Alysson Oaks

Prayers to Mother God Alysson Oaks

This book began as a very modest poem without any professional intention. I wrote The Cradle as an outpouring of what I was feeling during a very difficult meeting in Paraguay. One expression led to another and five or six poems were written that week. The idea of organizing them and exploring the feminine side of God and those attributes - tenderness, maternity, loving kindness (usually characterized as belonging to the female of the human species) - emerged as I wrote. This, in turn, led to poems written, as it were, by women to a "maternal" God. Living and working in Latin America made the poems take on the shape, form and strength of the women of my continent. These are the women I see, I hear and to whom I have listened. These are the women who share their lives with me: their troubles, their woes, their victories, and their courage. They have been an example to me and have often shamed me to silence and awe by how they live. These are the women who silently carry Latin America on their backs in much the same way that many carry their children. I pray God I have done them justice, though I doubt it. Their personal voices are sweeter and wiser. Their personal lives carry more suffering than what I can here express. My hope is that many women who have had difficulty coming into a close relationship with "God the Father" because of past human experiences with their own fathers and other significant men may be able to develop a new perspective about God.