Saturday, May 20, 2006

HerCode.org: It's NOT what you think!

A new website, launched to coincide with the release of The Da Vinci Code movie, is a place of renewed faith and feminine energy inside of faith issues. The book and now the movie have acted as a catalyst for clergy and laywomen everywhere to realize that not only do they matter in our faith communities but they have the ability to transform how women are seen by society and to assist many generations into the future on how young girls and women are and should be viewed and valued.

We KNOW that the book is a work of fiction, because Dan Brown tells us from the outset that "this is a work of fiction" based on historical and semi-historical information. That said, we can now look at what impact the idea, indeed the concept of a woman as a holy object, has had and does have on society and the power that moves across socio-economic, cultural and ecclesiastical spheres.

All one has to do to know about the journey of self-discovery in the lives of various women of faith, is to read books like "The Dance of the Dissident Daughter" by Sue Monk Kidd, or "She Who Is" by Elizabeth Johnston, or "The Root of This Longing" by Carol Lee Flinders, just to name a few.

But these are modern authors. What about the women who came before us? Julian of Norwich, Teresa of Avila, Hildegard von Bingen, Margaret Kempe, again, to name a well-known few. We are now learning and acknowledging what they already knew, and more fully.

This new website, HerCode, promises to be a place of inspiration. In fact, it already is. There are five biographical accounts of modern women, both lay and clergy, who tell their stories of change and rebirth into a new way of looking at spirituality and of God, in all Her glory, of Christ our Mother, of the Holy Spirit in all of Her transforming power.

I urge you to stop by, and taste and see that the Lord is good in this new place for all to come and decipher their own "code" in Her who loves us and made us, and travels the way with us. You can visit there now by going to http://HerCode.org

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Catherine, I loved the movie...it was one of my youngest daughter's favorite books...so we were all anxious to see it...i write a lot on the OLd testament female figures-- trying to highlight their strength and power that man pressed down...Thanks for the web link...i also found several of my jr hi Sunday school kiddos talking crazy about NOT seeing the movie, blah, blah, blah..so it was a teachable moment about faith and fiction and "Look what we have been learning all year! Stretch your minds to a God that we know is much bigger than us"
thank you...