The God Who Hovers

Meeting the feminine & maternal heart of God at the beginning of all things

You, darkness, of whom I am born –

I love you more than the flame
that limits the world
to the circle it illumines
and excludes all the rest.

But the dark embraces everything:
shapes and shadows, creatures and me,
people, nations–just as they are.

It lets me imagine
a great presence stirring beside me.

I believe in the night.

-Rilke¹

Icon of Mary and Elizabeth by Laurie Gudim via Art and Theology

The Bible opens with an epic Hebrew poem about creation.

Two characters appear in the opening lines: God – Elohim – and the Spirit of God – rûaḥ.

Elohim is the one who creates.

“In the beginning Elohim created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:2)

And rûaḥ is the one present amidst the creating.

“Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness covered the surface of the watery depths, and rûaḥ was hovering over the surface of the waters.” (Genesis 2:2)

In Hebrew, Elohim is a masculine noun and rûaḥ is a feminine noun. In the opening lines of Genesis, rûaḥ is translated as Spirit, but it’s translated elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible as wind or breath.

We believe these characters to be of each other and one with each other, distinct but united. In the same way my breath is a distinct feature and function of my body, it is also the animating force of my body. One does not exist without the other; the same is true of Elohim and rûaḥ.

Masculine and feminine, both present in creation, then and now. Neither are above the other in importance or authority, rather, the Bible depicts Almighty God and hovering Spirit as co-creating.

And where is this Spirit at the beginning of creation?

The second verse of Genesis tells us the earth was formless, empty, dark, watery, and deep. In Hebrew these words paint a picture of “a land that ‘awaits’ to be developed.”² The setting is anticipatory, mysterious, ripe with potential but without order.

This is where we find rûaḥ, the Spirit of God – in a dark, formless space.

This liminal space is the kind I try to escape as quickly as possible. I want to be where the light is! Give me order! Give me boundaries! Let me connect the dots so it’s clear to me and everyone else what form I and this season are meant to take!

I have heaped on suffering time and again by demanding the amorphous season I find myself in be more defined.

And yet, here is where the Spirit of God abides. She does not make her appearance after the boundary lines have been drawn and names have been given. She is here, when everything is empty and undeveloped.

What do we miss when we bypass these primordial seasons? When we’re too eager to gain clarity rather than communion? When we’d rather flee from the dark abyss rather than abide with the Spirit of God in the midst of it?

I think about my children and their own ever-evolving stages of development. From their first moment of being, I was with them. My son, now 18-months, still refers to himself as Mama. To him, we remain one and the same. But even as those boundary lines of identity become less porous, I remain with him.

Perhaps most surprising is what the Spirit of God is doing in this dark and formless space:

“…rûaḥ was hovering over the surface of the waters.”

The Hebrew word translated as “hover” is the verb rāḥap̄. Strong’s Concordance defines it as “to brood; by implication, to be relaxed:—flutter, move, shake,” while Gesenius' Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon describes it as the experiencing of being “moved, affected, specially with the feeling of tender love, hence to cherish.”³

This same verb is used again in Deuteronomy to describe a mother eagle hovering over her nest and spreading her wings to catch her babies as they learn to fly.

The opening scene of the Bible depicts a feminine and maternal Spirit of God brooding over her fledgling young. She is neither anxious nor harried; she is not alarmed by the formless void below her. Her affection for her offspring keeps her alert but relaxed. Though seemingly empty, rûaḥ has her eyes fixed on this abyss that’s ripe with potential.

I don’t have to sleep with one eye open, prepared for whatever monster may arise from the deep dark abyss. There is One who already and always is sweeping the horizon on my behalf. This Spirit sees potential when all I see is emptiness. She is relaxed and unrushed in the waiting.

What a relief to be cherished by a non-anxious Spirit, a Spirit who is moved by tender love and not rigid demands.

What a relief it is to be held by God in this way.

Oh, what a relief.

---

I find so much comfort knowing this is who God is too. Motherhood so often feels amorphous, gooey, and unfamiliar. What is being formed within me and my children is mysterious and largely out of my control. What I want to do is create, exert control, find the boundary lines of definition.

But really, what I am invited to do again and again is surrender.

Rest.

Trust.

Let go.

Believe that even if I can’t see or comprehend, God is hovering here with me.

Order will come. Meanwhile, rûaḥ remains.

1. Rilke, Rainer Maria. The Book of Hours (translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy), Riverhead Books, 1996.

2. https://www.hebrewversity.com/chaos-order-hebrew-meaning-tohu-va-vohu/

3. Blue Letter Bible - my go-to resource for word studies.