Healing the Sacred Divide is timely: As issues of faith and women drive our political dialogue at national and local levels, it offers a highly useful window into troublesome assumptions rarely recognized. Bringing these into the open can be enormously helpful for resolving conflict and promoting fruitful compromise between entrenched parties. Author Jean Benedict Raffa first explores eight common ways of thinking about God that create strife in ourselves and contribute to the rampant divisiveness in our world. She then helps us see (and work with) the emotional ignorance of this situation that spoils relationships-through distorting what we think "God" and others want of and for us. Raffa then invites us to entertain what she calls "an integrated God-image." She offers it as a basis from which to bridge differences and work creatively with fundamental dualities such as masculine/feminine, good/evil, relationship/individuality, heart/head, subjectivity/objectivity, experience/belief, mystery/clarity, etc. In the process she explores a variety of personal crises and political dysfunctions that arise from overemphasizing masculine ego-values in ourselves and our conception of God, and ways to overcome them by honoring feminine values equally. Doing so, she says, makes available "nine wisdom gifts" that offer a reprieve from unrelenting anxiety and guilt about never being good enough, and help us connect intimately with what feels truly sacred to us. From there, she suggests, we are in a much better position to make peace with ourselves and one another, and to contribute together to "humanity's noblest dream of universal peace, justice, and love
Jean Benedict Raffa is a former teacher, television producer, and college professor with a doctorate in Education from the University of Florida. In her late thirties she underwent a spiritual
: Table of Contents Healing the Sacred Divide, by Jean Benedict Raffa Contents Acknowledgments PROLOGUE PART 1: THE EVOLUTION OF OUR GOD-IMAGES ONEA God of Unconscious Oneness TWOA Masculine God THREEA Child's God FOURA Tribal God FIVEA God Like Us SIXA Gender-Biased God SEVENA Conventionally Moral God EIGHTAn Outer Other God NINEA God of Integrated Oneness PART 2: NINE WISDOM GIFTS OF AN INTEGRATED GOD-IMAGE The First Gift: Holistic Perception TENSeeing the Big Picture ELEVENNoticing Otherness TWELVEA Cosmic Dialogue THIRTEENThe Divine Feminine as Holistic Perception FOURTEENMy Encounter with the Mistress of the Forest The Second Gift: Transforming Light FIFTEENBecoming Conscious of the Unconscious SIXTEENTempering the Ego SEVENTEENA Cosmic Dialogue EIGHTEENThe Divine Feminine as Holy Spirit NINETEENA Manifestation of the Woman of Light The Third Gift: Acceptance of the Shadow TWENTYMining for Gold TWENTY-ONELiving in the Question TWENTY-TWOA Cosmic Dialogue TWENTY-THREEThe Divine Feminine as Dream Mother and Shadow Projector TWENTY-FOURA Shadow Dream about Projection The Fourth Gift: Emotional Integrity TWENTY-FIVEHeart Murmurs TWENTY-SIXCultivating Emotional Intelligence TWENTY-SEVENA Cosmic Dialogue TWENTY-EIGHTThe Divine Feminine as Dragon Lady TWENTY-NINEDragon Lady Breaks Through The Fifth Gift: Partnership THIRTYValuing Relationships THIRTY-ONEThe Soul's Yearning for Union THIRTY-TWOA Cosmic Dialogue THIRTY-THREEThe Divine Feminine as Partner Maker THIRTY-FOURSerpent Mother Awakes The Sixth Gift: Balance THIRTY-FIVEOur Deep Inheritance THIRTY-SIXBalancing the Warrior THIRTY-SEVENA Cosmic Dialogue THIRTY-EIGHTThe Divine Feminine as Changing Woman and Warrior Tamer THIRTY-NINEDances with Changing Woman The Seventh Gift: Sovereignty FORTYHonoring Inner Realities FORTY-ONEFollowing Internal Guidance FORTY-TWOA Cosmic Dialogue FORTY-THREEThe Divine Feminine as Personal and Social Sovereign FORTY-FOUREmpowering My Queen The Eighth Gift: Meaning FORTY-FIVEThe Brain's Role in Epoch II Thinking FORTY-SIXTracking Bear FORTY-SEVENA Cosmic Dialogue FORTY-EIGHT The Divine Feminine as Meaning FORTY-NINETrusting My Wisewoman The Ninth Gift: Mandorla Consciousness FIFTYEvolving Beyond Belief FIFTY-ONEAwakening the Beloved FIFTY-TWOA Cosmic Dialogue FIFTY-THREEThe Divine Feminine as the Christ Within FIFTY-FOURHealing the Sacred Divide: A Modern Myth of New Beginning
"Well-researched, this is rich with personal stories and reflections and supplemented with meditations and exercises that help the reader explore her own consciousness." Publishers Weekly, 07/16/2012 "An important contribution to the continuing development of spirituality, bound to appeal to readers interested in gender roles, feminist approaches, and psychology." Library Journal, 07/16/2012 Raffa (Dream Theatres of the Soul) posits that until modern religions stop overemphasizing the masculine and repressing the feminine, they will contribute to individual and societal dysfunctions. Deeply influenced by both her own spiritual journey and the work of Carl Jung, Raffa examines the evolution of God-images throughout history and the relationship between our God-images and the war being waged in our psyches "between two compelling needs: our need to preserve the self-images our egos have so carefully constructed and our need to transcend the limitations our egos have imposed." She explores eight common ways of thinking about God that create problems for individuals and communities before urging the reader to adopt an integrated God-image that reflects both feminine and masculine principles. She then lays out nine "wisdom gifts," such as emotional integrity, that derive from an integrated God-image. Through honoring the feminine, she ultimately argues, we come to the spiritual realization that there is unity in all of creation and we take the necessary steps toward healing ourselves and achieving universal peace, justice, and love. Well-researched, this is rich with personal stories and reflections and supplemented with meditations and exercises that help the reader explore her own consciousness. --Publishers Weekly-on-line Religion; July 16, 2012 Raffa (Bridge to Wholeness), inspired, in part, by the writings of Carl Jung, attempts to show here how certain preconceptions about God (masculine, tribal, childish, "like us," gender-biased, external) have damaged us, our spirituality, and our relationship to the world. She suggests alternative understandings of God: holistic, light-giving, powerful, balanced, dialogic, and so on. Raffa's conception is powerful and subtle, and goes well beyond a simple female-based spirituality; her execution suffers a little from trying to be very accessible. VERDICT An important contribution to the continuing development of spirituality, bound to appeal to readers interested in gender roles, feminist approaches, and psychology. --Library Journal on-line Spiritual Living; July 16, 2012
