Patriarchal culture puts a great deal of emphasis on debt. Our economy runs on debt (or else it wouldn't run at all!) and the court dockets are clogged with uncollected-debt cases. A debt accrued should be paid, and no mistake. But a debt can be real or a cultural convention. In our society, a person is thought to come into the world under a staggering burden of debt. Your soul is on loan, so pay daily homage to your Creditor. Your body is a temple, so don't use it for your own enjoyment. Your talents are gifts, so use them as their Giver would see fit.
Interpersonally, this means that you owe innumerable debts to everyone you encounter, from parents to strangers. You are held responsible for strangers' situations. Respect is expected according to social station, not earned. And if somebody messes you over, you "owe" him a second chance.
The most awkward of these unaccrued debts are "debts" of emotion. Loyalty to family, institution, and country are considered fundamental to personal integrity. A child who reports abuse, a student without any "school spirit" or an employee who prefers their private life to their work, or an individual who won't pledge allegiance to the flag is considered flawed, suspect.
How is this linked to patriarchal spirituality? "Transcendent" divinity, divinity which is outside the "debased" material world, connotes an automatic debt on the part of creation to the Creator for the privilege of having been created at all. If the Divine is Out There somewhere, spirituality is concerned largely with appeasement - reassuring Big Daddy that we truly appreciate having had this not-quite-good-enough status of "mortal being" bestowed upon our lowly selves, and that we're going to play it out according to His intentions.
How does Goddess spirituality, "immanent" (Divinity-is-in-the-world) spirituality, affect this construct of universal debt? If Thou Art God/dess, you're no more or less divine than anyone else, so rather than owing your actions and attitudes to Someone outside yourself and outside the world, your decisions are based on your interactions with the other faces of the Divine which surround you. So, if a stranger defends you from a threat that your own sister refuses to deal with, you're naturally going to respect that stranger more than you do your sister - a phenomenon that patriarchal "Divine Law" would consider "unnatural." If your friend breaks promise after promise, you're not going to trust him with anything that's important to you, no matter how good his intentions or how long you've known him. Big Daddy might object - you've been friends for so long! But since your friend is God as much as you are Goddess, he can be called to account for his actions; and you can modify your actions to allow for what your experience has taught you.
Perhaps the juiciest "perk" of this facet of Goddess spirituality, this approach of judging merit by experience rather than by automatic debt, is that learning is no longer suspect. According to patriarchal culture, if you change your mind because other people's behavior or circumstances change, or because you acquire information that you didn't have before, you're "wavering." You're considered "wishy-washy" and insufficiently dedicated to your ideals to be trustworthy. But in a group of people who all acknowledge their innate Divinity, a change in behavior based on a change in circumstance is seen as a sign of flexibility. In an all-Divine world, flexibility is strength - because the world is alive, a growing organism, not a static creation.
She changes everything She touches, and Her touch of change is a beautiful gift. We are free to learn, to pick and choose our friends and confederates, and to accrue only those debts we choose to accrue. We owe only for those things we specifically and intentionally take, and we are owed in turn for our responses to the Goddesses and Gods who share this world with us. And we are not only free, but responsible, to learn from our circumstances and to keep changing our lives according to what we know. Praise the Lady - sin is dead!
Reprinted with permission from:
Faces of the Goddess
c/o Siannan NiAoidh
12001 Ehrlich Rd.
Crows Landing, CA 95313
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