopal, Church of the Brethren churches about (150). About 230 were Roman Catholics. To most of these worshippers, Sophia symbolized inner wisdom and "the feminine image of the Divine." Playful, permissive, and sensuous, she has "become the latest rage among progressive church women."
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Rituals help challenge the old and establish the new. To make them more palatable, use old, familiar steps to ease into the new celebrations -- which is just what conference leaders did on the last day, during Sunday morning's alternative to a traditional church service. The "blessing of milk and honey" ritual simply followed the format of a traditional communion service.
The women sang, but not about Jesus. They celebrated with two elements, but not bread and wine. They mentioned God and grace, but the new meanings reflected the pagan context. They celebrated freedom, but mocked the only One who could set them free.
Clinking their glasses of rice milk, they shared in a dramatic responsive reading and singing rite. The speakers read -- with drama and feeling -- the lines of the prayer below (the most erotic suggestions were banished to the endnotes). "Sophia Creator God..." sang the exuberant women between each part. "Let your milk and honey flow... Sophia... Sophia..." Over and over and over...
"Our maker Sophia, we are women in your image. With the hot blood of our wombs we give form to new life....
[All:] Sophia, Creator God, let your milk and honey flow.... Shower us with your love....
"Our mother Sophia, we are women in your image. With the milk of our breasts we suckle the children.... Sophia, Creator God....
"Our guide Sophia, we are women in your image. With our moist mouths we kiss away a tear... With the honey of wisdom in our mouths we prophesy a full humanity to all peoples. Sophia, Creator God... (All drink of the milk and honey)
"Sophia, we celebrate your life-giving energy which pulses through our veins... Halleluya! Pelo tsa rona. . . [21]
"...We celebrate our unique perspectives, intelligence.... our guides, our spiritual mothers, our models. Halleluya! Pelo tsa rona. . . .
"We celebrate the nourishment of your milk and honey. Through the sharing of this holy manna [could be a hidden reference to "Mana": Moon Mother, creative energy, Goddess of Creation and death] we enter into community which strengthens and renews us for the struggle. Halleluya! Pelo tsa rona . . . .
"We celebrate sensual life you give us.... We celebrate the fingertips vibrating upon the skin of a love. We celebrate the tongue which licks a wound or wets our lips. We celebrate our bodiliness, our physicality, the sensations of pleasure, our oneness with earth and water."[22]
"Not surprisingly, Sophia seemed to reserve a special blessing for lesbian love." observed Kathy Kersten, "The prayer above was read by individual women, except for the ''vibrating fingertips' line, which was read by two women together."[23]
The more sensual and shocking expressions help speed the planned paradigm shift. They cause what educators call cognitive dissonance -- a form of mental confusion that forces people to rethink and stretch their old values to accommodate new ideas and experiences. Their end justifies the means, argue the radical feminists, and their planned end is total cultural transformation. If they have their way, every family, community, business and church would have to conform to feminist beliefs and values.
Hmm.
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