When God Was a Woman

Image Journal, issue 116

I FOUND GOD MANY WEEKS AGO. We called her Parfaite; God’s Holy Spirit fell from the sky. A Fulani herdsman found her in the wilderness. The sole creator of the sky and the earth, raised by the herdsman for seven days and seven nights, she walked twenty miles barefoot to the Hill of Wonders. The place was not called the Hill of Wonders when she first got there but was a rocky hill crawling with scorpions and snakes. A python slithered over her body while she was praying, recumbent. The serpent shriveled and dried up after touching her. Those who witnessed this came to her. The mountains of dire situations crumbled at the breath of her nostrils. Soon the hill was filled with miracle seekers. They collected enough money for a makeshift shed, a place of worship. They replaced the shed with cinder blocks. That was how the Very Holy Church of Our Perfect Mother was born on the Hill of Wonders.