The Generous Womb-Compassion of God

Pulled from the archives, a reflection on God's womb.

Dear friends,

I’m in the process of tiding up my old blog a bit and decided to move over some tried-and-true posts to Substack. This particular essay was originally shared during my MailChimp era a few years ago (maybe 2020?) when I was pregnant with my first child. I’m sharing it again here so we might reflect on the simultaneous tenderness, strength, and mystery of God’s womb.

As you read along, I invite you to consider how God’s eternal, loving compassion could shape your conversations with others this month.

---

I recently read one of Marcus Borg’s notable books, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time. It’s a fascinating, brief book on the “pre-Easter” and “post-Easter” Jesus. I’m wrestling with many of Borg’s ideas but I was captivated by his section on the Hebrew words for compassion and womb, which are really from the same three character root, רחם. Borg says, "In the Hebrew Bible, compassion is both a feeling and a way of being that flows out of that feeling." Thinking of the compassion of God in relation to God's posture towards us was something I knew I needed to dig into.

Maternal Caress, by Mary Cassatt (1844-1926)