By Ruth Polata

Along the Spiritual Path

At our church’s meditation and prayer group meeting, one member told us she is looking for a non-gender-specific way to address God when she prays, and is trying out “Encompassing Spirit.” Thinking this over, I looked at how I address God myself - and came up with some unexpected realizations.

Many Christian women have difficulty, for different reasons, with the most commonly used term, “Father.” For a very few women I’ve known, that’s because of a past abusive or troubled relationship with their own father. For most, however, it’s also because recognizing and honoring the feminine aspect of God is important to them. This belief is shared by many men.

I’ve long been interested in the many names given to God. I particularly like “Creator” and the Sioux Indian “Wakan Tanka” (Wakan means mysterious; Tanka means great), but I realized that what I actually use are terms that include a sense of intimacy. I tend to pray to three aspects of God - “Father God”; “Brother Jesus” or “Lord Jesus”; and sometimes “Holy Spirit” or “Sister Spirit.”

Without much conscious thought, it seems I talk to Spirit about my inner spiritual life and to Jesus about practical earthly matters, but I talk mostly to Father God. I’ve realized this term gives me great comfort and confidence. I wonder, is that in spite of or because my own father, never being really well, could give me little of either?

I have great respect for people for whom “Father” is too limiting a term for God, or unsatisfactory in any way, but we can’t escape the fact that this is how Jesus addressed God and how he taught us to pray. At times he even used the Aramaic word “Abba,” which is something like “Dad.”

Jesus had a deeply intimate relationship with God because of his rich prayer life. For the same reason, Jesus also had an overarching sense of the great encompassing mystery that is God. Another layer of reflection led me to conclude that my personal need is not to focus on the name thing, anyway, but to concentrate on improving my relationship with God.

Another reminder for me to put first things first.

Polata, of Mountain View, is a member of Foothills Congregational Church in Los Altos.