Picture a straight line. Label one end "rational, intellectual, scientist, head" and the other "intuitional, feeling, mystic, heart." Is this a continuum, on which each of us can identify with a point? I began to think so as I realized that the conclusions about wholeness that I was reaching laboriously through head-work were already grasped intuitively by one of my readers who must have been saying, "Why make it such hard work?" I discover that I need to follow the empirical, rational path as far as I can, while recognizing its limits; it is part of who I am to work that way. It helps, in the words of another friend, to have words for what I am feeling, and, I add, feelings to match my words.

That was the direction my thinking took, with my identity closer to the intellectual end, until I realized that I was being bound, once again, by "either/or" thinking. Had I really been only intellectual, I would not have had that sense of wholeness that was pulling me to try to "understand" what I felt to be the nature of the universe. So I discovered the possibility of identifying with two points on the line, to be "both/and," and to feel compelled to apply both the head and the heart to the task of bringing the two into harmony, to move towards balance in my quest for wholeness.

To be able to say, in the words of Ram Dass, "I am that, too."

Another of my responders, in a marvelous piece he published some years ago, notes that neither science nor theology, both rational in their methodology, reaches its goal of finding ultimate sources. The journey yields values: science brings us technological advances; theology eases inner burdens through the fellowship that expresses love and guidance in right living. Answers to ultimate questions extend beyond the scope of the mind and are not to be found in words. Ultimate mystery, in words heard recently in a dream workshop, remains "unsoiled by words," "not yet speech-ripe." "The tao that can be spoken is not the true Tao."

But for me, though not for me alone, there is value in getting the words and music together, of finding the color in what is otherwise experienced as a black and white scene, of getting the head and the heart on the same page.

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Earth, air, fire, and water are the basic elements celebrated in Native American religions. They are seen as equally available to all, to be enjoyed for the good of all, not to be owned or exploited, basic to all relationships, gifts to be accepted in gratitude.

Add to these elements, the basic forces and processes of gravity, electromagnetism, the nuclear interactions spoken of as the strong and weak forces, and the organic processes that are responsible for evolution, growth, and health. These, too, are equally available to all and not to be controlled by anyone. They are also to be accepted and celebrated as gifts, to be lived with in harmony.

...taught him what the Holy People told the Earth Surface People about how to live, taught him the lessons of the Changing Woman -- that the only goal for man was beauty, and that beauty was found only in harmony, and that this harmony of nature was a matter of dazzling complexity.

'When the dung beetle moves,' Hosteen Nashibitti had told him, 'know that something has moved it. And know that its movement affects the flight of the sparrow, and that the raven deflects the eagle from the sky, and that the eagle's stiff wing bends the will of the Wind People, and know that all of this affects you and me, and the flea on the prairie dog and the leaf on the cottonwood.' That had always been the point of the lesson. Interdependency of nature. Every cause has its effect. Every action its reaction. A reason for everything. In all things a pattern, and in this pattern, the beauty of harmony. Thus one learned to live with evil, by understanding it, by reading its cause. And thus one learned, gradually and methodically, if one was lucky, to always 'go in beauty,' to always look for the pattern, and to find it.

                                -- Tony Hillerman, Dance Hall of the Dead, P. 52.

To these elements and forces, Starhawk adds a Fifth Sacred Thing (the title of her utopian novel), which is love/spirit. It is not so much a force or process that scientists would identify, even less an element, but rather a dimension of meaning implicit in the others, implicit in the way the universe works at the human level. It is essence, meaning, vitality, and a gift to be given total and complete expression in the several levels of health and wholeness.

Truth and meaning are told in the story of the natural universe, and, in awareness, we can listen to it. (I have just begun to read The Universe Story, by Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry, and it appears to be a rare attempt to incorporate the human story in the much larger story of the total creative and evolutionary story of the universe. More about that when I have finished reading it.) Most efforts to extract that truth and meaning are external to the phenomena, i.e., understanding is sought through rationality and empirical study. This is as true of theology as it is of physical and biological science. In psychology, even the study of the "self" is external to one's own experience, lest the study be labelled "subjective." Thus research studies are limited on the one hand by the tools available and on the other by the depth of the mystery.

Again, I see a parallel between the investigative methods of science and those of theology. The object of each study is something other -- out there, not in here.

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The move towards the use of inclusive language is exceedingly slow, but there is movement. When I first heard God referred to as Mother, I responded that I liked the concept, but that my life experience did not support either 'Father' or 'Mother' as valid representations of God. I suspect that is true for many of us.

The concept, though, that cosmic order is as nurturing, caring, and sustaining of new life as it is powering, judging, and defeating its enemies is a vast improvement over the patriarchal pattern in the Old Testament. I can see several points in scripture in which the feminine attributes are added into the mix, particularly in Jesus' teachings, but it seems to me that the patriarchal vision continues to be predominant.

Is there a sense in which inclusive language is the politically correct thing to do -- when the congregation is ready for it -- but not to be seen in its wider implications for society if it were to be taken seriously?

When we look back 10,000 and more years in our cultural story, we see the religions of indigenous populations worshipping the Goddess. They saw creativity -- the source of life -- as a feminine gift. They saw the earth as mother and themselves as creatures of the earth. Their societies were essentially non-competitive and non-combative. They were primarily hunters and gatherers. Their practices were peaceful and environmentally sound. The Goddess was within and among them, readily accessible.

These peoples of the Goddess were overcome by invading hordes who had domesticated the horse and who had become agriculturalists and warriors. They needed to control and exploit the earth, and they needed to establish boundaries to keep other tribes out. And they needed, as cultures do, to create myths with the power of scripture to rationalize and give cosmic support to the patriarchal, hierarchical patterns of their lives. Their god was masculine, a ruler, a war-god, and distant. Their Jehovah ordained that man should have dominion over the earth, its resources, and its non-human inhabitants. They labelled the prior religions as pagan, to be shunned and eliminated.

Our society mirrors our idea of God; our idea of God mirrors our society. So when we, in our contemporary religious institutions, begin to identify the feminine qualities of our cosmic referent, we are, if we are willing to recognize it, taking on an obligation to reshape society. If our God has attributes that are a balance of the masculine and feminine then She/He (and we) will care as much for the environment as for industrial and economic progress, will seek win - win solutions to disputes, will build relationships that are nurturing rather than hierarchical, will nurture the young and respect the old, will share resources rather than accumulate wealth, will find joy in the simplest and most natural things and events. Control will be out; going with the flow will be in.