I relied on God to heal me in the same way I relied on my mother for incessant care, my sisters because of their overprotective concern, Ursula’s always-available empathy, and Lesley’s gifts. God was mother, and the women of the churches I attended were his divine embodiment. And I felt at peace in most of the churches I attended, when I wasn’t castigated by some preacher rebuking homosexuality, because the church, like the home and women’s bodies, was a site I had been taught to dominate.
