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Manhood often feels like navigating through uncharted territory, but you don't have to walk alone. Join us as we guide a conversation about how to live intentionally so that we can join God in reclaiming the masculine restorative presence he designed us to live out. Laugh, cry, and wonder with us as we explore the ins and outs of manhood together.
Cody Buriff
Welcome to another episode of the Restorative Man podcast. My name is Cody Buriff and I get to host this week and ⁓ I am super excited to welcome Beth Bruno to the podcast. Now, Beth, for most of our listeners, you don't need an introduction, but in case anybody's joining us for the first time, let me just say, Beth Bruno, you might recognize her last name. You know, she's Chris's wife, but I want to say this. Beth, you don't need to borrow from Chris's like reputation or credibility.
You have plenty of your own. And so I just want to let everybody know like Beth is a published author. She's the executive director of Restorey counseling. She's known for guiding the last women pilgrimages. She spent decades in ministry and nonprofit and advocacy spaces. Like Beth is a force of beauty and wonder. And I am super excited to have you on the podcast and get to have this conversation with you today. So welcome.
Beth Bruno
Thank you, Cody. Appreciate that. Good to be here.
Cody Buriff
Well, this is going to be a really interesting and fun conversation. Guys, I'm going to introduce the topic this way. I just got back from Scotland where we do the sage experience and there are multiple times where Chris referenced father God and mother God. And I also know like a couple of weeks ago on the podcast, you know, Chris interviewed you and you towards the end of the one on on mothering sons.
You mentioned mother God and I imagine that there were plenty of guys who were both really curious and maybe even a little bit like freaked out about that. And so, you know, if you're like me and you come from a bit of more fundamental evangelical Christian background, the idea of mother God, when you first hear it might feel a little controversial. Maybe like you're wondering if you're bordering on the edge of
Heresy or something but or maybe just feel a little uncomfortable with it I just want to invite you if that is how it feels right now just to take a deep breath
Beth Bruno
I'm trying to be okay.
Cody Buriff
Yeah, it's gonna be okay. And just maybe enter this conversation, listen to this with just some curiosity.
Beth Bruno
Yes. think a posture of what if, what if instead of no way, you know, from the get go could be a great posture to have.
Cody Buriff
Yeah, yeah, I agree. So I'm excited about that. Beth, would you just kind of give us a brief kind of introduction to this idea, this concept, mother, God, what do you mean? What do you not mean when you say that?
Beth Bruno
Yes, for sure. And we can dive into more of why in a little bit. basically, yes, I am not saying that we need to replace the gender of God, replace all of the pronouns in the Bible and start referring to God as she or as a goddess. I think we're both, Chris and I are inviting people to consider and learning ourselves that God is both.
And we are created in his image as male and female. So what does that hold for us? If male and female images God, then God is not a man. And so what does that mean then? And where do we find, where do women find themselves reflecting the glory of God to this world in that feminine motherly imagery? And there's quite a bit.
in the Bible when you start looking for it. And when your eyes are like combing for and noticing those particular references, you see it a lot more that God actually has a lot of ways of describing who He is. And see, I'm using that pronoun still of He, but who God is in the world. There's a lot of motherly imagery in that. And that concept of being mothered and not just fathered by God.
is a much more holistic picture, I believe, of the good parents and the good, like who we are relating, want to relate to God in that way, like a fuller picture of the good parent in both the mother and the father aspects is what I would mean on a high level by that.
Cody Buriff
Okay, that's cool. I'm excited to jump into that more, but I'm curious because I know a little bit about your background, your backstory, and not everything, but I know I've heard stories of like you and Chris like reading Wayne Gertrude systematic theology and like, you know...
Beth Bruno
No, you're the that we were.
Cody Buriff
Yeah, exactly. Total nerds. And you guys, you you joined with a ministry straight out of the gate, you know, missions agency, somewhat, you know, definitely evangelical, somewhat reformed maybe even. And I guess is early on the concept of Mother God was not anywhere on your mind. And so how did tell me a little more about your journey? How have you gotten to this point?
Beth Bruno
Great question. I don't even remember ever, ever talking about this or thinking about it. And if, if I had any sense of a feminine aspect of the divine, it felt like witchcraft. It felt like goddess stuff, paganism, things that I should steer away from and be afraid of. that was most of my adult life.
And then, know, honestly, Cody, it was my youngest daughter, Sophie, who was reading a book by John Mark Comer and in it, he, I think I forget the title, but the whole book is about Exodus. And I actually want to say it's about Exodus 34:6, specifically in one verse. Gosh, we need to remember the title. did.
It just blew her away. was one of those transformative books in her high school years. And I remember her telling me about the meaning of Exodus 34:6, where, we can go again, we can go into this, but so that my daughter, Sophie, first opened my eyes to an actual verse where God uses a very motherly term to describe who he is. That started.
me on this course of curiosity. And you mentioned I lead lost women pilgrimages and that takes me to Turkey and this year starting Egypt. And that opens my eyes then to a history that predates not just our Christian faith, but the Hebrew faith. And when we look at ancient cultures and civilizations, prehistory, so pre-written word.
what we're discovering in archeology points to the worship of a female. We see statues, thousands and thousands of statues that span thousands and thousands of years and multiple civilizations that are of women. And not just women, but pregnant women with voluptuous breasts, some mid-birth, large bellies. I mean, these are mothers.
And that then I'm so curious about, I'm still curious about what does that tell us that for thousands of years in the earliest forms of humanity, there was a sense of something unexplainable and holy and around the woman, around the mother. And we might explain that simply by they didn't understand how babies were born and it felt magical to them. And so she was worshiped.
Maybe, or maybe there's more. Maybe there's a longing that it points to, a longing for a mother, a longing for a good parent. And so that also just, when I started, like I said, when I started to have a posture of what if, and not no way, which I would say was a shift from being afraid.
and defensive and having a lot of walls that I needed to hold up to just being more open-handed with all that I didn't know and understand. That shift in my own posture allowed me to ask more and more questions. And it led me to some interesting discoveries.
Cody Buriff
Wow. Do you remember any point at which you went from that like uncomfortable with the idea to, okay, maybe there's something here for me.
Beth Bruno
I think I'm still in the tension. There's still something of, I don't know what this means. The more threads I pull, I wouldn't say things are unraveling, but they'd never end. A very long, never-ending thread of, don't know what all of this tells me, tells us.
And so that does create a tension that I still hold, but it doesn't scare me. I think it just keeps me in this curious state. And honestly, I would say my faith has grown. Like my picture of God, I would say, has enlarged as I imagine all of what we might be missing in our understanding of who God is.
Cody Buriff
Good.
That's cool. So you would be fully aware of this. I'm curious when you think about the listener who maybe they tense up a little bit and maybe they have some objections. what do you think of those objections? What's valid and kind of, you know, what do you think they might be feeling? What do they need to hear?
Beth Bruno
don't know, Cody. What do you feel when you tense up? Yeah.
Cody Buriff
Yeah, it does. So you mentioned the kind of like protective fear a little bit. And yeah, I think I would say this, like I'm, I'm 40 now. When I was in my twenties, I had all the answers and, I think that feeling of a little bit of the like, okay, hang on now, protectiveness comes from that space of when I had all the answers. And back then I was probably
I probably would have been much more like, uh-uh, like that's Jesus came as a man and refers to God as father. So that's just what it is. And, and so I think there's something pulling from there. That is probably where the tension comes from a little wet, a lot of ways. think the curiosity and the kind of open hands that I sense now in myself is as I've gotten older and
hopefully wiser and realizing I don't have all the answers. In fact, I know way less than I ever thought I knew. Yeah, I know I asked the question and I don't totally know how to answer it myself.
Beth Bruno
Well, and I wonder if that is actually pretty ubiquitous, that most men who feel something uncomfortable inside would struggle as well to articulate why. They just know that this just feels outside of the realm of what might be good and right.
Cody Buriff
Yeah. ⁓ we've been taught, you know.
Beth Bruno
Yeah, and I think maybe that's actually more what it is, is the lack of teaching around this, the lack of curiosity and what if questions from our pulpits. And so it's not something that we've talked about or considered and therefore it feels risky. And so perhaps just more exposure to these thoughts would lessen the discomfort inside.
Cody Buriff
All right, so you mentioned Exodus 34, and I know there are multiple places throughout scripture that you could reference, but where would you point us? Like as you've done a more deep dive into that, into the Bible, where are the places you would point us?
Beth Bruno
So Exodus 34, 6 was my turning point verse. And just for some context, we are in the Sinai desert. They've left Egypt. It's taken them months to get to Mount Sinai or Mount Horeb. Those are interchangeable mountains, we think. And Moses has already gone up once and gotten the law and brought it down. And what happens? He comes down.
and he's been gone too long and they have made a golden calf. I never thought about that. I'm going to come back to the golden calf in a second. he's gone back up and now this is round two. And this is where we are in Exodus 34 when God says, gives the first kind of full description of who he is. And I'll just read it really quickly.
The Lord passed before him, Moses, and proclaimed, the Lord the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness." And he goes on. So, and he goes on because it's a full description and it's our first full description, really. Even the term Yahweh, like who should I say you are? Even Yahweh is a pretty new name for God that Moses and the Israelites have been given. So that also
leads me to a curious like, well, who the heck were they calling him up until now? Who did Abraham and Jacob call their God? What was the name they gave him? So put a pin in that. So God describes himself and uses that word merciful and gracious, slow to anger. That word merciful, which is also sometimes translated as compassion. is the Hebrew word, racham. In Aramaic it's rahmana.
And it is also the word used 26 times in the Old Testament for womb.
Cody Buriff
Interesting.
Beth Bruno
And there's another Hebrew word for the actual like physical womb, baten. This use of womb is one that God has more sovereignty over. There's this sense of like I fashioned you in your mother's womb that would be rakim. It's this picture of a protective life giving force. And that is how God's
first description, full description to Moses comes out is, am a womb like God. Wow. Yes. That's incredibly powerful. He doesn't go on to say, I am your father. He doesn't say, like actually, like the description is all adjectives like that, but that is the first, I am a womb like God. This is how you can understand me.
And imagine that at that time, understanding of human anatomy and what a womb actually does, all they know is that women must have this thing that births, nurtures and births life. That's how God's describing himself to us. Now, I mentioned the golden calf that is in Exodus 32. So two chapters earlier, Moses has come down after round one and they've made a golden calf. These people,
have just come from Egypt. They've spent generations in Egypt. And one of the primary gods worshiped in Egypt is Hattor, who is represented as a cow. And she is known to be the mother god. She protects infertility and life and beauty. she was one of the, you know, if there was a hierarchy of all.
the gods, she was one of the top entire temples were made for Hatchur. There were female priestesses who sang and shook things like tambourines that Miriam also did when they crossed the Nile, bringing her worship through dance and song. Like Hatchur was a god that they would have known. And so that of all the options, that is the god that they were Aaron, however that ends up happening.
God is the one they make. And I just, I'm left wondering, what does that tell us? Like that is a curious longing that in the absence of their leader or an understanding of who this God is that has brought them to the mountain and mountains also, both in Egypt and in that entire Near East historical world, mountains were holy places. They were like,
deity kinds of places. So here they are waiting for their new God, their new deity to fully manifest or tell them what is going on. And their longing is, I think like we need a good parent. We need a mother and we need presence. The demand for the incarnate, even then I believe as a human, like it was
written into our soul to need the presence of God, to need the incarnation. And so in that, I believe we see their longing for God to be among them and to be a good parent. And they build, they create the mother God in the golden calf. And two chapters later, Moses is back on the mountain. And the first thing he hears is, I am the womb-like
Cody Buriff
Yeah.
Beth Bruno
I am all you need in your longing for a mother and your longing for a father and your longing for big, strong and powerful because that's the other thing is that he speaks to Moses in storm and thunder and lightning and clouds. Like that is also the cultural understanding of the power of God. There were storm gods, Thor comes from that, you know, earlier in that time period, like that.
God was saying, can meet you where you need me, where you need to understand the way I'm trying to describe you, like describe to you that I am. But your need for the mother is also who I am.
Cody Buriff
Wow. That is stunning. Like just to consider and think about, I would guess most people don't know that. I didn't know that. That's how God describes himself is womb like God. There is totally something that is comforting and steady and calm. Like when you think about that, you know, when you imagine that. Wow.
Beth Bruno
Mm-hmm.
I think in a culture and I think, you know, I'm an armchair historian, Cody, like I missed my time period to go get my PhD in history. But when I began to dip my toes in the history of that time period in which the Hebrews, in which all of this starts to happen. And like I said, for thousands of years prehistory, was goddesses, was a female deity that was worshiped. Like the Israelites, the Hebrews knew that.
That was what they were surrounded by, what goddesses. And we see it all throughout the Old Testament actually, is the continual like temptation to return to worshiping a goddess. So I wonder if God isn't saying like, I am, I am that too. I am everything that you are seeing these other cultures wanting and needing from a deity. I am that.
I am the one that encompasses all of that longing and all of that need and is addressing the surrounding goddess worship by saying, yeah, I am like her too.
Cody Buriff
Well, it makes me wonder and I don't know anything anywhere near as much as you do around this, but it strikes my curiosity when you say that most of the cultures, many of the cultures are in that time were worshiping goddesses. And for some reason in scripture, God is referenced as a he, as a father, know, Jesus does come as a man and references God as father. Was the reason for that?
a distinguishment from some of those practices or do you have any insight into like what was going on there? Like why would God reveal himself as the womb God but then also then refer to himself as he was going on?
Beth Bruno
This we should put a pin in and revisit in six months, because this is currently where I am and my following the thread. Because it was in some ways the like patriarchal, patrilineal that is so a part of the Hebrew culture and Pentateuch is in some ways a departure.
Like there was already, it was more so a matrilineal, not matriarchal, in that, you know, the legacy, the heritage, the inheriting royalty oftentimes was going through the woman, even in Egypt, more so than what we see the Hebrews start to do. And I have two contradictory books right now that I'm reading that are confusing me. So that is a great question. And again, like you hear in my...
my response, I don't know. I'm really curious about that. And I think that's worth learning more about. Like that's a great question. And again, back to the posture, think instead of assuming we know or being afraid to learn like, what if, and let's go learn.
Cody Buriff
All right. Well, did you, were there any other spots in Bible in in scriptures that you would want to point us to?
Beth Bruno
So there's another good one. said, Yahweh was a relatively newer revelation to them. So who was God before that? And there's another really interesting verse at the end of Genesis when Jacob is dying and he's giving his blessing to all of his sons. And right towards the end, but before he gives his blessing to Benjamin in Genesis 49, 25,
Jacob says, by the God of your father who will help you, by the Almighty who will bless you with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that crouches beneath, blessings of the breasts and of the womb.
Cody Buriff
and Houston.
Beth Bruno
Almighty is, we translated as Almighty, but it's actually Shaddai. And so El Shaddai is a term for God that we have heard. And El was a generic name for God or Lord in that time period in lots of different civilizations. Shaddai means the breasted one.
Cody Buriff
Really?
Beth Bruno
So here we have a blessing saying that Shaddai will bless you. And then it goes on and blessings of the breasts and of the womb.
Cody Buriff
Interesting.
Beth Bruno
So I, when have you ever heard that taught at like what in the world should I like, I've read tons of things like where does that term come from? It also came to mean mountain, which is not unlike the shape of breasts. So all of these languages actually didn't have vowels. And so sometimes it's quite confusing to know what exactly it was when we only have consonants. There's a root.
Cody Buriff
I'm
Beth Bruno
Shed that has the main consonants of Shaddai that is an Egyptian word. And so I read a lot of different things, but when I consider it in context and when I consider again what those civilizations were worshiping, I'm curious, what is that? El Shaddai is the breasted God. And Jacob is saying, you will be blessed by the breasts and the womb. And I just think again, it's this picture of
Cody Buriff
Yeah.
Beth Bruno
a good God is a good parent. And there are aspects of the mother and aspects of the father that you receive in this God, the Hebrew God that we're beginning to understand how he is different than all the other gods and the demands that all the other gods had that this is an early picture of the goodness of a mother like
the goodness of a father like God.
Cody Buriff
That's cool. Wow. Beth, what do you think the invitation would be for men to consider God as mother? Like, how might that be helpful for guys?
Beth Bruno
Mm-hmm. I know Restoration Project talks so much about kind of man becoming a father, dealing with father wounds, as parenting yourself as you parent your son, right? There's so much to that. But you all had mothers. And so many of the wounds are mother wounds. And in addition to or in place of the father wound, there's
I just think there's an inherent longing in all of us to be mothered and to be fathered. We have both of those longings and whatever our relationship, whatever your man's relationship is with his mother, to be able to find that life giving nurture that a womb provides in God, I would imagine would be quite comforting.
and feel quite healing if those places did not exist in the real relationship here on earth in the same way that we talk about that in the father realm. So I again, go back to, just think it's a fuller picture of who God is to us and for us. It's a fuller representation of our humanity and of our long needs and desires as humans. That is not just half.
Cody Buriff
Yeah.
Beth Bruno
of that for us.
Cody Buriff
Totally. Wow. That feels like a big invitation. That feels like, it feels like a tender space for guys to step into. I know for most guys, they have at least considered father wounds. I know they have, you know, I, that was probably back in high school for me when I was reading John Eldridge and stuff, you know, but stepping into the space of even wondering about mother wounds, about, know, what experiencing their mother was like. And then,
And diving into that is new territory for a lot of guys. I know we've often thought through like how our relationship with our dad. In fact, I remember hearing and even probably teaching that like your relationship with your dad impacts how you view and understand God more than any other relationship. And yet like actually maybe a relationship with your mom impacts how you understand and view God or don't understand and view God.
So there's a whole lot there that feels like could be unpacked in a whole lot of ways. Bottom line, that feels like a really personal and space for casting.
Beth Bruno
Yes, I agree. You know, we see that more and more in Restore Counseling. And we're actually launching a group this spring on mother wounds for men. Co-led by a woman and a man, because we believe that that's so inherent in so many stories for men. So I would.
And I'm not the expert to speak on that. I'm that armchair historian, but you're right. I think it's a very tender and personal space, but I just want to say, think it's real and I think it's normal and it is new to consider, but could be really life-giving.
Cody Buriff
Yeah, totally. just, yeah, I wonder how much healing can happen for guys to engage that area of their story, but then also then step into the the nurturing mothering of God in those spaces and experience him in those ways. That just seems game changing.
Beth Bruno
Could be.
Cody Buriff
Yeah. Okay. I want to, I want to switch gears a little bit Beth with you because I know, and this is not unrelated, but I know you've been traveling around the Mediterranean for a long time and, doing some amazing things. And some of that has been exploring some of these themes. mentioned Turkey, you mentioned Egypt. Can you just kind of tell us what are you doing? Like what's going on?
Beth Bruno
Yes. Again, my youngest daughter, Sophie, who is named after the Hagia Sophia Church in Istanbul, ancient Constantinople. She in sixth grade, so this is, you know, 10 years ago, learned about that the Byzantine Empire was telling me all the things that all that I knew from living there. We lived there for 10 years. And then she drops this name.
Empress Theodora, who I'd never heard of. And she actually helped rebuild the current Hagia Sophia church, which is, you know, 1500 years old. And I had been there countless times and had never heard the name Theodora. And so that my inquisitive daughter led us to craft the first pilgrimage for women back in Turkey to my
eye-opening moment was how could I have lived there and walked those streets over and over again and never knew the fingerprints of the woman who had shaped and impacted this place? How many more must there be? so my curiosity led me to create a trip that takes us into backwards in time through Turkey. we start with the Ottoman Empire actually.
and the way that the women of the Ottoman Empire, which was around 1500, 1600s that I focus on, and then go back further into the Byzantine Empire around the 500s. And then we go back to the fifth and fourth century in Cappadocia, where we look at monastic communities and the female church shapers, like the Basil the Great, sister and mother.
And then we go to Ephesus and we're in the first century and we talk about what were Paul's words to Timothy about women really all about. It's kind of a mic drop moment and ⁓ it's been incredible. were in year five now of that. And again, as our cura and my co-leader Tracy, as our curiosity expanded, we realized there's a deeper story still and further back in Egypt. And that has launched us to start.
a trip to Egypt. We'll be going in just at end of February for our first group and we'll be at the Sinai as one of the places we explore. But we're looking at ways that again, a lot of the big questions that I posed today, like what is the human longing that has its outworking in what we see with female pharaohs or goddesses or Miriam?
or Zipporah. So we'll be looking at all of those stories as we make our way around Egypt. So that's what the trips are, the pilgrimages that I lead in that process. So much of the evolving story was my own and intersected. You how is that like me? Also, as I process the years that we lived in Turkey along the way and found healing in that pilgrimage,
path. And so that has become a Lost Women of Turkey on Making Pilgrimage and Finding Itself releases this March. And it's in many ways a love letter to a place that shaped me, wrecked me, formed me. And it's also about the journey I take women on so that if you can't ever come, you can at least intersect their stories in ways that
might encourage you to consider your own.
Cody Buriff
That's cool. Yeah, I'm excited for your book. comes out. What was the date? Did say March 8th? All All right. There you go. Well, by the time this podcast comes out, it is pretty likely that that will have been when you're hearing this, it's available for purchase. Let's put it that way. So go pick up a copy. And can I just ask you this? Like, obviously you're writing about lost women.
Beth Bruno
March 8th, National Women's Day.
Cody Buriff
about your journey and some of those things. why might a man want to read that book?
Beth Bruno
Mm-hmm. It's definitely written for women. So fair warning. Yeah. But for the men who are curious about even mildly what I shared today or curious about maybe stories that they've just always heard taught in one way or assumed meant a certain thing and would like to read something around that in a much more story like
accessible way. So this is not picking up a theological book on Paul's words to Timothy in Ephesians. This is a storytelling version of that, but I will challenge and encourage you to reconsider some of a lot of those New Testament passages. And again, just the fingerprints of women who have shaped our faith, shaped the church councils, shaped
so much of what we take for granted today and women whose names you've never heard of. So if that feels important for you to learn about that, then get through my own personal stories about Turkish baths and things like that and get to that meaty section that might really blow your mind.
Cody Buriff
Cool. Okay, so when are you gonna make the documentary?
Beth Bruno
And I film student graduates maybe.
Cody Buriff
There you go. Ooh, all right. I like that. That would actually be, I just imagine a lot of what you were talking about with some of the travel and everything. like, I feel like I need to watch this on Netflix or something. So I'll just seed that right now. And, you know, in five years when it comes to fruition, I'll take a little credit for it.
Beth Bruno
Inspired by.
Cody Buriff
Just kidding. No, I seriously, what you're doing is fascinating the work you're, you're doing, engaging the space of both women throughout history and, know, just trying to tackle and understand who God is and inviting women and men into that exploration. Super cool. So thank you for that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thanks for.
Beth Bruno
Yeah. It's a joy.
Like an actual job
Cody Buriff
Well, hey, we appreciate you for all the things, Beth. You are a huge blessing to Restoration Project and who we are as well as a whole lot of people around the world. so thank you. Thanks for this conversation. Thank you. All right. Have a good one.
Beth Bruno
Thanks, Cody. Thank you.