May: Choices of Religions and Relationships with God
“Most of us, having struggled to forge our own autonomous ways in the spiritual life, wind up in some tradition that is not unlike that of our own genetic and cultural forebears.”—Gerald May in Will and Spirit (HarperOne 1982) p. 320.
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Gerald May writes in Will and Spirit that at some point, it is necessary for us to relate to some valid spiritual tradition. The choices are boundless. It could be Anglican formality, Roman authority, Quaker simplicity, Methodist fellowship, Presbyterian morality, Baptist freedom, Evangelical and Pentecostal zeal, the center of the Sufi’s twirl, in the Navaho’s dance, or the correct answer to every Zen koan. All traditions have a core of truth, pointing to a single, loving, energetic Source of creation.
Polytheistic religions tend to keep balance between male and female images of deities, while monotheism fosters a male, father-like image of God. May writes that primarily the father’s personality affects the offspring’s image of God, even though people learn most of their loving from mothers. May believes that even though the mother plays an integral part in our psychological development, the father’s personality most often may affect our image of God.
The monotheistic male father-like image may become more balanced in devotion to Mary in Roman Christianity and Eastern Orthodoxy. Rohr and other contemplatives also believe this sole masculine image of God is changed as we relate to the parts of the Trinity as masculine and
feminine.
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