Thealogical Lady: A Blog

Easter: Day 42

5/31/2014

Yesterday I began a three-part series of reflections on my Benedictine Canon vows. Today I want to talk about my vow of conversion.

Conversion is often associated with joining a new church (which I have done), but that's not what this vow implies. Conversion (conversatio) has to do with a cultivated attitude of turning: turning the soil of one's heart so it remains fertile, and turning perpetually back toward the sacred other in order to engage in dialogue. Conversion implies on-going resistance to one's own closed, hardened heart. Conversion requires ongoing engagement.

Conversion can be really tough.

Suppose my heart has been hardened by the scars of old wounds. Why would I reopen them by making myself vulnerable to God or my neighbor? Why would I risk an even greater wound?

The Benedictine life demands the risk of possible wounding so that one can love God and one's neighbor with abandon. The Benedictine vow of conversion is a vow to risk the cross in order to invite resurrection.

In what ways will I meet the cross during my novitiate? In what ways will I be raised up?

Easter: Day 41

5/30/2014

I took three vows when I became a Benedictine Canon novice in February: obedience, conversion (conversatio), and stability. I've spent a good deal of time reflecting on each of these recently, and I'd like to spend time with them over the next few days. The strength and power of the vows becomes evident when one considers one's own weaknesses, so I will discuss the vows in light of my own weakness. I want to give consideration to stability today.

Let's suppose that the journey through the novitiate became really difficult and I felt like I wanted to give up.

One of the things that has been true of me in the past is that, confronted with great difficulty, I sink into my shadow's aching, heavy desire to withdraw. I have burned a number of bridges that way, including some that I wished I could restore later and couldn't.

Stability implies that my shadow doesn't get to burn bridges when things become difficult. My vow is to be stable, to stay--to deal with whatever comes my way while maintaining my presence.

When I'm healthy, when my heart's soil is well-tilled, I can do this, often utilizing supports that are already in place. St. Benedict knew that in community oriented away from self-interest and toward God and neighbor, much support would be available to the members of the community. My community is exceptionally supportive, even though it's small and we are not cloistered.

Still, when things are hard and I'm not well, remaining faithful in the exercise of stability means having the humility to acknowledge that I need help even if I'm not sure I'll get what I need, whether from my community or anyone else. It's one thing to pray, "My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth," when one has lots of tangible help around oneself. It's another to pray it when God's help is perceived to be the only available source of help.

At one's darkest moments, the vow of stability implies utter reliance on an uncapturable, untameable God. It's an invitation to fall, trusting that I will be caught, even though I have no safety net of my own devising in place.

By taking the vow of stability, I've promised not to withdraw or give up, period. I've promised to see this journey through, no matter where the path takes me--even if it meanders out of the out of the comforts of community and into places of desolation.

And if my foot slips from its foothold on the wall of a stark, vertical cliff?

Then my vow demands that I must fall back into Spirit's enveloping breath.

Will I shed the burden of fear when I fall? Will I fly on the lightness of hope?

Easter: Ascension Day

5/29/2014

Ascension Icon

On this fortieth day of Easter, Christians celebrate the ascension of Christ. It is a departure. Christ has been hanging around, helping the disciples on their post-crucifixion journey to recognize what this resurrection business means. In the end, though, he ascends so that they might ascend.

Ascension Day is a vulnerable day. It's a lonely day. It's a day when Christ's faithful followers don't know whether they're going to make it without being able to lean on their beloved in the way they always have. What are they going to do now?

Eventually, they'll stand up, with or without wiping away their tears. They'll get back to their holy work. They'll remember--in a most powerful way--Christ in the breaking of bread. And they'll encounter their beloved by slipping into the leadership to which he was, from the beginning, beckoning them.

Easter: Day 39

5/28/2014

I don't normally do evening posts, but I'm not normally blogging on vacation, either. Consider this an extraordinary post, in any sense of "extraordinary" that you wish.

Recently I picked up an old journal of mine--one that I finished just before I met my husband. It's a journal that represents one of the most tumultuous periods of my life.

As I reflect on the contents of that journal and the period it represents, the power of my own words takes my breath away. My life then, which could so easily be hidden or forgotten now, is recorded by my own hand. Because I took time to speak the words of my heart in those many pages, my experience from that time is memorialized forever.

I remember a homily that a Benedictine priest gave once that began, "Words, words, words!"

"I'm so sick of words!" Eliza Doolittle declared.

Occasionally I wonder if others tire of my words, but tiring though they may be, I write them. And I write them. And I write more of them. Because in my words dwell the power of the Spirit. I am Spirit's instrument when I do this very thing, tap-tap-tapping at my computer or huddling over a journal with one of my precious pens.

When I am alone, when I am fearful, when I am angry, when I am frustrated, or when I am elated, when I am ecstatic, when I am grateful, when I am joyful: I write. Writing is the meeting place between my voice and God's, and if I were ever asked to stop--well, I wouldn't stop, regardless of the cost. I cannot be other than the person I am called by God to be. And I am called to be a writer, among many other things.

As I discern the fullness of my vocation, especially with regard to the possibility of becoming a Benedictine Episcopal priest, I reflect on my writing vocation. How was it planted? How was it nurtured? What was it like when I turned from it? When did I figure out that writing was not just a thing I sometimes did, but rather an identity-creating activity without which I cannot be wholly myself?

Easter: Day 37

5/26/2014

Yesterday I shared my life's spiritual journey with five people who had come together to help me hear what Spirit is saying through me. In my total vulnerability to this group and to God, I could feel the charge of Spirit's power working through me. (I'm not sure I can tell you what Spirit was doing, but clearly she was up to something.)

As I discern my call from God, I am doing the hardest work of my life: letting go of my will in order to make room for God's. I know what I've heard so far, but it's not just what I hear that matters. I know what stirs my heart, but perhaps there is something I've yet to uncover that stirs much more deeply within me.

What will I hear in the presence of my sacred companions as we journey together?

Easter: Day 35

5/24/2014

Tonight I will ritualize the death of a friend of mine from highschool.

Ritualizing is proactive creating/shaping of and engaging in ritual. "Following the rubrics" isn't necessary--rubrics are a by-product, not a prerequisite, of ritualizing.

I invite you to consider the events or memories in your life that could benefit from the act of ritualizing them. What in your life needs healing? What needs reconciling? What needs forgiving? What needs to be laid to rest?

Easter: Day 34

5/23/2014

It feels like a blur.

Didn't my family just arrive in the desert yesterday?

Didn't we just experience the St. Brigid Thursday night community for the first time?

Didn't each of my tiny daughters receive their first communion a moment ago from the hands of those gathered in Heidi Chapel?

St. Brigid, the small gathering of young adults and families from ASU Episcopal Campus Ministry and St. Augustine's Church, passed away last night. We built an altar of stones as a sacred tribute, and my not-quite-one-year-old splashed the bowl of water that bore the stones with which we built it.

I have watched my daughters engage the sacramental life in this community. My baby, who was barely four months old when we first visited, took her first steps in front of the St. Brigid community last night, blazing a sacred trail around the room and climbing into the lap of our priest during the eucharistic prayer as unabashed concelebrant. Both of my daughters have inspired the breaking open of the word. Both of my daughters have broken the bread. Both of my daughters have shared gestures, looks, and wise words to give a roomful of adults pause. Both of my daughters have done what the older children did before them.

Her precise words escape me, but my toddler said last night, during the breaking of bread, "Ooh, bread! It's so good!" And later, as she ate, she said, "Oh, my God!" And I said, "Oh, your God."

I don't know what their liturgical formation will look like anymore beyond Sunday Mass, but I know that my daughters have walked and danced with the wild Spirit over these last eight months, and they have been met with wings of welcome and delight. Their lives will never be the same.

And neither will mine.

But the past isn't the end of the story--it marks the beginning of a new story. What will come next? How will I, their mother and on-hand liturgist, continue what the Spirit has inspired?

Where does the story turn next?

Easter: Day 33

5/22/2014

After a difficult day, all I want to do is collapse.

It's been a difficult month, and collapsing hasn't been an option--not with my well-being at stake. The only thing that could get me out of my month-long difficult was standing up to face God.

So I faced God yesterday. I shed the last of my inhibitions and yelled at her. I demanded that she listen and respond.

And she did.

I realized two things last night: 1) my relationship with God is vivacious, and 2) my heart is made of stronger stuff than I've imagined (which is what she was waiting for me to see, of course).

What wondrous love is this, that I would dare to trust her enough to get raging mad at her when she wasn't holding up her end of our relationship. What wondrous love is this, that she would wait in my shadow, enduring my rage, till I could see the light in me that she's seen all along.

Easter: Day 32

5/21/2014

There are rare days in my life when the only faithfulness I can muster is a willingness to face God squarely and show her how angry I am at her.

And when I do this, running deep beneath my anger is the confidence that God pays attention.

If one can't get mad at God, what sort of relationship does one have with God anyway?

Easter: Day 31

5/20/2014

I began reading Sr. Joan Chittister's Following the Path yesterday, and in it I found a helpful distinction between pursuing delight and pursuing happiness. Sr. Joan says we need both if we are to remain faithful to the path we are called to, but they each have to be held in balance with one another.

To pursue delight is to do something that breaks the routine of one's day and offers a sweet burst of enjoyment. One's delight is something other than what one does all the day long. If one did this delightful thing all the day long, it would quickly become mundane, boring, and unfulfilling.

To pursue happiness, on the other hand, is to embrace that which has been calling out to us since we were children. It's to dig deep into ourselves, to notice what draws us like a magnet, and to allow ourselves to be drawn into that whole-heartedly. Whatever that is may be hard or even seem impossible, but after we set aside what everyone--self included--thinks we ought (or ought not) to do, it's that thing that our heart most deeply and completely yearns for.

As I prepare to share my spiritual autobiography with my discernment committee for the priesthood, I find myself nodding at what Sr. Joan writes. My heart has been drawing me toward priesthood my whole life, even though my faith tradition always told me that priesthood for women was out of the question. It's now, in a tradition that can whole-heartedly embrace my call, that I can whole-heartedly embrace my call. And you know that feeling you get when a great mystery is suddenly revealed? The goosebumps? The thrill of wonder and recognition? That's how recognizing and naming my call to priesthood manifests.

What more will I discover about my call as I continue to attend to the yearnings of my heart?

Easter: Day 30

5/19/2014

Photo by Monty Carson

I didn't expect to have this conversation with my toddler daughter this morning:

Toddler: "Mommy, what's wrong?"

Me: "Remember when Else and Anna's mommy and daddy died on the boat and Else and Anna were sad? My friend died. Mommy's sad."

This was after I found out while perusing Facebook that a highschool friend died unexpectedly last night. She was married and a mom of two young boys.

I am crushed, even though I haven't seen her face-to-face in years. I am devastated, and she's not even my family. My heart aches for her husband and sons. And that's all I can say that makes any bit of sense. I see Easter all around, but Good Friday has returned with a mighty, forceful blow, knocking the wind out of me and all the people I know who knew her.

I invite you to join me in remembering Stephanie and her family in your prayers.

Meanwhile, I'll sing something we sang together in our highschool Women's Chorus:

The Lord bless you and keep you
The Lord make his face to shine upon you
and give you peace
and be gracious to you
The Lord be gracious unto you
Amen

Easter: Day 29

5/18/2014

The Casa Chapel (from thecasa.org)

Yesterday I led the music at a retreat for a local chapter of the World Community of Christian Meditation, an organization whose seeds were planted by two English Benedictines, John Main and Laurence Freeman. The retreat was held at the Franciscan Renewal Center, also known as The Casa. The local chapter leader, Dr. Joanne Rapp, hoped I would bring the meditative character of singing (in this case, Taizé chant) into the community's already established practice of meditative silence.

I taught the group several Taizé chants, and then we moved into a chapel for meditative prayer that began with a chant, continued with twenty minutes of silence, and ended with another chant and the Lord's Prayer. As I sat in the stillness of those central twenty minutes, the words of the Angelus resounded in me.

I think a retreat based on the Angelus may be afoot. And I think retreat leadership may be a far more important gift I bear than I've previously imagined. It's extraordinary what one can learn about oneself simply by saying, "Yes."

What more will I learn about myself as I continue to live into the call I hear?

Easter: Day 25

5/14/2014

We're halfway to Pentecost, the feast of God's Spirit. In the West the color of the Spirit is red, just as the color of Jesus as Lord is red. In the East, however, the color of the Spirit is green, marking the Spirit's greening, creative, birthing work.

As I struggle through the labor of giving birth to the vocation that's been gestating in me all my life, I am in need of a skillful, experienced midwife. I find myself wondering if I'm fit for the mothering I'm preparing to engage in. Will I have the energy to do it? How will I maintain balance so I don't fall apart? Is this sort of mothering my true call? What if that which I birth is nothing like what I expected?

I have a whole team of midwives to help me through this process, but their skill and encouragement doesn't make my birthing easier. It hurts. It's one of the most difficult things I've ever done. And there is the horrifying-because-it-seems-so-selfish possibility that I will disappointed with what emerges from me. I am conscious of wanting things to go a certain way, and aware that they may not, and aware that that's out of my hands. The Spirit has something in store for me beyond my imagining, and my job is to let my expectations roll off me so I can focus on laboring it into the world.

The above image is from Matthew Fox's Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen. It's called "Sin - Drying Up."

Easter: Day 24

5/13/2014

I drafted my spiritual autobiography yesterday as part of my process of discernment for the priesthood. At my vicar's recommendation, I limited it to three pages (albeit with some margin modification).

When I present my spiritual autobiography to my discernment committee, what will they hear? Will they hear what I've been hearing? Will they hear something more? Will I be surprised? Will I be disappointed?

I am curious about the eventual outcome of my discernment process, and I am reminded of the need to remain detached from it. How God speaks to those around me about me is really none of my business. My business is to listen, however difficult it may be. My business is to allow for the possibility that my voice may be speaking words other than God's. My business is to let go of my desires and expectations and wait for the Spirit's planting in my heart to be revealed.

Easter: Day 22

5/11/2014

Six years ago today I graduated from St. John's University with an M.A. in liturgy/scripture. It was Pentecost and Mother's Day.

Today, the fourth Sunday of Easter, is Mother's Day, and it's also the World Day of Vocations, at least for Roman Catholics.

Yesterday I read a book on shared discernment (required reading by my diocese) called Listening Hearts: Discerning Call in Community by Suzanne Farnham. It included a prayer from Thomas Merton (from Thoughts of Solitude) at the end--a prayer that I had hanging from my graduate school dorm door at St. John's:

God, we have no idea where we are going. We do not see the road ahead of us. We cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do we really know ourselves, and the fact that we think we are following your will does not mean that we are actually doing so. But we believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And we hope we have that desire in all that we are doing. We hope that we will never do anything apart from that desire. And we know that if we do this you will lead us by the right road, though we may know nothing about it. Therefore, we will trust you always though we may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. We will not fear, for you are ever with us, and you will never leave us to face our perils alone.

To what am I being called? How can I place myself in a posture of listening?

Easter: Day 21

5/10/2014

Br. Philip-Martín's solemn profession

What's in a name?

Since the last solemn profession held in my Benedictine Canon community, my Benedictine brothers have started to embrace their religious names more fully. In my community, each brother has taken a religious name at his solemn profession, becoming Brother First name-Religious name (so Br. Philip, at his profession in March, became Br. Philip-Martín).

I've given a good deal of thought to the religious name I would take at my solemn profession. I've given less thought, at least until now, to my given first name. I go by a shortened version of my middle name--I have since college. My first name connoted too many aspects of my childhood self that I no longer embraced, so I dropped it, and only a few people call me by it anymore.

I wonder now if continuing to eschew my first name is a sign of my rejection of part of myself. Am I at a point where I can embrace who I was as a child--meek, silent, shy, gullible, frail? Why would I ever embrace those things as a feminist seeking a position of leadership?

I doubt I'll ever return to my first name, especially if I make my solemn profession (because three names is a little much, no?), but I cannot so easily ignore the person I was for nearly two decades.

What do I need to reclaim about my childhood self? What do I fear?

Easter: Day 20

5/9/2014

The psalms appointed for morning prayer in The Book of Common Prayer today included Psalm 44, and I couldn't help but think of the girls kidnapped in Nigeria with these words on their lips:

We have heard with our ears, O God,
   our ancestors have told us,
what deeds you performed in their days,
   in the days of old:
you with your own hand drove out the nations,
   but them you planted;
you afflicted the peoples,
   but them you set free;
for not by their own sword did they win the land,
   nor did their own arm give them victory;
but your right hand, and your arm,
   and the light of your countenance,
   for you delighted in them.

You are my King and my God;
   you command victories for Jacob.
Through you we push down our foes;
   through your name we tread down our assailants.
For not in my bow do I trust,
   nor can my sword save me.
But you have saved us from our foes,
   and have put to confusion those who hate us.
In God we have boasted continually,
   and we will give thanks to your name for ever.

Yet you have rejected us and abased us,
   and have not gone out with our armies.
You made us turn back from the foe,
   and our enemies have taken spoil for themselves.
You have made us like sheep for slaughter,
   and have scattered us among the nations.
You have sold your people for a trifle,
   demanding no high price for them.

You have made us the taunt of our neighbors,
   the derision and scorn of those around us.
You have made us a byword among the nations,
   a laughing-stock among the peoples.
All day long my disgrace is before me,
   and shame has covered my face
at the words of the taunters and revilers,
   at the sight of the enemy and the avenger.

All this has come upon us,
   yet we have not forgotten you,
   or been false to your covenant.
Our heart has not turned back,
   nor have our steps departed from your way,
yet you have broken us in the haunt of jackals,
   and covered us with deep darkness.

If we had forgotten the name of our God,
   or spread out our hands to a strange god,
would not God discover this?
   For he knows the secrets of the heart.
Because of you we are being killed all day long,
   and accounted as sheep for the slaughter.

And as the final words of this psalm come around, I can't help but think that the hands and feet and deeds they seek from God are the ones given by God to me--and you.

Rouse yourself! Why do you sleep, O Lord?
   Awake, do not cast us off for ever!
Why do you hide your face?
   Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?
For we sink down to the dust;
   our bodies cling to the ground.
Rise up, come to our help.
   Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love.

How will I use my God-given hands and feet--how will I use my freedom to act--for the liberation of those who are, at this very moment, horrifically oppressed?

Here's a statement about the Nigerian girls from Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori given on behalf of the Episcopal Church, and here's a link to the call for submissions for the anthology that will be published in honor of the girls (whose proceeds will go to notforsalecampaign.org)

Easter: Day 19

5/8/2014

My spiritual director recently invited me to make a graph of the losses I've experienced throughout my life. She invited me to mark losses as being either negative or positive (by drawing marking them below or above the timeline, respectively), and to indicate how great each loss was at the time by the length of the mark. The result of this graph is the ability to see the frequency, kinds, and impacts of my losses all at once, as well as my coping mechanisms (or lack thereof) for those losses.

I drafted my grief graph last night. I already knew intuitively that my life had been marked by loss, but it startled me to see just how much there was. Death has been my life's companion. Major changes have been my life's normal rhythm. And deep happiness took quite a while to come along, but has been growing exponentially since it arrived. I still have a difficult time trusting deep happiness when it emerges in a new form, and given this picture of my past, it's no wonder.

What can my past losses tell me about my future? What patterns are discernible in them, and what in those patterns needs gentle, healing illumination?

Easter: Day 18

5/7/2014

If I may, I'd like to share the fruits of my labors--I'm quite pleased with them.

If you've been reading along, you know that I'm a novice in the Community of St. Mary of the Annunciation, a group of Benedictine Canons in Tempe, Arizona. You may also know that I'm pretty tech-savvy. I build websites. I hang out on various online social networks. So I made a suggestion to my Prior, and he told me to go for it, and this is what happened:

stmarycanons.org

facebook.com/stmarycanons

twitter.com/stmarycanons

I invite you to click each link and discover a little something new about the community that gives me life. (And if you feel especially generous, feel free to share those links with people you like, so they can learn about and associate with this community, too.)

I wonder what will come of my community's presence in the online world. Who will encounter the Benedictine Canons as a direct result of that presence? Whose life will change as a result of our willingness to reach out and share a bit of ourselves in a way that St. Benedict could never have imagined?

Easter: Day 17

5/6/2014

As I began morning prayer today, I chanted Psalm 67. And as I chanted

May God be merciful to us and bless us
show us the light of her countenance and come to us

my daughter, Anastasia, joined in. She's heard me chant this psalm for months as part of my participation in the life of the Community of St. Mary of the Annunciation, and now the words that have been on my lips are on hers.

She interrupted me as I continued.

"Should we pray for...?"

At midday prayer, especially when we're praying in my community's oratory (St. James Chapel of St. Augustine's Episcopal Church), we lift up our prayers for others. Anastasia names all of her favorite people, including characters from stories she likes.

After this morning's litany of names, she declared, "And that's it."

But that's not it. Just after prayer, I encountered a new litany of names--the names of the girls in Nigeria who were kidnapped last month by the religious terrorist group, Boko Haram:

Today, during noon-day prayer, I will name aloud each girl who is listed here. These daughters of devastated parents are also my sisters in creation, and I owe them my attention.

I am struck by my feeling of powerlessness in this horrific situation, but I recognize that I can use the power of my voice. I can pray. I can blog. I can keep bringing it up on Facebook and Twitter and every other place where my voice has daily and extensive reach.

Two dear friends of mine--both of them publishers--are helping me empower the creative voices of others, as well. When light is shone in the dark, darkness is made bright. Every voice is a candle whose light, when shared, brightens. I invite you to lift up your voice, your light, with mine. When the voices of the whole world rise up in a chorus, maybe we'll be able to #bringbackourgirls.