FEMALE MINISTER TYPES

IMAGES OF FEMALE MINISTERS

(I wrote this maybe forty years ago when I was still in the ministry.  I don’t remember what it was for — maybe just for fun.)

THE MERMAID:  The goer between worlds.  The sacrificer for love.  The wounded healer.  The swimmer in the depth.  The singer in the moonlight.  The faithful one in the face of betrayal.  She who may sing and not be heard.  The dreamer of sunlight.  The inaccessible one who is no one’s mother.

THE GOOSEGIRL:  She who protcts and feeds the foolish.  She who is simple and idly dreams.  She who is childish and loves the earth.  She who allows time to pass unheeded and unmarked, except by rising and retiring, or eating and drawing water.  She who charms with simplicity and who is secretly a princess.

THE SPARROW:  The tiny and vulnerable one who goes everywhere among the others and is not marked except by God.  She who is constantly hungry and busy and fluttering, keeping death away out of sheer will to live.

THE GIRL ON THE SWING:  Sometimes she is a small child who loves the wind and the movement.  Sometimes she is covered in satin, lace and rosebuds, wearing many petticoats, and laughing at the people around her who are so solemn.

MINERVA/ATHENA:  She who seeks wisdom and justice.  She who is austere and demanding and learned.  She who punishes, but only as deserved.  She who helps the heroes.

THE WOLF:  She who is untamed but loyal to the pack.  She who nourishes cubs not her own.  She who is alone and howls at the moon and lives in a burrow.  She who tears at meat with dripping jaws but takes some home for the small and weak.  She who knows the way of the world.

THE WANDERER/THE ATONER:  She who wanders the earth like Demeter, weeping for that which is lost and searching for the path back to the garden.  She who out of stubbornness has lost her way.  She who must climb over mountains and walk down valleys and find they lead to yet more mountains and yet more valleys.

THE WEAVER:  She who sees the cloth of life and puts the threads in order.  The worker who sings at work.  The maker of order, the preventer of rips, the clother in linen, the maker of the smooth bed ad the white table.

BIG MARY MOONSHINE:  The jokester.  The vulgar one.  The clown with the slapstick.

THE MEDICINE WOMAN:  The very old woman of virtue who fasts for the community.  She who knows all the earth and skies and is courted by Gods.  She cannot be destroyed, for she is many, she is many.