MY PRAYER FOR SYRIA

Syria was in the news today as countries pledge billions of dollars in aid to help support the millions of Syrian citizens who have fled their beloved homeland, as war drags on and on. They are streaming out of Syria as refugees to find a life of safety and to meet basic needs for their families in more stable places around the globe. Over one third of Syrian children (3 million) have had their education disrupted during this time. Desperate families travel in makeshift boats and are overwhelming Europe’s ability to take them in, while those caught in sieges within the country suffer from starvation. The solution is surely to bring their country back to a state where they can return home to live in peace.

When I was praying for Syria, this Bible verse came to mind.

“Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us? why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, by profaning the covenant of our fathers?”Mal. 2:10

On the heels of this verse from Malachi, I thought, “Yes, that’s it!” The sense of division between brother and brother, sister and brother, government and citizen comes from a larger sense of separation from our common Father. But, even more, it comes from a separation from the one Mother we all have in common too. I’m not talking about Mother Earth, although that is a very important link. But the motherly and womanly half of the equation so necessary to the wholeness of humankind seems to have been left out of the picture in actions and decisions in these war-torn regions. Militias, from ISIS to Boko Haram to the Taliban, have divorced themselves from the female qualities that bring patience and gentle compromise, nurturing peace, education, home, and prosperity.

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them,” the Bible opens with. Gen. 1:27
Here it says clearly that both male and female are made in God’s own image. Doesn’t that mean that God must include both elements? Then we have a God who is both Father and Mother. You could say, as the image of God, that both male and female qualities exist in each of us.

Yet, another version of the creation story tells the tale differently. Here it says,: “And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Gen. 2:22-24

In Syria and other warring countries, it appears that woman has been taken out of man. Man separated from womanly qualities is aggressive, warring, angry, violent, cruel. Woman, apart from manly qualities is weak, helpless, oppressed, victimized, and marginalized. I pray that the womanly and manly qualities would be reunited in order for the beauty of female qualities–peace, receptivity, gentleness, kindness–to be married to the strength of male qualities: power, firmness, enterprise, and authority.

Both men and women have a male nature and a female nature. It is natural for these natures to be equal and mutually supportive. The male nature protects and provides for the female nature and the female nature refines and nurtures the male.

When war breaks out, the female nature is trampled on and the male nature is unchecked. Cultures that separate male and female and make one dominant over the other are inherently more warlike, vulnerable, and unstable.

My prayer affirms that the native balance of male and female qualities exists in all places, all people, and that our mutual Father/Mother God is bringing this truth to light in practical ways.

When Jesus was once approached by argumentative Pharisees trying to catch him in his words, they asked him about whether it was right for a man to abandon his wife.  Jesus sidestepped this trap, as he often did, by getting to the heart of the matter. “He answered and said unto them, Have you not read, that He which made them at the beginning made them male and female, Which is why they are no more two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder.”Matt. 19:4,6

What God has joined together is the male and female in one flesh, in one person. Men need to recognize their feminine side and women their masculine side. Peace and power, goodness and strength, honesty and kindness, gentleness and authority, exist side by side, mutually supportive, strengthening each other. No man should put them asunder or separate them. Both man and woman are made in the image and likeness of God and this includes the wholeness and goodness of God reflected in each of us. Men with the consciousness of their female nature would do what  supports home and protects children. Women aware of their male nature would stand strong for community values and honest government.

I pray for this marriage of female and male qualities to be embraced in all cultures and in all decisions regarding Syria and other places of war. In the houses of government in our own and other countries, let not what God joined together be put apart. Truly from God’s point of view, there is no power apart from love and no love apart from power. Strength is not unloving and love is not powerless. May that united bond of male and female qualities support peace, home, education, spiritual growth, virtue, prosperity, and security and never be pulled apart. I pray that we can all see ourselves as children of one divine Father and divine Mother and dwell together in harmony. May the power of peace reign between and within all nations on earth.