phallus worship

NEW WOMAN – ME!  no 17

every time again confused spirals of thought
from a complacent church leadership
collide ferociously against my indignant soul
deeming themselves infallible and showing no scruples
this leadership announces God’s predilection for the male
a male ‘God has created like himself’

my fantasy and my feeling of wounded self-respect create an image
— in analogy to the biblical golden calf —
of the pope devoutly kneeling before the gilded phallus
as counter pole I see my own experience of God
it rehabilitates my relationship to ‘God–with-us’

in creative freedom I picture to myself from biblical texts
how God’s presence shows itself
hidden at plain day light in a column of cloud
as a column of fire in the darkness of night

© Tina van Lieshout
translation John Wijngaards

Biblical Note 

God led his people out of Egypt through the desert: “The LORD went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night. He did not deprive his people from the pillar of the cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night.” (Exodus 13,21-22)

But Aaron made a golden calf for the people. “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt. They have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They bow down to it and sacrifice to it and say, ‘This is your god, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt’.” (Exodus 32,7-8)

MEDITATIONS

desert journey three selves in me me broken in pieces male and female my choice irrepressible thrust the money dragon and the religion dragon evolving identity women carry the church

the force of time I accuse women I accuse men my inner struggle past present future my dream and God saw that it was very good phallus worship on the way

Tina van Lieshout was a Dutch Catholic woman who felt called to the priesthood. Her diocese refused her admission to the priestly formation programme which she challenged in high-profile court cases. She lost. Being both a gifted artist and poet, she described her despair in a series of paintings and meditations. But she also expressed through them her determination to realise her potential as a free and equal person.  Her work was published in the Dutch book Ook in de Naam van de Moeder en de Dochter [= ‘Also in the Name of the Mother and the Daughter’], Wilco, Amersfoort 2000. She died in 2010.