The prayer that lifts women from poverty to equality
Originally appeared on spirituality.com
I live in Mumbai, India, and have spent a lot of time thinking through spiritual ideas that uncover and eliminate poverty. And I’m especially interested in issues surrounding women and the circumstances that keep them in impoverished conditions.
In many cultures, including my own, progress is being made, but, even so, many women are still subject to limitation, humiliated, treated like objects or doormats to be stepped on. Women are humiliated in the “imaginary” world of films, and this sets a pattern for how women are treated at home. Educational opportunities are also limited, and so at times it seems like an impossible situation.
Since I began to read the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, especially Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, there has been a major change in my own life and in my ability to help other women. However, I’ve come to understand that the dignity of womanhood needs to be restored to women, and that this needs to be done through spiritual means that uplift both men and women. In my study of Christian Science, I have learned that our origin as God’s children is explained in the first chapter of the book of Genesis in the Holy Bible.
It says there that God created man in His own image and likeness, male and female. From this, one can gather that God’s creation—male and female—is meant to express itself, not be suppressed. This statement certainly speaks of equality, completeness, wholeness, with men and women having equal rights and privileges.
Representing the womanhood of God is not a punishment. Good is not something that belongs to some but not to others. Just as the sun distributes its light equally, unconditionally, so God in Her love and wisdom recognizes all Her beloved children.
Mary Baker Eddy is my role model, because her life experience elevated every aspect of womanhood. As she grew in her understanding of her relationship with God as Father-Mother, as divine and universal Love, her expression of that Love resulted in health and healing.
A passage from Mrs. Eddy’s poem “Satisfied” offers a very helpful insight:
The centuries break, the earth-bound wake,
God’s glorified!
Who doth His will—His likeness still—
Is satisfied.
(Poems, p. 79
)
Centuries of discrimination in India and Asia are breaking, and will continue to do so. But prayer-inspired efforts to uplift women are still needed in these societies, where women are treated very poorly and where lack of education often forces them to take demeaning jobs.
However, I know from my work with different organizations that the consecrated prayer of many people is bringing much-needed purification. And some non-government organizations have begun to focus not just on children, but also on teaching their mothers to read and write.
Recent articles in The Christian Science Monitor also show signs of positive change. The January 30, 2006, issue reported, “Pakistani women defy threats, run mixed marathon” and on May 8, the newspaper noted, “Afghan women start businesses, help reconstruct a torn nation.” This shows the role of women is being recognized, even if only in modest ways. More and more people are seeing God as Mother in the good and divinely loving sense of motherhood. Each of these steps, however small they may seem in the overall scheme of things, is making a difference.
I used to run a job placement service in Bombay. When I met female job-seekers, I’d share ideas with them about their spiritual identity—about the need to value the qualities they included and to accept their ability to express those qualities.
The majority of them had always thought of themselves as inferior to men, but when we shared the definition of man in Science and Health as complete, “the compound idea of God including all right ideas,” there was always a positive response.
And I often think of the experience of my dear mother. She had almost no education and grew up in a culture in which a woman was seen as a piece of household furniture who did what the man of the house wanted done. Women of that time did not voice their views or express themselves. Any desire to progress beyond the four walls of the home was stifled through fear.
And then a Christian Science practitioner told her, “You are complete, you lack nothing.” This acknowledgment of her spiritual nature opened the way for her identity as a complete daughter of God to emerge.
A friend’s mother, a senior citizen, felt she had nothing to offer the world, and that she’d have to spend her entire life bemoaning the fact that she was a woman, was roused from this kind of thinking with the Bible verse, “I will restore unto you the years that the locust hath eaten.” This promise enabled her to feel the love of an ever-present God, good.
She realized that she had the same rights as anyone else, that she was loved as anyone else, that she was as cared for and as protected as anyone else. She began to take an interest in things around her and to express the Life that is God, good.
Soon she was able to unite with her son who was living in the United States. Before she left India to join him, she was able to take on what many Indians would consider a “man’s” role—selling property and hiring men to do work for her. She saw her completeness—male and female—and rejoiced in this new understanding.
The work of restoration and redemption begins in each individual consciousness as we let our hearts overflow with love and compassion—not just for women, but for men, too. Or, as Science and Health puts it, “Citizens of the world, accept the ‘glorious liberty of the children of God,’ and be free! This is your divine right.” This is God’s gift to us—let’s use it!
We are complete, lacking nothing, free of any defect or disability. Let’s acknowledge this completeness and rejoice in the spiritual, irreversible, undeniable fact that we are all children of God, totally complete and satisfied.
Male and female created equally:
Science and Health
King James Bible