Well-rounded people

Introduction

All around the world, women have been wearing headscarves or any other veil thereof while being told and taught that they have to do so because such a dress code is a symbol of the fact that they need  God’s power to be thrust on them.

On the other hand, women have also been told that men clothed with pretty similar long garments, wearing comparable veils or matching hats, do so because they administer earthly and divine power and their apparel represent God’s authority.

So, our question is:

Why veils are a symbol of dominance in one case and submission in the other? What if women’s religious dress code were representing God’s authority as well?  

This paper elaborates on these questions making a case for the spiritual power of women; in particular, it claims that humankind is a woman when it comes to let “God be all in all” (1Cor 15: 28).

Spiritual impartiality and clothing

Our bodies differ according to such things as gender, ethnicity and age. But God doesn’t prefer one person over another as to their gender, ethnicity or age because all people are created equal:

“Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind (‘adam) in our image, according to our likeness’. So, God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them” (Gn 1: 26-27).

No matter the differences we bear in our bodies, when it comes to our heart, we are all created equal and granted the opportunity to seek spiritual power:

“Let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice, seek the LORD and His Strength; seek his face evermore” (Ps 105: 3-4).

To seek God’s face (Ps 27: 8) is to work on ourselves to see that God’s face comes from above and transcend human faces, which are gendered. To seek God’s face is to use our feet, which come from below, to learn how to “walk in His ways” (Dt 10: 32; Ps 119: 3; 128: 1; Pr 2: 20), and – correction after correction – develop the ability to see that of God/good in anyone, feeling at peace, “clothed with gladness” (Ps 30, 11), capable of walking in love, wisdom and truth (Eph 5: 2; Col 4: 5; 2Jn 1: 4; 3Jn 1: 3-4).

Such divine gift comes from above and is like a new dress, a sort of spiritual cloak, which is best visualized, not as a type of textile fabric proper, but through the image of an intricated array of luminous rays, lingering all around our face and flowing down as a radiant, shining cloth, covering all of our body:

“When Moses had finished speaking with the Israelites, he put a veil on his face; but whenever Moses went in before the LORD to speak with him, he would take the veil off, until he came out; and when he came out, the Israelites would see the face of Moses, that the skin of his face was shining; and Moses would put the veil on his face again” (Ex 34: 33-35).

Dressing up for the wedding

Reference to veils and headscarves has a deep symbolic meaning in the Bible. Long coverings and non-see-through garments of the type depicted in the pictures above seem to be symbolizing a spiritual fact, namely that God bestows His light on people who do His will, or, that is the same, walk in His ways.

People tangibly wearing material veils and robes, or putting on headscarves made out of real fabric, are covering themselves in a material and solid representation of spiritual light, which is there to remind us that humankind is created in the image of God insofar as they are male and female, because in God, as in Christ, these two poles are indeed one: “In the Lord woman is not separated (chōris) form man nor man from woman” (1Cor 11: 11).

Truly, no matter their age, gender and ethnicity, anyone may chant with the prophet their freedom song:

“I delight greatly in the LORD, my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels” (Is 61: 10).

Looking closer to the wedding image, it appears that human beings have to be adorned like a bridegroom and a bride to be clothed with salvation. They need to recognize and celebrate their male and female sides.

Often times what the Bible says about women has to do with our will of power, while what it says about men pertains to our ego or intellect. Celebrating our male and female sides implies disowning our ego and will of power to be adorned like a bridegroom and a bride, and turn to God's plan for humankind -  a sacred wedding.

Calling on God's power while letting him to overshadow our instincts, basic drives and beliefs is vital for God to "spread his tabernacle over" us (Rv 7: 15). That's the only way we can avoid being told: “Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe” (Mt 22: 11). In effect, being granted the opportunity to see and/or administer God’s power and glory seems to be linked to our ability to let the bride (our will of power) and the bridegroom (our ego or intellect) dress up for the wedding both within ourselves and in the world at large.

Becoming spiritual mothers

The idea of participating in a sacred wedding wearing the garment of God’s implies that we are somehow linked to Him, “partakers of the divine nature” (2Pt 1, 4), capable of living His divinity in common with Him. This mystic concept of sharing in God’s nature fleshes out the spiritual meaning of a proportion known as the golden proportion or divine section (in Latin, section divina):

for any B = A + C,      

      B : A  =  A : C

That is to say: given God (A) and a human being (C), if that human being is somehow linked to God (A+ C = B), the way in which they see and act towards God is equal to the way in which God sees and acts towards them.

But how do we become partakers of divine nature? I mean: How do we get our wedding robe?

According to Jesus’s teachings, we become partaker of God’s nature when we do God’s will and this happens upon becoming brothers, sisters and mothers of Christ:

“Whoever shall do the will of my Father who is in the heavens, the same is my brother, and sister and mother” (Mt 12: 50; Mk 3: 35; Lk 8: 21).

Mothers of Christ, the Lord, that’s the missing word – mothers of the anointed. Those who partake of divine nature are not only brothers and sisters, but – independently of their gender and culture – mothers of God as well.  They have denied their ego and their will of power in their spiritual journey, giving birth to the anointed, and might  declare with Saint Paul:

“I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2: 20).

To be mother of Christ is indeed to be carrying Christ within us. It means to let the Kingdom of God be within us (Lk 17, 21) and be capable of feeling through God’s heart, listening through God’s ears and seeing by way of God’s eyes. Speaking more generally, we could say that people believing in the Bible are asked to lose their life, not by killing nor by being killed, but by giving birth and be borne anew:

“Those who want to save their life (their psyche, with its desires, instincts, stereotypes, etc.) will lose it, and those who lose their life for may sake (i.e., wishing to give birth to the messiah) will save it” (Lk 9, 24, also see Lk 17, 33; Mt 10,39; 16, 25; Mk 8, 35; Jn 12,25).

As regards the fact that to do God’s will is to give birth to Christ, “Jesus said to some of the scribes: «How do they declare that the Christ (Christon) is David’s son? For David himself says in the book of Psalms: ‘The LORD (in Hebrew JHWH, meaning He who is, the Father) said to my Lord (in Hebrew ADON, meaning he who has authority over me, the anointed): Sit at my right hand, until I place your enemies at your feet as a footstool’. So, David calls him Lord, how is that he is his son?»” (Lk 20,41-44 and see Ps 110, 1; Mt 22, 41-46; Mk 12, 35-37).

Wearing the spiritual crown

The passage quoted above states that Christ was King David’s son. Now, we know that the father of Christ, the anointed, is God himself, for God’s word to His messiah is as follows: “You are my son; today I have begotten you” (Ps 2, 7). So, it follows that King David was the mother of Christ. Being a King, David wore a crown and the anointed was His son. Again, this being crowned and able to deliver God’s son to the world should be read in terms of light and spiritual circumcision.

Giving birth to Christ in ourselves is to be affected by a spiritual flow which cuts around our heart and prunes off whatever makes us hard of neck, that is, stubborn, mulish and self-important, while outfitting us with the apparel of joy, salvation and power.

Letting God to knit a spiritual crown around our head and wear it is tantamount to thoroughly circumcising the foreskin of our heart and dismiss contempt, hatred and conceit:

“Circumcise the foreskin of your heart and be no more stiff-necked” (Dt 10: 16; see also, Dt 30: 6; Ger 4: 4; Ez 36: 24-27; Rm 2: 29;Phil 3: 2-4).

Actually, we may think of spiritual circumcision as a 12-stage process taking place around the hearth – each stage, one cut. Dually, we maythink of the spiritual crown as a 12-star crown being weaved and intertwined around our head – each star, a stage.

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From the point of view of divine motherhood, then, veils and headscarves represent the authority God bestows on us when our will spontaneously mirrors His will, that is, “the authority (exousìa) to become children of God” (Jn 1: 12), or, that is the same, the authority of a woman who has got “a crown of twelve stars on the head” (Rv 12: 1). In other words still, the authority to give birth to Christ, the messiah, and carry him within ourselves, bringing him to other people and seeing him in our neighbour.

Veils and headscarves are nothing but royal symbols, that is, spiritual crowns.

Taking the foreskin of our heart away

Spiritually wise, humankind needs to be a woman to give birth to the Lord and be at peace, clothed with happiness.  Spiritual motherhood helps us stop reading the Scriptures according to the flesh and promotes a spiritual understanding of Saint Paul’s otherwise very sexist words.

“A women ought to have an authority (exousia) on her head”(1Cor 11: 10). These words have been traditionally translated as “a woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head” (ibid.). Actually, the expression ‘a symbol of’ is not in the original Greek. It has been simply added together with an obvious unspoken word, which has been implemented into our minds and practices thus: “a symbol of male authority”.

On the contrary, if the spiritual motherhood picture I’ve been drawing makes sense, St. Paul’s statement would be better interpreted by referring the term ‘authority’ to the spiritual crown and the term ‘woman’ to our will of power, independently of our gender, colour and ethnicity.

What humankind is requested to bring to light (Lk 8: 17;11: 33-35; 12:1-3; 1Cor 2: 6-12; 2Cor 3: 15-18; 4: 1-4) and cut off (Mk 9: 43; Mt 18: 8) might therefore well be the tenet that women need a symbol of male authority over them. In reality, that tenet is blind to the fact that God’s authority is bestowed on our head and bodies from heaven, as a spiritual crown and a wedding dress, independently of gender, age and ethnicity:

“To everyone who conquers and continues to do my work to the end, I will give authority over the nations; even as I also received authority from my Father. To the one who conquers I will also give the morning star” (Rv 2: 26-28).

Conclusions

This paper has made a case for the spiritual power of women illustrating how participating in divine nature is conditional upon becoming mothers:

No human being ever will be the anointed, but any human being who decides in their heart to lose their life for the anointed, has the opportunity to be overshadowed by the Most High and become mother of God, giving birth to Christ – the Messiah, the anointed.

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“God may be all in all” (1Cor 15: 28) insofar as humans recognize they are all created equal, in the image of God, male and female (Gen 1: 27) and understand that “we, who are many, are one body” (1Cor10: 17), feeling deep in their spiritual womb that, out of many mothers, there is “one and only Son” (Jn 3: 18). Women’s spiritual power is precisely that – giving birth to Christ and let us feel we are one.

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