Being a girl

I didn’t want to be a girl. I learned girls were “pretty things” men could look at, rate, judge, boss around, use, touch, and hurt when they wanted. It was a narrow role, and a dangerous one.

I tried my best to not be a girl. I acted like a boy, dressed like a boy, played with toys that were boys (in the 1960s and 70s). Doing so gave me a sense of power and strength, as I saw boys and men as the ones who had control, choice, and power. Not only did my pretense fail to stop the abuse, but even my body betrayed me as puberty dawned, making my weakness and powerlessness as a girl even more manifest.

This was the baggage I staggered into the adult world carrying. One of my goals was to adopt a truthful view of myself as a woman, but how? Evangelical Christianity insisted I was to submit to men (that wasn’t going to fly). Catholicism insisted I was equal, but I was soon to find in its theology a belief that while men retained the image and likeness of God, women somehow lost the likeness part.

While I was encouraged by neither source to look inward, I realized something that had found its way into my life when I was 11 was actually a strong source of feminine power. It was one God used over and over to relate with me. I am talking about the rosary.

The rosary couldn’t help but to inform my view of being a girl, right?

This form of prayer is rather contemplative in nature, as it involves the repetition of four different prayers as your fingers alight on the various beads. Over time, the prayer becomes a habitual exercise, focusing the mind on God, and thereby offering God a perfect vehicle upon which to speak, to guide, to suggest, to teach, to enlighten. And, given the fact that the rosary is rooted in Mary, to Catholics the Mother of God, to other Christians the mother of Jesus, it could not fail to inform my view of women, yes?

I have discovered it has done just this, enabling me to cast aside this submission talk, this lack of image or likeness talk, this notion of evil coming into the world through women talk. These are concepts that melt in the presence of God. These distinctions fail to exist “in Christ,” a state of being offered to us all, and one that is accessible, empowering, healing, transforming, no matter your gender.

(Note: I will be adding more information about the rosary and its use in spiritual healing, in nurturing relationship with God, in contemplation, etc. This resource will include inspiration to make your own rosary and write your own prayers for it, use the traditional ones, or make use of one I will provide for various occasions — for healing, for addictions, for forgiveness, etc. See Resources.)

Reflection

How do you perceive yourself as woman or as man? What impact upon this perception has suffering had? What truth needs to prevail?

Prayer

Dear God, you made me. You didn’t use defective material. You didn’t choose something that was less than or weak. Your image, your likeness is within me! Help me to stay with that truth. Help me to ponder that, take that in, and let that inform my view of me. Amen.