The language we use reflects and in turn shapes the way we construct our experience of the world. (Plaskow acknowledges that)...all of these images of God are humanly crafted metaphors, but our metaphors emerge out of specific cultural and political context. When these contexts change, the old metaphors must change with them.
The first mystery is simply that there is a Mystery. A Mystery that can never be explained or understood. Only encountered from time to time. Nothing is obvious. Everything conceals something else...Spiritual awareness is born of encounters with the Mystery.