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Liturgical Renewal

7/9/2017

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It's been 2.5 years since I gave birth to my Thean ministry, and in that time I've been imagining into life a liturgy that is uniquely Thean but which also honors the many religious traditions in which I have learned and grown. Today, the shape of this liturgy reached maturity.

One of my difficulties with the liturgical format I grew up with is that it constricted the agency of the majority of the participants. When during college I came across liturgy that honored the agency of all gathered while maintaining a coherent, holistic narrative ritual, my vision of what religion could be and the shape of my own faith changed. I went on to study liturgy for that reason, at both the Master's and Ph.D. levels. After moving from Cleveland, however, liturgical and religious agency was hard to come by in the same way. I recognized along the way that I was called to priesthood (which ultimately required me to turn from my religious upbringing, a tradition that claimed women could not legitimately be priests/ministers), but even after that departure (or perhaps because of it), my vision of priesthood wasn't the sort that would authorize me to make or enforce decisions on behalf of a community or to otherwise wrangle agency from others. Theanism, which was in its birthing my own act of radical religious agency, allowed for authority created to dwell not at the top of a hierarchy, but at the depths of diverse community.

In its new maturity, Thean liturgy creates intentional space for the creative agency of each one who takes part. It is not merely the fruit of my imagining as a Thean priestess. When it comes time for what would normally be the sermon/homily/drash, each participant is given sacred time and space to pursue the creative work of her deepest yearning. In her creative agency enacted, she becomes the great revelation of Thea. 

There is time in this liturgy for what marks, to me, what is both familiar and holy--the lighting of candles, the breaking of bread, the sharing of the cup, the sounding of bells, the anointing with oil--but now the climax of Thean liturgy is the creative act that finds its origins in the deepest desires of each person. It is during this time that Thea feels most alive, in us, in myself, in one another. It is sacred communion, the night of bliss, the rosy-fingered dawn of awakening. 

And as I watch my daughters continue their creative work, now hours after our new liturgy has concluded, I perceive the nod within myself that this liturgy is the holy, whole-making ritualizing I've been chasing since I left my liturgical home in Cleveland. This is the liturgy that reflects the religious agency I learned long ago from a community that lived that agency, and which was eventually excommunicated by the local hierarch for exercising that agency.

May my daughters and I ever practice and hold space for that agency in one another, and in practicing this learn to hold space for that agency in others.
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How does it feel?

6/10/2017

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I shared the ordo of my Strawberry Moon Thean Eucharist at a friend's request, and he asked me afterward how it felt during and after that liturgy.

For a bit of background, allow me to say that my Thean Eucharist has evolved a great deal over the last two and a half years, so much so that we stopped doing Eucharist for a while because my thealogy had changed so much from its Christian roots.

But this was the response I offered my friend, and I believe it sums up what I value most about Theanism:
Our only light was what remained outside (which wasn't much) and the lone candle that we lit. The lighting of the candle hushed them. Nearly everything I did from that point forward brought forth a torrent of questions, mostly from A. M couldn't participate as well as A could with the parts involving reading. Both of those things left me with a little frustration. That being said, I felt this extraordinary calm and joy as we moved through the liturgy. It was so familiar and yet so fresh. It felt a bit like being at a wedding, or a funeral, or a baptism--it was rich with meaning and charged with the shaping of identity. It felt important and weighty, and I felt alive and at home right where I was, doing what I was doing, sharing and helping shape the story of me and my girls with them. It was as poignant as any liturgy at my old parish back home, and even more poignant than Thean Evening Prayer has been. Perhaps that was the case because my daughters were at the center of it and I could see them, or at least A, making connections and sorting out what it means to be of Thea and to regard all the rest of the world, including those we find difficult to love, as part of Thea. 

Making connections between the narrative one hears and one's role in it, and to tell a narrative that empowers a person to shine in ways she never realized she could, is what it's all about for me. To be able to do this with others--particularly my own daughters--to observe them making those connections, and to watch them practice their unique power by being agents in the liturgy we share, is about as near to ecstasy as I've come.

The practice of engaging in liturgy with my girls feels like one of the most important tasks I could ever undertake, because this liturgy as I've shaped it encompasses what I value (and want to pass on to them) most. I want them to break bread with others. I want them to pray, whether that prayer centers them or gives them something to argue with, or both. I want them to be confident storytellers, and I want them to know they have the right to shape the stories they tell. I want them to know the extraordinary relationship between light and shadow without glorifying one over the other. I want them to know that they are, as much as any other part or person of the world, of Thea, of the stars, of the glory of this beautiful universe.

I loved it. ♥
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Mystagogy - Thean Evening Prayer

9/4/2016

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Last night was a turning point for me: for the first time, I brought my ministry as a Thean priestess out of the privacy of my family's house church and into the public realm, leading Thean Evening Prayer at Pathways of Grace in Phoenix.

My vision for Thean Evening Prayer was simple: it would be an intimate gathering for those who identify as women to pray together to God in their own (female) voices using feminine images for God and imagining God in relationship to Creation through a feminine, feminist lens.

When I arrived, my dear husband helped me arrange the space the way I wanted it, and then he departed so I could pray before others arrived. At 5:00, the time when prayer was set to begin, I was the only person in the room. I continued to pray, and as I prayed, I was surprised by the awareness that I actually wasn't alone--I was in the company of thousands of generations of women, women who had come before me, who had refused to be silenced or disempowered by oppressors, women who had imagined themselves and their God the way they chose, women who had loved, created, mentored and empowered girls and women within their influence. All their efforts, all their willingness to stand up for themselves, all their willingness to make a difference when they were told to shrink and be quiet--all of that energy had culminated in this moment, this hour, in which I was able to embrace my public ministry as a spiritual leader, a Thean priestess, a woman who wouldn't settle for the oppression that would seek to rein me in.

I knew going into the night that several women who wanted to pray with me were out of town. I knew also that several women who had wanted to pray with me had something come up at the last minute. I prepared to pray with my cloud of witnesses. I waited. Then a familiar face arrived, a woman who had prayed with me at our former Episcopal parish in Tempe, a woman who was preparing to lead her own spiritual circle for women. We hugged, we talked for a few minutes, I showed her around the rooms of Pathways of Grace, and eventually we settled into our seats to pray. I sounded the singing bowl four times. We stood, and I intoned a invitatory that I had learned years ago at my Roman Catholic parish in Cleveland, the same parish that ignited my love for liturgy: Let my prayer arise like incense in your sight, the lifting of my hands a sign of trust in you, O God. She joined with me in singing, and we sang it several times, letting the words soak into the space and ourselves.

We prayed the psalms next--Psalm 141, from which the invitatory came, and then a series of other psalms. Between each psalm there was a pregnant, full silence. At one point, I held my breath in between verses to keep my voice from breaking and tears from falling. Next time--next time I will let them break and fall.

At the conclusion of the psalms, we moved to the homily. I explained that in the Christian (and particularly Benedictine) tradition, Saturday night evening prayer was a big event, because it was the vigil for Sunday, the most important day of the Christian week. Saturday evening prayer was therefore when a homily was given, at least in communities that prayed together the liturgy of the hours every day. I noted that the homily would traditionally be given by the presider in top-down fashion, the presider imparting (his) reflections as seeds to be planted in the hearts of those around (him). Then I explained that in the case of Thean Evening Prayer, the homily was open to every person present, because a key Thean belief is that every (woman) has deep wisdom to share. So we shared the homily based on phrases from the psalms that had particularly resonated with us. Our homily was a mutual conversation in which we listened to one another and sounded/heard our own voices, recognizing that Thea's voice resounded through each of us.

I don't know how much time passed--time felt as though it was suspended, but I know from the content of the conversation that it must have taken a while. When the homily had reached an end, I turned to the next portion of evening prayer: the anointing. A bottle of oil stood on the little altar before us. I removed the glass stopper and poured a small portion of it into a glass bowl, inviting my praying partner to partake of it. I spoke of olive oil as an ancient healing balm, but I also spoke of it as the stuff with which royalty, priests, and prophets were anointed. To partake of scented oil is a sign not only of healing, but of empowerment and authority, specifically the power and authority to speak and act as one deems fit and wise. I said that it was particularly poignant to anoint the parts of ourselves for which we seek wise power and authority: the eyes, the ears, the mouth, the nose, the hands, the heart. My prayer partner and I dipped our fingers in the oil and rubbed the rose and clove scents into our skin, and then prayed Psalm 45 from the Thean Psalter, which included verses like, "You, a woman, are among the wise ones; grace flows from your lips," "Your leadership shall endure, for you love goodness and reject unkindness," and "Thea anoints you with the oil of gladness."

Thus empowered, we prayed together for those all around us, and lifted up personal prayers of our own. Then we stood and prayed a modified version of the Lord's Prayer called "Our Mother," written by Miriam Therese Winter of herchurch in San Francisco. We concluded with a collect prayer and this blessing:

May Thea bless us with courage,
guide us with her unrelenting love,
and empower us to answer her sacred call. Amen.


Our time together was not over--we stood, moved to the other side of the room, and talked over a small spread of food and bubbly water I had brought to share. We talked about our experiences, our faith, our friends, our leadership, our children, and our lives. We talked and talked until suddenly it was nearly 7:00--between the two of us and the cloud of witnesses that surrounded us, we had spent the two hours for which I had reserved the space.

I feel full: full of gratitude, full of joy, full of wisdom, full of holy power. This gathering was and wasn't about me. It was about me as a woman who has been on a journey all her life to arrive at the moment of taking up her life's vocation. It was about every woman who has ever done the same or sought to do the same. It was about every young girl who is figuring out who she wants to be, and it is about countless generations of women still to come who will change and lead this world for the better, overcoming oppressions and embracing who they see in the mirror as living icons of the Holy One.

For a free e-copy of the Thean Psalter, send me a note with your e-mail address. If you'd like a print copy, you can send $10 and your name and address via PayPal to me at lifeloveliturgy at gmail dot com. If you self-identify as a woman and would like to take part in future gatherings of Thean Evening Prayer at Pathways of Grace, we meet every first Saturday of the month at 5:00, and you can RSVP on the Pathways of Grace meetup.com page.
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The Cost of Community

1/26/2016

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A little over a year ago I left my parish and religious community. Part of me was burned out from the hundreds and hundreds of hours I had given over to these communities over the course of a year. But there was more to it. I had the sudden realization that being part of a community meant compromising my truth, and I couldn't do it anymore. My heart wouldn't let me.

I spent almost three decades in a church that taught that women couldn't be ordained ministers. Staying in that church compromised my truth--the truth that women could rightly be ordained. So I switched churches. But even in my new church, I faced compromise on other issues.

These days, I miss community. I yearn for it so much that I ache. But the pursuit of my own truth is now so fiercely and deeply rooted in me that I could never give it up to return to community. Returning to community would mean compromise, would mean putting up with half-truths and politics, and I'm no longer willing to put up with that. The desire to discover God in relationship to her sacred creation is too important a task to me to diminish it with politics. I never expected it, but my life's task has become a rather solitary one--one that thankfully involves loyal and loving companions, but one that can ultimately only be completed by me.

In theology school there was warning after warning about pursuing the truth on one's own, outside the context of community. Augustine of Hippo, a fourth century African bishop, said the truth belongs to everyone. I think I side with Augustine in this case. Suppose, instead of giving into the demands of community politics, each individual contemplated her own truth? I don't mean contemplating one's own success--I mean contemplating one's relationship with all of creation, free from the influences of those in power.

What if each person jumped off the bandwagon and decided to draw her own conclusions about the universe and her role in it? How would creation as a whole benefit from this freedom of thought?
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Home

7/8/2015

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Tonight I read the blog of a wise, gentle man whom I am privileged to know. He wrote about transitions and pilgrimage. "Daily transition is the substance of a pilgrimage," he wrote.

That got me thinking about the last seven, eight, nine, ten months of my life. Every day has been a day in transition--transition to new hope, new ideas, new community, new self-reliance. Every day has been a transition from old doubts, old fears, old community, old codependency.

Tonight I look back on these last many months and I realize I've been on pilgrimage this whole time, moving away from the place I started and into a new place. The land I've discovered has a new, calmer joy in it. I've found quiet, abiding trust there. I've found my mirror image in a deep lake, and there's a smile playing on my lips.

I've come a long, long way, and it's hurt. It's hurt so much I couldn't breathe. It's hurt so much I thought I couldn't continue. But in these many months, I've crept forward, one step at a time, powered by strength I didn't know I had. And I've found myself looking over an unfamiliar landscape--one in which I'm a newcomer, but one in which I'm also welcome. It's a strange, novel land in which I'm free to be who I am without apologizing for it. I don't have to hide. I don't have to prove myself in a thousand ways. I can come as I am, simply as I am, and be wrapped in welcome. Because it's my own hospitality I'm receiving--my own open arms.

I think this is what it means to be a pilgrim: to discover yourself at home through the course of a journey, even if the journey takes you miles away from where you started.

I am home.
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Spirit Whispers: When It Comes to Healing (Guest Post)

8/7/2014

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Elizabeth A. Hawksworth is a published poet and historical fiction writer as well as a prominent blogger on topics of feminism, body positivity, fatphobia, writing, nannying, social justice, and spirituality. She is bold in writing about issues of ultimate concern when remaining silent and unnoticed would be, in the moment, easier. Here is part of her story.
A few hours north of Sarnia, Ontario, there is a quiet place nestled in a forest. Built with rustic logs, smelling like pine pitch, and surrounded by acres of misty trees, this small building stands, institutional and peaceful; utilitarian and somehow unique. In its natural surroundings, staring at a painting of the Baby Jesus, I found God.

Prayer, for me, has been a way to get through everyday life. I pray for health. I pray to be a better person. I pray for my family, my friends. I pray for things I want, things I don’t deserve, things I’m desperate about, things I can’t deal with. It’s not a fancy prayer. It’s often a mantra, repeated over and over, sometimes under my breath, sometimes out loud, sometimes mouthed in public places, and sometimes earnestly in the dark. And I pray every night, without fail, before I can close my eyes and sleep. I have to touch base. I have to let Him know. I need You. Please help me.

In that church retreat, hidden in the woods, I learned how to pray for more than just myself. I unlocked the talent I had all along – the talent of being able to use my words to change the world for the better. And I never felt closer to God, or more powerful with Him through me than I did then – creating creeds, weaving poetry, sharing with everyone my own personal faith, placing my feet on the path to social justice. If you had asked me then, I would have told you that I didn’t think I would ever be able to part from my relationship with God.

How things change.

I was badly wounded by the Church when I was a teenager. Shy, uncertain, and angry, I was struggling with my own sexuality and my sense of being. Holding hands with God, or so I thought, I faced the people who, also holding hands with God, told me that I didn’t belong. That I would burn in hell. That I was a sinner, a deliberate sinner, one who was so full of pride and bravado and hubris and lies, that I would never be welcome unless I changed who I was at the core. I had grown up solid in my belief that God makes us in His perfect image, and never makes mistakes. Now, I wasn’t sure if I was wrong, or if they were, but my hurt overwhelmed my faith.

I went back at 18, denying who I was. I joined a church of beauty and majesty, of tradition as old as time, and restrictions worse than any other church I’d ever been to. Was it punishment for the supposed sin of who I thought I was? To this day, I can’t answer that. All I know is that everywhere I turned, I found leaders, church members, even the Bible itself, it seemed, telling me that the person I am would never be good enough for God.

So I left. And I tried to forget.

I’m a rational person, most of the time. I also hold grudges, long after I should. And the hurt faded into twinges and then roared back to life in explosive, fiery anger. I wanted to hurt the Church the way it had hurt me. I wanted to hurt God. I wanted to burn in hell the way they said, just so that I could be myself without pretense, so I could live in sin without consequence and guilt.

And inside, I cried out for the God I knew in that quiet forest retreat. I begged Him to help me. I pushed Him away with both hands while simultaneously crying for Him in the night. And to His credit, He hasn’t let me go, though most days, I continue to angrily push and push and push, as hard as I can. He has forgiven me and continues to forgive me, despite all of my anger and moral failings, despite my hurt and my pride. He has quietly proven over and over that He thinks I am good enough for Him.

Knowing this, I suspect that one day, I will heal completely from my scars and from my open, bleeding wounds, the way that even the biggest wounds do heal. The scars will always hurt a little, but they won’t always be open and raw, ready to bleed again at another article about Christians saying “God hates fags”, or someone telling me that you can’t be Christian and gay.

But here’s the thing about healing. When you forgive someone, you don’t do it for them – not really. They benefit from it. They may think that you are doing them a favour. And maybe, part of healing is to acknowledge that you acted wrongly, too, even if at the time, you don’t think you did. Maybe part of it is to be like God, and not push away your fellow human, even if that fellow human has done cutting, horrible things to your psyche and to your sense of self.

The thing about healing is that forgiveness is mostly for you. It’s to reach out with your own humanity and be the bigger person. It doesn’t mean you forget, and it doesn’t mean that you have to draw that person back into your heart. What it does mean is that where the rushing, raging rivers have broken the bridge of faith, forgiveness helps to place new planks, to tie the knots back into the ropes. Where the bridge has rotted in places, forgiveness places brand new materials to make your bridge stronger than ever before. Where the bridge is shaky, forgiveness helps to steady it so that when you walk across it and try to meet God on the other side, it’s not so hard and scary to cross it.

Because when it comes to healing, it might take awhile. It might take a long time to rebuild your bridge. And I’m not saying that someone isn’t going to come along and say cutting things that will throw it into disrepair. I’ve rebuilt my bridge many times now . . . and I’ve begged God to help me find the strength to do it again.

Your bridge isn’t just to God. Your bridge is to your fellow humans, as well. The ones that put up walls to keep others out – your bridge goes to their door and invites them to come and meet you in the middle. The ones that tell you you’re not welcome – your bridge goes to them and tells them that they are welcome to come and belong with you. And the ones that meet you with hatred – your bridge shows them that the easier path is love.

Because maybe the place you’re all trying to reach is that little church retreat in the woods, with the whispering leaves and the distant rush of the many creeks. Maybe the path you all want to walk is the shady wide dirt path with the dappled sunlight through the trees, that wide and welcoming path that has benches to rest on and clear pools to drink from. Maybe the paths we choose are inevitably the harder ones because the stony paths teach you what smooth footing feels like, and we have to learn, in order to grow.

Maybe the pain and the blood are something we all experience, even when we’re the ones wielding the swords that hurt.  And maybe when it comes to healing, you find it in the silence and the dark, the pleas and the desperation, the fact that when you couldn’t walk anymore, He carried you – and carries you still.

Maybe when it comes to healing, it becomes the easier path to take – broken bridge, and all.
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Spirit Whispers: Speak up

6/17/2014

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If you've never had the experience of participating in a spiritual discernment committee, I invite you to consider it.

After my fifth (and final) meeting with my discernment committee for priesthood yesterday evening, my committee confirmed that they heard my call to priesthood. And that's not even the extraordinary part.

The extraordinary part is that, as I prayed yesterday before my meeting, I prayed for total surrender to God's will, and for the faithfulness not to run if that will was something my ego didn't like. My total surrender granted me total, deep, quieting peace.

The extraordinary part is that, having let go of my attachment to the outcome of my discernment process, I happened to read (during evening prayer) the story in Matthew about the disciples who wanted to know why they couldn't heal the sick on their own when Jesus so easily could. Jesus told them it was because they lacked faith, and that if they had faith even the size of a mustard seed, mountains would move for them. And I realized at that moment that my mustard seed faith was what had moved the mountain of my ego in order to make a straight path for Spirit to enter and dwell deep within my heart.

The extraordinary part is that, despite having a clear sense of call when I walked into the process, my sense of call widened and deepened and became more rooted as the dialogue went on.

The extraordinary part is that, especially in the final two meetings, as I listened to the challenging questions of my committee members, I perceived Spirit doing the asking. And as I offered my vulnerable, open-hearted answers, I perceived Spirit speaking through me. (It's fair to say that I've never experienced God's voice speaking to me so powerfully as I have in my discernment committee meetings, and for a Benedictine who hears God speaking to her through liturgy and scripture and encounters with others all the time, that's saying a lot.)

The extraordinary part is that, despite my Enneagram-three-personality-type's desire to manage a situation in such a way that the outcome is "positive," I was required to relinquish my ability to do that in order to speak plainly and truthfully. I was painfully aware that my deep honesty could at any moment result in the humiliation of my ego, and I spoke anyway. In that total risk of my ego, I realized it was not my ego that spoke, but Spirit.

When I walked out of my meeting last night, I had no idea what my committee members had heard. I didn't know what they would say. My three-ish ability to anticipate the outcome of the process failed me spectacularly. And I perceived in my failure the possibility of God's success--success in finding a way to make use of the quirky instrument that I am.

My committee is passing me on to the next steps of the discernment process, steps that will be challenging in their own ways. What my committee heard may not be confirmed by the next folks I encounter in the discernment process. But what happens next is not my concern.

The most important piece to emerge for me from this discernment process is the profound recognition that my heart--my whole heart--belongs to the one I call God. Whatever comes, I know that I will be faithful to the path God has prepared for me. I won't turn away. This is God's gig, and I am God's beautiful, imperfect instrument.

What song(s) will God choose to play through me for the uplifting, healing, and reconciling of her creation?
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Easter: Day 20

5/9/2014

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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)

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Nine Months

3/2/2014

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PicturePhoto by M. Kate Allen
Nine months ago, I gave birth to my second daughter. Nine months before that, I had little idea that I was about to conceive another child.

In each of these nine-month periods, my world changed radically.

Eighteen months ago, I had one awesome child. Then, nine months ago, there were two.

Nine months ago, I had an office job and I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area--my husband and I had no plans in place for anything else.

Now I am living a life that, for all my creativity, I couldn't have imagined. I live in the Sonoran desert. I've published my first book. I've become an Episcopalian in the midst of a beautiful Christian community. I have found greater peace than I ever anticipated in my prayer life as a Benedictine Canon novice.

This evening I am filled with gratitude and hope for the blessings I experience in each moment. And I wonder, with great hope, what shall be brought to birth in my life next.

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Greetings and Farewells

2/15/2014

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This is my last day as a Roman Catholic.

Tomorrow I will be received into the Episcopal Church by Bishop Kirk Smith of the Episcopal Diocese of Arizona, thus continuing my baptismal journey, continuing my journey as a novice of the Community of St. Mary of the Annunciation Benedictine Canons, and beginning my journey in a new-to-me Christian tradition.

I am continually surprised at the deep connections I find between my adult faith and the faith of my childhood. I am about to enter the Episcopal Church, a church that liturgically isn't very different from the Roman Catholic tradition. My devotion to a relational, triune God was established before I knew it on Trinity Sunday, the day of my baptism.  And my formation in the Community of St. Mary of the Annunciation Benedictine Canons, whose devotion is to God's preeminent open-hearted listener, the Theotokos, began not during my years of graduate study at St. John's School of Theology in Collegeville, Minnesota, but at my baptismal church, St. Mary of the Annunciation Church in Greenville, Ohio.

My Prior suggests that synchronicities such as these are worth attending to.  I have always been a fan of synchronicity--I have just never experienced so much of it in one place as I have in the Sonoran Desert these last five months.
  All the threads of my life of faith--the threads of liturgical practice, structured prayer, understanding of God as relational/transcendent/imminent, singing, feminism, openness, commitment to the seeking of truth in all places and people, and humility in the presence of God's wondrous deeds--all of these and more are woven into the pattern of my faith life at St. Augustine's and as a Benedictine Canon Novice of St. Mary of the Annunciation. And the pattern they weave takes my breath away.

I say farewell to the Roman Catholic Church in kindness and love, and I greet the Episcopal Church with fondness and hope. I
trust that my almost thirty-two years as a Roman Catholic Christian have not been in vain, but instead have created a strong foundation on which I can build a stronger faith.
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Introducing Sister Kate

2/3/2014

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PicturePhoto by M. Kate Allen
Yesterday, during the Candlemas liturgy at St. Augustine's Episcopal Church in Tempe, Arizona, I made simple vows to become a Benedictine Canon Novice. 

This is what I promised:

To dedicate my life to Holy God through the vows

(Because vows imply radical commitment, and to become a member of a religious community is akin to entering a marriage--dissimilar in the way one relates to other members of the community, but similar in one's level of commitment to those members.)

of Stability in this community of canons,

(A vow to stick with this novitiate in this community, no matter what.  I will not blithely abandon this community.  These vows are to last at least twelve months, and I will see them through, no matter what insights or doubts or failures may come.)

Conversion through the monastic way of life,

(A vow to allow my life as a Christian to be formed by the wisdom and requirements of this Benedictine community's life.)

and Obedience according to the Rule of our Holy Father Benedict.

(A vow I have long dreaded, ever since I began to take seriously the possibility of religious life.  Obedience could always mean that I would not be taken seriously, that my voice would ultimately be ignored, that I would be bullied by my superiors.  To obey, however, is to listen--ob audire--and I was able to make this vow because the capacity to listen in a self-emptying way is so clearly manifested in the superior of this community.)

By taking simple vows, I have been given the title of Sister.  I am choosing to embrace that title in a broad way, and I invite anyone who encounters me to address me as Sister (abbreviated "Sr.") Kate if they feel comfortable doing so. 

I used to joke with my Roman Catholic friends that they'd be calling me Sister Kate someday.  I spent many years investigating seriously the possibility that I might be called to a religious vocation as a sister in the Roman Catholic Church.  I assumed when I got engaged that that door would be closed to me forever.  But lo! in the Episcopal Church, I have found that not to be true.  One can be called "Sister" or "Brother" as a Benedictine Canon and be married with children as well--or not married, not a parent! 

I find that embracing the title of "Sister" is a way of making a statement about my role as wife and mother as much as it is about being part of this Benedictine Canon community.  Claiming this title is the same as saying that my roles of spouse and parent are indeed deeply holy, just as the role of the celibate religious person is.  It isn't celibacy that forms the foundation of our holiness, according to this manner of Benedictine life.  That is true of Episcopal clergy as well, of course--one can be single or in a committed relationship or married, and none of those things determines whether you are considered called to ordained ministry. 

I asked the Prior of the community if I could make my simple vows on Candlemas because dates matter to me, and Candlemas in particular stands out as a date of significance.  In 2006 (or perhaps it was 2007?) I participated in a Candlemas procession coordinated by my classmate, Cody Unterseher (of blessed memory).  Cody had been Roman Catholic growing up, and he became an Episcopalian later on, partly (or perhaps mainly) because of his identity as a gay man.  He found in the Episcopal Church a place to call a very dear and hospitable home, which I didn't relate much to at the time.  I remember all the candles being carried by many warm hands down the long hallway into the chapel, where they were placed together around the Paschal Candle and blessed with water and holy words.  I considered how much light the candles would give over the coming year as they burned down, down, down, the same way the baptized bear light in the world as they move toward the final extinguishing of their baptismal wick.  I remember the smell wafting from the swinging thuribles of incense.  I remember listening to the profound stories of Simeon and Anna, Mary and Joseph, and of a small child born to be light.  I remember wondering why I had never celebrated Candlemas before.

That procession was with me yesterday.  In this place, where fresh air flows freely, my baptismal flame burns brighter than ever.
  I find open doors and fresh air where I used to find  locked doors carefully guarding musty, airless rooms. 

I get it now.  I get why Cody felt at home.  Because now I, like he, am able to be wholly who I am called to be--no hiding or sneaking or wondering if I'll get caught for saying things too radical to people with power to diminish my light.  I get it because I am now a religious novice in addition to being a wife and parent.   I am invited to speak with my expertise and to utilize my gifts where before I was looked on with suspicion and, sometimes, pity.  I am no longer being asked to choose one part of my call at the expense of another.

I am a novice of the Benedictine Canons, vowed to live out the Rule of Benedict in a way that honors my whole calling--as a woman, as a parent, and as a member of the baptized.  I welcome this time of testing.  I no longer fear that vow of obedience because I trust that I will never be asked to deny the many facets of my God-given vocation.  I trust that I will be asked to chip away at the crust of my superficialities so that who I am called by God to be may glow brightly for all to see.

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LJ Idol: A Writer's Game

1/29/2014

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Picture
For the last couple of years, I've played a writer's game called LJ Idol.  This writer's game has taken me from being a sorta-confident-about-my-writing writer to a full-fledged this-is-a-huge-and-indispensable-part-of-my-call-in-life writer.  With the ninth and final season of this game scheduled to begin in March, I decided to give the creator/moderator of the game, Gary Dreslinski, the third degree.  (I mean, an interview.)


With over 300 writers playing last season, it's fair to say that this game has become quite popular, drawing back numerous participants from seasons past.  Why did you start this game, and when did you realize that it had taken on a life beyond your imagining?

In 2006 I was a couple years out from my divorce. There were a couple really rocky points where I was trying to figure out what exactly someone is supposed to do with themselves after being with someone for 10 years.  It was a lot of spending time alone in my apartment with my cats!  Which also means that I was spending time on internet, and on LiveJournal. My divorce was practically live blogged, from both sides, on LJ! Over the years, the place, and the people, really got to be a larger portion of my life.  Definitely more than was healthy at times. But come on, who hasn’t been there? ;)

I was at the point where, in order to get people on my Friends List to mingle, I came up with this idea for “LJ Fights!”  I would match up people on my friends list and write a couple paragraphs about which one of them would win in a fight.  This kept up until we had a winner.

It was a completely silly idea, but people had some fun with it. 

When that finished, I wanted another project!  A few years before, when I was heavily into the fanfic community, I had set up a game called “Fanfic Survivor” in which I tried to merge the two worlds that I loved.

That didn’t work out so well. But again, people had fun and more importantly for this interview, I learned some important lessons!

So I when I was trying to think of “What now?” I listed a bunch of names for projects. They weren’t ideas. They were literally just names. I was mostly joking about it when I set up the poll!

One of the ideas was the name “LJ Idol”. 

For some reason, that name stuck with me, and I literally woke up one morning and I *knew how to make the idea work*!

LiveJournal is about writing and relationships.  If you were going to have a competition, that needed to be at the core.

Once I decided on how things were going to work, I pretty much announced “This is going to happen!” and put a sign-up sheet on my page. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but 9 people signed up for it. I got impatient and didn’t wait around to see if we could grab a 10th! 

It was pretty successful. But I got a lot of complaints about it being on my page. So one of my friends suggested we set up a community instead. I didn’t have the faintest notion how to do that. So she put the first page together for me, and the internet went downhill from there! :D

The second part of “when did I realize that it took on a life beyond my imaging” implies that I didn’t imagine that it could be as big as it has become!  Heck, I imagined that it could get a whole lot bigger!

Seriously though, I think the tipping point for me was the start of Season 4.  You see it happening in Season 2 and 3, but when we hit Season 4 the majority of people involved were people that I didn’t already know!

Which I think played a huge part in how infamous that season ended up becoming!


As a liturgist, the highly ritualized character of LJ Idol stands out for me.  How long did it take before the basic ingredients for Idol's success became evident, and what are some of those ingredients?

I’m glad you noticed that!

Ritual is everything when you deal with something like this. People need to have a sense of place, and purpose.  I like to think we manage that.

I was still very much trying to get a handle on what this thing was in Season 1 and 2. If you look back, you will see the first Green Room didn’t appear until Season 3!  I started them because people were commenting in the “Topic threads” and it was becoming difficult to locate the actual entries! 

Being that the entries are *the* most important priority, and people wanted to talk, I needed to come up with a separate area for that to happen.

I took the term “Green Room” from the stage term for the area backstage where people can hang out between performances.

There are definitely more, and they mostly came about from necessity. There was something that I needed to have done, so I had to figure out what it was, and how it was going to fit into the overall structure of Idol.

The key to that is that making sure that the attention is on the writers themselves and not the construct.  When things are going smoothly, you shouldn’t realize that the ride is in motion!


Every major endeavor of one's life has the potential to be disappointing in at least some respects. Have you had any regrets about beginning/continuing Idol?

Of course.

I’ve definitely lost/damaged some friendships as a direct result of it.  Some of it is the need to separate being “the guy who runs Idol” from “the guy who is your friend”. And of course some of it is that I’m human and get caught up and say something stupid! Again though, who hasn’t done that, and ended up paying the price.  There are always regrets when it comes down to things like that.

There is definitely the question of “if I put my attention to something else the way I did Idol, where would I be now?”  Heck, if I monetized the process early on, which people were urging me to do – would I have been in a better financial situation over the years?  Or would that, as I suspect, collapse the whole thing after a season or two?


It seems odd to shut things down when Idol has become such a beloved pastime for so many of its participants.  Why are you choosing to make Season 9 the final full-length season?  Do you have any plans to hand off moderation of Idol to someone else?

Taking the second part first: Idol started in my hands, and it will end in my hands.  Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin and Hobbes is a hero of mine. He did his thing, and then he walked away. Some people respect that, and others make counterfeit C&H for your cars.  You just have to hope that people honor what it is that you’ve created.

When I did the interview that is featured in Idol Musings, I was asked how long that I could foresee Idol going. I answered as honestly as I could, at the time, and said that as long as I thought that I was able to add something to the conversation.  Or something like that!  ;)

I still think that I, and Idol, can. 

On the other hand, I’m 42 now.  Could Idol go on another 10 years?  Heck, will LJ be around another 10 years? (The former is possible, the latter is extremely questionable.) I’m no longer that guy who lives in the apartment above and ice cream shop, hanging out with his cats.

I’m engaged to a wonderful woman, who has a daughter.  Season 8 was the first time that I’ve tried to manage both having a life and running Idol, and there were definitely some bumps in that road.   COULD I figure it out? Absolutely.

But before any of that happened, back before Season 7, I had made a decision that Season 9 should be the end.

At the start of every season I would advertise, and I was seeing more and more people say “I’ll sit out this time. But maybe I’ll play next year!” without seeming to understand that I wasn’t promising anyone another year!  So I would point out that if people weren’t participating, that I wasn’t just going to keep doing it!

Season 7 marked the first time that I had ever promised future seasons. But it had that catch. I’ll admit, at that point, Season 9 seemed like a really long way around. Now that it’s here: I won’t lie,  I’ve been back and forth with my emotions about it.  

There were 9 original contestants though, and I think if I am going to end this thing any time before I drop dead while posting a poll, that 9 is the appropriate number to go out on.


Novices are as important to each season as the veterans.  What can a writer expect from playing LJ Idol if s/he has never participated before?

I love “newbies”!

Every season is a little bit different, but just as a general rule what they can look forward to is writing at least once a week. Sometimes they will love the topic.  Sometimes they will hate it.  At some point they will learn the art of taking something you thought you hated and twisting it to the side just enough so it becomes something that inspires you to create something you may have never done on our own!

I’d also say to expect “fear”! ;)

Idol is very much a Rorschach. You are going to see what you want to be there, and hopefully be able to get what you actually need from the experience. You just have to come in open to it.


Writers who are serious about their craft are likely to have an outlet for their writing already.  What are some of the unique ways LJ Idol supports participants in their craft?

Over the years, we’ve actually had quite a few professionals come through the doors of Idol. Which was a shock when it first started happening, but was certainly nice to see.

I think the biggest support that Idol provides people of *any* skill level is that it gets them out their comfort zone. It doesn’t “make people think outside the box”, it’s a trash compactor that takes the box and pulverizes it.

Writing on a regular basis makes you better. Spending time with other writers, and bouncing off ideas with them, makes you better.

Idol is an extremely diverse community. If you don’t walk out of your time there having learned something about others, and yourself, you probably “did it wrong”! ;)


As in any ritual situation, it helps if new participants have a sense of how to conduct themselves.  What are your top three recommendations for "fitting in" in this game?


Hmmm… just three? Off the top of my head I’ll say:  Read other people’s entries and leave them comments. People love feedback.  They are more likely to give you feedback in return and increase your visibility early on in the competition.

Remember why you are here.  People can get caught up in the competition aspect and lose their heads.  It happens.  At the end of the day, it’s about your writing. Share what you have, and let other people share with you. It will take you far in “the game”, and in life.

Be open. To everything. There are twists and turns in the game. Some will seem dreadfully unfair. When they happen, go with it.  Use the experience instead of allowing yourself to be distracted by it.    Heck, that’s not “game advice”, that’s more “general life advice”. Then again, that’s why I put the twists in there. Because life is always going to find a way to sidetrack you, and make things difficult, and it’s rarely “fair”.

I try to make my twists much more balanced than life does,  but it’s the same general principle. :D


Let's not forget about the nitty-gritty details: when does Season 9 start, what does a writer need to do to sign up, and where can a person go to find answers if s/he has other questions?

Season 9 starts March 3rd.  I will be posting a Sign Up sheet on site http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/ on that day!

Sometime before that, I will also be posting a FAQ.  But if there is anything not covered there, you can also ask me directly clauderainsrm@gmail.com.

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Thursday Night Mystagogy

1/26/2014

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A dozen or more holy bodies gather in an oval, looking at and past the sacred, central flame to behold the divine spark in one another.

Thursday night invites something a little different at St. Augustine's Episcopal Church.  The community that gathers then has many names. St. Brigid's. ECMASU. Young People and Families. The Thursday Night Community.

There are nearly as many children as adults in the community. The adults are powerful, each in their own way: well-educated, thoughtful, driven, accomplished.  They are students, parents, doctors, teachers, professors, and even brain guys. For countless reasons, these people come together to share words, silence, and nourishment with one another. 

It may be those three things--words, silence, and nourishment--that best characterize this community's fellowship. 

~~~

I was asked by the pastor--without advance warning--to be a minister of the holy bread during the eucharist last Thursday.

Surprising things like that happen. A moment of need arrives, and suddenly someone finds herself being called on to serve. Not because she's uniquely qualified to do so, but because she has offered her presence in that community, and her presence is enough. Anyone who shows up can serve, if they are willing.

Anyone who shows up can serve, if they are willing.

Anyone who shows up can serve, if they are willing.

The Thursday Night Community is a gathering of folks who, more importantly than anything else, choose to show up.  If they're called, and if they're willing, they serve.  Their presence is Christ's presence.  Their willingness is Christ's willingness.  Their service is Christ's service. 

The Thursday night gathering is a rehearsal of the reign of God. 

~~~

Time slowed when I stood up to serve the community last Thursday.  I strained my ears to hear the words that I would speak to the others: Body of Christ, Bread of Heaven.
  As I moved around the oval, I looked at each person's face, and a few raised their eyes to meet mine.  What a shock of communion it is to meet eyes and hold another's gaze from mere inches away, while offering a precious morsel of food!  It is as intimate as dancing.  (My best friend, Betsy, would get that.)

I don't know what it all meant to me, or what it may have meant to the others there, but I can say confidently that last Thursday was game-changing.  Perhaps it was initiation--a sort of baptism by fire.

I just know I won't ever be the same.
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An Open Letter to Pope Francis from a Roman Catholic

1/17/2014

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PictureM. Kate Allen
To Pope Francis:

In my almost thirty-two years as a Roman Catholic, I have never been prouder of any pope. Granted, I've only encountered three in my lifetime, but I am also a student of Christian history. You stand out among your predecessors.

You have rocked the entire world with your embodied proclamations of the good news. You kiss the wounds of the sick. You share tables with those who have neither tables of their own nor food to put on them. You warn your clergy again and again against the glamour of clericalism. Your love is abundant, like Christ's was and is, and I have seen it have a multiplying effect, even (perhaps especially) among non-Roman Catholics.

I am tremendously grateful to God for your faithful, living witness to the teachings of Jesus. Your heart is wide open, and I feel quite certain that if I happened to walk into your midst, you would smile and greet me with the warmth of an old friend, and I would greet you likewise.

I need to confess something to you. On February 16, 2014, God willing, I will leave my cloak of Roman Catholic identity behind in order to be received as a member of the Episcopal Church.

Despite having spent my entire life as a devoted (albeit flawed) Roman Catholic, I cannot remain Roman Catholic any longer. Because despite the gospel of Jesus you now proclaim miraculously through your very body, and despite the many ways in which I encounter Christ's presence through your holy example, I'm afraid there is at least one way in which you, like most if not all of your predecessors, have failed to hear the voice of God and heed it: in the calling of thousands upon thousands of women around the world to ordained ministry.

I was able to name my own God-given call to ordained ministry thirteen years ago. I was still a teenager then. I am close with several Roman Catholic women who share the same call. Yet you, like your papal predecessors, have dismissed even the possibility that women might be called to ordained ministry.

I don't understand this hardness of heart. Not from you.

What I do understand is how hard it can be to hear God's earnest whispers when so much of one's culture screams against it. My favorite psalm is Psalm 51, because it is a perpetual invitation to be changed, transformed, turned around:

Create in me a clean heart, o God.
...
Then will I teach transgressors Thy ways
and sinners shall be converted unto Thee.

I suspect this psalm is as dear to you as it is to me. Please, then, let God's whispers reach your ear through my meager words: God calls some women to serve as ordained ministers. That the Roman Catholic hierarchy refuses to acknowledge this (or even to discuss it) is gravely sinful. It is presumptuous to deny God's calling to those whom God has chosen.

Please, for God's sake, don't allow whatever is lacking in me cause you to be deaf to what God is speaking to you through me in this moment. If anyone with the authority to effect gospel change in the Roman Catholic Church can hear this prophetic word, I believe you can.

Please, open your heart and listen for the sake of my daughters, who will grow up in the midst of your legacy even if they never set foot in a Roman Catholic church.

Please, listen. Listen because you know better than almost anyone that God speaks prophetically through those who are marginalized, women included.

Please, I beg you from the bottom of my heart, listen--allow yourself to be importuned by me, just like the judge was importuned by the widow, or like Jesus was importuned by the woman begging for scraps. You and I both know what happened in those latter two instances. If Jesus' mind could be changed, surely yours can.

I believe that the world-wide turning of hearts to God, if you listened in this one way and acted accordingly, would be a miracle of biblical proportion.

With blessings and love in the One who creates, redeems, and sanctifies all the world,

M. Kate Allen




This letter originally appeared at parentwin.com, where I am a regular contributor on topics of religion.  The letter went viral among my Facebook friends and received more discussion and shares there than anything else I've every written, anywhere.  A friend of mine encouraged me to mail it to Pope Francis.  I did.  If he responds, I will share his response here.  (Unless he asks me not to.)

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On Leadership

12/27/2013

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When my friend Noach was helping bring this site into being, he asked me about folks he could contact to recommend me to others.

One of the three who responded was my classmate from St. John's School of Theology (Collegeville, Minnesota), Rev. Cody Unterseher.

When I wrote my post about leadership yesterday, I had forgotten about the recommendations tucked away on this site.  I found the following from a person who was even more dedicated to the study of liturgy than I was, and who even knew about my church in Cleveland as soon as I mentioned it to him while at table in the St. John's refectory in August 2005.

Cody and I were both laypeople when we were at St. John's, and somehow we ended up in a stance of wary opposition to one another for most of those two years.  Although I sang at his ordination to the diaconate in late March of 2007, we didn't really become friends until we had each been accepted into (separate) doctoral programs in liturgical studies.  He was an ordained priest in the Episcopal Church by then, and his focus in all things was reconciliation in Christ.

He wrote this about me when solicited for the testimonials on this site:

I had the privilege of working side-by-side with Kate during our overlapping years at Saint John's School of Theology•Seminary in Collegeville, Minnesota (2005-2007).  During that time, each of us served a one-year tenure as Chair of the School's Student Liturgy Committee. In her time as Chair, Kate showed herself to be a competent, confident and collegial leader. Her ability to coordinate the Committee's efforts were exceeded only by her gift for enabling and equipping others to do the work with which they were engaged, in a non-anxious, non-domineering and non-threatened way. Everything needful was well done, without haste, without micromanagement, in a respectful atmosphere of mutual listening and creative consensus-building. The ability to lead in such a way is a real gift as well as a skill, and Kate has cultivated it as a faithful steward. In terms of practical ability, Michelle Kate is a most competent liturgist. She combines a commanding knowledge of liturgical history and liturgical theology, together with a refined sense of liturgical law and its application, and brings these to bear on her work in preparing for liturgical celebration. At the same time, and more importantly, Michelle Kate has a refined pastoral sense. She is able to listen to a community, supporting its members as they give voice to their vision and aspirations, and helping them to identify and prioritize needs and goals for practical achievement. In preparing for liturgical celebration, Kate has a strong sense of liturgical gestalt, and is able to harmonize musical selection, crafted and received texts, and worship space environment in a way that is at once humble and elegant.  

As I said, it was a privilege to work with Kate; I would not hesitate to work with her again in the future, nor to recommend her wholeheartedly to others.

His kindness in remembering our two years together overwhelmed me.  That was late in 2011.  When he died suddenly from complications related to a brain aneurysm in April 2012, my world collapsed around me.  I wept for months. I still weep for him.

I'm not into guardian angels, but I
often have Cody (whom I fondly refer to as Codex) close to heart when I consider my future as a the( )logian and minister.  In fact, I just found out that he was ordained to the priesthood on the Feast of the Archangels (also known as the Feast of St. Michael, or Michaelmas).  He is indeed my own Holy Messenger (
άγγελος), accompanying me from his place at the Holy Banquet.  He and I were more alike than I ever imagined when we were in school together.  That fact alone leads me to believe that I could indeed become a remarkable servant leader--just like the one he became.
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Forging a path

12/26/2013

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PicturePhoto by M. Kate Allen
My baby crawled for the first time today.  Her dad and sister and I cheered her on wildly as if she had just hit a grand slam.  (The first object she went for was a crinkly package of baby wipes; the second was a major league baseball.  Yes, a little music and a little baseball confirm that she is our child.)

I feel like her--inching forward, reaching for that which I behold, struggling little by little with every bit of my strength to get where I'm going. 

With her, it's a down-on-the-ground, whole-bodied struggle.  With me, it's a battle raging within me over a single, burning question: whether or not I qualify as a leader. 

(Weird inner battles, I'm good at them.)

I'm not an alpha female.  I know women--amazing women--who are alpha types.  I admire them, but I'm not one of them, nor do I have any desire to be one.  This obviously precludes me from assuming any role of religious (ordained) leadership.

I still hear this call to leadership, though, which makes my eyes cross.  Come on, Goddess.  Non-alpha types don't make leaders.  The whole notion is absurd.  How can I be a leader when I'm the one who's always been in the background, observing more often than herding?  When I've been told to my face that I'm not a leader?  Leadership roles in my case seem (as my medically trained hubby would say) contraindicated.

Conveniently, I've never had to grapple with this before, because I've always belonged to a tradition in which I would never have to take seriously (or be taken seriously regarding) my call to religious (i.e. ordained) leadership.  Now I'm about to be received in a tradition that does, and I'm flailing like my infant daughter. How am I supposed to get where I'm going if I don't have the juice to do it?

For fun, I decided to humor my Lady Goddess and google "characteristics of a leader."  I found this list.

​
I am/do all of those things when it comes to something I care about and am deeply invested in. So...

Moi?  Leader?

I'm not an alpha leader. 

I'm a servant leader. 

I lead by example.  I'm dazzling and inspiring in a different way.  Folks don't generally want to be me--they want to be around me.  When I live out my (rather awesome) ideals, I am at the service of others, rather than in charge of them.  That's how my leadership manifests.
 

I've just never formally thought of leadership, especially religious leadership, like that.  Now that I see it at work at St. Augustine's, however--a context which has become my context, rather than remaining someone else's--it makes a surprising amount of sense.

Tune in again soon for more from the M. Kate Meets Her Vocation show!


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Vigil of the Nativity of the Christ

12/25/2013

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PicturePhoto by Thad Botham
And with that, Advent is over.  God is with us--Emmanuel--alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

I love Christmas.  I love the radicality of the Christmas message that says God isn't so transcendent that God can't be flesh.  I love the intimacy of this God who is both divine and human at once, and who teaches us--like the good rebbe he is--to be the same.

I am so grateful this night for hope fulfilled in the midst of so much doubt and despair.  Light does pierce shadows, dispelling them.  Goodness is stronger than evil, breaking it down with the power of gentleness.  A godly child does make a worldly ruler tremble, displacing cunning selfishness with its own absolute reliance on the sacred other for survival.

The message of the incarnation is that we desperately, utterly need each other.  Humanity and divinity meet in community and communion, not in isolation.  God can't do this gig without us, and we can't sustain God's divine flame within ourselves without the companionship of others.

That's my daughter to the left.  She is about take flight, one of God's own angeloi, standing before the holy altar at the feet of the infant Christ.  She's just carried in a sheep, practicing for her future role as shepherdess.  Later,
she danced during the offering of the holy gifts, and I had the presence of mind not to stop her.  I look at her and see an icon of the Christ, bearing glad tidings and preaching good news through her very body.  She did tonight what you and I do for each other every day.

Merry Christmas to you, o holy bearers and birthers of God.

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O Clavis David: Advent, Week 3, Friday

12/20/2013

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December 20

O clavis David, et sceptrum domus Israel: qui aperis, et nemo claudit; claudis, et nemo aperit: veni, et educ vinctum de domo carceris, sedentem in tenebris.

O Key of David, and scepter of the house of Israel, who opens and no one shuts, who shuts and no one opens: come, and lead forth the captive who sits in the shadows from his prison.
Keys open and lock doors.

I remember the day the doors of Historic St. Peter Church of Cleveland were locked, by order of the bishop of the diocese.  I was standing outside along with my many fellow parishioners as our pastor followed orders.  It was the closing of a tomb that had once been a stable.  That day haunts me.

I have never understood--and I'm sure I never will understood--the bullying of that bishop. 

Last night, while singing carols with the St. Brigid's Community of St. Augustine's Episcopal Church in Tempe, I came across my very favorite Christmas hymn, written by Richard Wilbur.  I asked if anyone knew it, and no one did.

It turns out that the version printed in the Hymnal 1982 is not the same version that I learned
at St. Peter as a member of the choir early last decade.  My usual search tricks failed in the effort to find a recording of it.  The CD recorded by the choir (while I was studying in Berlin in 2002) is no longer for sale, either.  Though the building is still there, and though the bishop was ordered by the Vatican to reopen its doors, the community that once worshiped there, the people who refused to be scattered, took roots elsewhere in the city, and there they remain, for the most part.

This is a beautiful recording, but it is not the one I learned in the midst of that beautiful community, and I can't help feeling tremendous loss as I listen to it. 
Love burns in my heart for the community of St. Peter, that breathtaking icon of God.  But even in my anger, my hope refuses to be extinguished.

A stable lamp is lighted
whose glow shall wake the sky;
the stars shall bend their voices,
and every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry,
and straw like gold shall shine;
a barn shall harbour heaven,
a stall become a shrine.

This child through David's city
shall ride in triumph by;
the palm shall strew its branches,
and every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry,
though heavy, dull and dumb,
and lie within the roadway
to pave his kingdom come.

Yet he shall be forsaken,
and yielded up to die;
the sky shall groan and darken,
and every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry
for gifts of love abused;
God's blood upon the spearhead,
God's blood again refused.

But now, as at the ending,
the low is lifted high;
the stars shall bend their voices,
and every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry
in praises of the child
by whose descent among us
the worlds are reconciled.
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Advent 1, Sunday

12/1/2013

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PicturePhoto by M. Kate Allen
Five candles alight in my family's menorah as the first day of Advent ends.

Advent tugs more insistently than usual this year.  Slowing down seems necessary, but not for its own sake--not like last year when I was stressed out with worry and anxiety along with the usual ailments of pregnancy in the first trimester.  This year I find myself calm, finally settling into this new life, this new place.  My partner settles into his job as I settle into my new religious community.  We are happy.

Our joy is spacious and green with vitality. 
It is because of this that Advent pulls on me as it now does.  I am open to it.  I am at home, ready to ritualize deeply.

I will make my oblation to the Benedictine Canon community of St. Mary of the Annunciation two weeks from now, witnessed by all who are present at the St. Augustine Gaudete Sunday liturgy. 

The color for Gaudete Sunday is rose,
and by rose I mean resurrection,
and by resurrection I mean the glorified new life
of a broken, animated body. 

I am a broken, animated body,
ready for glorying,
for
I am broken.
Broken, I can be shared as bread
When shared as bread, I am Christ.


As I approach my oblation, my vow of self-emptying and steady prayer, I find myself contemplating Jesus as fellow minister.  Scripture says Jesus was thirty years old (Luke 3:23) when he began his ministry, and it's commonly held, though scripture is not explicit in this regard, that his ministry lasted three years.  He was like me--young, but not too young to be wise.  I feel such a kinship with this man, the one who lived and walked and preached, who spoke out radically from and against his tradition.  My christology is low this Advent, close to the earth, gritty, deep.

In addition to my new prayer practice (which I believe may keep me away from much of my ordinary internet time)
, I plan to plant a garden.  Here in the arid desert, in the bright mid-winter, something may actually grow. 

I invite you to consider an Advent practice of your own, and to share it below, if you wish.


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My daughter's first communion

11/15/2013

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My daughter received her first communion yesterday evening. 

The thing is, she's three years old.  And she's not baptized.

A Roman Catholic child must be baptized and receive the sacrament of penance, usually around age eight, in order to receive first communion.  I remember being six or seven years old when I visited my Godmother's church, and when I went up in the communion line behind her, my Godmother told the priest that I "wasn't old enough" yet to receive, even though I desperately wanted to.  Right around that time in my life, my parents distributed communion wafers to the sick, and I remember sneaking into their room, opening the sacred case, and eating many of those wafers long before I received my "first" communion.  (Sorry, Mom and Dad!)

At my new parish, my toddler's age and catechetical development are a moot point when it comes to receiving communion.  It is enough that she has seen me receive bread and wine during liturgy and said explicitly, without any prompting, "Can I have some of that?"

That's what she said to me last Sunday after she had received a blessing from the deaconess and she saw me and others receive the bread and wine.  And as I carried her back to our pew, I whispered to her, "Yes, honey--next week you can have some of that."

Last night we took part in an evening liturgy with the St. Brigid community, a gathering of young families that meets for Eucharist and dinner afterward at St. Augustine's.  The dozen of us present there sat in a circle on mismatched sofas.  A couple of people chose to sit on pillows on the rug-laden floor.  My daughter started out cuddling close to me on the sofa and gradually worked her way down to a pillow of her own.  Readings were proclaimed by almost everyone in the circle, and as I read, my daughter sat in my lap and repeated after me.  We sang a chant together after each reading, and she sang along with us after I read.  When it came time to share of the bread, I received first, and then she did.  The bread was soft, recently baked, and tasted of honey.  I drank from the cup of wine and then helped my daughter dip a piece of bread in the cup.  She tasted the soaked bread tentatively.  I kept my hand at the ready in case she spit it out--she has pretty particular tastes.  By the time the liturgy had concluded, her morsel was gone.

I want to shout to the world that my daughter's first communion took place on November 14, 2013 in the presence of a few marvelously warm companions (literally, bread-sharers).  She didn't have to jump through sacramental or catechetical hoops first. She didn't have to dress up as a miniature bride or have posed pictures taken afterward.   Eating of the bread of life and drinking of the cup of salvation were for her the most commonplace thing in the world--and in the ordinary-ness, divine encounter took place.  My baby met God in those people, that bread, and that community's stance of radical hospitality.

When she was a couple of months old, I asked for my daughter to be enrolled in the child catechumenate at my Roman Catholic parish.  She became a catechumen, which meant that I was promising, along with my hubby and our church community, to prepare her for the opportunity to be baptized later in life, when she would be old enough to remember her baptism.  Her journey into the Christian life has continued ever since.  I don't mean that I've taught her piety (I'm pretty sure that's a long way off) or "how to be a good Catholic." If anything, I've taught her that to be religious is to learn rituals that teach her how to live in the world.  What I want her to learn, and what I think she will know in her bones by the time she's ready to choose baptism, is that she doesn't have to wait or accomplish something in order to be fed.  Jesus the Christ fed everyone who hungered, period.  If she learns what I hope she learns about the Golden Rule, then perhaps she will also decide that to be Christian, to act as Christ acted, is what she wants for her life.

At St. Augustine's, receiving the sacred bread and wine is allowed to be one's path toward baptism, rather than baptism being a necessary prerequisite for communion. I have rarely witnessed such a tangible expression of God's abundant, overflowing grace as I did last night, when my daughter was welcomed at the table, just as she was.  Whether she chooses baptism later in life or not, I hope that that lesson of radical hospitality always remains with her.  If it does, baptized or not, she will be a living icon of Christ's love.
2 Comments

Seek and You Shall Find

10/17/2013

2 Comments

 
Last month I wrote about looking for religious formation that's good enough for my daughters.  While I was on the hunt for a place that would be good enough for my daughters, I was also looking for a community that would be good enough for me.

I found it.

Color me surprised--after nine years of wishing I were just back home, St. Augustine's Episcopalian Church has presented itself as more than a place to stay a while.

Maybe it's that there are women wearing vestments during liturgy, and it's not even a big deal.

Maybe it's that, in their recitation of the creed, their pronoun for the Spirit of God is "she."

Maybe it's that they offer free nursery care for the kids who aren't old enough to go to Sunday School but are too squirmy for an hour of liturgy.

Maybe it's that their pastor is a former pro-baseball player who just got back from a week-long spiritual writer's retreat. 

Maybe it's that their community is small, that there's a cadre of writers who write original collects for their liturgy, that there are several instrumentalists accompanying the vocalists, or that the vested leaders sit choir style in honor of their Benedictine tradition.  Maybe it's that the community sings hymns and psalms in their entirety and pause before they give voice to the prayers of the people.  Maybe it's that the presider offers blessings to all those celebrating a major life event, or that the ministers look you in the eye and hold your gaze as they offer you the Bread of Life.

Or maybe it's that the pastor and other leaders are willing to take time to be welcoming, to learn your name, to ask how this community can be hospitable to you.  Maybe it's that that pastor is willing to take forty-five un-rushed minutes to talk to a mere layperson and find out how she got here and what she brings to the table.

Or maybe it's just that it's a place where I don't have to fight to be seen or heard or acknowledged.  Maybe it feels like home because it is a home--for anyone who wants to claim it as theirs.

The thing is, I'm not ready to call myself Episcopalian.  I am still Roman Catholic, and I am also very much more than Roman Catholic.  I have no desire to trade one tiny identity box for another.  But I am willing to add to my identity. I am also willing to claim this particular community as mine--because this community is willing to claim me as one of theirs, just as I am.

I'm home.

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Five Ways to Practice Feminism

6/25/2013

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Parentwin.com just published a piece I wrote about ways to practice feminism.  I invite you to hop on over there and add your own ways for practicing feminism, or your suggestions about how to modify the ways I've suggested. 
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Why I am a catholic

11/4/2012

1 Comment

 
Last night a friend of mine from one of the social networks posed the following:

So here's a question - as a non-religious person, it's hard for me to understand the pull of this particular church. If you are not supportive of the Catholic Church's bad practices that go against the teachings of Jesus (as I would describe them, and as I suspect you might), then why is it important to be in that denomination? Is it a hope to make change from within? How is your staying in the Catholic faith good for you, and good for those oppressed by the bad practices of the Catholic hierarchy?


I offer the following in hopes of clarifying for her, for others, and for myself, just why it is that I choose not to relinquish my catholic identity.

A couple of months ago, I had a life-changing experience in an Islamic gathering place filled mostly with Jews, a symposium hosted by the local Unitarian Seminary.  I realized in that place that G-d was indeed calling me, and calling me to much more than I'd ever realized.  "Multi-religious identity" is the phrase that stuck with me, and I scampered off to my local Unitarian Church to experience multi-religious identity in action.  I seriously considered enrolling in the local U.U. seminary, knowing that such a radically welcoming religious tradition would fit my heart's call perfectly.

Of course, I make plans, and then G-d thwarts them.  I found out I was pregnant in mid-October, and all ideas of seminary, of finally fulfilling my 11-year call to ministry, went out the window again.  (My family comes first, and that's the way I prefer it.)

When I realized I wasn't going to pursue seminary right away, or perhaps ever, I took a look at what I was missing when I went to the UU church.  I missed two things: the ritual and the story.  I don't miss the rampant bigotry or bullying, but the liturgy and scripture have shaped my life for the last thirty years.  I've also been to half a handful of catholic churches in which the gospel--the good news--is truly proclaimed.  Radical inclusion, in these two or three places, is the rule, not the exception.  They operate as the rest of the Catholic Church should.  They are what make catholicism resonate so strongly for me.

I also look at the people who most inspire me--Jewish and Muslim leaders--and I see that they have not ceased to be Jewish or Muslim simply because of the evil of some people in their respective traditions.  They live their traditions rightly and beautifully, and they set an example for not only people in their traditions, but everyone around them. 

That is the sort of catholic I am--not someone who kowtows to the pope (because the pope and the hierarchy are completely dispensable, as far as I'm concerned), but someone who cleaves to catholic story and ritual and sees her fellow creatures in richer, brighter hues as a result. 

I am catholic with a small c--"universal" is what the word means--rather than Catholic with a big C (which is what I was when I was quietly obsessed, like so many Catholics are, with avoiding the punishments of speaking too loudly about what one really thinks). 
I embrace all people, whether they are religious or anti-religious or somewhere in between.  I see wisdom in all ways that embrace deep and abiding love, which is the great gift the UU church has given me. 

I am catholic, not because of the hierarchy's permission or lack thereof, but because I have been called by Christ, that sacred, wonderful manifestation of G-d.  This is where I feel most at home--not because of the bullies, but because of the lovers.  And I will remain catholic until, somehow, the stories cease to speak to me, and the holy practice of radical table fellowship and of washing the feet of others ceases to touch me.

I won't leave just because the leadership structure and many of its members are corrupt.  I am no cave-dweller.  I will stay as long as I find my deepest hope in the catholic (again, small c) way of being religious.  And, thanks to the UU's and my Jewish and Muslim inspirations, I will be a catholic who harbors no fear.  G-d will never detest me for prophetically crying out against injustice.  Quite the opposite.  I, unlike the vast majority of my Catholic friends, am in a place in which speaking out costs me nothing that I would regret losing.  So I find myself in the position of a prophet.  It's not what I expected, but I am happy to be able to plow the way for holy change in the RCC and other Christian denominations. 

Bottom line?  Merely being Catholic would not satisfy my heart's yearnings, but being catholic does.
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Finding my way

9/9/2012

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I went back to Starr King Unitarian Universalist Church in Hayward today.  It was my second time there.  They remembered my face, even though they didn't remember my name. 

Their annual water ceremony took place today, and I got to take part.  It was like communion, except we were giving, not receiving; processing forward from the outer aisles rather than the inner one; returning through the inner aisle rather than the outer ones.  This water will be used for child dedications/baptisms throughout the coming year.  The whole service revolved around water images, including the story at the beginning involving raindrops personified.  One of the raindrops was brave enough to leave his tree branch and fall alone into a bucket for the sake of the parched ground below, even though all the other drops thought he was nuts and refused to join him.  The earth grew desperately dry, the flowers becoming pale and limp, the grass turning brown.  After a while, another drop beheld the lonely drop in the bucket and decided to join him.  Another drop saw this and followed suit, then another, then another, till the bucket was brimming and another bucket was needed.  After many buckets were filled, a great wind came and blew over all the buckets, drenching the parched earth.  Before long, the wilted flowers stood up again in vibrant hues, and the grass was once again green with life. 

I cried.

Afterward, there was a scheduled "information session" for newcomers, and I chatted with one of the new ministers as I waited for the session to begin.  By the time it began, the pastor, the minister I was talking to, and a church member were joining in; two more people also wandered in as we sat talking.  Each person introduced herself/himself to me and told me a bit about how s/he came to be in that place, in that faith tradition.  Then they invited me to tell them about myself, and I did. 

I began to tell them about my educational background.  It was easy enough, at first.  Then it happened.  All the anger and sadness of being denied my call to ministry by the sexism of the Roman Catholic Church, my church, came up too high, and it spilled out of me in hot tears and jagged breaths.  Before I knew it or could contain it I was sobbing without any ability to stop.  I kept apologizing, but they listened, and they listened some more, and I felt as though each one of them was holding me perfectly in her/his arms, just letting me be there as I told my terrible, painful truth.

A part of me scolded myself when I was on my way out of the parking lot a little while later--scolded myself for allowing myself to be so vulnerable in the midst of strangers.  But the stronger part of me stopped the scolding voice, making it clear that I'm done hiding my heart when it comes to matters of faith.  Those people were there for me--a stranger--in a most tender moment. I won't dishonor their presence to me by claiming that opening of my heart to them was inappropriate.

In this church I've found living temples of my merciful God.  They exhibit, in concentrated form, the qualities that I have been drawn to in every community of faith I've ever been part of: hospitality, generosity, vision, prophetic presence, dedication, and abounding love.

I feel like I've come home.  Not that the Roman Catholicism isn't my home--it is.  But my home is also much larger, much broader, much more inclusive, and loving in many more ways than the home I've always known.  And that is breathtaking, world-shattering, and heart-opening.  I am ready to step outside the gate and find my way anew.

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Freedom from shackles, freedom to see God in all

8/22/2012

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Yesterday I attended the first annual Starr King School for the Ministry Symposium.  The theme of the Symposium is "Living in the Differences," and the featured speaker is Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, founder of the Jewish Renewal Movement.  The opening ritual and talk were held at the Islamic Cultural Center of Northern California, and my boss strongly urged me to attend.

Ibrahim Farajaje, the Provost at SKSM, had this to say at the closing of his drash (sermon/reflection) for the opening ritual:

So, Come, Come, Lovers of Leaving,
Come across the threshold into living in the differences;
So, Come, Come: Leave limited consciousness to be plunged into the Ocean of Oneness;
So, Come, Come: Leave attachment to limited notions of self;
So, Come, Come to become Microcosm and Macrocosm;
So, Come, Come: Leave behind notions of 'us' and 'them';
So, Come, Come: Let us build sacred, vibrant, fun, deliciously organic, (g)locally-grown and sustainable communities in the Caravan of LOVE!


And both Ibrahim and Reb Zalman talked about multi-religious identity.  Can you just sit with that for a minute? 

Multi-religious identity. 

You mean I don't have to be merely Christian?  I can be both Jewish and Christian?  I can be Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist?  Not in the sense taking on any of the exclusivistic aspects of these traditions, but in the sense of authentically embracing and living by their holy texts, images and names for God, and spiritual practices that invite illumination, deepening, and unity/love among all.  To be multi-religious (wow!) is to break down my exclusivistic faith constructs so I can reach out fully with deep awareness, embracing and accepting my neighbor as the embodied revelation of the divine.  If that isn't holy practice, tell me what is. 

You know what?  We only get one shot at this set of circumstances we're placed in.  Every choice we make has an unknowable (but imaginable) ripple effect.

Ask me my creed:

Will I choose to embrace only Roman Catholic identity any longer?  No. 

Will I reject Roman Catholic or Christian identity?  No. 

Will I spend the next years of my life seeking out the best living spiritual teachers there are from each of the world's major religions so I can sit at their feet and learn from them?  Yes.

It's a new day, my friends.  I shed the shackles with which my long-time faith binds me so I can put on the power to love that my faith has always offered me.  And my faith will be broader and richer and more diverse than I ever imagined it could be.  Starting today.  Well, starting yesterday.

I went up to my Bay Area bestie after the talk was over and gave him a long, tight hug.  "Thank you!" he said.  He pulled back and looked at me and said, "Wow, that really had an impact on you, didn't it?"  I nodded and my eyes got all wet and he said, "You're shaking."

Reb Zalman and Ibrahim Baba and all the people present in that sacred place rattled me, shattered me, made a new way possible for me.

If you want me, I'll be picking my way through the rubble, moving forward in amazing, radiant, warmth-imparting light.  <3
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    M. Kate Allen
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