I'm pretty sure I'm too cynical and sarcastic a reader for this book. I know that just because I've never had the urge to take "a spiritual journey" is no reason to sneer at those who do. However, this book IS filled with the sort of new-agey cliches that, I think, do a disservice to real feminism. And ultimately was too boring to finish, though I did read over half in hopes that something interesting would come up (books about spiritual awakening are always a little tricky, since not a lot is happening on the outside. This author provided action by frequently bursting into tears for no real reason, but it wasn't really enough to substitute for a plot). I'm afraid the Sacred Feminine will have to do without me.

I remember the first time I didn't feel equal in a church. It may have been implicitly there all my life but the real in your face awakening happened when I went to a bible study in my early adult years. It was a "biblical truths" series contrasting what the bible says vs what the world says. The leader showed a clip of Carl's COSMOS series where he is saying something like " We are all made of star stuff, evolved over years...ect"
The leader stops the movie and says "Now I doubt any of you believe in evolution, here the world believes we are evolved but the bible tells us we are made in God's image, not apes"

I raise my hand and say "I actually accept the process of evolution in our human development, doesn't genesis say man was formed from dirt as well so could it not be that we started cellular and our ancestors eventually evolved into a higher consciousness and this is our God awareness?"

He laughed and said "so you don't take the bible literally"

I said "No but I don't think you do either because if we were literally made in God's image, that would make God a hermaphrodite and I feel like you would think that too contrary to your beliefs"

Some people gasped. Some coughed nervously, one person laughed.

He looked at me sternly and said something like God has been referred to in male terms and therefor could only be male like. He began to direct the conversation back to the series.

I was shaking with rage at this point that I stood up and left. Never went back.

"When we see God as a male, man becomes God"

Since then I have been more keen to see the disparity in genders within and without the church. Is it not ironic that women have made such head way and become leaders in all careers but deprived of the right to serve in their own church in positions of leadership as they did in the first three centuries during early Christianity?
If I am equal in the eyes of God then why am I not in the eyes of man?

This book has been at least a confirmation that I am not the only woman who thinks such scandalous theology. My journey is still winding like that of labyrinthine into which I hope to head into the divine center of life and there I shall find the "I am"

I've had this book recommended to me for the last several years from several different people. After I had gotten just a little way into it, I practically had my breath taken away -- like a gut-punch -- with how I related to Kidd's words. I immediately texted one of my best friends who had deconstructed Christianity (although from a different sect) and said, "Have you read this?!" She texted back that it was on her radar and now she was going to start. Not much later I got a text that read, "I feel as though I could have written this book." And, yes. I relate. The beginning probably resonated with me the most with where I've ended up. Kidd practiced more spiritual practices than I've found myself choosing after deconstruction. But reading Kidd's experiences. Phew! So impactful!

If I were to have any critiques of this book, I would acknowledge that Kidd's exploration of femininity and patriarchy felt very privileged. (And I say that from a position of privilege myself.) She seemed to be traveling all over the place to find herself and to find the feminine divine. There's nothing wrong with that. It seems she could and she did, but it does make me wonder if some people would find that kind of search a little unrelatable. But maybe not.

In any case, I bought this book, so I could underline and mark the pages . . . and also so I could begin a feminist library in my office. I'm frustrated that it's taken me so long to discover all the work out there. If I had daughters, I would work hard to teach them earlier. My husband said maybe I wouldn't have been as receptive to it earlier. But I think we *all* -- of any gender -- need more feminist theory in our lives for a more well balanced education. Or at least those of my generation did.

***
A few of my favorite quotes (there were so many!):

"Despite the growing disenchantment women experience in the early stages of awakening, the idea of existing beyond the patriarchal institution of faith, of withdrawing our external projection of God onto the church, is almost always unfathomable. It's that old the-world-is-flat conviction, where we believe that if we sail out on the spiritual ocean beyond a certain point we will fall off the edge of the known world into a void. We think there's nothing beyond the edge. No real spirituality, no salvation, no community, no divide substance. We cannot see that the voyage will lead us to whole new continents of depth and meaning. That if we keep going, we might even come full circle, but with a whole new consciousness." (p. 48)

"Until then I had accepted that when it said *men* and *brotherhood* that somehow meant me, too. But now, in a place much deeper than my head, I didn't feel included at all. I realized that lacking the feminine, the language had communicated to me in subtle ways that women were nonentities, that women counted mostly as they related to men." (p. 49)

"Forming an feminist critique of our own faith is not an easy thing to do. Betrayal of any kind is hard, but betrayal by one's religion is excruciating. It makes you want to rage and weep. It deposits a powerful energy inside. Eventually that energy will flow out as either hostility or love. The energy must and will find a form, a shape, in our lives. It is now, as we wade into the secret distress of the feminine and encounter the largeness of the wound, that we need to be very conscious and keep the despair we might feel from becoming channeled into bitterness. We have to work very hard to keep it flowing toward compassion." (p. 67)

"Yet anger needs not only to be recognized and allowed; like the grief, it eventually needs to be transformed into an energy that serves compassion. Maybe one reason I had avoided my anger was that like a lot of people I had thought there were only two responses to anger: to deny it or to strike out thoughtlessly. But other responses are possible. We can allow anger's enormous energy to lead us to acts of resistance against patriarchy. Anger can fuel our ability to challenge, to defy injustice. It can lead to creative projects, constructive behavior, acts that work toward inclusion. In such ways anger comes a dynamism of love." (p. 75)

"The best female friendships are about encouraging full personhood, giving the other permission to follow her Big Wisdom, even when it means going out on a limb, even when it means her thread takes her away from safe conventionalities." (p. 120)

"Goddess becomes the roaring inside us, the force that refuses to be subdued, tamed, stifled, silenced, mollified, or put to sleep. It becomes that which challenges and 'eats away' at structures that cage and oppress, that deny justice and inclusion." (p. 167)

"It is through our roaring and rising that we become architects and builders of a new house, one that holds everybody in mutuality. . . . The cry 'still I rise' is no longer merely personal and univocal but a choir of voices inside us. We begin to identify not only with other women, but with all disenfranchised or oppressed people because we know we are not separate from anyone who has been denied power because of gender, race, nationality, or economic class." (p. 167)

"As I told my stories of fear, awakening, struggle, and transformation and had them received, heard, and validated by other women, I found healing. I also needed to hear other women's stories in order to see and embrace my own. Sometimes another woman's story becomes a mirror that shows me a self I haven't seen before. When I listen to her tell it, her experience quickens and clarifies my own. Her questions rouse mine. Her conflicts illumine my conflicts. Her resolutions call forth my hope. Her strengths summon my strengths. All of this can happen even when our stories and our lives are very different. Solidarity is identifying with one another without feeling like you have to agree on every issue. It's unity, not uniformity. It's listening without rushing in to fix the problem. It's going deeper than typical ways of talking and sharing -- going down to the place where souls meet and love comes, where separateness drops away and you know these women because you *are* these women." (p. 171-172)

"My religion is being in awakened relationship with all that is and doing so with a kind and pure heart, with an authentic feminine soul and a vision of justice. When I say my path is being in an awakened relationship with all that is, I'm referring to others, of course, but also to nature and earth, to myself, and to the One who holds us all in being." (p. 191)

"I chose deviance. I chose to be a loving dissident. To dance the dance of dissidence. This stance can be assumed from the inside or the outside. Whichever place we choose, the important thing is having the sustained will to be, act, and speak from the ground of our feminine souls, from the space inside the circle of trees." (p.192)

This memoir of a woman's spiritual journey, from a traditional Christian, long immersed in being a Southern Baptist, to a feminist searching for what can empower and sustain her as a woman, and for the more feminine face of God, is one I can relate to on many levels. Sue Monk KIdd has given me much to think about, and a list of new authors and books to pursue.

Very interesting. I have read several of Kidd's fiction books (Secret Life of Bees, Mermaid Chair, Invention of Wings, and Book of Longings), and from reading this book, you can totally see how Kidd's own personal life has influenced her fiction writing. Although she wrote this book first, I am glad that I read it only after reading the fiction books, since it adds a "behind the scenes" aspect to the reading, which makes this book more appealing.

Although this book isn't for everyone and was a little bit dense at times, I found it to be such a refreshing perspective. I grew up Catholic and am now agnostic because religion didn't seem to fit for me. Although I don't see myself doing a journey like Kidd's at this time, I love how authentic she is, how sincere, how well-researched, how holistic, thoughtful, and compassionate. I feel like this book should be required reading for all women who have any interest in religion or spirituality. It should be required reading for any class on world religion or religious studies. It offers an alternative that seems very new to me. I feel like I will re-read this book again at some later point in my life. I would love to do a Greek trip like Kidd's one day!

Loved the topic. She articulated things that I've vaguely felt/noticed with unease and frustration, but could never clearly define. I loved her perspective on supporting feminism but without all the man-bashing that sometimes happens when discussing the ever-pervasive patriarchy. I love how she encourages each person to find thier own path of embracing their divine power. She acknowledges that it will be a different process for all of us. I didn't feel like I needed to publicly burn my bra, leave my church & husband, pray to Mother-God and dance naked in the forest under a full moon. She points out problems and then provides ideas for healing, growth, reconciliation and for having courage in one's journey. She does this through sharing her own story and process. This isn't a self-help, step by step book. The reader has to ponder and intuit their own path. This would be a great book-club discussion book!

Part memoir, part feminist semi-Christian theology, this book is author Sue Monk Kidd's narrative of her personal struggle with rampant sexism in her longtime Christian faith, sprinkled with a hefty dose of psychoanalysis. I really enjoyed the personal narrative aspect of the book, and applaud Kidd for her bravery in speaking out against patriarchal oppression of women of faith. That said, the book was disappointing to me on several fronts. It relies heavily on a handful of scholarly resources. The majority of sources cited are actually poetry and prose, including several seemingly similar personal narratives - which I really liked, and Kidd has really given me a reading list. However, I expected a greater breadth to her cited work when it came to the theological particulars.
Some aspects struck me as contrived (especially the dreams) but ultimately I was disappointed that Kidd kept trying to reconcile her beliefs in the divine feminine with Christianity. I was dismayed that for Kidd the only way to validly worship the divine feminine is through the lens of Christianity. Those of us who have left the Christian tradition cannot relate to that conceit.
However, since she seemed committed to maintaining a link to Christianity, let me offer one criticism specifically on that note. I was disappointed that the Scripture quotes were primarily from the Old Testament - it was as if she wanted to avoid engaging with masculine privilege in the Gospels. You can say, for example, that there should be a female essence to a neuter God, but it remains that Jesus addressed God as "Father." I felt she could have made her argument stronger by specifically addressing the Gospels.
Also, in the gendered languages with which I am most familiar, words aren't assigned a feminine gender because they embody feminine characteristics. Why does Kidd (and presumably, others, although I found this section the least cited of the book - pp. 147-148) conclude that a feminine word ("ruah") in Hebrew is proof that at one point, there was a female counterpart to the Hebrew God in the form of Wisdom? I know that Caitilin Matthews has written a book on Sophia that has been on my reading list for ages, but I was hoping to find at least some research in this paragraph to indicate historical support for the argument. Instead, Kidd mentions it as if it is accepted fact, and I'm not convinced that the mere existence of a feminine nominative indicates there was Judeo-Christian precedent for the reverence, if not outright worship, of a divine feminine figure, allegory of Wisdom or not.

This is the book for which my soul has yearned. Sue Monk Kidd’s words were both balm and electric. She shares without preaching. She speaks of moments in a woman’s life where her “daughter of patriarchy” self comes up against the hidden feminine divine and ignites a knowing that won’t go away. I clearly remember mine, standing in my kitchen, and my oldest daughter, intelligent and wise beyond her years, tells me she wants to be a doctor like her father. I felt the words of counsel in patriarchal norms glob out of my mouth like mud, difficult and distasteful. I admitted she certainly had the talent for the hard work but how would that career meld with her being a mother. Surely all those years of hard work and training would pull her from what her Heavenly Father wanted her to do, her most sacred and blessed role as mother. To do both would put her in a constant state of guilt that while she fed the one role the other would suffer. I didn’t know if I even believed what I was saying but I had been taught that those were the correct words. I hated myself while saying them and have felt remorse over them ever since. I certainly hadn’t felt that way when I counseled my sons to be whatever and all they could be. I didn’t know what to do with those feelings until recently and this book has been helpful in illuminating possible ways to allow myself to find my voice in ways I had naturally inclined towards but had always stifled. I listened to this book on Audible but will now purchase a hard copy where I can slowly peruse, highlight, and make notes on the side. I recommend this to everyone but especially women, whether you’re feeling pangs of yearning for a feminine divine yourself or to help understand those around you who are.

Who knew that Sue Monk Kidd was married to a pastor? This is her memoir pre-fiction writing. She was an inspirational Christian writer who began to question her place in the church as a woman. Radical and wonderful and also very intelligent in her study of the Bible. Loved this unexpected gem.

This book changed my life. I have been feeling a lot of unease and cognitive dissonance in my religion for a while and this gave voice to some of my primary concerns. I relate so much to Sue’s journey and her words gave me comfort that working through the messiness of religious transitions is worth it. We must be true to ourselves.

While I hadn't given the male slant in Christianity much thought of late, (I stopped attending a traditional protestant church in my early 20's & was now attending a liberal church), reading this book reminded me why I couldn't have been born in an earlier time.
It reminded me of the stifling, oppressing man from a former relationship. Had I read this book then, I may have had the courage to end the relationship sooner.
Looking to a feminine higher power isn't a negation of a male god, it just brings balance to the religious equation that has been missing for a couple of thousand years. The idea the women can serve their church by providing a casserole for the covered lunch, be expected to do most of the menial day-today- work of the church & then come Sunday, worship the "God of our Fathers" is just demeaning. Women were leaders in the early Christian churches, but were pushed down to subordinate positions as soon as the Christian religion became the official religion of Rome. Sue Monk Kidd chronicled difficult journey to find the feminine divine & we are more the richer for it.

I went to a lecture & book signing by Sue Monk Kidd with a few of my friends who also enjoyed this book. She was wonderful & more than happy to sign my copy even though it hadn't been sold at that event. She said something to the effect of, I love it when the Dissident Daughters show up.

I'd like to rate this higher, because I think the topic is an important one, and the author really tries to make it accessible by telling her own story, but I had a hard time with a lot of it, and not because of the subject matter itself, but because of the way it was presented. In the introduction, Kidd says that every person who undertakes a journey to seek out the feminine divine will have her or his own unique experience, and that she only aims to tell her own individual story; but throughout the book, she throws around comments that include phrases like "every woman will experience....", and about things that I don't think are as universal as she implies. I grew up in New Hampshire in the 1980's in a family of five daughters, and can honestly say that, with the exception of church, I was never made to feel bad or less worthy because I was a girl. Her focus, of course, is on patriarchy in religion, but she speaks of her experience growing up in the South in the 50's and 60's as if the gender biases that she grew up with in that culture (religion aside) were universal. In my experience, they're not.

I did mostly enjoy reading about her experience of coming to question the patriarchy of her own religion, and of subseqeuntly pursuing a relationship with a feminine divine power. Also, I was glad that she pointed out that a rigid patriarchical system is as damaging to men as it is to women, just in different ways. I always hate it when feminists give the impression (or say explicitly) that such systems are oppressive to women, while the men come out smelling like roses. I've seen too many men really damaged by patriarchy to be able to stomach that kind of nonsense.