International Day of the Girl Child
“I was told God wore robes and a frown.
That He sat high and heavy on a golden throne
with a finger forever poised over the red button of smite.
I was taught that holiness was male, that mercy came with conditions,
that my softness was sin and my wildness worse.
They offered me judgement in a wine cup, shame dressed up as salvation,
and I drank. For years, I drank.
Until my soul grew thirsty for something truer than fear.
And then one day, barefoot and broken on the forest floor, I met Her.
Not in a church, but in a clearing.
Not with a hymn, but with a howl.
She came to me with moss on her knees and galaxies in her hips.
She came with the scent of milk and blood and moonlight.
She was no one’s Sunday School sweetheart.
She was thunder and lullaby, she was claws dipped in honey,
she was the war drum and the rocking chair.
Holy Mother. Creatrix of All.
The one who gathers what the world tries to scatter.
She did not ask me to be quiet.
She asked me to remember.
That I was born from a sacred scream, and my softness is a weapon
in a world that’s forgotten how to feel.
She pressed her lioness forehead to mine and said:
I was never your shame. I was your shelter.
I was never your punishment. I was your passage.
They gave you a God of thunder. I gave you a storm to dance in.
Come home, daughter. Come home. And so I did.
I turned away from pulpits that made me small
and toward the altar inside my own chest.
And there She was. The Holy of Holies.
The God who bleeds and births and breaks open to bloom.
Not a He to obey, but a She to embody.
Not a cage. But a crown.
And I? I am Her temple now.”
Mother Daughter Holy Muse by Angi Sullins
Chorlton Unitarians 